"My advice to a high school student interested in science as a career would be to forget all the stuff they tell you in the textbooks about the answers. My advice to a high school sophomore or junior considering a career in science would be to close the science textbook for a minute and forget all the answers that their texts purport to be telling them.

What you should steep yourself in is the ignorance, in what we don't know.

What is fascinating about science is to define the questions.

When we teach science in the high schools we try to teach people all the answers. Well, that's the answers to old dusty questions.

What we should be teaching people is how to ask good new questions. It is a tremendous art to ask good questions. To look at a situation and see that there is something going on and articulate clearly what is it that you want to know about that. To be willing to risk and to explore.

I'm sorry in a way that we don't capture it in the high school textbooks, high school curriculum, because we have to impart knowledge. But in fact it is ignorance that drives us. If we had knowledge about everything there would be no point in going into science.

And so what we have to do is convey our tremendous excitement about our ignorance, the wonderful potential of ignorance, and then we have to teach people how it is that you take raw ignorance and turn it into processed ignorance, and processed ignorance, well-defined ignorance, well-asked questions that we don't know the answer to, that's the root of experiment. It is processed ignorance, carefully constructed ignorance, and apply it to the situations.

I think kids interested in science should look around the world and start asking questions. And don't worry so much about all the facts that are in the books. Ask questions."

- Professor Eric Lander, Professor of 7.012 (Introductory Biology), Director of the Broad Institute, Co-Chair of Obama's President's Council on Science and Technology.

-----

So every semester, iHouse (my dorm, for those who are just tuning in ;) I really should do this more often, since I've been writing on this for so long that I assume you all know everything about me....OR DO YOU?!?! *runs away and hides* =/) does a "Project Presentations Dinner" where dormmates who did international development projects abroad during the summer or IAP can come back and present to the rest of the dorm (and to the faculty and other staff advisers that oversee iHouse) what we did. We also currently have a strong working relationship with the Spurs-Humphrey Fellows Program, so the Fellows were invited to join us for dinner as well.

If you're curious, you can hear from Helen '12, Sophia '10, Kathy '10, Mary '11, and Kayla '12 about the projects they did in Uganda, India, Cameroon, and the Philippines!

And I will stop writing here, because I realize that I have a tendency to fit way too much text in one entry. :)

ANDDD I wanted to include this picture of Tiantian and Marisa. Haha our froshies are so cute. :)

+1000 points to the person who can guess what they were for Halloween. :D

"MIT is a very good place; I'm not trying to put it down. I was just in love with it. It has developed for itself a spirit, so that every member of the whole place thinks that it's the most wonderful place in the world--it's the center, somehow, of scientific and technological development in the United States, if not the world. It's like a New Yorker's view of New York: they forget the rest of the country. And while you don't get a good sense of proportion there, you do get an excellent sense of being with it and in it, and having motivation and desire to keep on--that you're specially chosen, and lucky to be there.

-Richard P. Feynman, Nobel Laureate in Physics, 1965.

-----

"baby don't worry / you are my only / you won't be lonely / even if the sky is falling down"

6:14 AM. AOL Radio is on the background, tuned to the Top 40 station.

The desk area is a confusion of research journals, lecture printouts, and the Cell Biology textbook carelessly thrown to one side, next to the trash can.

Carbon sequestration. Climate change. Ocean fertilization. Albedo. Pyrolysis and biochar. It's a little bit hard to imagine that all of these things have merely been nominal knowledge just a couple of hours ago. Five hours of wading through countless journal articles and eight double-spaced pages in Word later, everything made sense. Or at least I hope it did.

Reading articles advocating painting all roofs white to increase the albedo of the planet reminded me immediately of Greece, confirming the fact that the ancient Greeks and Romans pretty much discovered everything already 2500+ years ago.

The blinking cursor on the open Word window prompted me, hungry for more text. The slightly chilly breeze is blowing in from the windows, no doubt the remnant of freak mini snow shower the day prior.

I hear Kayla '12 get up in the room next to mine, and she soon peers into the room -

"Long night?"

"Yeah."

"Do you have a moment?"

6:40 AM and one riveting discussion on Kayla's ongoing project in the Philippines (on gastrointestinal worms) later, I'm back to working on my Ecology paper.

