Laura N. '09 | September 21, 2006
"Amazin'"
My Mets clinched the NL East, and I am crazy psyched. Whoo!
So what else has been going on in my life? You know, school and stuff. While I'm slowly making my way through descriptions of classes, I might as well talk about 2.001.
2.001, Mechanics of Materials, is pretty straightforward stuff. As its number may imply, it's the first Mechanical Engineering class, and you pretty much just sum forces all day long. The sum of the forces always equals zero, or else you did it wrong and life is unhappy. Basically 2.001 teaches you the stuff you need to know to figure out that suspension bridges should be made out of concrete and not silly putty, which would obviously be a bad idea.
In other school news, for those of you who were wondering about my programming issues (why is d+=1 legal normally but not when it comes right after the else command?): Rick helped me figure it out via the "janitor effect" as he called it (explaining the problem to someone else suddenly makes the solution clear). Rick is in 6.001, which uses scheme, and since he was the only person nearby who had any programming experience that I knew of, I asked him. He was giving me all these suggestions that were unfortunately unhelpful, when I realized: duh! It's not else d+=1, it's else, colon, return, tab, d+=1. *smacks forehead* I'm new at this, ok? It happens.
Now that I've shared my stupidity with everyone on the planet with an Internet connection, let me redeem myself by saying that I have successfully written, among other things, a program that takes the standard deviation of a set of numbers. Which really isn't cool by itself, but it becomes a lot cooler when set next to the "I forgot to indent the condition of my else command." So there.
And now, for some photos of the magic that I worked in my room. First, some before pictures.
And then, some "middle" pictures (these photos represent the longest stage of the whole process by far):
And then, after some painting and rearranging and unpacking...
I love being able to paint my room. =) I was worried that the green was a little too dark, but then I got the floor lamp at Target for $15. That's right, fifteen dollars! And now my room is awesome. The end.
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Responses To This Entry:
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It's super awesome ;)
About the programming stuff... I have to get used to C++ after Pascal :) I need someone who will constantly remind me it's not if then anymore ;)
Posted by: Sanja on September 21, 2006 03:32 AM
Hey Sanja,
Yeah, I had the exact same problem switching from QBASIC to C++ and Java. I'd constantly put my for loops as
for i=1 to 10
...
next
I'd also forget my semicolons all of the time. Ah well. I've never actually tried Pascal, myself.
Anyway... Room looks great! Its awesome that MIT allows you to do whatever you like to your room. I really like that shade of Blue/Green, btw.
One last random comment. That blue sticker that says "Slow Down"? That reminds me of an excellent bumper sticker. It is printed in blue, and says, "If red, you are going too fast." Great reference to the doppler effect, and quite funny.
Posted by: Adam on September 21, 2006 08:24 AM
Adam - different dorms have different painting policies.
Burton-Conner's goes something like...get permission, and paint it back at the end of the year.
Some of the dorms on the east side of campus have looser policies, and some other dorms on the west side have stricter ones.
Posted by: Evan Broder '10 on September 21, 2006 08:40 AM
Also, for the record, Laura happens to be referring to Python. I know this because she's taking a class I really wanted to take (and couldn't because of freshmen course load restrictions) and might still take next semester.
Posted by: Evan Broder '10 on September 21, 2006 12:29 PM
i'm having similar problems with getting back to C (we're "learning" it at school). i've been programming in PHP whole summer and got used to it :) the only solution is programming :D
you did a good job with the room ;) and the lamp is awesome! my room isn't big enough for a floor lamp :( i must buy one if i get into mit :)
Posted by: Sh1fty on September 21, 2006 03:08 PM
the room looks awsome...:p and i've noticed you like greenday...they have really great songs...:P
i don't really know how to say this but i've been trying to find a forum on ther MIT site but didn't succed...:( i would like to speak with an MIT student so i can't really get a glimpse of how life is in MIT...because i was thinking of applying...if someone can help me...please e-amil me: mozoleu17@yahoo.com...thanks...
Posted by: mike on September 21, 2006 05:34 PM
You have a Pirates of the Caribbean/Orlando Bloom calendar. You are now officially my hero.
And your room is gorgeous =]
Posted by: faye on September 21, 2006 07:26 PM
Very nice! That's similar to the color I painted my room at home--I was going for a carib. / aqua color.
Posted by: Sam Jackson on September 22, 2006 06:02 PM
Hi Laura,
MIT has always been my dream school and I was really exited to see that you did a blog for them (I've been reading your blogs for quite a while) I don't know if you remember me. I was a freshman and you were a junior. Remember you adopted me and Ahsung during gym and like told us all about High Tech and stuff? I don't think I ever got around to thanking you about that - thanx and you're awsome.
I would love to talk to you. Please email me back.
Liza
Posted by: Liza on September 23, 2006 08:54 AM
I'm so glad there are METS fanatics in Boston. I also agree that Jersey Girls have an additude that no one else can match.
Central Jersey Represent.
Posted by: Amy on September 25, 2006 06:59 PM
love the room! I think I see a Green Day poster, and a POTC calender in there....
The programming...At the risk of repeating what everyone else has said so far, don't worry about it. As long as you know the actual procedure to do it, it doesn't matter if you make mistakes in the writing. You'll get around it. Languages are just monkey tricks, it's the method that matters.
So what are you planning to major in?
Posted by: Kiran on September 30, 2006 03:47 PM
