Clockwise from left: Me, Brandi, Nan, Geza (all '12), Denys and Jet '11, Sam '09, Gabe '11. Not shown: Shion '12.

Brandi trying hard not to be famous to the prefrosh Also shown: This picture trying hard not to be centered. Stupid HTML.

It's not my fault though. Seriously. Three years ago I wanted to get into photography. Digital cameras at the time (and now, even) being either cheap but extremely lame or prohibitively expensive but totally awesome, I turned to eBay for a classic, all-mechanical, fully manual film SLR. I won an auction for a c. 1975 Minolta SRT-202 in perfect condition, with four lenses (50mm, wide angle, fish eye, and telephoto/telezoom/close focus combo), 10 filters, and a flash. Total cost: $75. This camera has served me faithfully and it's been all over the world. It's one of my most prized possessions, but it's mostly useless for blogging.

[All photo credit to Shion '12 and her almost-broken, thrice-rinse-cycle'd digital. I'm probably getting my own camera on Black Friday so I won't have to piggyback off her anymore.]

Then on Monday I helped with the WMBR fundraising drive. I answered phones for Yves' French Toast show since he's been so kind in helping me learn to use the control board. On Wednesday, I did my show at 7am and stayed to answer phones for Ben '09. He does the almost-daily Breakfast of Champions, which has a different DJ for every day of the week. On Wednesday, all BoC hosts showed up to help Ben. The fateful combination of far too many pledge-takers and far too few pledges created a humorous desperation among us caffeine-addled radio folk. Not entirely in the right frame of mind, if the phone rang and I was more than an arm's reach away, I dove. Head first. Over a table. Maybe it was the coffee, or the hunger, or the lack of sleep, or the Saints sweatshirt I had on (one of the other volunteers christened me Reggie). I can imagine what it must have sounded like to the caller: "*CRASH* 'OUCH!' ... 'Oh, hello. WMBR.'" I think I can fairly say that I took the most pledges.

To entice more callers, Ben kept upping the ante. First, for $50, Ben would Facebook friend you. No takers. He's cool, but not pay-me-to-be-your-friend cool. For $250, all DJs in the studio would sing a song of your choosing. No takers. Seriously, how could anyone pass this up? I was disappointed and outraged that no one took advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity. Still, over a period of two hours Ben's show brought in something like $1100, which is pretty awesome. In fact, the entire fundraising drive was a success. Of our fairly optimistic goal of $70,000, we fell less than $2,000 shy. There's even still a chance that we will reach the mark since internet pledging is still open, but even as it stands now our fundraising was more successful (by percentage) than the usual performance of the NPR affiliate in Houston.

Classes started again on an uneventful Wednesday, but on Thursday evening we had an 8.01 (Classical Mechanics) exam. Everyone left the room downtrodden. I was talking to Christian and Kelsey '12 about the horror when they mentioned that they were going to the premiere of Quantum of Solace, the new James Bond movie. I got back to my room and noticed that a couple people had emailed the Next House mailing list to give away tickets to showings they were suddenly unable to attend. The physics test caused me to miss three fine opportunities to catch a midnight showing; all tickets were claimed already. At 11:30, as I was diligently working on a pset (ha! I was browsing Reddit), my little Gmail notifier turned blue and I felt a little butterfly as the page loaded. Could it be? Yes, another ticket up for grabs! I claimed it 1 minute after it was announced and ran to retrieve it. I took off sprinting all the way across campus to the Kendall Square T stop. While waiting for the next train, I saw a group of three people. Vaguely recognizing one, I asked if they too were MIT students catching the midnight show. We had a nice chat about who Bond was and what he has become (as a symbol. Not Sean Connery-->Daniel Craig. That would be a short conversation.). We arrived at the theatre near Boston Common at about 11:45. I lost the group on the way out of the station and didn't see them again in the theatre.

The terribly named movie was alright until about halfway through when I realized I hadn't completely worked out how I would be getting back, since the T stops running at about 1am. As the hordes of MIT kids exited the theatre, I miraculously ran into the same subway group again. They were three, I was one, so it was natural to split a cab together. We had to walk a couple blocks from the huge group of people by the theatre in order to hail one, but we eventually got back at around 3am. In the taxi I learned their names (Karen, Sara, and Anya, all '10) and MIT stories. We had a nice chat about how predictable James Bond movies are. They really push the line of suspension of disbelief, particularly in the newest one when Bond jumps out of an airplane with no parachute and... I don't want to spoil it for you...okay I'll say it: *Gasp* he survives.