The sun is rising outside, peeking over the Charles. But that's okay. It's just another day in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Clouds at dawn one morning - I'm still constantly awed at how beautiful the change of seasons can be in New England. This is nothing short of a Monet, and it's right in front of you! (although I was semi-freezing to death when I took this, since I ran out the door with the camera without bothering to put on a sweater :P)

-----

"you can never say never / while we don't know when / but time and time again / younger now than we were before"

I vaguely remember taking a shower. I vaguely getting into bed. I vaguely remember hearing the alarm ring. I peer over.

Oh crap. Oh crap.

12 minutes later, I'm seated at Walker Memorial, a gymnasium eternally dedicated to the extreme sport of taking MIT exams.

I stare at the folio of white papers before me, wondering how many times I've done so before already, sitting in these red chairs of Walker. It's always these packets of white paper - the morning sunlight is always streaming through the upper windows of the gym - and it's always these white Lifetime folding tables (the same types upon which I took my SATs and my AP exams, almost a small fraction of eternity ago).

"You have 80 minutes, starting now!"

Just like any other test I take, I began flipping through the pages of the exam - Page 1...3...7...8...9.

Once I got to page 9, I flipped back to page 1, confused. I began reading the questions in great detail.

After making my way through the test again, I plopped down the sheath of papers down on the desk, and felt an overwhelming urge to laugh...just laugh.

The test is completely different to what I studied for.

In fact, I seriously felt like I was sitting in the wrong room, while the right 7.06 exam is happening somewhere else on campus. Sadly, the bolded "7.06 EXAM 2" test on the cover page quickly shattered any glimmers of hope that I had.*

80 minutes and 9 pages of absurdity (on my part, since I left 1/3 of the test blank and guessed another 1/2 of the test) later, I walked up to the front of the room and dropped it in the test collection box.

Afterwards, through talking with my classmates, I realized that people left anywhere from 1/5 to 1/2 of the test blank, and similarly guessed their way through the test.

Life went back to normal. The Canada geese kept arriving in flocks, heading to the south.

I got my exam back yesterday. Class average: 44, standard deviation: 14. (this means that most likely if you got 30-37 to 51-58%, you got a B, and 51-58% and above an A. the percentages are given as ranges since classes here rarely announce grade cutoffs). I was going to scan the cover page of my exam and post it here, since the number written there is so low numerically that I'm sure it'll clear up any misconceptions that MIT is easy when you study biology, but at the same time it also reflects how stupid I am so I think I'll spare myself from further embarrassment. :)

So I got a yellow Add/Drop form (Drop Date here is 11 weeks into term, all the way near Thanksgiving), and waved goodbye to Cell Bio, at least for now.

-----

"leave my door open just a crack / cuz i feel like such an insomniac / why do i tire of counting sheep / when i'm far too tired to fall asleep"

2:25 AM. Everything is a flashback from a week before.

Computer printouts litter the desk, although it's not ecology this time - it's history. The fluorescent monitor is displaying my completed typed 7.30 pset.

I went through a full day of school, had 3 hours of meetings, started and finished a pset, and I'm ready to go to sleep.

My bed has never seemed so enticing before, except I still have a 5-page paper on the Russian Reforms of 1861 that I have yet to write. I'm conflicted on whether to email my professor and request an extension, but ultimately decided against it, because - hey, we're hardcore, right?

I estimated the number of hours of sleep I'm going to get tonight, and the number seemed quite dismal (<2).

Ah well, c'est la vie. I went downstairs, got a bottle of Coke, and began to type:

"The era of Alexander II led to significant changes in the Russian society..."

Outside, quietly, it began to rain.

(click to enlarge)
This is my favorite tree on campus. I really want to take a picture of this tree every day next year, when it goes from summer to winter. I wanted to do it this year, but I don't pass by it frequently enough. :(

-----

On a more cheerful note, things have been keeping me busy. These will all be blogged about in separate entries, but here's a preview:

Leadership Training Institute (in which I'm their Expansion Director) will be sending their mentors to Brazil and China this IAP, spreading the program abroad and empowering international college students to teach their local high school students the concept of leadership.

