Just like in high school, a favorite strategy of professors is to assign tests right before finals (to minimize the amount of new material between the last test and the final), meaning I had an 18.03 test a week ago and an 8.02 test this week.

Actually, instead of putting these into paragraph form, let me do a quick rundown of what I'm doing and what stuff is due:

Wednesday
8.02 PSET due (haven't started)
2.001 PSET due (halfway there!)
Powerpoint for Toy Design (haven't started)

Thursday
UROP
Toy Lab (work on presentation/build toys)

Friday
18.03 PSET due (haven't started)
UROP
Meeting

Saturday
Work on Toy Design all day

Sunday
Work on Toy Design all day

Monday
Work on Toy Design all day

Tuesday
Toy Design Presentations

So, let's see, where does that put me? I've got a physics test I haven't studied for, a 2 PSETS I haven't started, a presentation due tomorrow that I haven't touched, and five toys to help build and present in exactly one week (seriously, Toy Design is freaking me out right now). But wait, there's more!

I'll save the full story for later because it's ongoing, but I still haven't taken my pre-employment drug test for Hasbro so I need to find time for that. Oh, and did I mention that last night the hard drive on my computer randomly died. That's right, just went away. I spent 5 hours running diagnostics and talking to tech support this morning trying to figure out what happened before we finally worked it out such that I'll get a new hard drive mailed to me, completely clean. Just one more thing to add to how busy I already am, rebuilding my computer. I'll have to get Microsoft Office and Mathematica shipped to me from home, I'll have to reinstall Dreamweaver, Portal, SecureFX, the MIT VPN, replace all my bookmarks in Firefox, change all of my user settings around, install Matlab and SolidWorks again, get iTunes up and running, and everything else necessary to restore my computer to its original state.

Do I have time for any of this? Right, two weeks before finals, hardly!

IHTFP much? Yes methinks, back to tooling . . .

Burton-Conner had a dinner cruise tonight where we were wined (21+) and dined (everybody!), danced, and generally enjoyed each others' company. Before the buses left for the dock you could see long lines of nicely dressed Burton-Conner residents walking down dorm row, obviously heading somewhere exciting.

As you may or may not know, dances are not my scene. One of the stereotypes at MIT is that we are nerds that are totally socially inept and get all flustered, panicked, and uncomfortable at dances. This stereotype is widely disproven by many students at MIT. . . not by me. However, since it was a dorm trip, free, and a bunch of friends were going, I decided that I could suck it up, step out of my comfort zone, go, and god forbid maybe have a good time.

We arrived at the dock and waited around for a bit before actually getting onto the ship. This is when Jared '10 and Yuki '11 thought it would be a great idea to swap jackets.

While the black jacket with blue shirt looks fine on Jared (although a bit big), Yuki's outfit was an assault on my eyes. Red shirt, purple tie, black pants, blue jacket, and blue (different shade!) beanie. Laughs were had, pictures were taken, and eventually they adjusted their wardrobes so as to prevent me from sobbing (look, sitting in a room with my mother while she watches a cocktail of What Not to Wear, E!, America's Next Top Model, and Entertainment Tonight has taught me to appreciate color pairing and fashion. This is atypical for a guy, I have a skill that many males lack).

Soon we were aboard the ship and putt-putt-putted away from the dock. A bunch of us went to the upper deck to enjoy the view, weather, and more photo opportunities. I tried to take a picture of (from left) Cathy '10, Wesley '10, and Mason '10 but Sauza '11 decided to intervene and provide one of the best pictures of the night.

Next, for the group shot, the obligatory handing out of cameras happened. Let me explain this to you. If you are going to be in a group shot and want the picture you have to hand your camera to somebody so that they can take the picture. After the shot you walk over and retrieve your camera. This normally works quite well, as evidenced by the group shot photo that is now in my possession.

There are only two issues with this picture. The first is that because of the angle you can't see me. I promise I'm there. See the guy on the far right? Does his face look a little long? That's because a sliver of my face appears to be molded into his. Awesome.

The second issue is that after the picture was taken my camera disappeared. This makes camera retrieval difficult. I wandered around the upper deck looking for my camera when I finally spotted it. I commenced with the camera retrieval segment of the group shot and flipped on my camera to see how it had turned out. Instead of seeing the wonderful picture you just saw, I saw this:

Interesting. Not only had my camera been hijacked but it had also been used to take random pictures. I perused them.

I felt a bit like Ashton Kutcher in his new commercial for Axe, except that instead of hot girls running round with my camera taking pictures of other hot girls I ended up with pictures of sailors. : (

Then, the sunset. This was one of the big motivations for coming on the cruise (other than food). The sunset was awesome, especially from the deck of a cruise ship.

Finally it was time for some dancing. That's right I danced. I don't dance. I danced.

Rick '09 also danced, as evidenced by . . .

He even helped Wesley dance.

After mucho dancing, much eating, and mucho view-enjoying our three hour cruise was over and it was time to head back to the dorm. Everybody stripped out of their fancy clothes (replacing them with comfy clothes) and the majority of Conner 2 settled in to enjoy some good ol' fashioned Mario Kart Wii.

Now, after a thrilling day of homework, cruising, and racing, it's time for bed, so I bid you adieu and wish you goodnight.

I’m mildly obsessed with the internet. Actually, mildly is putting it mildly. I’m overwhelmingly obsessed with the internet. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that for almost my entire life I’ve had to deal with dial-up internet. That’s the issue with living in the country, slow internet. Things changed when I got to MIT. Instead of being plugged into the wall in order to get slow internet, all I have to do is turn on my computer in order to get blazing fast internet. As such I was very rapidly acquainted with such gems as Homestar Runner, XKCD, Leeroy Jenkins, and Fark. The Internet became my playground, providing me with an endless array of useless time wasting goodies.

On February 28th I got an e-mail inviting me to something called ROFLCON. ROFLCON? What's a ROFLCON? I read on:

A conference/convention about internet culture. Come celebrate and mingle with your favorite internet memes and engage in academic discussion about the past and future of internet culture. We'll have academic panels, artist workshops, unmoderated talks, a Concert of the Internet (ft. Group X, Lemon Demon, Trocadero, OCRemix, and Leslie and the LY's), and a huge party with all your favorite internet celebs rocking out.

