The all-nighter turned out to be a killer, since after the Physics test and some dinner, I ended up working for 13 hours straight, from 11 pm to noon the next day. Part of the reason why it took so long was because the orgo reactions on my 5.111 pset were literally quite impossible to do, with my limited orgo knowledge. But, through very valiant perseverance (and a lot of Youtube music playing in the background to keep from falling asleep), I completed my epic 15-paged chem pset and turned it in at noon. That said, and I did better than I expected on the physics test, so everything was worth it in the end. (thanks for all your well-wishing on the last entry too! you guys rawk. =D)

Whee - three more finals left and it's the summer!

So - I took 4 courses and had my UROP for credit - so I'm not that hardcore but it still puts me at 60 credits, breaking the 57 freshmen credit cap and this was why I had to declare sophomore standing and yadda yadda yadda.

Fortunately, I'm pleased to report that after this semester, I will be completely done with GIRs! woot!

< graphic content >

Often (and my roommates have heard me use this analogy countless times), I feel like taking the Physics GIR is like being at a buffet with all-you-can-eat, but instead of being able to leave after you're comfortably full, the food just keeps on coming and you're forced to stuff more and more down your throat, until it's like...uh, overflowing. But you're not allowed to puke it out, since if you do, you have to start ALL over again.

< / graphic content >

Yes, i think that describes my abhorrence towards physics.

Keeping that in mind, enjoy the food!

8.02 - Physics: Electricity and Magnetism - 12 credits - GIR for Physics

It's not an overstatement to say that this is the bane of my existence this semester. I know this shouldn't really be an excuse, but I feel like the reason why I dislike physics so much is because I never had a teacher that really presented physics in a manner that was "exciting," or so to speak. To me, physics is like a blob of equations and manipulations with forces that I can't visualize, fields that I can't perceive. When I left high school, I vowed to never take Physics again, but the MIT GIR requirement came back to haunt me - and I guess I'm stuck with it now.

Ai - that's enough complaining, here are the more substantive stuff:

8.02, in many regards, is pretty much the same as 8.01 . Classes are taught TEAL-method (in classrooms with computers and the teacher lectures from a Powerpoint presentation), and there are online assignments, read: the notorious Mastering Physics (which you'll love to hate, trust me ;D). As for the content, you start out from calculating electric/magnetic fields of simple particles, and then advancing on to calculating electric/magnetic fields - and finally applying everything to circuits with inductors, capacitors, and resisters. (Did you know?! Cool!).

I think what's quite notable about 8.02 is that it's the only class so far (with 8.01), that is graded strictly according to a certain percentage cutoff that is announced beforehand (much like high school, where 90 = A). Although most MIT courses aren't "curved" per se, the scores are still "distributed" at the end, with a certain percentage of the class getting As, Bs, Cs (this percentage is often based on standard deviation - which is how you perform in relation to the rest of your class). Thus, if you have a lot of very intelligent people in your class, it might be difficult to get As in certain classes. However, in 8.02, you're told from the very first day that if your overall average is above a 85, you will get an A for the course, and it's viable that everyone can get an A in the class, if everyone gets above a 85 on the average (which isn't technically viable, because then what the professor would do is to write harder exams, so it would be more difficult to get a high score).

What made 8.02 a memorable memory for me was the fact that there were a lot of cool demonstrations for the class (like the one where Snively was almost fried by 3000 volts - he blogged about it in one of his entries, but I can't find it cuz he has too many! lol). Also, for my section (8.02 is taught across eight different sections with more or less 80 students in each, since there are like 650+ students taking 8.02 right now because of the GIR requirement), I had a professor that taught 8.02 because he loved it, not because he's doing it as a job - and his enthusiasm really came across during the lectures. I think he was definitely the best physics teacher I ever had (though - not that I had many...I had one in high school, one for 8.01, and now 8.02).

I definitely felt like I learned a lot, although I don't think my new knowledge of physics will ever entice me to major in Course 8 - I'll leave it to my roommate, Zach. (he finishes the 8.02 psets in an hour each and completely loves the material (not to mention - OWNS every exam). Naturally, he declared Course 8 =p)

For me, 8.02 is like Zongzi - basically, Chinese rice balls with lots of yummy stuffing inside. Like 8.02, zongzi is great in small quantities, but due to all the glutenous rice - the more you eat, the more you start feeling blehh. (just like how I'm like on Physics OD right now, haha).

5.111 - Principles of Chemical Science - 12 credits - GIR for Chemistry

The chemical counterpart to 8.02, this was my other GIR. Unlike 8.02, however, I actually ended up enjoying this course a lot. Starting from basic chemical structure, we progressed through physical trends, acid-base, equilibrium, kinetics, redox, and finally orgo.

One thing about the chem and bio GIR is that, for some reason, most freshmen actually take Chemistry first during the first semester, and then take Bio during the second semester. Since I technically took these GIRs "out of order," I had a very small chem class (there were only about 60? students and 3 recitations). I guess this was both a blessing and a curse, since I'm finally not in a massive classroom for the GIR - but the curve (or rather, the "grade distribution" - to be politically correct), is also worse since there's a smaller sample size for exam results (and they tend to cluster at the top, since we have some very intelligent students).

5.111 is the chem GIR that's recommended if you're planning on doing a bio/chem related major, for reasons that I'm not entirely sure of (it covers more application stuff while maintaining a grip on theory?). Most freshmen actually take 3.091 (abbreviated as three-oh-nine-fun) during the fall semester. The class is known for a high pass rate and an amusing professor, and thus had commanded a very large audience (I believe this year's fall 3.091 class was the largest class in history - part of the class had to watch the lectures in another lecture hall because they couldn't all fit in one lecture hall).

Of course, like 8.012, there's also a chemical equivalent for an more advanced class, if you're really into chemistry - 5.112. Only offered in the fall, this course is a rigorous approach into the principles behind chemistry, and it's generally recommended only if you have some pretty good chemistry background.