Model United Nations (in which I'm their President) will be inviting the Director of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Boston (equivalent to the Taiwanese consulate in Boston) for a lecture at MIT three weeks later, and will also be sending a group of delegates to UPMUNC, the UPenn MUN conference that I attended as a froshie back in the day.

iHouse (in which I'm their Housing Chair and a resident) just had its semesterly project presentations dinner, where residents who did an international development project abroad during the summer gave a short presentation to the Spurs-Humphrey Fellows, iHouse coordinators, and Dean Denoncourt of Residential Life Programs.

Helen '12 (Uganda, health/water sanitation), Sophia '10 (India, eye care), Kathy '10 (India, health/pedal-powered washing machine), Mary '11 (Cameroon, corn sheller/technology), and Kayla '12 (Philippines, gastrointestinal worms) all presented, and their presentations will be uploaded on to Youtube soon! Their presentations should give you a good idea of the focus of iHouse and what international development means to us (sadly, the video camera fell on the ground when I was uploading the videos, and then it actually broke @@" i had to send it in to get it fixed, sigh).

Other than this, I'm working a 18-hour per week UROP characterizing a conserved gene that regulates aging in C. elegans (JKim will be working in the same lab as me soon, actually...haha I don't think she knows I know yet :P).

I'm taking a health interpreting class at Boston Medical on Tuesday nights and Saturdays, in anticipation of serving as a Mandarin <-> English interpreter to Boston/Cambridge area hospitals. A large part of this was driven by what I saw at the community clinic I worked at this summer, and also in anticipation for my future focus on public health.

And I'm taking 4 classes at MIT - two history, two science. After dropping 7.06 (Cell Biology), I'm currently taking 9.01 (Neuroscience), 7.30 (Ecology I), 21H.466 (Imperial Russia), and 21H.235 (History of New York City).

Finally! Listen to this fascinating Podcast of Paul Nurse, a Nobel-prize winning biologist that was mentioned in 7.06 for his research in cell cycle regulation. I came across this podcast at the global health conference that I went to over Columbus Day weekend and I've been wanting to share it ever since. Scientists can be really good storytellers too! ^________^V

One of my favorite stanzas to the Engineer's Drinking Song goes like this:

An MIT surveyor once found the gates of Hell

He looked the devil in the eye, and said "You're looking well"

The devil looked right back at him, and said "Why visit me -

You've been through Hell already; you went to MIT!"

So I was going to write an entry about how this week was "hell week." (these things happen to everyone at MIT, depending on when their waves of midterms are - I realized that these weeks are usually really bad the first time around, since the first midterms usually fall on the same day, whereas when the semester goes on the exam schedule gets a bit more staggered, so it's better).

For example, yesterday - I had 3 hours of exams, 3 hours of cramming between exams, 3 hours of urop after that, and then rushed off to another 3 hour class at night, and then I still had a project proposal due today that I haven't started researching, so I took another 3 hours to research, and almost another 3 hours to write everything up and find enough citations. Yup - that was my day beginning at 9 AM, and ending at 4 AM. And you guessed it - this was following approximately 3 hours of sleep the night before, having studied hardcore on Tuesday.

Multiply that by four, and you have my week. :) What's really messed up this semester is that I don't have class on Fridays (two recitations only - yeah, but it's like death from Monday to Thursday), and both recitations are already cancelled tomorrow due to the tests this week, so I'm seriously going to snooze till 1 PM tomorrow. :P

But anyways, stress is not something that's too fun to write about, so here's September (along with a bunch of quotes from life):

Pranav '13: (while looking at a stack of chips during poker) Hey, those are stacked following the normal distribution!

Zach '11: (looks over) No, that's more like the Poisson.

Tourist from Hong Kong: (after I took her picture for her) So tell me, how do you win at blackjack?

Steve's math professor: (on the board, while trying to abbreviate "Associated Homogeneous Group") Ass. Homo. Group.

Overheard in Stata: Yeah, you know, biology makes no sense to me. It took me an entire semester to figure out that DNA is not really an amino acid...you know, the acid part was confusing.

Tiantian '13: (agonizing over an essay) I'm being selected against! I'm going to die!

CVS cashier dude: (I'm trying to buy Tylenol) Well, I need to see your ID.
"Uh...."
"You need to be over 18 to buy Tylenol."
"So how old do you think I am?"
"I don't know, 16?"