Starring:
*The Brothers Chaps, creators of Homestar Runner
*Randall Munroe, creator of XKCD
*Ryan North, creator of Dinosaur Comics
(a lot of other comic artists. A LOT.)
*Drew Curtis, founder of Fark.com
*moot from 4chan
*LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEROOOOOOOOOOOOOOYYYYYYYY
*I Can Has Cheezburger
*MC Frontalot
*Rooster Teeth, the creators of Red vs. Blue

Oh. My. God. The internet is coming! To Boston! Like, like 10 minutes from where I live! Let's just say that I was officially registered within 3 minutes of reading that e-mail. Who was obnoxious for the next month waiting for ROFLCON? I was!

"Hey guys, did you hear, the guy who invented the lolcat is coming!"
"Yes, we heard Snively"
"Did you hear that Leeroy Jenkins is going to be there!?"
"Yes, Snively, we know"
"But, but so are the Brothers Chaps!"
"WE KNOW!"

My month of waiting finally ended last Friday. I woke up for physics and then after emerging from an hour's worth of pure science mind-bogglingness in some random MIT basement I headed to the Student Center for what was going to be the beginning to the two best days of my life.

Even registration at something like ROFLCON is amazing. I walked up to the registration desk, edging past dozens of people who could be internet celebrities, the beauty of it all being that even if they were famous on the internet, I wouldn't recognize them at all in person. I grabbed my badge, bought a t-shirt and lunch box (that's right, we got thermos brand lunch boxes, what now!?) and started grabbing free goodies. This is when I saw my first internet celebrity. I would have felt bad if I hadn't seen him, he was kind of hard to miss.

Working his way through the crowd was Tron Guy in full costume. He stopped nearby me and started chatting with a bunch of us. We asked the typical questions that he probably answers all the times, but the one thing we made sure to ask was why he wasn't lit up? I mean, half the reason his costume is so cool is because it lights up. This is when he started revealing hidden battery backs and switches all over the costume, lighting up the entire thing (including the Frisbee on his back). We were then faced with a full-blown Tron Guy. Photo Opp!

Unfortunately after registration I had to go take a math test. I should take this opportunity to say that my entire goal during ROFLCON was to find Leeroy Jenkins and meet him. The issue with doing that is Leeroy Jenkins is only a voice, I had no idea what he looked like. Well, during my math test they had the opening ceremonies and who was the MC? Leeroy Jenkins. Of course, why wouldn't they make me miss it? Now everybody had seen him and heard him do the yell, everybody but me. *shakes the hand of cruel irony*

After my math test and during lunch I glanced out the window and saw G4 interviewing some random guy.

Curious as to why this random guy was so special and deserved an interview I went outside to get a better view and perhaps overhear a part of the interview. All of a sudden this guy started dancing wildly, the reporter too! What's going on!?

I didn't figure it out by the time the interview was over and both had left so I just chalked it up to some weird random event and went on my way. After a presentation in another class I hustled to my first event of ROFLCON: "Before the LOL" with Jason Scott (creator of TextFiles)

I won't bore you with everything he said because most of it probably comes off much better in person than in type, but I will show you some pictures of slides.

I apologize to those who find this offensive, but seriously, funny

The emoticons that were around back in 1989

The guy who invented the smiley emoticon

My computer, watching the live stream and the real thing at the same time

Jason Scott finished his presentation and it was time for the next one: "Surviving Internet Fame with Tron Guy and Matt Harding"

Seated at the table were two guys, both of whom I recognized:

Hey! It's that weird dancing guy!

After realizing that this strange dancing character was somebody of note, I dug around on the internet and found this video:

Ah! So he wasn't just doing a weird dance, he was doing the "I go to a bunch of countries just to do this dance" dance.

Both the Tron Guy and Matt had a great panel, discussing just what it was like to all of a sudden show up on thousands of websites and be thrust into the limelight. At the end of it Tron Guy dazzled us with a light show.

Ooh! Shiny!

The next day I woke up bright and early for the first panel of the day, featuring some of the coolest internet people ever! Who was on the panel?

Rooster Teeth (Red vs. Blue), Brad Neely (Superdeluxe.com), The Brothers Chaps (Homestar Runner), Rob, Kris, Matt, Dave (Cyanide and Happiness)

From right: Brad Neely, Rooster Teeth, Rob, Kris, Matt, Brothers Chaps

SO MUCH INTERNET AT ONE TABLE! Their discussion was great, lots of talk about how they run their websites, how they got started, what the future holds, but through the whole thing I couldn't help myself from thinking "I need to get ALL of their signatures!" When the panel ended I ran up with my red lunch box and started collecting signatures. This is when I got my favorite picture of the entire weekend.

One of the Brothers Chaps, creators of Homestar Runner, signing my lunchbox with his Homestar Runner puppet talking into the microphone

The day continued with free pizza for lunch and a session that involved watching nothing but undiscovered YouTube videos (the list can be found here. That was AWESOME! The guys from JibJab were sitting right in front of me throughout, laughing just as hard as anybody else. They even premiered some brand new videos they made, not yet on the internet (so you don't get to see them yet, neener neener). I snagged more signatures for my lunch box before I headed out to the next panel which was being hosted by Anonymous.

Anonymous are the people in V masks that protest the Church of Scientology. I'm against the Church of Scientology as well, but Anonymous is a terrible organization that should just go away. Just trust me, don't think they're cool, they showed their true colors at ROFLCON and they aren't good people.

Moving on, the last big panel of the conference was one that featured moot (4chan), Randall Monroe (XKCD), and Ryan North (Dinosaur Comics). Since the anticipated audience was bigger than the lecture hall could hold, security made everybody come outside and then counted people as they filed single file into the lecture hall. Ben Peters and I, being the MIT students we are, realized there was a better solution than this: The secret ninja entrance. We escaped the crowd and went into the tunnels, winding around a maze of twisty little passages, all alike, before arriving at a door. This door just so happened to be the stage entrance to the lecture hall we needed into. We just walked through the door and sat down in the front row while throngs of people fought tooth and nail in line, probably willing to trample as many people as necessary to get the seats that Ben and I had just taken. MIT students FTW! What was our view of the panel like?

Front row center, w00t!

This panel was insane! Several things of note happened:

1) I saw Kyle MacDonald sitting in the audience.

2) The entire audience hissed at moot for starting 4chan (we then proceeded to be completely fascinated, completely forget our prior misgivings, and ask him all sorts of questions). Among them were "Do you take responsibility for the RickRoll?

"No."

"Do you take responsibility for lolCats?"

"No."

"Do you take responsibility for anything that comes from your website!?"

"Um. No."