For me, 5.111 was like Kung Pao Chicken. See those chili peppers in the pictures? Although deceptively-innocent looking, consuming many of them in rapid succession can have very adverse effects (they're dried chili peppers - so the resulting heat you get out of chewing them slowly in your mouth is much stronger than normal chili peppers). I have a pretty high heat tolerance, from growing up in Asia, but I've definitely had a few plates of "Chicken from Hell."

5.111 is like Kung Pao Chicken because although the subject matters looks deceptively simple (for me, since I had a really good preparation in AP Chemistry), it gets pretty difficult rather quickly (this was at least 2-3x faster than my AP Chem course), and the biggest difficulty of the course is actually finishing the exams on time (since there's a LOT of questions, and you're only given an hour). In those hour exams, you basically have no time to go over your answers - so it's like right is right, and wrong is wrong - there's no time to check. For me, the "chili peppers" are also the notoriously long psets for 5.111 (that generally take me 6-7+ hours on average to complete).

14.01 - Principles of Microeconomics - 12 credits - HASS Elective

So, I've always been fascinated with economics. I mean, it basically governs the way the business world works (just like physics govern the way science works). Economics wasn't offered at my school, but I decided to take AP Microecon on my own, senior year, just for kicks. (I mean, the PR review book for economics was REALLY thin, right?) I ended up getting a 3 on the exam (yes, cramming for econ 2 days before the exam doesn't work - and senioritis didn't help either). To rid myself of my shame (jk), I decided to take the introductory economics course at MIT.

Actually, coming here, I didn't know we had the best economics undergraduate program in the country (according to the Gourman Report), but I definitely had a feel for the popularity of Course XIV as I walked into the 14.01 lecture (which was brimming with students - undoubtedly many potential Course XIV majors). The unique thing about 14.01 is that you can either opt to take the "lecture-based" format of the course, or the other "recitation-based" option. In the lecture-based format, you go to lecture 2 days a week and recitation on Friday (which is pretty similar to most courses). In the recitation-based format, you completely go to recitation and do not attend any of the lectures (the TA gives you the lectures). Obviously, there are pros and cons to both options, but everyone manages to find the method that works for them. I opted for the lecture option, and enjoyed many of Professor Jeff Harris' amusing lectures (he's quite an interesting lecturer that loves putting himself as the center of his examples (among other things). Nearly all of his examples involve a guy named "Jeff" =p)

The interesting thing to note about 14.01 at MIT is that even though economics is definitely considered "science" at many other schools, 14.01 is a HASS class here, which means the credit you get from 14.01 gets grouped with all of the other writing/music/arts courses that you may be taking.

For me, 14.01 reminds me of Zhajiang Mian. Zhajiang Mian is a very popular noodle dish that's eaten across Japan, Korea, China, and Taiwan. Consisting of regular noodles with a heavily-flavored dark soybean paste (fried with meat, scallions, and garlic for flavor), the zhajiang mian is eaten (at least in Taiwan) with a wide variety of toppings (often with cucumbers, eggs, bean sprouts, carrots, cabbage, and kimchi - just for starters). It's almost the same as putting extra stuff (like guacamole, sour cream, cheese, lettuce, salsa..etc.) on American burritos, if you prefer to imagine it that way. In fact, the Taiwanese version often get so colorful that it's called "five-colored noodles" (because of all the varied colors of the toppings - sorry I can't find a public domain pic that I can post).

In very much the same way as the varied toppings, 14.01 is an introductory course to the many multi-facets of microeconomics. Starting out from the basics of supply and demand, you quickly progress to indifference curves, isoquants, risk behavior, taxes, tariffs, subsidies, price ceilings, equilibrium, efficiency, game theory, oligopoly, monopoly, monopsony (the opposite of monopoly!)...and so on. It's a nice hodgepodge introduction to a ton of stuff in microecon, and I definitely had fun sampling all the different flavors and watching it come together :)

21F.703 - Spanish 3 - 12 credits - HASS-D (Language Option)

One of my biggest interests in my life is learning languages. Probably living in a country that's already bilingual (Chinese, Taiwanese (Min Nan)) and potentially quad-lingual (English and Japanese are very popular in Taiwan) shaped my love for language. Since high school, I've taken Spanish, although I never really could speak it until I took 21F.782 (Spanish 2 in Madrid) and got to go to Spain during IAP!.

Taught by the same professor that I went to Spain with, Spanish 3 is a class that's very geared towards communication (generally listening/speaking - but there's also a fair bit of reading). I'm happy to say that I can finally read Marquez (or, at least, some of it, haha). Most of the course was focused on interactive exercises in class where you had to speak a lot, but we also had some pretty cool things going on, such as a live web-chat with a class at the Polytechnic Institute of Valencia (which I visited when I was in Spain! woo!).

If you take a language course that's higher than Level 3 at MIT, you can actually get HASS-D credit for it (HASS-D essentially means HASS Distribution - you have to take 3 HASS classes in different disciplines of humanities in order to graduate). The other unique thing about language courses is that they tend to meet four days a week, and since it's based so much on participation, absences will count a lot against your grade (for example, if you miss more than 4 Spanish 3 sessions, you get an automatic F in the course). My class is at 11 in the morning and it's my first class of the day - suffice it to say that because of Spanish, I haven't skipped a single lecture on Mondays to Thursdays because of oversleeping this entire semester (Fridays may be a different story...XP).

I'm planning to take both Spanish IV and Japanese III at MIT next year, so I guess there'll be a lot of languages going for me! I heart<3 (not like physics, ahem ahem).

Well, since this is Spanish, we should have a Spanish dish, right? But ahh - you're in a Chinese buffet, remember?

Arroz con Pollo is my dish of choice for 21F.703. Being a very common dish in Spain (almost like how pizza is like here), you see arroz con pollo nearly everywhere you go in Spain (in fact, some of the hosts for my Spanish program were fond of only cooking arroz con pollo for their host students). Flavorful in both the saffron rice and the chicken (usually seasoned and diced, rather than presented whole), arroz con pollo reflects the Spanish culture of vivacity and energy.

