On one such cold day, Swetha '13, Carin '13, Divya B. '13, Jeanne '13 (all of whom you might have heard about before), and I decided to spontaneously take a trip to Harvard Square. We used the tunnels to make our way to Kendall, the closest T-stop.

The following was born of that endeavor (video-editing credit goes to Carin '13). Note that in real life, we are not quite so eccentric as we seem in this video :) Enjoy!

This trek was made more memorable by the following episode:

(Jeanne and I spot a group of girls clustered together, gossiping happily, oblivious to our presence)

Me: *Wonder, disbelief, further laughter*

These soundbites are so normal here at MIT. Biology, Harry Potter, derivatives, and vectors all merge themselves into casual conversations. What results is random but hugely entertaining discussion, during which I often wish my capacity to remember clever comments were more refined.

Pictures make MIT's sporadic wit much more memorable:

The above sight met my eyes this past Tuesday night, as I walked in my physics classroom for a late-night review session. Somehow, I paid more attention to this than I did to polar coordinates and dot products; the pure unexpectedness of seeing moment of inertia linked to the Yankees tickled my sense of humor to no end. I believe my love for MIT, slightly ragged due to the endless wear of psets and midterms, was renewed the second I saw this picture.

In chem class on Wednesday, this reborn enthusiasm was solidified with the sight of the following experiment, embedded here with permission from Professor Schrock:

I'm so glad I go to school here.

So I spontaneously pushed submit. A week before the EA deadline. It felt good.

But then, I found a spelling mistake. And nearly died of panic. After receiving repeated reassurances on College Confidential that my tiny error would not cause me to be instantly rejected from MIT, I calmed down slightly, went trick-or-treating for Halloween, and stalked the application tracker on myMIT.

I couldn't sort out my thoughts; I felt anxious about my application, impatient for decisions, reluctant to do my other apps, doubtful of my prospects. There were nearly a dozen people applying from my school alone, and I couldn't help but think that compared to them, I didn't stand a chance.

And now I'm wondering - To all of you who just clicked 'submit' on your EA apps: what thoughts are racing through your minds? Do you feel exactly as I did?

Let me know
Just below
Because that's where
Your comments go

^ Check out my poetry skizzles :)

Much to the amusement of floormate Swetha '13 and with the full support of my roommate Jeanne '13, I pulled out my camera and literally took pictures for about ten minutes:

All my pictures turned out like this...it was snowing, I promise!

Clearly, I'm from Texas :) And the first snow of the 2009-2010 academic year was pretty exciting to me.

But not nearly as exciting as President Obama's visit to campus today!

I was unfortunately not one of lucky students to score an invitation to his speech; thus, my hopes of seeing President Obama were forced to realize themselves through a more creative outlet.

It all began on the balcony of the McCormick's East Tower Penthouse. Unable to see through the trees that lined the streets and ordered not to leave the confines of McCormick, Swetha '13, Carin '13, Divya B. '13 and I sought an aerial view of President Obama's arrival. We were soon joined by others, who seemed to have had the same bright idea. We stood out there, victims of the natural elements, for about an hour.

This is me being cold:

L-R: Me, Shireen '13

This is everything being so completely worth it:

Did you hear the voices at the end of the video? That was Secret Service! WE GOT KICKED OUT BY SECRET SERVICE!!!! How exciting is that??! They TALKED to us. And we didn't get arrested! Or shot by the snipers:

As you can no doubt tell, I was a little hyper by this time.

And the fun wasn't even over! We left the penthouse and headed to various other locations in the building, hoping to continue following Obama's trail through MIT. We eventually settled in the dining hall, where we watched the live stream of the president's speech:

And then the best part:

WE SAW HIM AS HE LEFT! In the second limo! Ahhhhhhh!!!!! If only my video-editing skills were more impressive, I would zoom in - over and over and over again. And then all of you could see him too! But for now, you simply have to believe me when I say we were less than five feet away from the president of the United States.

Things were slightly anti-climactic after that. Within a couple of hours, the barricades were removed, the number of security personnel dwindled, calc lecture took place as usual, and only the shiny, recently-cleaned windows of Kresge Auditorium hinted at the fact that the president had just visited campus.

In other news: Happy Mole Day, everyone!

Around 3 pm yesterday, Jeanne's phone rang and we went to meet our overnight guest (who was suitably impressed by our vanilla-scented plug-in air freshener). And then we played host!