3) The jerks at Anonymous decided to storm the stage with a stereo and interrupt the panel. They were met with booing and yelling. They refused to get off the stage, even when ROFLCON security tried to get them off.

Nobody likes you, go away!

Randall and moot eventually decided to express their opinion on the matter.

Note the XKCD stick figure with mask and moot writing "That sucked" in the speech bubble.

4) Randall looks over at moot and says "This may be completely out of line, but will you do a barrel roll?"

Don't get it? Here's the wikipedia excerpt:

[Do a Barrel Roll] often cited on websites such as 4chan, GameFAQs and YTMND. The meme generally involves offering the advice, "Do a barrel roll!" to anyone asking for any sort of advice. The term was commonly used by callers to Tom Green's online show to heckle him prior to the implementation of a call screener.

moot: "Sure!" *stands up, does a barrel roll, audience cheers wildly*

5) An audience member says to Randall Monroe "Randall, it's probably safe to say that this audience is obsessed with you so much so as to be willing to do anything for you. Is there anything you want us to do?"

Randall got this wonderful look of "That is so SAD!" on his face, but then realized he actually had to answer the question. He thought for a little bit, and then remarked "Well, I already used my barrel roll request, but I guess I could use it again. Do a Barrel Roll!"

The entire audience proceeded to set down their laptops, stand up, and do a barrel roll.

Look at how AWESOME we are!

Sadly, it all had to come to an end and we were soon made to leave. We all headed over to the Media Lab for a reception with free pizza. The issue? There was no pizza. Instead there was just a bag.

with stuff in it

Ben and I went to Dominoes instead, cashing in on the 5-5-5 deal. While there we went over all of the autographs on our lunch boxes. Here's my lunch box:

Front

Back

Sides

Bottom

Can you find all of the following signatures?

Jib Jab guys
The Brothers Chaps
Brad Neely
Dinosaur Comics guy
Leeroy Jenkins
Cyanide and Happiness writers
Tron Guy
LOLTrek creator
Red vs. Blue Creator
Guy who made the Chuck Norris joke famous
Randall Monroe (XKCD author)
Jason Scott
Drew Curtis

After Dominoes we decided we were done. ROFLCON was over and we had seen everybody we wanted. Well, almost. I never saw Leeroy Jenkins and Ben really wanted to meet Randall Monroe. We agreed that we'd walk back by the lecture hall where the last panel had taken place to see if either were around. We walked up and who did we see? LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRROOOOOYYYYYYYYYY JENKINS! YES! Finally, it took two days but we got Leeroy alone. Photo Opp!

That guy in the middle? That's Leeroy Jenkins!

I got his signature on my lunch box (which you may have already seen because due to timeline and organizational issues I kind of had to blog it before I blogged the actual encounter) and then Ben and I went our separate ways.

Unfortunately we didn't see Randall Monroe there but on my way back to my dorm, walking down the Infinite, I saw Randall chatting with the Cyanide and Happiness guys, which is when I snagged my final signature of the conference. My lunch box was full, I was happy, and ROFLCON was over. Saturday? It was a good day.

(For more info on ROFLCON check out http://www.roflcon.org. They're thinking of making it annual!)

I went over to Johnson ice rink, bought my tickets, and headed inside. More sorority girls than I had ever seen in my life! Seriously, I think most of them may have come. I chatted with some friends and hung out waiting for the show to start when Melis runs up to me.

Melis: "Snively, are you blogging this?"
My brain: *Hey! Melis is here, cool! She'll probably want to blog this. Wait, what's that yellow thing pinned to her shirt? That looks like the captain planet symbol. Why is she wearing . . . ooooooohhhh! She's in AXO, I'll get to see Melis dance! I should probably blog this.*
Me: "Absolutely I am!"

I settled down and waited for the show to start. Since Melis is a senior her role was a little different. She helped perform during the breaks between acts. It was quite the struggle between the power rangers and captain planet's team (one that was really confusing and kind of strange from time to time) so I strung all the bits of it together for you to enjoy. With that, enjoy!

As the show went on there were Course 1 pre-Kindergarteners, Swimmers, Nu Deltas, EMTs, and all sorts of jumping, dancing, and syncing groups. A couple were kinda strange.

Towards the end they announced that Burton 1 would perform next.

*Dives for camera*

Who lives on Burton 1 everybody? If you consider yourself a blog stalker then you know the answer to this question. Without further ado, here's Burton 1's performance at the AXO 2008 Lip Sync.

In the end it was Nu Delta and the swim team who took the prizes home (lotso gift certificates) and every body chatted happily about all the ridiculous things they just witnessed.

I went back to the dorm after an extremely long day (details of which will be blogged shortly) and then crashed on the couch. And by crashed I mean I watched dramatic lemur a bunch of times,

concerned people in the lounge that I may be a complete lost cause on the internet, and then eventually went to bed. It was a good day, quickly to be squashed by the hellish workload that is the rest of the year. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to fill out all sorts of paperwork for my mandatory drug test for my Hasbro job. Ciao!

Hey, my name is Emily. Sorry this guest entry is coming late! I had a great time at CPW, really. But my SD card corrupted, dumping the gajillions of photos I shot before 3:30pm on Saturday. I can't get over this. Fortunately, the videos were preserved.

When I hopped off the airport shuttle, I immediately felt a sugar rush. The weather was great, students were tossing a frisbee, and music was blasting in the background. I got my plane buddy Philip '12 to pull Tim the beaver's tail. The picture was lost (grr), but here is another, courtesy Kevin '12.

Tim and prefrosh.

Sometime that evening, I found myself sitting front and center at the CPW Opening Ceremony. Three members of Alpha Phi Alpha opened with a stomp.

At first, I think all the prefrosh were stunned (well I certainly was), but then we loosened up and it was hilarious. The MIT Logarhythms also performed. They were amazing. I managed to videotape their cover of "Here In Your Arms" (solo by Kevin Schoenfelder, I think). The sound quality of the recording, of course, inferior.

After ice breakers, the prefrosh hopped over the the activities fair. There was bubble tea, guitar hero, ROTC, and breakdancing! I was able to preserve some of this eye-candy.

After the roof party on Baker, I managed to find my way back to Sidney-Pacific for the night. My host Tina Lai '09 and suite mates were really awesome. They were members of a sorority called Kappa Alpha Theta, temporarily housed in a graduate dorm.

The road to Sidney-Pacific.

I spent Friday being more academic. I was really impresseed by the Course 4 (Architecture) Open House. I learned about MIT's architecture program (building projects around the world, thesis projects), but I also learned about architecture in general (ecologically friendly design, sustainability). On a tour the studio, I met some students busy working on projects (but willing to share their insights).