Then on Sunday, the Next House intramural soccer team beat the Parsons Laboratory team 1-0 to (probably) advance to the playoffs! We scored on an awesome cross by Owusu '11 headed in off the crossbar by Mustafa '10. Our last match of the regular season, we improved to a record of 3-1. It was a tough game on a muddy field, especially difficult with the insane wind that caused any lobbed ball to drop like a piano from the roof of Baker. Speaking of which, I couldn't understand the weather this week: Sunny, then rain, then sunny, then overcast once more. Highs in the 60s, to the 40s, then back up to 70 and humid even as late as 9pm, falling the next day to the mid 40s again. Sometimes it's 10 degrees warmer in Cambridge than the current conditions in Houston; sometimes it's 30 degrees cooler. They've experienced consistent highs in the 70s and lows in the 40s all week. Anyways, I'm not complaining, not yet at least. But woe is this Texan on the first day of snow...which could be tomorrow!

Pablo can see this any night of the week.

As I said before, I was seriously considering the University of Chicago. That city also has a thriving blues culture, although I think at this point it's more about the history (Chess Records, anyone?) than actual live performances. Even Houston has a fair jazz scene, especially on Sunday afternoons. I thought I would be giving all this up by coming to Cambridge. Seriously, Cambridge? No musical reputation at all. Or at least word hasn't reached the south yet. But thanks to the concerted efforts of a few dedicated people, I've been proven completely wrong.

The first band I saw in Cambridge was the Peasants. I went with some of my Next House neighbors to Harvard Square on a Friday. On the way back we saw them covering some Beatles songs. They were really great, a good simple trio led by a fuzzy guitar and raspy vocals. The singer wore a denim bomber that said “This jacket kills fascists!" Not surprisingly, he urged everyone to pick up fliers for an anti-war rally and some free peacenik bumper stickers. Exactly a week later, they were performing in the same spot! They're not some band of transients, either; if you look on their website they've actually done some pretty major European tours. This second time I recognized a couple Stevie Ray Vaughan covers, and the rest was original material. So if you're ever in need of a good dose of classic rock on a Friday night, head over to the Harvard Square T Station; they seem to perform there pretty consistently.

Right after I saw the Peasants perform the second time (Oct 17), I headed back to Kresge Auditorium where the Festival Jazz Ensemble was performing for Family Weekend. I just caught the tail-end of the MIT Wind Ensemble's concert. A lot of the audience thinned out after MITWE left the stage, and let me tell you, they missed something spectacular. During the intermission between the two ensembles' concerts, I met up with Ananth '12 in Kresge's lobby where we talked about jazz for a bit. We sat together almost in the front row where we were treated to some of the best live jazz I've ever heard in my life. Dylan '12 rocked the saxophone something fierce, and Jack M '10 was thumping at his upright bass like it owed him money. The entire ensemble created such a groove, it was impossible to sit still. There were stunning moments of individual talent, particularly from their drummer Jason “Buddy" Rich. Frequently throughout the concert, Ananth and I would turn our heads and look at each other with the same dumbfounded, awestruck wide-mouthed expression. It was that good.

The next concert was the following evening as part of the WMBR Live series. Every Saturday night the campus radio station brings in two or three bands to perform at the Coffeehouse in the Student Center. On the 18th were MIT's own Supa Dupa, St. Mannequins on tour from New York, followed by the Terrordactyls, on tour from their base in Seattle (sadly I missed Supa Dupa's set, but they will be performing at WMBR Live again soon). As Keri mentioned, St. Mannequins were enormously cute. One song was about a Tyrannosaurus Rex who played in the clouds. While one of the girls of the duo sang and played the guitar, the other drew a picture! It turned out that she was actually drawing on a shirt, so one lucky audience member got an awesome souvenir tossed like a wedding bouquet. The Terrordactyls played a really good set, too. They've done work with the artist who made most of the Juno soundtrack, to give you a feel for what they sound like. St. Mannequins were somewhat similar, as well. Toned down, acoustic indie rock.

The following Thursday evening Jack the Bassist arranged for the jazz funk band Snarky Puppy, on tour from their home in Denton Texas, to give a free performance in the Hayden Library's Killian Hall. They play a style of jazz completely different from the FJE. It's got lots of almost Floydian synthesizer effects, and it's very heavy on the rhythm section. The electric bass frequently takes the lead role, and the combination of three drummers working together creates a crashing backdrop for the weaving melodies of the other instruments. Saxophone duels with trumpet on top of all this for a very layered and dense funk groove.