Coworker in my lab: So you know the freshman UROP who works in the room next to you? She's 15 and she didn't go to high school. She worked in a lab instead, and now she's at MIT.

"So I guess I'm the F1 generation and my parents are the P generation when it comes to learning English, since I grew up here and my parents emigrated without knowing the language."

"I don't know, the F0.5 generation?"

Tourist: (at Kendall Square) So which way to Harvard?
MIT student: You're at MIT, bro.

Kayla '12's FB status: orgo, i'm ready to kick your ass.

In fact, I don't even use Google Calendar.

It is slightly amusing to see fellow classmates toting multicolored, multi-ringed, colorful planning books complete with enough pens to double the colors of the rainbow. In a class that I was in today, a classmate next to me opened up her Google Calendar (complete with tabbed events in 10 different colors) and I realized that if I cross my eyes slightly, her calendar almost resembles the pointillist works of Seurat. Pretty cool actually.

I realized in college over the last two years that this lack of organization was partly due to never getting used to having a planner (I jot it down and never open the planner again), but mainly due to apathy and laziness. I've realized that the philosophy which works the best for me is, "well, if I can't remember the event, then it must not be important enough in the first place." And thus I've mentally justified my use of not using schedulers or planners. :P (don't worry - this just means i have to prioritize earlier)

I do keep a Post-It pad with me on my desk and in my backpack. When I have to remember really important events (like where my classes are meeting or my adviser's phone number), I usually write them down on a Post-It note, and then stick it somewhere where I'll remember to look at (like on the wall, or in my pocket most of the time...haha).

In defense of not using a schedule, I think my primary reason is that I enjoy the feeling of spontaneity in a day. I enjoy not having everything laid out in a regimented fashion on a sheet of paper or on a screen. There's a certain peace of mind about thinking that right now I'm living in THIS moment, without thinking about the classes, the meetings, and other events that I'll need to be rushing off to later. Which is also sometimes why I slip off and just amble along the Charles during the pauses in my days since getting back to Boston (the river is beautiful now). There's a certain serenity and peace about grasping on to those little pauses during the day - something that I know will be much harder to do once I enter The Real World after the next two years.

I shall stop beginning my paragraphs with the letter I.

But ANYWHOO that was a long explanation on why I don't ever have any of those cool visual schedules to tell you what my scheduling looks like for the upcoming semester. =p

So these two days of class has been pretty intense.

Well, so for everyone non-frosh, this Tuesday was Reg Day, where we go meet with our advisers and register for the classes that we've pre-reg'ed for and which we will be taking for the upcoming semester. Well, the thing is, now that having finished most of the biology core requirements, I have a lot of space for electives, and deciding which exactly to take is hard! (yes, once you finish the GIRs and many of your major requirements, course selection does become difficult) Thus, pretty much my adviser signed off on the litany of classes I initially put on my schedule and I set off to explore the classes that I've signed up for (but also many others which I didn't initially anticipate).

Yesterday, I attended a total of EIGHT hours of class (one three-hour class, one two-hour class, two 1.5-hour classes). This makes for my most productive day ever since coming to MIT (I didn't even have eight hours of class in one day during high school, lol). This was what it looked like:

9:30 AM - 11 AM (7.06 - Cell Biology)
For me, this is my last Course 7 requirement in the 7.0x string, beginning from 7.01, going through 7.02, 7.03, and 7.05). As customary with the biology core requirements, it's a very full class, with many familiar faces from 7.03 and 7.05. The best thing I got out of the first class - Prof. Lodish: "Biology IS History." (he was trying to tie in how biology is a chain of evolutionary events, just like history is a chronicle of past events). This was really interesting because I'm seriously looking into declaring a 21H (history) double major during my remaining semesters here - I'm going to be taking probably two history courses this semester to explore the department and then making a decision in the spring.

11 AM - 1 PM (7.21 - Microbial Physiology)
So initially, I didn't think I was going to be taking this class, because 1) I know pretty much next to nothing about bacteria except how to grow them in the lab and 2) the course title sounds daunting (how can you have an entire class about microbes?). But after this summer, my friend's girlfriend at Berkeley who is a Microbial Biology major told me to give the subject a try, so I went for the first session. The class is interesting since it's the smallest biology class I've been in since coming to MIT, and even among the 40 or so students who are there, it was a 50-50 split between grad and undergrad students! (it's a joint grad/undergrad course, I realized later). The class seems to be focused heavily on science literature discussion, which would probably be a departure from the traditional "lectured-at" biology classes that I've been in, so maybe I will end up giving this a try.