We were very fortunate this year: CPW 2008 coincided with the C-Show (Dishoom!), put on by MIT's South Asian American Students (SAAS). I was encouraged to attend by Tina (my host). My favorite was the parody of Justin Timberlake's "Bringin Sexy Back", "Bringin Turbans Back". The bhangra team was also spectacular.

Liquid nitrogen ice cream at Random House was really yummy.

Saturday afternoon, I found myself rushing to an A Capella concert. Seven groups performed, and all of them were really great. I hear there are lots of a capella groups on campus, so even with my subpar voice talent, I think I'm going to try joining one.

The MIT Logs again; this time decked out hilariously.

A beautiful sunset after the rain. I love Boston.

Zeta Beta Tau organized Battle of the Bands in the student center. It was a pretty crazy experience.

When I left, I was half deaf. A group of us prefrosh sat down on some couches and tried to have a conversation, but then we realized that we couldn't hear each other.

We decided to climb Kresge instead. Photo courtesy Melody '12.

I'm not entirely sure this is condoned. Just to get everybody in trouble, clockwise from left is Alex, Ashu, Andrew, me, and Philip '12.

Phi Beta Epsilon hosted a party that night. It was pretty fun dancing on a roof with a great view of the Charles river and the Boston skyline.

I took some pictures outside the frat house, but they're kind of blurry.

Since it was Saturday night, the last night, none of us wanted to go to sleep. We trekked to Simmons instead.

Crazy t-shirts. Tetris! I love Simmons Hall.

We found the room filled with playpen balls. Some of my friends fell asleep.

I was one of the last ones to check out on Sunday. I had to take the Boston T to the airport, but it was really easy.

Boston public transportation is amazing.

In summary, CPW was a great experience that confirmed for me everything I thought MIT would be, and more. The academics were impressive, the student body had a quirky (and amazing) personality, all the performances were top rate. I can't wait to become a part of it all.

It's 3:30 a.m. I have to leave to get to the airport in approximately 30 minutes. In a moment I'm all too familiar with, I glance at the clock and wonder how I managed to waste so much time. My suitcase is unpacked-in fact I haven't even brought it down from the attic- I'm unprepared. It's not entirely my fault though, I've been up all night reading and looking at pictures of the most amazing place I'm going to be visiting.

MIT

After going through the surprisingly crowded entrance to Bush Intercontinental, my mom and I settle down in the terminal. We decide to grab some breakfast and her mom instinct kicks in by insisting we take a picture:

far more chipper than I

The rest of our flight is a blur, mostly because I slept. When I woke up, we were landing at Logan. The guy sitting next to us asked me what I was doing visiting Boston, so I told him about getting into MIT and CPW. After a brief conversation he gave me his business card and told me to call him if I was ever looking for summer work. Wow, I'm beginning to like this place! My mom and I flew in on Wednesday so that we could have a day for travel and use it to look around Boston a bit. We walked down Newbury st. and took a look at all the quirky shops before eating dinner at Vinny T's.

Boylston Street

My mom and I spent way too much money at The Coop and retired to our room.That night I tooled away on Calculus homework while watching the Discovery Channel (I was meant for MIT!) until my friends finally showed up to the hotel.

roughly 3 a.m. Thats my party face.

THURSDAY:

So I'm supposed to go meet Snively (my host with the most) at 10:30. Thinking there is no way on Earth that I'll wake up before noon since Massachusetts is an hour ahead of Texas and I didn't go to bed until roughly 3, I set three alarms. In a random anomaly in the universe that my close friend Stephen Hawking is still trying to reconcile, I woke up at 7:00. Odd. I got up and got dressed and headed over toward campus to register for CPW. Along the way I saw this and nearly died laughing, which made everyone on the street think I was crazy:

Just so you know where that steam is coming from. (Note: I later learned this is legitimate, and not a joke. Still funny though.) I registered and met Ben Jones! (pronounced Ben Jones factorial) Laura and...someone.... (I'm horrific with names):
They handed me a CPW packet which looks like this:


That card you see in the lower left was loaded with $20.12 TechCash. Clever!

I met Snively and briefly-but-awesomely faked him out with a real thick southern twang. I don't know if he actually bought it, but he played along well in any case. I wanted to take a picture for my blog but he said later because he was too hosed(remember that, it's ironic later) Most of the rest of the day I spent in Boston until the CPW prefrosh welcome and festival:

We call him Blurry Stu. The blur is not the film.

Also the festival was incredible, there was break dancing, music, and....err....trauma simulation....

FUN!

I planned on going to Math Until We Die @ 2 a.m., but unfortunately I fell asleep. FAIL.

FRIDAY

Probably the most eventful day ever. I woke up to go to a Fin-Aid meeting with my mom at 10. Then I came back and hung out in the dorm and talked to Snively for a while. He's a cool kid, I imagine we'll be friends. After a while the inner boy kicks in and we go off to scrounge for food. Along the way we met Viva Coles from CA at a barbecue by Kriesge (hey did you know it's an 1/8th of a sphere?...) Now, I'm from Texas, so every time I heard "Barbecue" I imagined brisket, or ribs, sausage, or at the very least, barbecue sauce. No, instead there were hot dogs, and hamburgers. But they were free and delicious so I won't get picky.

After chowing down on some free food we decide to go pay for food at Anna's Taqueria (Reason #38 why MIT is awesome) Anna's is delicious. Our motley crew then decides to head over to the Academic Fair to learn about a small but growing interest at MIT: Academics.
An actual class. (Reason #22 why MIT is awesome). They had finger painting set up so I did one:

get it?

I also learned why wintergreen mints flash, and why toast falls jam side down, and I got a free catus. His name is Jim, and he's currently hanging out with Snively and his cactus (I don't think TSA would like me carrying a cactus on the plane.) After the academic fair we moseyed on over to the similar Athletic Fair. At the Athletic Fair there were sailboats.

And irony:


Following the Academic Fair we went back to Burton-Conner for another barbecue. Oh yea, and look at this:

Reason #64 why MIT is awesome.

