Daniel Barkowitz | September 03, 2008
"Hard Reboot"
So on Monday morning I was awakened from a pleasant dream of... I don't remeber... to the sound of my cable box switching off and on... off and on... in constant motion... off and on... off and on...
Wow, talk about a rude awakening! And welcome to September. Home of the hard reboot.
Classes start again (MIT students roam the hallways like eager beavers ready for dam(n) contruction, my kids started back at their elementary and middle schools today, and I start classwork toward my PhD tomorrow), activities begin anew (I had my first planning meeting for religious school yesterday, met with my MIT advisees last week, and all of the theater / voice / chorus / etc. parts of life start in the next several days), and the days of summer seem already just a distant memory.
Welcome to September.
And the hard reboot continues... We are thrilled to announce that we have hired two new staff for the positions of Assistant Directors of Financial Aid and they both will be joining us in the next several weeks. I'll introuduce them in a future post, but we were really incredibly pleased with the caliber of candidates we received in the application process and look forward to them joining our ranks!
And speaking of reboots, how about one for the blog. Time to restart the effort and get back to business here as well... What sorts of things would you like to know about MIT from a financial perspective? What can I offer you about the culture, the place, the "behind the scenes" view that will help you understand this place even better? Let me know so that I can try to address your questions and concerns in upcoming posts.
And feel free to share your own hard reboot story. How do you feel as the year begins anew? I think the Hebrew calendar has it right; the year does begin in September...
And just in time for the start of the Fall TV season (another hard reboot), today my wife picked up a new digital cable box (SOOOO tiny) and I have a list of shows to TiVo... Ben, are you watching 90210, the hard reboot?
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Responses To This Entry:
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tou xiang!
that is all.
Posted by: Anonymous on September 3, 2008 10:49 PM
Now Chris just has to tell us the right way to do "2nd!"...
:)
Posted by: Daniel Barkowitz on September 3, 2008 10:57 PM
NOOO. NOT THE BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH!!! ARHHHHHHHH!!!
Well, here's my tale when I was 13 - it's a story that I feel sorta proud of, even though it's not much to be proud about :P.
My dad is a camera freak, and naturally he would upload pictures onto my mother's laptop. But one day, he uploaded one picture too many, and... the blue screen of death came up. And it didn't go away. My dad tried numerous ways to fix the laptop - he called Dell support, sent the computer to a maintenance center, etc. No success. The blue screen of death would render the computer useless for the next two years.
Two years later, I decided to give it a shot (not before getting my parents to promise that I could have the laptop if I fixed it. My parents didn't really think I could, but why let a kid's hopes be crushed? o__O). I looked up the blue screen of death online, burned an XP expansion pack disk, stuck it into the computer and set it to boot disk upon... boot. And, presto. The computer was good as new.
That's it. That's all it took. Sticking the original windows XP disk into the CD-Drive upon booting the computer.
Too bad I ended up killing that laptop after it overheated though.
Haha, it was sorta funny, and odd that the Dell guys didn't get it work :)
Posted by: wendi on September 3, 2008 11:28 PM
I wouldn't consider all in that post to be a hard reboot since hard reboots are usually done when something goes wrong. I would consider them more of a return from hibernation.:)
My hard reboot story? 12th grade begins in less than two weeks and it gonna be a long year with all the SAT Subjects and admission hassle...I just hope I won't have a BSOD myself, I know my computer won't, it runs Ubuntu :D
Posted by: Manuel R. Ciosici on September 4, 2008 02:39 AM
My BSOD story isn't really about me but about my school. The first week of school, all the computers on campus got a new anti-virus software and they all had to face the BSOD, most of them have been saved, though some are still with the dark side.
By the way Mr. Moneyman, did you get the thank you card I left for with your secretary at the beginning of last month? If not, then thanks for the presentation you gave MITES this summer, we all appreciated it.. A LOT.
Posted by: Ester on September 4, 2008 02:50 AM
I did Ester! Thank you so much! Made my month!!!!
I had such a good time with the MITES group... Always a bunch of fun!
Posted by: Daniel Barkowitz on September 4, 2008 10:43 AM
@ Daniel Barkowitz
I know that MIT is need blind and uses need base to establish the financial aid values for both residents and international students.
What I don't understand is the use of Scholarship.
Since the student will already receive financial aid from MIT, depending on the student's family income there is a value he must pay monthly, is the Scholarship only used to help the student pay what the financial aid didn't cover and/or lower the amount of aid MIT will would have needed to give to that particular student?
Is financial aid, no matter if its from MIT or Scholarship, used just on tuition or can it also be used on dorm and meal plan as well?
Not sure if you can answer this or if I should ask admission's office: If a student has a scholarship, before getting into MIT, can that help his application by showing that he was good enough to receive the scholarship, or will it be indifferent since MIT is need blind in the admission process?
I hope that all made sense
thanks in advance
Posted by: Ivan on September 4, 2008 12:46 PM