In Taiwan, we have pretty much the same thing too - chicken and rice - except the chicken is simmered in soy sauce until the meat is tender and juicy and placed over white rice with a variety of other condiments. It's popularly sold as a bento box for train travelers during the 50's to the 90's - but it is also a very common dish in Taiwan that mothers make for their children.

(the point is to see that there's chicken over rice, lol)

7.URG - Course 7 Undergraduate Research (Graded) - 12 credits - General Elective

At MIT, you have three options to choose from when you're doing an UROP. You can either do the UROP for pay, for volunteer, or for credit. A lot of people start their UROPs as a volunteer, since they want to convey to their UROP supervisors their passion for their research (so much that they wouldn't mind doing it without pay). Doing an UROP as an volunteer is also a good option if you aren't sure whether you want to commit to the UROP long-term. Sometimes, you might be forced to do an UROP for volunteer as well, since your project might not be ready to fund you or you have a credit cap so you can't append extra credits onto your schedule.

However, the majority of the people either do UROP for credit or for pay. If you do an UROP for pay, you are either funded by 1) your lab, 2) some external organization, or 3) the UROP Office (often in the form of scientific research grants to MIT). From my personal experiences, I've realized UROP supervisors are generally more hesitant to take on freshmen UROP students for pay (generally I think because of lack of experience and uncertainty in long-term commitment). However, doing an UROP for pay is generally the better option when you're doing an UROP at MIT over the summer (which I would be doing), since if you opt to obtain credit for your UROP during the summer, you actually have to pay summer tuition (which costs an oodle of money) to MIT. If you apply for funding from the UROP office, you get paid at the base rate of $9 per hour - but hey, it's great getting paid while you're increasing your lab experience and scientific knowledge at the same time!

Finally, doing an UROP for credit is a very popular option during the school year. You register credits with the Registrar's Office (generally 9 or 12), and you have two options to choose from - X.UR, or X.URG (X being the course number you're doing the UROP in). X.UR means you get the credit for doing the UROP, but you don't actually get assigned a letter grade for the research (it's on pass/fail). In X.URG, you actually get assigned a letter grade by your research supervisor for the quality and effort you put into your research. Personally, I don't feel like getting credit is the most important thing for an UROP, but it's great to be getting "compensated" for all the hours you spend in the lab. :)

For me, my UROP is like Almond Tofu, my favorite dessert by far in Chinese cooking. Made from almond extract and gelatin, almond tofu (jelly) is like the Asian equivalent of Jello that's super fragrant (and not artificially colored! Jell-O coloring freaks me out). It's often eaten with fruit cocktail (that isn't present in the picture), and despite the name (which is a direct translation from Chinese) - doesn't contain any soybeans.

My UROP is like Almond Jelly for me because I often head over to the lab after my classes, just like the dish is often eaten as a dessert. Although some of the lab work can get cumbersome and confusing, I feel like the times when I'm pouring the petri-dishes, cultivating bacteria, setting up an RNAi screen, playing around with the microscopic worms, or raising worms are excellent times to think about how everything in biology ties together and how everything starts to "make sense" after you really do work in the lab. The feeling of having finally figured out how a MAP kinase pathway works in the lab, for example, is a nice, refreshing feeling. It means so much more than reading a bunch of diagrams in a 7.012 textbook =p.

Buen provecho!

Last 8.02 exam.
Last 14.01 pset.
Last 5.111 pset.
One all-nighter.
Wish me luck. ;)

The semester is really coming to an end!

Freshman year is almost finished...wow.

I'll be back tomorrow (after I'm done with the exam and the two psets I have to do after the exam) to update this entry with an account of my academic adventures for this second semester!

Good luck on your AP exams, too! But don't stress out too much about them. ;)

(just stress out about Physics C, Calc, and English - cuz you can pass out of stuff or not take the FEE (woot!) if you do well on those exams =p)

*sets alarm for 11:20 AM*
11:58 AM: *wakes up, peers at clock*
*falls back asleep*
[one second later, confused]
*peers at clock again*
*clock says 11:58 AM*
"AH CRAPPPP. NOT AGAIN!"
*throws TI-89 calculator into pocket and runs out the door*
*begins epic journey on bike across campus (~1.5 miles), cues Mission Impossible theme*
12:04 PM: Arrives in Chemistry exam, completely out of breath
*TA passes an exam along*
*gets mad at self not for not studying, but managing to oversleep and forfeit 5 minutes of the precious 60 minute exam time*

Yeah. That's me. My life consists of running from place to place. I'm dead serious.

---

Happy May! Yay. It's the final month of school! Somehow, I can't believe this year is coming to an end. It seemed like only yesterday when I stood in front of Lobby 7 with my pile of freshly-printed 18.02 notes, oblivious to exams, psets, Mastering Phys--okay, I'll spare you the diatribe.

May 1 - as Matt pointed out, is National Reply Date.

It had been a pleasure sharing what I know to those who I had the opportunity to meet through email, through the blogs, at CPW, on Facebook...etc., and as you make your final decisions, good luck and best wishes to your final choice. Like what Paul said, there are no wrong choices - only good choices, and better ones. I can't put it more beautifully myself.

It's been awhile now, but it really doesn't seem that far away from yesterday.

Now, I just want to fill in the gaps of some of the stuff that I semi-blogged about.

As you may recall: This entry WAYYY back with all the weird pictures? (heck, it's been over a month!)

Well, here it is:

Starting from pretty much the first couple of weeks I set foot on campus, I've been involved with the SAT Preparation Program organized by MIT's Educational Studies Program (ESP for short). ESP is a student "club" at MIT that seeks to provide educational opportunities for high school and middle school students through the programs that it runs (there are around a dozen). For example, the most famous ESP program perhaps is Splash! - two days during the fall when high school students may teach a class on ANYTHING to their students. A sampling of classes in this year's Splash listing included "Ramencraft" ("the art of ramen noodle structure"), "Card Throwing," "How to Grow Hair," "Introductory Dark Chocolate Tasting"...just for starters. The best part about Splash (and really, everything that ESP does) is that given the diverse interests and talents of the MIT student body, ESP provides an outlet (and even up to $30 to purchase supplies for Splash) to do whatever, and quite literally, ANYTHING you want!