Snively and I poked around at Simmons, where we threw their dining room chairs around. and guess what? they bounce! I accidentally bounced one into a table which made a loud crashing noise and garnered looks from people walking around. Simmons is cool though, very unique architecture. My camera died so I don't have a lot of pictures of these next parts, but Meet The Bloggers was amazing! First of all, they had root beer floats. It was cool to talk to all the bloggers in real life. During the course of meet the bloggers I decided to finally matriculate for real, since I'd experienced enough of CPW to make a valid judgment on if it was good or not. Not one to wait around, I matriculated on Snively's iPod Touch. The most epic way to register ever.
I was supposed to go meet a friend of mine named Jack for a campus tour, but it was getting late and Jack was tired so instead my new friends Danny and Jennifer and I head over to Alpha Delta Phi for a foam party. I'm a bartender, so I'm familiar with what exactly a foam party entails, Jennifer and Danny....not so much. Danny decides he'd rather go to Random, but I manage to convince Jennifer that it will be fun. I was right, it was, and all the ADP brothers were really nice. When we left though, Jennifer was afraid of dying of hypothermia so we threw our pants in the dryer and sat around in towels waiting for them to dry. For like 5 hours. Eventually we grab our dry pants and head back to Burton Conner for a comedy movie marathon until I pass out around 3 or 4.


Saturday:

I woke up around noon to go see my friend off to the airport. After that I returned and found Snively filming the marching band. We became marching band groupies and followed them around campus. They played such awesome songs as Final Countdown and Dragonstei den tei (also known as Numa Numa) as well as the Engineer Drinking Song, which if you haven't heard you should go google immediately. The band even played for Susan Hockfield!

All this marching made us hungry, so we went back to Burton Conner for -surprise!- a barbecue! All this eating made me anxious to hear live music so I went over to Battle of the Bands. Sadly, Ben Jones wasn't playing this year, but there was an awesome band known as elephant house. I left early so I could head over to East Campus completely randomly. When I got there I met some really cool people who showed me a neat trick with Liquid Nitrogen ice cream. Trust me it's cool. Following that spectacle, my friend Jack decided that he would take me on a tour that night. After the tour, I retired back to Burton Conner for some indoor games until I got tired and went to bed.

SUNDAY
My mom insisted on waking up early and going to breakfast at Dunkin Donuts. So I met her there. I also stopped in at La Verdes for some much-needed caffeine. They had a somewhat limited selection though:

be carfeul, there is a lot of sarcasm on the floor.

Mom and I then went to the MIT museum down the street. Looking around in there was a nice way to wrap up my MIT experience. Everyone is a lot of fun, but underneath it all, there are truly brilliant minds at work. That's what is amazing about MIT to me, that the people there play as hard as they work, there is a balance between the two, work and play, mind and hand, mens et manus etc. We returned from the museum and I went back to the dorm to get my stuff. I poked Snively awake so we could take our picture and here is the result:

remember what I told you to remember? look how hosed we are!

Out the door and on a plane back to Texas. Where I could change my countdown timer on my blog from CPW to Orientation week.

only 4 months to go.


*If you enjoyed this entry, feel free to check out my entire CPW blog @ charlemagnecpw.blogspot.com

So, first of all, let me start by saying that I had come to MIT CPW with excitement but also deeply rooted stereotypes about the student population. And really, let me just say that I was completely blown away by the diversity of the campus life. I knew that MIT was an amazing school academics-wise but I was tentative about adding that little '12 after my Facebook status because I'd been, in truth, intimidated by the prospects of attending such a seemingly homogenous academic-oriented school.

Ohohoho, boy was I in for a surprise! The first night was thrilling with meeting new people and the CPW Pre-Frosh Festival. Though I unfortunately don't have any decent photos from that (many other bloggers will provide that), I was really impressed by the a capella groups, especially the MIT Logarithms. Let me just say that I also made a fool of myself by asking one of the members for an autograph which, WAS, for my friend who had been obsessing over them since she'd seen their Youtube videos. Ah...the wonders of Youtube.

Here's a photo of them in concert later on in the weekend:

Apparently there's six or seven A Capella groups. I stopped by in Lobby 7 on Saturday and watched a co-ed group:

It was just really fun to see all the random students and faculty pass by and stop to listen. There was something about that moment that showed that the community was quite closeknit in many aspects. I was just so glad to see that the arts were not underappreciated.

There was so much to do that I really felt ADD the whole time. And yes, the ubiquitous red CPW guidebook was my Bible. I think I touched base on all the categories of events. I stocked up on plenty of free food- there was food everywhere from functions to dorm dinners. My friend and I had wandered to Bexsley on our first day and managed to snag a hamburger before the residents began to notice the suspicious red CPW booklet peeking out of my purse. But asides from that incident, food was abound! Here's some delicious cupcakes we made at the Cupcake Making Event for Women at MIT:

Then a snapshot of the Dumpling Eating Contest hosted by the Chinese Club:

I swear that I was handed flyers for the Chinese Club, Korean BBQ, and a Highlighter Rave in the span of an hour. o.o Anyways, the Dumpling Contest was fun although my friends didn't win the $25 COOP giftcard. One of my friends had already won a $50 giftcard from a stock-sharing game earlier during CPW so I'd been planning to weedle the $25 giftcard from him if he had won. Alas, I ended up not even making it to the COOP because I had planned to stock up on MIT paraphernalia on Sunday, the last day and I didn't realize that my train left before the COOP opened. No worries, I ended up ordering a t-shirt online the next day.

So all in all, I met some great people, some different people, and went across the bridge to some pretty spiffy parties. The students already at MIT were really warm and helpful (I think I sat down and talked to a Philosophy major for an hour and a half before I realized that he had to work on a P-set due that night) and definitely dispelled many of my preconceived notions of the 'typical MIT student'.

Sad to leave but eager to come back to Boston in the fall!

And perhaps next time, I won't be stuck in the train station for two hours after missing my train by 3 minutes. ToT

The Thursday morning of CPW, I woke up bright and early to take a physics league test before zooming off to Metropark station to catch my 10 AM train. A couple days before, I had arranged to travel with Edward, another ‘12 from a town near by mine. We met up at the station, and to our surprise and delight, there were 4 other MIT ‘12s there, taking the same train. Here’s a picture of the six of us:

The train took around five hours to reach South Station in Boston, but the six of us entertained ourselves pretty well during the journey. Like the nerds we are, we passed time by throwing out logic puzzles for each other to solve, and math jokes, like this one:

A physicist, a biologist and a mathematician sit in a sidewalk cafe, looking at the building across the road. Two people go into the building, but three people come out.
Physicist: "This must be a measuring error!"
Biologist: "This is proof of procreation!"
Mathematician: "If one more person goes into the building, it will be empty!"