Before I knew it, Saturday rolled around again. I was in MedLinks CPR training all day, so I missed Fred Fest, a joint venture between WMBR and the East Campus Concert Committee. Four bands performed live in the East Campus courtyard, but unfortunately I missed every one of them. On the plus side, the CPR training didn't prevent me from attending another installment of WMBR Live! This time the station brought in MIT's own Fortran and Boston's up-and-coming bands Apple Betty and Drug Rug (don't worry, parents, their music was perfectly clean). I guess it's hard to describe music I'm not familiar with, but Fortran plays what sounds to me like shoegazer rock (edit: listen to the last minute of this stream for a good laugh). It's different from what I'm used to, but still enjoyable. Apple Betty is an all-female trio that looks incredibly cute. I thought we were in for something similar to St. Mannequins, but their set was full of hard rocking punk songs. Half the audience were jumping up and down in an MIT version of a mosh pit. But it was the final act that totally stole the show—Drug Rug. Their lineup includes a drummer, bassist, singer/guitarist, and a mandoliner. Uhh, mandolinist? A mandolin player. The lead singer is a petite girl who plays a guitar as big as she is, but she can really, I mean really belt out a tune. They're such a dynamic band, too. The mandolin player and guitarist would switch lead and rhythm roles on the fly within songs (their sounds really aren't that different). Occasionally in the middle of a solo she would fall to her knees, close her eyes, and make a face of pure pleasure. Everything about the performance, from the passionate soulful vocals to the screeching blues/rock solos, was perfect. The radio station broadcast Drug Rug's performance live on the airwaves, and they keep a streaming archive of their shows that anyone with a media player can listen to. However, only station members have access to mp3s of the shows (I haven't mentioned this before but I'm a new DJ at WMBR...more on that later), so I downloaded the hour long file and used Audacity to split it into tracks. I used their MySpace and Amazon pages to name the songs as best I could, tagged them with track numbers, artist, and album information, whipped up a pseudo-Pie album cover, and uploaded a .zip of the performance to my MIT webspace. Now you too can experience the MIT blues scene! Just click here. Enjoy! The last one, “For the Rest of Your Life," is my favorite, and they almost weren't going to play it. If you listen to the concert, you'll hear the audience refuse to let Drug Rug leave the stage and demand to hear one last song.

So who brings these artists to the Coffeehouse and Killian Hall? It's the WMBR management, headed by Ben '09 and Jack '10, two of the most awesome people I've met so far. They're just regular students (and DJs), but they organize and promote concerts by some extraordinarily talented bands. I'm sure it's a great way to develop and hone leadership and management skills.

The best part of these concerts is that they have all been 100% free. You can also snatch some cool swag like radio station temporary tattoos and stickers, and the WMBR Live series generally feature cookies and soft drinks.

If you're keeping track there at home, that's eight bands in nine days. As you can see, there's a thriving music scene here at MIT, something had no idea about until I got here. I'm not saying that it's a deal maker or breaker, but I could definitely have used the information in making my decision. In any case, I know for sure that I can still make that speakerphone call to Pablo at least once a week.

Whereas the science and math classes are arranged after you arrive to MIT, rising freshmen enter a lottery during the summer for their HASS course preferences. There are some really exciting classes that are available for freshmen to take. I had a hard time selecting my top preferences; I was torn between 24.02, Moral Problems and the Good Life, and 21H.001, How to Stage a Revolution. On the one hand, Moral Problems sounded like a really awesome debate class, touching on subjects like objective goods, rational desire, and pleasure. On the other hand, How to Stage a Revolution* has the coolest course name in all of academia.** It's a history class where students analyze “fundamental questions about the causes and nature of revolutions.”

*An aside: My classmates in senior year voted me most likely to lead a revolution.
**Aside II: It was even submitted to reddit.com, and no, not by me, not even by an MIT person.

In the end the lottery granted me 24.02, but this conflicted with my chemistry lecture. As I mentioned before my advisor was really good about, well, advising me on what to do. I “shopped” around by attending some HASS lectures of classes that fit my schedule. I looked into three courses, but the only one that really stood out to me was 21L.011, The Film Experience. I emailed the professor about signing a form that would officially enter me into the class, and he replied that it wouldn't be a problem. A couple days later and my online schedule reflected the change—conflict successfully resolved!