It just so happened that during high school, I actually ran an SAT Prep program (think Princeton Review-style) for around 40 upperclassmen during my last few months in high school. It started out as a fund-raiser for a mission/community service trip to the Philippines in April of my senior year, but the more I got into it, I realized I really enjoyed teaching SAT (probably it was an opportunity to finally "get back" at ETS for all the hours it took me to master the "tricks" of the exam).

Coming to MIT, I was surprised to find fliers in the hallways advertising for SAT Prep teachers, and I quickly signed up to be a teacher. Throughout the fall semester, I taught SAT Prep Verbal to around 60 or 70 students. It was actually a really fun experience - I got to know my students quite well over the semester and was very happy when their practice scores improved visibly. When first semester ended, I took upon administrative positions and became an Assistant Director to the program (basically means dealing with student registration, paying the teachers, answering irate emails from parents..etc.).

Last Sunday was our last session of SAT Prep Spring 2008 (oh yeah - SAT Prep happens on Sundays), and although it's nice finally getting my Sundays back again - it's been quite a journey, from getting the 18 teachers (6 for each subject), meeting the 300+ students (and grading/sorting their exams! - see above, it was epic), and answering too many emails to count (my "Sent" folder on Thunderbird exploded exponentially after I took on SAT Prep directing).

Next year I will serve SAT Prep again, as director. I will definitely continue to be involved in Splash, as well as Spark (it's basically the same as Splash, but happens in the spring semester. This year was the "test run") - I teach classes in Money Collecting (otherwise known as Numismatics - the study of monetary goods) and College Admissions (during the fall), heh. =p

Definitely check ESP out when you're on campus! You'll be surprised at how much you can learn even when you're teaching other people =D

I may have mentioned this sporadically through my blogs, but Matt is actually my freshman adviser.

Here's the deal with freshmen advisers:

Once you arrive for fall term, you'll be assigned a freshman adviser who you would be required to meet with to register for your classes. As the name implies, the freshmen adviser is there to "advise" on what courses you should be taking during your freshman year (as to the extent that the adviser does his/her job properly varies quite a lot from adviser to adviser). In addition, the adviser has access to funds to take his/her advising group out to dinner or other activities (with the help of the assistant adviser - an older MIT student). Since Matt was an awesome adviser, he took our advising group out to dinner (and ICE CREAM!) several times (by the way, every one in my advising group had gone to school abroad - Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam - for example).

Although I switched to my major adviser after declaring sophomore standing after IAP, Matt nonetheless invited all of us to his house for a "St. Patrick's Day Dinner." After a delicious dinner prepared by Mrs. McGann, we sat down to play Apples to Apples and enjoy the super big, fluffy angel food cake that she also made.

I thought this was amusing:

Around the same time, the brothers of Sigma Phi Epsilon invited Susan Hockfield over for dinner. Over a classy dinner at the fraternity house, we discussed everything from the vision of MIT, the state of the Institute, even about iHouse (the "living-learning community" dorm) that I'm living in. It was definitely nice to hear from the President of MIT, as it provides an administrative view of the Institute (we're often only caught up in finishing psets, completing exams, and getting a degree). It was a very informative as well as a rewarding dinner - and I hear that President Hockfield doesn't often frequent fraternity houses for dinners, so it was definitely a privilege for all of us (and an unique opportunity that came about through joining a fraternity).

In awhile (when moving to and living at MIT becomes more of a reality for you), I want to write briefly about what it's like to be in a fraternity as well as a small dorm community at the same time.

As you may know, I live in a very specialized dorm with only 21 people (iHouse), but I also belong to a special type of fraternity (Sigma Phi Epsilon - one of the only two fraternities at MIT who does not practice "pledging" (the other is Zeta Beta Tau)). I don't want to go into too much detail here, because it's a whole new entry, but it's definitely interesting to be part of two close-knit communities at once - and a very rewarding journey it was this year.

Fraternal (or sorority) life and dorm life are two balances that freshmen who "go Greek" (join a fraternity or a sorority) have to juggle - but I feel like it's definitely possible to be actively involved in both at once, and I talk about this more at length later :)

As some commenters pointed out (I'm impressed!), this is indeed Caenorhabditis elegans, a microscopic nematode that gained fame after it survived the space shuttle Columbia disaster. It's also the subject of my UROP, a study in innate immunity of Caenorhabditis elegans. Basically, through RNAi (RNA interference) processes, we seek to investigate the relationships of different proteins and mutations in the immunity of C. elegans. After we identify genes of interest, we can study the specific protein kinase pathways in the immunity of C. elegans and gain a better understanding of its function and applicability to other organisms, such as human beings.

I'll actually be at MIT during July and continuing into August working further on my research, and I hope to show you in greater detail (with pictures and maybe video!) what my work entails.

Doing an UROP at MIT is definitely exciting (and even very monetarily rewarding sometimes - my UROP this summer is paying for my summer housing, with excess for spending money), and it's one of the unparalleled aspects of undergraduate education nation-wide, in my opinion. It's also part of the reason that attracted me to MIT. Even now, with friends in HYPMSC and other Ivy League schools, I find it hard-pressed to find a program that resembles UROP to the extent that exists at MIT. Even undergraduate freshman can venture into fields that are the subject of current research, supplementing their classroom knowledge with practical experience - what else can you ask for?

In case you're wondering about the other stuff:

And finally!

Weeee. Now you know why I can't wake up for my classes. =p

(n.) - a DVD you will receive with your next big mailing (scheduled to be sent out early May), after you choose to matriculate. The DVD is a compilation of student-produced videos introducing each of the 17 (this year!) dorms at MIT (counting New House as 6 different dorms - New House, iHouse, and 4 cultural houses).