In the course of 24 hours, our visitor got a glimpse of sorority life at MIT, witnessed some pre-test tension (and post-test sluggishness), watched MIT Symphony Orchestra rehearse, attended classes, and wandered all about the MIT campus, past Athena clusters, through the Infinite, and into the tunnels.

She seemed pretty happy when she left:

(L-R: Jeanne, Jeanne's prefrosh)

Which in turn really makes me wish I'd visited more colleges while applying last year. As awesome as these blogs are, there's only so much you can gather from small black letters pasted against an artificially-lit screen. Could I have seen the smoke that filled my floor after an effort to microwave a bagel pizza went terribly astray? Could I have chatted with the marathon runners, pageant winners, Intel finalists, RSI/WTP alumni that I've lived and learned with these past few weeks? Could I have witnessed first-hand the hilarious jigs my professors perform to demonstrate level curves and rotational modes?

Not really.

So the moral of the story is: COME VISIT. Discover the various pains and pleasures of MIT for yourself, and give me a chance to play host again! There's always something going on at MIT, so any time is a good time to visit.

And if you really can't make it, no worries. I lived vicariously through the blogs last year; I wouldn't say it's a bad thing :)

So this week, I decided to shape up a little. By this, I mean: get more sleep, be more productive, win at life. Huzzah!

With this noble intention in mind, I woke up bright and early on Sunday morning, gathered my books, went to a study room, and didn't move for about four hours, during which time I read avidly for 18.02 (Multivariable Calculus) and STS.005 (Disease and Society in America a.k.a. my humanities class for this semester).

Now I'm basically best friends with partial derivatives. I probably know more about smallpox and swine flu than I do about myself. The Lagrange multiplier no longer bamboozles my intellect. If I ever met Charles Rosenberg (author of several STS.005 readings), I could impress him with my summaries of his work.

Best of all, I've gotten seven hours of sleep every single day this week, my eating schedule again possesses (whoa, there are a lot of s's in that word) a semblance of normalcy, and MIT appears much less intimidating.

That's not to say it's easy.

This semester, in accordance with the freshman credit limit, I'm taking four classes (STS.005, 18.02, 5.112 - Principles of Chemistry, 8.01 - Physics) and a seminar (The Art and Science of Medicine). They're all great courses, but the homework is so, so time-consuming. Chem and Calc have problem sets due each week. Physics too has p-sets, but (thankfully!) they're never due/graded. My seminar has weekly readings, but it's so awesome that I don't even mind staring at multiple pages of scientific jargon. My HASS is fascinating, not the least because I get to see Winnie-the-Pooh cartoons (in which Pooh makes fun of Piglet for having swine flu) and hear various Jay Leno quotes.

Because I'm taking three GIRs this semester, I have a lot of classes with friends and dorm-mates. When it comes time to do homework, we often work together, wake each other up from sporadic naps, make coffee runs, and watch "Whose line is it anyway?" during study breaks.

Just a few hours ago, I put all our study sessions to the test as I took my first 5.112 exam of the year. As I scrawled energy equations all over my test booklet and frantically tried to finish problem 5 in the allotted time, I realized just how legit the work-energy relation is in real life. I've seriously never accomplished anything worthwhile while worn-out or exhausted. Which is why I'm liking this whole seven hours of sleep + regular meals dealio.

Now, who thinks I can keep it up?

I haven’t had much time for video-chatting since then.

Instead, I’ve walked all over Boston with my pre-orientation group, spent several minutes trying to pick flawless apples at Honey Pot Hill orchards, fallen in love with my roommate’s gummy bear vitamins, discovered the necessary evil of laundry, watched the sun set in the McCormick penthouse, attempted to create edible meals, and lost sleep over p-sets, late-night movies, and spontaneous midnight dance parties made possible by Jay Sean.

I’ve learned a couple things. Like how leaving your entire p-set untouched till the night before it’s due is clearly not a wise decision. And how the many incredible events at MIT all somehow schedule themselves at the same time and cause tangible sensations of grief and I-wish-I-had-Hermione’s-time-turner yearning. And how old habits die hard: all efforts to convince my body to forgo its established biorhythms and allow me to sleep in when possible have failed emphatically.

These past few weeks, I’ve made these small discoveries and others on my own. But now that the other ‘13s (plus Celena!) and I are on the blogs, it’s time that you all joined in on our various escapades. Tell me what you want to hear about or see, ask me questions, buy me tickets to the October 26 Jay Sean concert (hehe, just kidding about the last one). Whatever it is, I’m here for you! As time goes on, I’ll share more of my admissions story, my interests, my dreams.

For now, I just want to say hi. And welcome to my world.