The class is amazing. On Tuesdays there are two lectures about the history of film and particular directors' styles. Professor Thorburn usually throws in some short film clips in his lectures to illustrate the points as he's making them. On Tuesday evenings after the last lecture the teaching staff screens the week's movie. We're not required to stay for the movies since they usually run past 10:30pm, and the staff also makes sure that every movie is available in the Film Office. On Thursdays we have recitation sections in much smaller groups of students. My section has something like 15 people in it, which provides for a great environment to have an open discussion about aspects of the films of the week. My recitation leader is also a published writer of fiction, so it's not like a bunch of college students talking about random things. The recitations are free-form but directed.

About every month we have a paper due on one of about 30 topics (or you can make your own). The fantastic thing about the papers, though, is that there's effectively a week-long grace period for turning them in. If you hand in your paper before the grace period starts, you will get your paper back with comments and a preliminary grade before the grace period is over. You can choose to revise your paper with these comments in mind, as long as your turn it in before the week is over. Your preliminary grade disappears and is replaced with the grade of the revision. This really helped me on the first essay, since I had a big decision to make about the direction of my paper. I talked to my recitation leader and she was very helpful with my revision. Unfortunately, this revision policy isn't uniform across HASS classes, and it would be pretty difficult to identify the courses that offer it (it's not in the syllabi or course descriptions).

Overall, though, the best thing about the class has to be the movies. I mean, we get to watch great films by legendary directors like Chaplin, Keaton, Capra, and Hitchcock for credit. And the way Prof. Thorburn puts each movie in context truly makes it an experience, more than just entertainment. We get the stories behind the films, the “inside scoop” on the way they utilized new film technology or the camera techniques and plot devices the legends used to turn Hollywood on its head. And in the end, if you can really savor a film (or a book for that matter), writing a paper about it isn't as much a chore as it is a reconfirmation of your bond with the work. That sounds sappy, but it's true. It's so easy for me to write about Buster Keaton where I had trouble in high school writing about, say, The English Patient. All in all, 21L.011 is turning out to be an awesome experience, and I look forward to the movies we'll watch throughout the remainder of the semester.

We the class of 2012 waged epic battle tonight.

It all began with the 2012 Class Council emailing everyone with the results of the class sweatshirt design contest.* In that email, they also sent a link to a Google Docs spreadsheet where we were supposed to fill in our names and sizes. I realized right away what they had done. They expected us to treat a completely unmoderated shared document with respect and dignity.

*To be perfectly clear, I don't want to discuss the merits of the hoodie designs. I just want to share a fun experience.

Of course, this did not happen. I wrote a message in the blank space to the right of all the ordering data. I don't remember what it was exactly, but it was something to the effect of “You should have used a Google Form instead of a Google Spreadsheet.” This was immediately deleted by someone, so I posted it again. People caught on, and all of a sudden people were going off on semi-anonymous tangents about how they didn't like the design.

Minutes later, every freshman got another email: “Since people are messing with the spreadsheet, there is now a FORM you MUST fill out if you want a sweatshirt.” So they deleted my advice, and then took heed of it. Whatever, anything to make the administration run more smoothly. Except that the link to the form didn't work. For anyone.

No big deal so far. No one revolting, just a couple of data-entry failures on the part of our class council. Then one brave soul went where no one else dared to go at the time. He dissented to the entire class of 2012 in a very politely worded email about how he disagreed with the choice of design. Another person replied back, agreeing. The only other option for the night being homework , I did the same, pointing out the complete lack of transparency in the selection process (Note also that I am now blogging about this; I really don't feel like working right now).

And so it continued, the messages getting more insulting as the thread snowballed. Someone made a secure poll where we could vote on whether or not we approved the design. Of course, people spammed the class of 2012 mailing list with spam against spamming, the irony completely lost on them. Someone pointed out that with so much dissent, our class leaders should at least reconsider the sweatshirt design. Another retorted, correctly, that this was a biased sample—only dissenters would get involved with the flame war.

Then our class president emailed me personally, saying pretty much that the decision had been made and that the executive board won't be reconsidering the decision. I posted a link to a design that my friend had entered to the contest, and a fair amount of people agreed that they would prefer his 300-themed design over the one that was chosen. In sending that design to the class of 2012, I effectively doubled the number of entrants to the contest that our class had seen (the other being, of course, the winner). This point resonated and I got a few favorable responses.