The DVD comes in a nifty little graphic-intensive booklet with all the gory details of housing options, cost, dining hall, housing lottery, REX (when you come to campus and check out the dorms for yourself), the highly controversial Residential-Based Advising, and more graphic advertisement for each of the 17 dorms.

As there would definitely be a lot more questions about the MIT housing system as you guys actually get these booklets, I would defer actually blogging about choosing a dorm later on (and I'm sure Paul would have a lot to say about this as well).

But anywhoo, I want to give you a "sneak peek" of some of the 2008 i3 videos already floating around on the Net, if you're curious. :)

We shall begin, of course, with iHouse - my dorm! =p

< shameless advertising>

Welcome to the highly innovative, oft-mentioned, MIT-homepage featured, administration-acclaimed International House.

< more shameless plug>

Video bought to you by yours truly...

< /shameless advertisements>

(note: the ending is actually cut off, for some reason by Youtube, meh)

(psst, Steve is my roommate, and so is Zach - you might remember him from everyone's favorite - Mastering Physics =p. the bed with the stuffed lion is mine, lolol)

Some other ones!

BAKER HOUSE - AWESOME "baker kart"

RANDOM HALL

And if you're curious what the booklet that contains your i3 DVD looks like...

(I stuffed the DVDs into a lot of those booklets on Thursday!)

BE PUMPED! woo!

Say that I'm irresponsible for not finish this early, but GAH! (the second time this semester, fourth time this year)

In more substantial matters:

Coming up: (after my Patriot's Day loong weekend to NYC* yayay so excited)
-What the heck was going on there? Believe it or not, there's a lot than meets the eye (stuff about MIT that I haven't blogged about this whole year - but I've been meaning to).
-My Spring 2008 Classes (did you know we only have 18 school days left before finals? gasp*)
-Summer Plans
-Why I'm addicted to the Formula 50 (Grape) Vitamin Water. (jk, though I have four empty bottles of it sitting on my desk right now)

In the meantime, if there is anything that I can help you in making your big decision before May 1, feel free to reach me here, through email, or on FB!

To be honest, I don't believe in forcing MIT down your throats. I feel like you should go to the school that is the best fit for you, and where you will truly enjoy the next four years of your academic career. If that's MIT, then AWESOME! If it's somewhere else, then it's good as well. However, I do hope to do what I can in providing you with information so you can make an informed decision about this issue.

Best of luck. :)

* Did you know that Patriot's Day is a Massachusetts/Maine exclusive holiday? We have a LONG weekend from the 19th to the 22nd! woo!

So I learned two major things about myself this weekend, courtesy of you guys:
1. I apparently do not look like myself *points at the banner* (perhaps bringing a stuffed penguin with me next CPW would help? =p) and apparently I look a lot taller.
10. "Wow, you don't sound like a college professor in real life!"

I'm sure now that you guys start to head back to the four corners of America (and the world!), there will be an opportunity to relive CPW through the various guest blogs that would undoubtedly be popping up over the course of the next few days. But I just want to say something.

In a word, you guys are awesome. Meeting so many of you over the course of this weekend at random events - seeing how you all hail from OH, PA, VA, MD, HI, NY, MA, CA, NJ, MI, SC, GA, TX, MO, WA (just to name a few) and getting to know your passions in high school, from research (I don't know how many ISEF and Siemens people I've talked to these few days) to violin to scuba diving to volunteering to a passion for languages to butterfly collecting...it all had been "wow." I am now convinced of the statement by Admissions that they are "excited" about this class. You guys are truly one group of accomplished people that blows my mind away.

As you undoubtedly now begin to ponder your college choices and attend other colleges' admit weekends (I know Princeton is next week, and Stanford the week after), I hope you have a good time exploring other college campuses (though, you're not allowed to have a better time than you did at MIT =p) in making an informed decision about where to spend the next four years of your life.

But there's something you should know.

One of the questions that kept on popping up over the weekend was, "How much of MIT Blogs is real? Why does it always look like you guys are having a good time?"

MIT Blogs are real. We don't try to give you a sugered version of what MIT is like. This is real stuff.

Granted, we don't always blog about our stress during the weekdays when we're up tooling all night - nor do we blog about the anguish of failing an exam, but hey, that's just something that comes with the rigorous, well-renowned scientific training that MIT offers. Yes, we do get stressed out at times, but we also know how to enjoy life when we're not doing coursework (and there are too many blogs to that effect, so I'm not going to bother linking them all). :)

We hate MIT at times for keeping us up at 4 or 5 in the morning, but we love MIT for all the possibilities it offers - diversity, excitement, enthusiasm, research, and a healthy dose of quirkiness, to name a few. This is why IHTFP stands for two things. This is why my EC interviewer reflects nostalgically upon her time at MIT. This is why we come together during CPW and Orientation to show you what MIT has to offer.

A lot of people are wary of the statement that "CPW is fake - you guys are just getting this together for us, but it's not like this during the school year." True - we might not be having like 600 different events every single weekend, but we're trying to give you a cross-section of MIT culture, to attempt to show you everything that you can possibly be involved in at MIT. We might not always be having barbecues, roofdeck parties, and pancakes at 2 in the morning, but they're all there. We're not trying to bribe you. We're welcoming you to MIT.

On Saturday, a prefrosh asked me, "If you could pick only one thing that you love about MIT, what is it, and why?"

I said, "The people. Definitely the people. What makes MIT so amazing is the excitement and the enthusiasm that's present across all facets of the Institution. Intellectual curiosity in class aside, the flow of energy in student groups, the passion in student-led initiatives are really things that make MIT students so special. MIT admits passionate and driven individuals, provides them with a place to learn, and lets the students bump into each other, do crazy stuff, and accomplish the things they've been dreaming to do."

I hope you got a taste of that during the weekend.

And I hope you enjoyed the liquid nitrogen ice cream. :)

My take on the movie, 21:

Completely NO spoilers:
* Check out rottentomatoes.com reviews here.
* Check out "General Observations" below.