1 PM - 2:30 PM
Lunch break so I wouldn't starve.

2:30 PM - 4:00 PM (9.01 - Intro to Neuroscience)
This is the gateway course to the BCS (Brain and Cognitive Science - Course 9) department, and thus it's usually full of sophomores who are taking the course as their first foray into Course 9. I've heard a lot of good things about this class from non-course-9 majors who's been through the class, describing the class as engaging and even fun, so I thought I would give it a try, from having taken an onslaught of biology and chem classes since I exited the GIRs. I thought the first class seemed promising, so I'll probably just stick it through and see what happens :) (oh and the class is in the beautiful BCS building (building 46). being in that building always makes me so happy, lol)

4:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Took the bus to Harvard on an errand, and had a great dinner at the Vietnamese place next to Harvard Square. I must honestly say that all east coast Asian food has paled in comparison that in the Bay, after this summer, sadly - but nonetheless, it was still good. :)

7:00 PM - 10:00 PM (21H.308 - the Vikings)
Originally I was going to take 21F.712 (which is like "Spanish 5" here), but then this history deal came up and I thought I should look into more history classes this semester, so I signed up for this - it's a totally different feeling having classes at night, actually. The class itself isn't bad, but I might be looking into another history class since it was a bit of just "meh" for me.

10:00 PM - 12:30 AM
Went home, and iHouse had an impromptu Wii party (while we still have the time and energy to before the Great Academic Onslaught), which culminated into me getting wacked by the Wii controller during Wii Boxing and getting a huge bump on my forehead (it didn't really hurt much, but it was crazy how fast it swelled up ). I'm afraid that Wii Boxing turned more into Real Life Boxing, haha. (hey - at least we didn't break the TV :P)

I finished up "course shopping" today by going to another three classes -

9:00 AM - 11:00 AM (7.20 - Human Physiology)
This is an earlyyyyy class! ><" but otherwise, the content seems fascinating actually. It's interesting how MIT would structure a physiology class around the molecular basis, rather than just straight-up memorization. (ie. the class going to explain from a biochemical perspective how parts of your body work rather than making student memorize names to body parts or names of bones).

I will probably blog more about the bio major before I graduate, but this just illustrates again that Biology here is really a THINKING major, not the typical run-of-the-mill biology majors you are familiar with (the ones that make you memorize phylum names or trivia - like AP Biology). Just like the engineering courses here, the focus is on problem-solving, and I would say the focus is definitely on "why?" rather than just "what?"

11:00 AM - 12:30 PM (7.30 - Ecology I)
I signed up for this class because I think it'll also be cool to explore ecology, which I briefly touched on after self-studying all of AP Environmental Science in 60 hours during my senior year of high school. -___-;; Unbeknownst to me, I actually stumbled upon a Course 1 CI-M* class.

(we have things called CI classes at MIT - which stands for Communication Intensive. it's basically another way of saying that there's going to be a lot more essay writing in the class, usually ending in some sort of lengthy paper. there are CI-Hs, and CI-Ms. CI-Hs are CIs in the humanities, which you take as part of your HASS (humanities) requirement for graduation. CI-Ms are CI classes in your major, which you have to take two to graduate - most CI-Ms in the science majors are lab classes, and your resulting write-up and paper is counted as the CI aspect)

There is a major 10-15 paper/project assigned for the course, but I think it may prove to be an interesting challenge, so I guess I'll keep it and see how it goes. As this is also a Course 1 class, there's plenty of 1C (civil engineering) and 1E (environmental engineering) majors in the course, so it was also cool to be in a class with a different crowd.

12:30 PM - 1:00 PM
Short lunch at Stata.

1:00 PM - 2:30 PM (21H.466 - Imperial and Revolutionary Russia)
This is a tiny class! (7 people) I actually miss these classes a lot from high school, since the two years past then has generally been lectures with 100+ kids - even most of my HASSes had 20 or 30. The course content already proves to be pretty engaging so I'm definitely looking forward to how this goes in the coming semester.