The train finally arrived at South Station at around 3:18 PM and from there we had to navigate to MIT student center. Here we are buying tickets for the T (only $2 to go from South Station to Kendall).

Look! The first sighting of the dome! We’re close.

We arrive at the check in place in the Student center around 4PM, but I had to hang around till about 4:30 before my host, Amina, arrived. She even left class early to meet up with me.

After a short walk to McCormick, we reached her room and I finally put all of my luggage down. Amina lived in a very spacious triple. I wish I had taken some pictures of McCormick; the dorm was very bright and clean. Quite a contrast from East Campus, a dorm I will visit later. But different folks, different strokes.

It turned out that two of the girls (Yun and Kathy) from the train were also temped in McCormick, and Yun had friend who was a current MIT student friend who offered to take her and any prefrosh she met to dinner in Cambridge. We headed over to the Student Center to meet him, his friends, and their frefrosh.

A thing about walking around in Cambridge: Watch out for trains. As my group was walking down a street, we only just in time noticed a freight train coming toward us and we had to sprint across the tracks. We were assured us that this was not a normal occurrence.

When we arrived at Mary Chung's too, there were some other hosts/prefrosh there too, including Joseph, who was another guest blogger. He wanted to take a picture of the table for his blog, so I took a picture of him as to not repeat pictures in these blogs.

The hosts were adamant about the “never pay for food during CPW” thing, and paid for all of us!

After dinner, I went to the biology open house, where I met up with my friend Judy, who I met at camp many years ago. I think it's great MIT can bring people together that haven't seen each other in years. I'm sure there were other people I knew previously at MIT this weekend, but with 1000+ prefrosh running around, I didn't get a chance to see them.

I then headed off to the CPW opening ceremonies and festival. It was great seeing all the activities that you can be involved in at MIT. It's also amazing how much effort the student groups put into CPW and making sure the prefrosh had a good time. There was breaking dancing, smoky soda, a HUUUGE Twister game, Bubble Tea among other things.



It was here that I met Kevin, one of the two Kevins who went upstage during the opening ceremony, but it turned out that it was not his birthday. He, Judy, and I hung out for the rest of the night. We checked out the roof party on top of Baker. The party wasn't all that great, but the view from the top of Baker is amazing. I just wish I had a better camera so I could have captured it better.



Towards the end of the night, the three of us ended up in Burton Conner, playing Uno and planning out what we would do tomorrow. We agreed upon getting up around 8:15 (blasphemy!) to go and get waffles at Next House for breakfast and then checking out some classes. The schedule for CPW is crazy. With so many activities, classes, and just plain random events (many of them hosted appropriately by Random Hall), the three of us had a pretty hard time deciding what to do.

Around 1 AM, a Burton Conner resident came in and asked who wanted a tour of the dorm. Burton Conner is a really nice dorm; if I decide to come to MIT, I think this would be one of the first choices. There were some really funny things hanging up. Like this advertisement:

And this, which had to be the world’s biggest crossword puzzle:

The tour ended around 2 AM, and I headed back to McCormick to get some sleep.

The next day, Judy, Kevin, and I met up in Next House to get waffles. Kevin went a little overboard.

I spent the majority of Friday exploring the academic part of MIT life, like classes and research and whatnot. After breakfast, Kevin and I headed to a class called Math for Computer Science. It was an unusual class, as it was taught in the TEAL mode. The students at the table we sat at were really nice; they forsaked their practice problems to talk to us about campus life.

After class, I took a tour of the applied math lab. Here’s one researcher, who modeled how thin pieces of metal came together due to surface tension when placed on water.

I wanted to go to a class in my prospective major, so I headed off to an environmental biology and chemistry class. I sat in an empty classroom for about 10 minutes with 3 other prefrosh before someone told us that the class was moved to the room right next to us.

Empty room:

Real classroom!

The professor was so enthusiastic about the subject matter and really seemed like he wanted everyone to love it as much as he did.

I left this class early to go to my UROP tour of a brain and cognitive science lab, which was gratefully located in the building right next to the one I was already it. Usually, there is a lot of walking involved when you switch events during CPW.

In the BCS building, there was a hack!

The tour was short, but pretty cool. Our guide told us that a lot of money is involved when doing neuroscience research (because of all the expensive technology you need), and MIT is a great place for this because there is a lot of funding and resources available. Here’s a picture of said expensive machine:

After my UROP tour, I hung around with some people I met and food was involved somewhere in there. We were basically biding out time till 8PM, which was when the ball drop was, at Senior Haus. They didn’t actually drop it at 8 PM, but there were A LOT of bouncy balls. Sadly, I couldn’t get a picture of the balls in mid fall, but Senior Haus looked pretty cool lit up in the dark.

I headed off to meet the bloggers and I met the bloggers. I had decent length conversations to Mollie and Chris, which was pretty cool. I also spoke to Snively for a bit. I have to say, a lot of the bloggers look a lot different in real life than they do in their banner pictures. Here’s Snively and me.

A 9, I went walking (or rather running) around campus. For a really long time too. This really cool guy named Jack led me and some friends around. Anyways, the night ended with donuts before I stumbled back to McCormick for bed, again around 3 AM.

The next morning (Saturday) was beautiful. My friends and I took this opportunity to walk around and take pretty pictures. Here’s some:

Sailing on the Charles:

Boston Citgo sign:

Runners along the river:

Wow, I bet you can get a really nice view from the top of that building:

Dome, sweet dome:

Kresge:

The Metal Sponge:

I then went to EC (the dorm) for some food with Kevin. EC is so different from McCormick and really awesome, in a crazy, vibrant, always something going on way.

Human sized hamster wheel:

We also went in the dorms to look around.

The walls of one of the lounges:

Murals along the wall:

I had to leave EC early to go the a capella concert. It was well worth going; I love a capella. All of the groups were so talented. Sadly, I don’t have much singing talent and would never be able to sing in one, but they way they harmonize everything just sends shivers down my back. All of them were amazing.

For dinner Saturday, I met up with some people from summer camp (NJ Governor’s School for Engineering) who also got into MIT or are current students, or just happened to be visiting. We all went to this small Italian restaurant in Boston, which was my first time across the bridge this weekend. MIT can’t be located in a better place. The bridge’s only .3 miles long (I checked on gmaps pedometer) and Boston’s such a nice city. The restaurant we went to was not that expensive, but really good. Here’s picture of the group in front of the restaurant:

After I ate dinner, I joined my friends at the Chinese Student’s Association for their dumpling eating contest. Whoever could eat 15 dumplings in the fastest time wins. Here are the two winners:

At night, Kathy, Yun, and I ended up walking across Harvard Bridge AGAIN to got a party at SigEp. The party wasn’t great, but we had fun amusing ourselves during our walk across the bridge.