A faction of students set up a meeting place and time to discuss the production of their own independent design. The war also went on a mini-tangent of people cooking up copy pasta of entire Dostoevsky works from Project Gutenberg.The thread by now had garnered 80-some responses, and then the 2012 president went back on his word.

In a truly great show of compassion, sensibility, and reason, our president emailed his fellow classmates. He informed us that he has called a special meeting for our class council to discuss what action should now be taken. He admitted that there were mistakes in the way the selection was handled and that all decisions from now on will be more transparent.

For this, I would like to thank the president. He showed great humility and poise in dealing with massive hoardes of angry classmates. He owned up to the council's mishandling of the situation and he sincerely apologized. Frankly, I feel comfortable that future decisions regarding our class will be in safe hands.

Because you see, we've learned something today. If you disagree with your leadership, speak up! Get the snowball moving! I'm really grateful that the one person spoke up at the very beginning, because we started a flame war, yes, but at the end of the day, we did change something. The class council will at least reconsider not only the decision, but also the decision-making process. Even if we end up with the same sweatshirt, we did something tonight that will alter our next four years here at MIT. Not to mention the fun of a great flame war.

And that's all anyone can ask for, isn't it?

I first started researching colleges to build my list in August of my senior year. We had done the campus visits—the Eastern seaboard trip to hit the Ivies, the midwest trip to hit the Chicago and St Louis schools. Nothing really stood out to me until did more research on the University of Chicago. They are weird. Really weird. I liked it a lot because it stood out in its rejection of the stuffiness and pretension of the Ivy culture. Plus, I was confident I could get in, so I decided to apply early action.

My dad went to MIT for undergrad school and was convinced that I should seriously consider applying, and hopefully attending, the institution. To me, at that point, there was nothing wrong with MIT. It was just my dad's school, and he was pressuring me, so naturally I resisted his influence. I agreed to apply early action here, too, since thankfully both schools have non-binding EA policies.

I put off the MIT application until the very last minute, and I tried to rehash as much of my Chicago essays as possible. But man, did I perfect the UC application. I relished their Uncommon Application, which is now, ruefully, a bit more Common. My essays were perfect. I knew I would get in. I was almost certain that I would get rejected from MIT, and I let my dad know. “You should have more confidence!” “Well, they should accept more than 13% of their applicants then, thank you very much.”

I got accepted into the University of Chicago early action, and life was set for me. Two days later, I was deferred by MIT—no big deal, wasn't even considering it. I sent my deposit and housing application to Chicago within the month of December.

Except then I got into MIT in March. This complicated matters considerably. It was family meeting time, and I realized how brash my decision was. My dad didn't force me to go to MIT, don't get me wrong. He just had me reconsider.

So I did. I compared lots of things, made a checklist. We visited both universities, again. The schools were pretty much tied in terms of campus culture and workload. I want to major in economics on a pre-med track, and the schools' econ departments are regarded highly enough that there wasn't a significant difference. So another tie there. In retrospect, I don't know why I was so gung-ho about Chicago. Every quality of that school is duplicated at MIT, from the sense of humor to the academic rigor and prestige. It may have been the pure oddity of the application. A coinflip would have been a worthy judge. At this point I went to my teachers and counselors to find an unbiased opinion. I learned that MIT has an acceptance rate to medical school one and a half times that of Chicago. Looking over the course requirements, it became clear that Chicago is a liberal arts school with a strong science department, while MIT is a science school with a strong liberal arts department. I liked the MIT approach better. And I guess in the end, it's pretty cool that I'm going to the same place as my dad. I have the chance to room in the same dorm, as well. In the end, I'm extremely pleased with my decision, and Chicago was very nice about my rescinding the decision. They even gave me a refund on the deposit.

Slightly over a month of classes later, and I'm completely satisfied with my decision. I've never felt out of place here, which was my main concern. I've found quite a few organizations where I fit in and can talk about my interests with like-minded people. I thought I would be surrounded by geeks and nerds all the time, but I was really surprised by how normal most people are. Of course, there are some wunderkinds, and sometimes I feel woefully average, but that's a nice ego-deflater coming out of the top rankings of my high school. Nothing to get depressed over, really.

I guess it's clear that this is not the typical MIT application story. From what I've read/heard, everyone has been living and breathing it since freshman year of high school. Is it ironic or fitting that I, a legacy admit, wasn't enamored until two months before the May response deadline?

Any current students want to weigh in on their stories?