SOOO that concludes all 13 hours of course-shopping, and as you can see that's a total of 84 (12x7) credits, which is NOT a good idea (but which I can actually technically take since there are surprisingly no scheduling conflicts, lol - and I don't even have class on Friday! I don't know how all of this worked out, haha).

I'm definitely keeping 7.06, 9.01, and 21H.466, dropping 21H.308, most probably keeping 7.30, and either 7.20 or 7.21 (I really want to take 7.20 but I have a pretty full semester, considering I'm probably also doing a UROP, so I'm not sure whether to drop it (i'll be somewhat sad) or stick it through on Pass/D/F (the class is informally known for its difficulty)). I'm aiming for 60 credits (5 classes) + UROP, and potentially another history class if I can find one that fits in my schedule and one that I'm interested in.

In any case, let's hope sleep and sanity isn't a problem this semester :)

I worked at an Asian health clinic serving primarily patients with no health insurance or only government-aided health insurance - primarily shadowing doctors, helping the clinic fundraise, and learning more about medical care for the underserved. As one of my projects for this summer, I also developed fish guides (based on recommendations from edf.org and tailored to be culturally appropriate to the Chinatown population) as health education materials to be distributed (as printed postcards) out to the patients. Take a look! :P

Common front side (click to enlarge)

Chinese and English back sides (to be translated into Vietnamese and Korean)

Also, aside from working, I also had plenty of time (9 weekends!) to explore the Bay Area. I made a list of all the tourist attractions/points of interest that I went to around the Bay area this summer, and the list came out to be 40 locations long :P (way too touristy -____-) but truly, SF Bay is beautiful :)

Death Cab For Cutie Live, UC Berkeley, July 11, 2009

Fact: aside from April and July, I’ve flown every month so far in 2009.

Fact 2: in the four short semesters after enrolling at MIT, my frequent flier account has already broken six figures in terms of lifetime miles.

Fact 3: I’ve been in an awful lot of airports.

From Fact 3, I can tell you that SFO has pretty great food, IAD has a super cool “Mobile Lounge” vehicle-thingy that transports you from one terminal to another, NRT has the cleanest toilets you can possibly imagine, AMS has 10 euro sandwiches (that are quite bland but are rather cute, from the impeccable European way that the lettuce, tomatoes, and ham are arranged between the triangular whole-wheat bread), and LAX has relatively uncomfortable couches on which to spend the night (ps. MAD doesn’t fare much better – although their Starbucks has really soft sofas – you just may have to move when the cleaning staff comes over).

Naturally, I’ve also been on many airlines and seen how air travel functions in several countries.

It strikes me, then, how remarkably inefficient US domestic travel can be (of course, I’m not generalizing across airlines – some carriers are far better than others).

I want to relate my particular adventure just two days prior, when I flew back from San Francisco to Boston for just a day (on a free ticket though – redeemed through my miles). I had to go back to Boston to take a qualifying examination (unrelated to MIT) – the alternative was to come back early from Taiwan to do it next weekend, but of course I didn’t want to sacrifice a single hour in Taiwan, so I decided to do it last weekend. Thus began the journey in which I was on the air longer than I actually was physically in Boston.

I have omitted the name of the carrier, but you should be able to figure it out easily enough.

My flight was the red-eye out of SFO on Friday night at 10:20 PM, and accordingly I scheduled myself to arrive at 9:00 at the airport – an hour and 20 minutes for a domestic flight – not bad, right?

Well, it turns out that there is a line. A LONG line. Just to get to the Self Check-In counters. Sighing, I resigned myself to waiting in line to use one of those machines, helping lost Taiwanese tourists navigating through to Paper Ticket Check-In. Finally, I was at the head of the line.

Time check. 9:20 PM. I had an hour left.

I proceeded to one of those “Self Check-In Counters” that my particular carrier is extremely fond of, hoping against all odds that perhaps it will actually work this time (I am able to count on one hand the number of times the self check-in has actually worked for me with this particular airline. I don’t think the problem is the self check-in machine or my passport, as I have never had problems with other airlines). Expectedly, the dreaded “blue screen of death” came on – “Please see a customer representative for assistance.” To be honest, I’m never sure what the point of having these counters are if one is never able to obtain one’s boarding pass through these machines correctly.