By the time we got back, our feet were REALLY tired, and it was late, so we just sprawled out on the couch in McCormick and shot the breeze for an hour or so.

The next morning sadly, we all had to depart. Bye MIT, maybe I’ll see you next fall?

IN CONCLUSION:

CPW was great for me, as someone still deciding which college to attend, to really get to see what MIT life and culture was like. I didn’t get much sleep, but when there’s a booklet of literally hundreds of events to do, who has time for such a trivial thing? It’s amazing how much effort MIT puts into welcoming the prefrosh and how nice everyone was, ranging from the professors to the undergrads there. During the short time that was CPW, I got a taste of what the next four years could be like, and the kinds of people I will be in contact with. The future looks good.

So here I am, writing this, and it just hits me that it has been a week since I first arrived at MIT. I won't dwell on the sucky-ness of being home, but rather, I'll reminisce on the good times.

I guess I'll start off with an introduction.My name is Celena Chan. I'm 18 years old (although, I subconsciously still think I'm 13), a Californian (Nor Cal REPRESENT!), 5'2", and a lover of all things food. I was one of the students that matriculated before coming to CPW; so I came to CPW with two needs: 1) To have fun and 2) To skip school. Needless to say, both of these desires were fulfilled.

I arrived at MIT around 8 AM, after taking a 6-hour red-eye. Even though I was running low on sleep, I was so excited that my body felt as if I had been resting all my life for this weekend. I received my CPW folder (which included the Bible (CPW activities booklet), 15% discount at the COOP, $20.12 worth of TechCash, and a bunch of other miscellaneous papers), from Bryan Nance, who asked me if I was from LA. Close, but not that close. Apparently, there had been an influx of Californians during that hour. I met up with my friend Ivy, and we dragged our luggage to Baker, which is where we would be staying. One of our hosts, Julia '09, greeted us with a quick tour of her cluttered (but cozy) room. We then set out for the CPW registration hall (in the student center) again, for we were hungry and there was free food. Ivy and I spent an hour circling the events we wanted to go to. We planned to go on a campus tour (which started every half hour), but missed two of them, because we were too engrossed in our Bible. After just missing the second tour, we noticed another girl who had just missed the tour.

Enter Kavita from Florida. The three of us decided to go to New House's Prefrosh Lounge for snacks, where we saw a junk food feast laid out for us.

I am realizing now that my words aren't as interesting as pictures, so I guess I'll start to "show, not tell." (Pwahaha. How many of you guys have heard your teachers say that?)

Thursday
New House Prefrosh Lounge (Despite the sign, I saw some students sneakily taking some snacks.)

The ball pit @ Simmons Hall. It's surprising relaxing in there. The room was nice and cool (but not chilly!). The dimness of the room just screamed, "Take a nap. NOW!"

One thing I did notice in all the dorms is that there are a bunch of condoms around (Unopened ones, not used ones). W/ such great availability, there shouldn't be a need to sell them in the convenience stores.

After dinner @ Epsilon Theta (A fraternity-sorority located across the river in Brookline), we took their handy van back to campus. We walked to Random Hall (which really wasn't as far as we thought it would be), for mitBEEF.

The food was definitely creative, to say the least. However, the highlight of mitBEEF was meeting Qichen, from Wisconsin:
*As we're standing around*
Qichen: Are you Celena?
Me: Uh¡­yes?
Qichen: It's Qichen, from facebook.
Me: OMG! The girl that also likes Asian music, right? HI!!!
And that was the start of a beautiful friendship.
She joined our group of 5, and together we walked back to 77 Mass. Ave. We were 30 minutes early for the CPW Student Welcome and Icebreaker, so we decided to walk across Harvard Bridge.

Curious to see how much a Smoot was, we had 5'8" Qichen lie on the ground. Apparently, Smoot was about 5'6" ­he is not the midget we thought he was.

The night ended w/ the Baker House Rooftop Party (the view was most excellent) and across the river to the Skullhouse Monster Party. I got back to my dorm around 2 AM, and surprisingly, both my hosts were not asleep. I guess 2 AM is early on MIT terms.

Friday
We all agreed to meet for waffles at Next House at 8:15. I thought that we were pretty early, but apparently, many of the prefrosh are early risers. We had to wait a long time for waffles, but it was well worth it. The Next House Lounge is totally cozy, it's a pity that they don't serve breakfast. =(

Today we attended 8.02 (Physics II), which went way over me head within the first second because I'm just in Physics Honors. The room was pretty though.

After 30 minutes, we left the class (through the back door of course!). As we were walking down the corridor, I looked through one of the doors and saw something colorful. I decided to explore. I don't know what kind of room/space that was. But it was sure pretty.

In the afternoon, when Kavita, Qichen, and I were on our way to the Kendall Station COOP, we walked past East Campus and decided that we wanted a tour. We invited ourselves into the dorm, where we proceeded to walk up the steps. There was a guy behind us, and he offered to have someone give us a tour of 5th East. SWEET.

After shopping at the COOP, Kavita left for her Southeast Asian performances, and Qichen and I met up with Alex. We had some time to kill, so Qichen and Alex pretended to look at something in the sky, while I watched the reactions of the people around them. Unfortunately, no one paid attention. BOO.
For dinner, we headed to Phi Delta Theta for some Korean BBQ. During our wait for SafeRide, we saw this kickass (can I say that?) Mini Cooper and decided to take a picture with it. How prefrosh of us, right?

While walking back from dinner, I said:
Celena: "OMG, do you remember when we first met?"
Qichen: "We just met yesterday"
Great. I was getting nostalgic already.

Saturday (THE LAST FULL DAY!!!)
Saturday morning, our group decided to split up (for the most part) and branch out! I stayed with Qichen, and together we tackled some dorm tours. We visited McCormick and Burton-Conner, where we developed a system where we would follow the tour guide for the first 5 minutes, and then just wonder off. This method of touring turned out to be quick and efficient. At McCormick, we decided to go and grab some boba (bubble tea, pearl tea, whatever you call it). Amused by the human boba targets, we asked for a picture. I didn't know it, but it turns out that another guest blogger took our picture as well. We're looking pretty slick, aren't we?