Synopsis: (some spoilers for the first hour of the movie)

Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess), an incredibly brilliant student at MIT who is capable of rattling off sales figures faster than a cash register, needs $300,000 to go to Harvard Med School, after attaining 1590 SAT, 44 MCAT, and a 4.0 GPA* at MIT. Moreover, he is bored with his life as an academic superstar and breezing through his courses with little excitement (or success with girls). Impressing his nonlinear equations professor Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey) with his outstanding intellect, Ben was offered a chance to join the clandestine MIT blackjack team. Ben initially declines, but with increasing pressure from Jill Taylor (Kate Bosworth), a current (and very seductive) team member, Ben caves in and joins the team, declaring that he would "quit after $300,000." Through a trial by fire at a sketchy Chinatown gambling den, Ben performs brilliantly and is ceremonially welcomed into the team by all of the members - Micky, Jill, kleptomaniac Choi (Aaron Yoo), dazzling Kianna (Liza Lapira), and the hot-headed Fisher (Jacob Pitts). Through "17 weekends" in the City of Sin, Ben discovers the high-rolling life, explores his boundaries with women, and snubs his close friends back at MIT. Although Ben quickly makes enough money to cover his medical tuition and then some more, he must come face to face with the implications of his increasingly souring relationship with Micky Rosa, as well as the bitter reality of law enforcement - reincarnated as the cold card-counter-turned-cop, Cole Williams (Laurence Fishburne).

* A lot of people made a big deal about Ben's supposed "4.0 GPA" at MIT, which would be a B average here (because we work on a 5.0 scale). Although this might viably be a mistake on the movie producer's part, it's important to note that basically in terms of applying to grad school (especially med school), they will recalculate your GPA to fit into a 4.0 scale anyway, so I don't think this is such a big error as people make it out to be.

General Observations:

* The movie is very loosely based on the actual book, Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich. Actually, aside from the basic premise of the characters, the card-counting method, and the fact that they traveled to Vegas and got in trouble with the authorities at the end, most of the side plotlines (and the major plot twist at the very end of the movie) are completely only present in the movie. To be completely honest, I would say that 75% of the movie is not based on the book.

* The movie is not shot on MIT campus at all. Most of the "in-school" scenes are filmed at BU. (see more detail below).

* The movie features THREE MIT alums who had credited parts in the movie. (see below)

Other Observations: (includes spoilers)

* Remember Professor Rosa's lecture hall (where Ben has his nonlinear equations course)? That's totally a BU lecture hall. Lecture halls in that format aren't common at MIT (i.e. long table at each row with built-in swivel chairs). Exceptions: one lecture hall on the second floor of Building 4 and Sloan lecture halls.

* Random hallway with lots of students at one point of the movie - the hallway outside of Tsai Auditorium on BU campus. Shots outside of Ben's dorm? Towers Dormitory at BU. Also, there are other shots of Bay State Road (one artery of the BU campus).

* "4-145," the blackjack team room, should be one of the first-floor rooms of Building 4 here at MIT. Although the movie producers got the numbering system right, the numbers of the rooms aren't stuck on the lower right of the glass panels of the rooms (especially not in Building 4 - they're affixed to a placard next to the door). Also, we have a lot of recitations in Building 4, and the classrooms are definitely not laid out anything like that classroom in the movie.

* The three MIT alums in the movie: Colin Angle (iRobot co-founder), as Professor Hanes (I'm not entirely sure which professor he was...); Jeffrey Ma (the "real" Ben Campbell), as the dealer that Ben and Fisher kept referring to as "Jeffrey" towards the end of the film; and Henry Houh, as the Chinatown dealer ("winner winner chicken dinner!").

* Confused about the "three doors problem" that Prof. Rosa threw at Ben? It's the classic Monty Hall problem that people had made such a big deal in the past (and thus isn't really that "difficult" anymore).

* I believe the "2.09 competition" that Miles and Ben were so obsessed about is loosely based on the 2.007 competition at MIT. But I can be wrong, since I'm not that mech-E or EECS focused.

* All the subway scenes utilized coach cars from the Red Line (you can actually see the "Swahili Guaranteed!" advertisement from the Boston Language Institute that's still all over the Red Line in the movie).

* The subway stop that Jill had to get off at during the subway scene with Ben ("this is my stop") is Quincy Center, on the Red Line. (I don't know why Jill would have to get off at South Boston...generally, I don't think MIT people would live at South Boston (it's around 40 minutes by the T and South Boston has a high crime rate)).

* In all of the Subway shots, the train says that it's "Express to Davis," which wouldn't make too much sense - Davis is the stop before the last stop, Alewife, and it wouldn't make too much sense for an express train to go there instead of Alewife (does an express train even exist on the T?). Moreover, if Jill gets off at Quincy Center (South Boston while Alewife is the last stop to the north) and the train is going to Davis, it implies that Ben and Jill got on probably at Braintree or Quincy Adams (the southern extremes of the Red Line), which would raise the question of what they were doing there in the first place (again, people don't usually go to South Boston from MIT).

(Confused? Use this map)

* Many MIT students don't even connect their dorm phones, even though we do have one for each room (or you should...). We rely mainly on cell phones. Sturgess, then, might not had reached as automatically for the headset to get his "room service." ;)

* People's Republik, the bar where Miles, Ben, and Person X (forgot his other friend's name) were drinking at, does exist and it's close to MIT, at Central Square.

* The diner that the blackjack team was at (salt, pepper, mustard analogy)? South Street Diner.

* Check out the number of hoodies that the Boston people were wearing. Oh yeah. =D that's Boston weather for ya.

* Check out the number of MIT gear that the blackjack team was wearing (esp Kianna's cap - I don't really know I remember it, but it just stood out - maybe because I don't really see people wearing MIT hats, just sweaters generally).

* Although Cauchy's dispute with his student about him "using" the student to achieve his own ends (the "you should get that eye looked at" argument between Ben and Rosa) may or may not be true, it is accurate that Cauchy had often been accused of plagarism on several counts. Controversy with Grassmann.