Well, customer representative – not so bad, right? Wrong. The thing with this carrier is that it is nearly always understaffed in domestic terminals. This particular night, there’s two harried customer representatives overseeing 15 self check-in machines, and one representative looks like he’s ready to murder a group of Korean grandparents that he happens to be helping with checking in.

If there’s anything I learned from working in Oakland Chinatown this year, it’s that at certain times, you’ll have to make yourself heard (and seen) or you’ll never get service at all. I managed to get closer to one of the customer representatives (the less murderous one), only to have the rep call out to the entire lobby in an exasperated voice that all passengers having trouble with the self check-in should proceed to the Paper Ticket Check-In line. As if on cue, the mass of travelers and baggage carts began moving towards the other line.

Time check. 9:35 PM.

Fortunately, I was able to get into the other line before the mass of tourists reached it, falling a few heads behind the Taiwanese tourists, who were winking at me. I counted that there were probably 20 people ahead of me in this line, and if I had any luck at all I might be able to clear this line by 9:50 PM, hopefully leaving half an hour to go through security and board.

Quickly, however, I discovered that this second line was not really a “line” at all, but more precisely, a “waiting area.” Various other customer representatives, plagued by customer complaints, were pulling many passengers to the front of the line to the customer representatives at the counter, asking the representative at the counter to check them in ASAP, as they didn’t speak English/they have a lot of baggage/they have a lot of people…etc. At this point, I had precisely 5 people ahead of me to the front of the line, but the line didn’t move for 10 minutes due to these random people popping out of nowhere.

Finally, the lady who was at the front of the line cleared her throat loudly. ”Excuse me.” she gestured at a customer rep, ”we’ve all been waiting here for awhile now. We have flights that are leaving in less than an hour too!!”. Everyone looked up, and the reps who were previously pulling people out of the line started converging at the front of the line and beginning to organize a way of systematically getting people to the counter. I was okay, since I’ve started chatting with a lady in front of me who’s also been through this before and is pretty annoyed at the airline too. (“The only reason why I still fly with them is that I have far too many mileage points and it’s too bothersome to switch carriers now,” she told me, “I already stopped bothering with the self check-in and I come directly to the counter now. Better just wait in line than use those damned machines and realizing that you have to wait in line anyway.”)

After what seemed to be like ages, a kind gentleman at the desk finally motioned to me over. It felt akin to a deserted lifeboat floating in the ocean, finally seeing the bright rockets sent up by the rescue ship.

Time check. 10:00 PM.

It turns out that it is already too late to check bags (45 minute cut-off, absolute latest 30 minutes prior), but it’s okay since I anticipated this kind of delay happening and so I just had a small carry-on (I didn’t need clothes anyway, since I wasn’t going to spend the night in Boston). He had to make a phone call over to the gate, since they’ve started boarding already notifying them to wait for me. He handed over the boarding pass and told me to get through Security quickly so I don’t miss my flight.

Time check. 10:03 PM. The actual check-in procedure took 3 minutes. Waiting for a rep took an hour.

I made it past security, hoping all the while that I don’t get “selected” by the TSA for a spot check, because that means I will really miss the flight and end up spending the night at the airport (remember LAX? This airline has already done it to me in the past when they overbooked the red-eye and actually blatantly gave my confirmed seat away to someone else on the waiting list due to an “administrative oversight.” They gave me $100 in compensation (redeemable gift certificate), but I ended up spending another 8 hours in the airport).

I clutched the laptop that I took out for the Security Check and ran all the way to the gate, arriving out of breath, but relieved that the gate hasn’t closed yet. The kind guy at the gate told me that they were about to page me over the intercom, and that I had arrived right on time for the gate to close. “Welcome aboard,” he winked at me, “arrive at the airport earlier next time.”

I arrived at Boston at 7:30 AM, went back to MIT to drop off all the MCAT books that I accumulated this summer (that I was going to ship back originally), went and took the test, returned to MIT to say goodbye to a friend, and then headed back to Logan at 2:30 PM for my 4:30 PM flight. Learning from my mistakes, I remember not to use those “damned machines” anymore and headed straight to the counter. I was checked in by 2:35 PM.