I split from Qichen around 4, which is when I visited the MIT boathouse. I met up with some of my future teammates (Open-weight women YO!), current rowers, and my future coach Aaron Benson (the sweetest guy EVER!). The MIT boathouse reminds me of my boathouse; old, but ridiculously homey.

That night, Alex, Qichen and I met up again, and planned to go to Battle of the Bands. Before going to the 2nd floor, we decided to pick up some snacks. And low and behold, we see Paul the blogger! We had accidentally missed the Meet the Bloggers event and had been totally bummed. We weren't going to say hi at first, but then figured, "Why not?" So here we are (By the way, Paul is super cool!):

Qichen and I left Alex (who was completely entranced by the music) in the middle of Battle of the Bands to go to the dumpling eating contest. The winner was this dude from East Campus who completely ANNIALATED the whole friggin' plate in what seemed like less than a minute. The person who came in 2nd was this super small Asian girl who obviously had the metabolism of a madman. I was impressed.

Next on our list of things to do with the Graffiti Party at Phi Sigma Kappa; we met up with Qichen's friend from high school (who also happens to be a fraternity brother there), and he gave us a tour of the frat. The frat itself was really nice, lots of lofted beds, which resulted in a lot of space! Downstairs, there is a pool room, and the wall is lined with SNACKS. Frat life seems so convenient!

Sunday
Sunday was kind of slow. The fire alarm went off in Baker at around 3 AM (ARGHAGASH #@$#*@&$), just an hour after I had gone to sleep. Everyone had to file out and wait for the firefighters to scope the situation out.

When I woke up, everyone was gone from the room. I packed up my stuff, lugged it to Kresge and checked out. I spent the most cash today buying food at the airport. Nothing really happened until boarding time, when I saw Bus (a friend from school who also happens to be a prefrosh). After some negotiating we were able to arrange seats next to each other (Yeah, I know. We're good. That's why we're going to MIT).

So reflecting upon all this stuff, I'm feeling a bit strange. I miss MIT, and I miss CPW with all its overwhelming-ness. During CPW I met such a diverse array of people (By the way, did everyone start their conversations with: "Hey, my name is _______. I'm from _________. Do you plan on matriculating?", and I can't wait to meet some more. While I do understand that CPW is not exactly a picture-perfect descriptor of what MIT life will be, I've discovered that college will be what you make it to be. Call me cheesy, but it was the people I met at MIT combined with the community of the school that secures my decision to go to MIT.

If you were ever skeptical about MIT, read this entry.

MIT is intimidating. This was the first thing that I saw from the bus:

Yep, THE Stata Center. Designed by The Frank Gehry that I learned about in school.

Later, I met The Snively and The Ben Jones at check-in, and walking down The Infinite Corridor, I saw The Admissions Office:

My friend Feldman '11 walked me to The East Campus, where I was staying on The 5th floor of The West parallel.

And, I was at The MIT. It was all a little much.

Fortunately, I met some other awesome prefrosh!

Becca '12 and I at Meet the Bloggers

Tim '12 and I stuck in a knot at icebreakers Thursday night (he's the one in the gray sweatshirt).

The three of us banded together and decided on our goals: to have as much fun as physically possible, and to visit all of the dorms. And so, we began our journey.

My dad met me on campus on Friday afternoon, and after our financial aid appointment, I met back up with Becca and Tim and we went to Senior Haus for the bouncy ball drop.

Tim brought an umbrella, partially because we were expecting rain but mostly to protect us from the bouncy balls. We got some anyway, though!

After the bouncy ball drop, we journeyed to the Student Center to Meet the Bloggers. Snively was a hit with the prefrosh, as we expected.

For most of Friday, the students on my floor had been reminding me to meet Jack, who I assumed was one of their friends, at 10 for my campus tour. I told Becca and Tim about this, and despite our nerves, we decided to throw caution to the wind and leave to meet our mysterious tour guide. The tour was very long, and by the time Jack returned us to Baker House, our feet were all tired, but it was well worth it.

The campus tour that my dad lined up for us the following morning just couldn't compare, although my tour guide seemed to know Jack as well. I guess he's a rather popular guy.

My nerves were still getting the best of me, though - was MIT this fun all of the time, or was Jack just especially awesome? Did normal kids still have a good time?

Luckily, my answer came in the form of the single greatest night ever.
After Becca and another prefrosh, Megan '12, and I had gotten our fill of exploring the dorms, we journeyed to Lobby 7 to meet up with some of the actual 5th Westers to play Capture the Flag. Becca and Megan went back to their respective dorms to sleep, but I found Tim and we picked out blue t-shirts (because blue is sneakier) and waited for the next game to start.

Never before have I had so much fun doing something that involves running. Capture the Flag was simply AWESOME. Sometime in between exploring the Infinite and owning the red team, I realized something quite shocking - very few of the doors were actually locked. This quickly dissolved into poking around campus, which yielded a few interesting staircases but not much else, and I spent most of the second game exploring. Blue team still won, probably due to our unfair advantage from being sneakier.

So. Normal kids play Capture the Flag, which is awesome, but Capture the Flag only happens at CPW. I submitted this to the 5th Westers that had gotten conned into entertaining me, and they suggested something called 'chairing'.

Basically, chairing is when you take Athena cluster chairs down ramps. Tim and I had seen this going on earlier, so I knew that it was legit. It still sounded rather dangerous, and Tim had gone back to his hotel room to sleep before his flight, so I apprehensively agreed and we journeyed to building 66.
Nervously, I sat on my rolly Athena chair and pushed off the side, and discovered that...

Chairing is the single greatest thing EVER.

After trying out some different formations (line, triangle, circle), I posed my typical prefrosh question. "Is MIT this awesome all of the time?"
There was a pause before the response. "Well, we generally have homework. But, when we don't, basically, yeah."

I was hooked, and I sent in the reply form from the Athena cluster where we returned the chairs fifteen minutes later. So, that is how I became a '12.
I'm still absolutely terrified - of the work, of leaving my family, of being so far from home - but I know that if MIT is anything like what I've experienced at CPW, it will be the greatest four years of my life. And, I guess if worse comes to worse, I can just take the Athena chairs down the ramp a couple times, or organize a pick-up game of Capture the Flag, or see if I can hunt Jack down to give me another tour.

So, on Sunday morning, after managing to stay up all night long, I left East Campus for Logan airport.

On the way, I passed the Dome.

I looked for Ben to say goodbye, but he wasn't at the check-out desk.

And I realized that the hardest part about MIT just might be waiting for Orientation (well, at least until classes start). Thanks for an amazing CPW, and I'll see you all in the fall!