* The card counting system ("paycheck" = +15, "sweet" = +16, "witch" = +13...etc.) system that the movie uses finds its roots in Ben Mezrich's original book. It is quite fascinating to see how they came up with that mnemonic to remember the count (the system goes from +1 to +18). I don't want to repost it here, because I don't know if it's copyright infringement - but you should definitely check it out.

* At one point in the first meetings between Rosa and Ben, Ben states that he took orgo (presumably orgo I, 5.12), as a freshman (which many freshmen, including Paul, are doing, actually). Ben says he got an A in the course. If Paul does the same, then he's as brilliant as Ben is! =p

* Jim Sturgess is British. Try catching him slip out of the American accent that he had to learn to play the part of Ben in the movie. ;) (he does it multiple times, especially with certain words)

Alright, that's pretty much all I can remember off the top of my head about details from the movie that I thought was interesting.

General Remarks: (no spoilers!)
This movie didn't open well to critic's expectations (just check rottentomatoes), and I can see why. Compared to movies like Ocean's Eleven or Casino Royale, 21 is more like a simple story of a bunch of college kids beating the system, rather than suave men and dashing secret agents coming in to disrupt a drug cartel or a corrupt casino mogul. The movie also plays to the "MIT nerd stereotype" (just check out Miles - he's supposed to be "the geeky, uber-smart MIT student"), which is definitely not accurate for the majority of the MIT student population. But I just feel that a movie is a movie, and the purpose of a movie is to entertain. 21 does do a decent job at entertaining the audience, and I definitely did not think that this movie was a complete flop (just check out the very last frame of the movie - that scene was priceless). There might be some overexaggeration at times (as much as we would like it, not everyone at MIT is like genius Ben (though Bens do exist at MIT in real life =p), and our professors and students do not spend time trying to "beat the casino" through intelligence on a day to day basis (or maybe, a subset of MIT still does, one that I don't personally know about =D)). But hey - who cares? MIT gets an awesome aerial pan across the Charles (with the dome and the Green Building in full sight), and Kianna's gorgeous to boot. Win-win :)

ps.
Most Awesome Moment

When buying the tickets:

Me: I would like a Student ticket to 4:15's 21, please.
Ticket Guy: Sure, I would need your student ID.

[hands over MIT ID]

Ticket Guy: [pause] So YOU'RE one of THOSE guys!
Me: =p

Prefrosh: Come to MIT and be "one of those guys!" We rawk. =D

Extra Credit:

Confuzzled, you decide to return to your 14.01, for it is due in 11 hours. Luckily, the solutions to this puzzle will be posted before Sunday. :)

ps. psst, this isn't really a puzzle! haha

Just minutes ago, I logged on to mitadmissions, and there's Jess with her tagline: "I'M HOSED." and I'm like wow, I guess everyone's pretty much the same then at this time of the year.

Although I can't promise you an amusing survey, I can provide you an account of WHY we are generally hosed, though.

So some of you have been asking a lot about "psets" (by the way, it's pset, not PSET. pset looks so much nicer. actually, everything looks nicer in lowercase. maybe i'll stop capitalizing now, bwahaha.) Psets stand for Problem Sets, and they are the equivalent of the "homework assignments" that you get in high school.

Big differences between psets and high school assignments:
* There is generally very little busywork.
* They are comprised of mainly critical thinking problems, and the number of problems is generally significantly fewer than that of regular high school assignments (you might just get 5 problems, with a) b) c) d) e) f)...parts to the same problem - so in actuality you are doing like 20 smaller problems, but under the auspices of 5 major problems).
* You get an entire week to do a pset (or two weeks, in classes like 7.01x (Intro Bio)). But this generally doesn't make a difference, because procrastination doesn't stop once you're a college student (often, it gets worse, lol).
* In many classes, they count for little to nothing in your final course grade. You know how your high school grade breakdown is like 30% tests, 30% assignments, 30% projects, and 10% participation? In most classes (not all, like psets count for a fair bit in 14.01 (Intro Econ)), your cumulative problem set scores won't count for more than 10% of your final grade. The vast, vast, majority of your course percentage comes from exams and the final.
* They take much more time than high school assignments (18.03 psets are notorious for taking some people more than 10+ hours to do).

If you're curious what a pset looks like, you can see a sample of a 18.03 pset here (as in, here, lol, not the picture - the pic is from 18.02 =p)

One natural question that you probably have, right now, is that if psets are worth so little in the long run, then why do people bother spending hours and hours to complete them? Ay, there's the rub - if you don't do the psets, then it's almost guaranteed that you're not going to do spectacular on the exams. And because the exams are worth so much, you should plan to do well in them, but if you don't do the psets, then you can't do well in the exams, and yadda yadda yadda.

Exams, similarly, are structured almost in the same way as a pset. You generally get 5 or so big problems, with more than 3 subsections to each problem. The difficulty is toned down significantly from a pset (of course, since you're now doing it on your own on a time crunch), but the problems nevertheless remain challenging - and thus, each exam requires extensive reasoning and mental power. There is no such thing as "breezing through" a MIT exam, unless, of course, 1) you are a genius (like many people here), 2) you studied for an entire week for the exam (like other people here), or 3) the exam is predicable or easier (like some exams to introductory courses here - I've heard people say that 18.02, 8.01, 8.02, 5.111 exams are particularly easy, because they're introductory courses...but I think they're still not that easy).

Quite soon, after you begin taking exams at MIT, you'll be introduced to the concept of "class average" and "standard deviation." Since I'm just a freshman, I'm not entirely sure how the upper-level courses operate, but many introductory courses (for example, 7.01x, 8.01, 8.02, 5.111, 18.02) set the class average or writes exams so they predict the class exam average (8.01, 8.02 - since they have predetermined grade cutoffs) to be at the borderline between a B and a C. Course policies really vary from class to class, but it is generally safe to say that if you're a few points below the average, then you have a high C. If you have one standard deviation above the class average, however, then you have an A. If you're one standard deviation below, then you're in trouble.

And this brings me to the point about "mediocrity". At points, you would feel quite disheartened by your performance on an exam (especially one that you have prepared extensively for) when you receive your exam back, and it's just one or two points above class average. Other times, you'll feel frustrated about getting a C when you have studied a ton for the exam. But sometimes, I just feel like, simply, it's not "high school" anymore. Exams are no longer something you can cram for in 2 hours and pull off an A - nor will you be able to do every single problem on a given exam. Yes, there will be times when the time crunch is so bad that you'll have to turn in several blank answers because you don't have time to get to those questions, and there are times when you'll get a "mediocre" grade even if you poured your heart and soul out to studying and doing the psets.

Note that I always put "mediocre" in quotation marks, because I do not truly believe that anyone is a mediocre (in the everyday sense of the word) student at MIT. If you are here, you are a talented student that possesses potential, and MIT had recognized you as such (or they wouldn't have admitted you!). Every day, I meet someone or I discover something that someone did that is truly amazing, and I'm encouraged and honored to be working or to be friends with these incredible individuals. Yes, you may be getting a C in Physics because you just can't visualize forces or electric fields properly - but in the long run, you will discover your own niche and succeed.

Phew. That's a lot about psets and exams, more than I intended. =p So why was I hosed this past week?

I had exams in 5.111 (chem), 14.01 (econ), 21F.703 (spanish), and 8.02 (physics) - all in the same week, one after another (monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday). I am starting work on my UROP (more on that later!). I dropped 18.03 (differential equations) - because with my UROP, I'm going to be on 72 units, and I don't think it's a good idea to be on 72 units, for the sake of sanity. And I made my dorm (iHouse)'s i3 video! (i3 is the same as i^3, and is short for "Interactive Introduction to the Institute". Basically, it's a disc that will come with your registration package, after you decide to matriculate in May 1. The disc contains a 5-minute video introduction to each dorm.)

I wish I could post the video, but I don't think we're supposed to do it until the Housing Committee decides to publish them, so I guess it would have to wait. But it's going to be awesome! Can't wait until you all get here! woo! :)

Also, if I don't post again before Saturday, best wishes to all with decisions. It's what you've been waiting for, and it's finally here! Inevitably, there will be great joy, and at the same time, disappointment and frustration. My best advice is to never give up on your dreams. If I did in high school, I wouldn't know where I would be now. And in one short year (come to think of it, I only read this entry not even a year ago). Since then, I've gone to Spain with MIT, seen snow fall from the sky, learned what it feels like to host a SAT Prep program for over 300 kids, and is now beginning to experiment with the genetics of the organism that was the subject of the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2002 (this is my UROP). I'm sure you will discover your own journeys, wherever you go.

And if you see something online the lines of, "On behalf of the Admissions Committee, it is my pleasure to offer you admission..." after you press the SUBMIT! button on Saturday, then I'll see you at CPW! :)

Here's another Taiwanese motivational song...haha =p

Yang Pei-An, "I Believe"

I want to fly until I am shoulder-to-shoulder with the sun,
The world is waiting on me for change.
I am never scared of letting other people see my dreams,
I can achieve all of them here.

I do believe!

[ps. You can actually see a lot of Taiwanese landmarks in that video...
0:15 = Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall (or National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall), Taipei
0:38, 1:08 = Eluanpi Lighthouse, on the southern tip of Taiwan
1:31 = Tunghai University's (in Taichung!) Luce Memorial Chapel, designed by I. M. Pei (MIT alum from '40 who also designed the pyramids outside of Louvre!).
2:49 = Taipei MRT (Subway)
Various beach scenes = yes, those are beaches in Taiwan! and they're warm-water too! all of them! =p]

I believe in you!

TODAY IS LEAP DAY!

Leap Day, I'm sure you already know, comes from the fact that the earth's revolution around the Sun is not perfectly 365 days. So, every 4 years (or, in the case of years that satisfy yr# mod 100 = 0, yr# mod 400 = 0 must also be true), we get one of these odd days.

Anyhow, I just wanted to point out and celebrate the 5th Leap Day in my life. Going wayy back...

(1988) - I was born on a leap year, but I guess it doesn't count because my birthday is in December, and I have already missed Leap Day. =(

1992, 1996 - Probably playing in the sand pit somewhere and crying because I hated getting shots.

2000 - Mm, 5th grade. Got pretty excited because I can now write the date as "2-0-0-0" rather than "1-9-9-9." Went to sleep at 9:30 every night because staying up past 10:00 was a crime in my young mind.

2004 - Ah - finally I remember something >"<. It was freshman year of high school. I was obsessed with AMC 10 - I spent 2 months preparing for it and was so depressed when I got 116, 4 points away from making AIME. Other than that, I remember the long, 7-hour road trip back to school because all the roads were clogged from Chinese New Year (the trip normally takes 3 hours). I didn't know what SATs were (honest! - I didn't find out about SATs until the summer of freshman year, when I was in Mathcamp - ah, the naivety of young minds).

And now, 2008:

12:00 - woo! midnight!

STUDY STUDY STUDY STUDY

4:10 AM - completes 14.01 (economics) pset.

(ever want to know what a study room looks like at four in the morning?)

4:30 AM - returns to dorm.
5:40 AM - completes 5.111 (chemistry) pset.
6:15 AM - welcomes in the sunrise of the leap day.

One of my dormmates come up:

"Hey Chris, good morning! You're up early today!"
"Actually...I haven't gone to bed yet. =/"

1:10 PM - wakes up, and thus begins my Leap Day (which wasn't eventful, unless you count the fact that I almost couldn't turn in my pset because it was overdue (it was due at 12:00) - but everything's fine now)

Four years from now, I (hopefully) won't even be at MIT anymore. It's kind of curious how my last Leap Day was my freshman year of high school, this Leap Day is my freshman year of college, and next Leap Day...?

Where will you be, when February 29 rolls around again?

Keep 2/29 special. Until 2012!

(and happy birthday to the "Leaplings"! Hope you had a good one. You're my hero.)