I was also informed that they couldn’t give me the boarding pass for the IAD to SFO leg (I had a layover at Washington Dulles on the way back) – they didn’t tell me why – but I should go see customer service there for my boarding pass. I already had a vision of the frantic customer service desk what will be awaiting me at Dulles. I was not wrong. I ended up waiting for 35 minutes in the terminal help desk to collect my boarding pass back to SFO.

What I don’t understand is why an airline that flies hundreds of flights each day can be so remarkably inefficient when it comes to ticketing and checking-in. I had confirmed seats on all three legs of this trip, complete with seat number and all – I didn’t have to check any bags either – and still always had to go to customer service to get help. I was clearly not alone, as there is always an army of passengers near the counter as well. Am I some sketchy person that the airline had told those automated machines not to recognize? And it’s not just the machines either – the efficiency with these customer service counters is abysmally-crazy. I’m young, understand English, capable of carrying my own bags and standing in line for extended amounts of time, but what about your other customers who can’t afford to stand and wait so long?

Learn from Singapore Airline, guys. (or maybe you just have to fly Business to get decent service)

-written during the layover at Tokyo Narita, about to board my 17th flight so far this year.

tidbits about flying

1. I don’t mind airplane food at all (my high school cafeteria food tastes worse). In fact, I’ve sometimes had more than one portion when traveling with friends who didn’t want to eat. On a very rare occasion, the aforementioned airline bumped me at no charge to Business class, where I had steak. STEAK!! It’s amazing how Economy food gets worse and worse and Business/First food gets ridiculously awesome.

2. I like window seats (especially on the right side) for flights under 6 hours, since I can usually nap the whole way against the window. I like aisle seats for trans-Pacific flights, since I won’t feel bad about disturbing other people to get to the bathroom.

3. At first I never understood why people prefer to board early. For me, getting on the airplane early just means having to sit on the airplane longer on an already long flight. Recently, I finally realized the reason why - if you don't get it early, there will be no more overhead compartment space left.

4. People who have humongous roller carry-on trunks in order to save money should dieeee X(

5. Many Asian airlines have instant noodles that are manufactured by the airline, which you can’t buy outside of the airplane. Ask for it on long flights! The JAL one, for example, tastes awesome.

6. I rarely watch movies on long flights. Instead, I just don’t sleep much the night before (well, I don’t try to, but I usually sleep <4 hours before the flight because of natural procrastination =p). Thus, I usually just pass out and wake up only for meals. It makes the long flight go by faster, anyway.

7. I once had 8 cans of apple juice flying from San Francisco to Taipei. (I just had 5 flying from SFO to Narita). Haha, hey, I <3 apple juice and they’re free on the airplane!

8. The absolute best memory of airplane food is flying from Taipei to Manila during my junior year in high school on a mission trip. We were flying China Airlines and we actually had lu rou fan!. Lu rou fan is a traditional Taiwanese snack/light meal that consists of pork stewed with soy sauce, rice wine, and spices over rice. The kicker is that the airplane food actually came with a braised egg as well (lu dan – you usually put it in along with the pork during the cooking process as it makes the cooked egg afterwards a delightful treat, having absorbed all the flavor of the condiments and the meat).

9. I’ve met many people on flights or just in airports, waiting during a layover. One of the most interesting individuals I’ve met was a manager at a big telecommunications company, whose job is to fly from city to city (mainly domestic, but also international) to assess the productivity and efficiency of the company branch in that particular city and to also troubleshoot problems on behalf of the main office. He told me that last year, he spent over 300 days away from home, and visited over 100 cities in 35 states. Through his work, he has been able to visit all 50 states and 37 countries, with nights spent in too many hotel rooms to remember. He showed me a travel map that he kept in his planner, which folds out to be a map of the United States, peppered with a red dot for each city that he visited. At the same time, regrettably, he also told me that he never married precisely because of his job – he’s moving too fast to have a stable family. “I felt that I had found the perfect job for me, since it was my dream to see the world when I was growing up, but at what cost to my personal life?” he mused.

10. Finally, an incredible romance story came from a professor that I met on a flight from Tokyo to Chicago last year. I took the liberty of summarizing his story by a lot.

“Believe it or not, I met my wife [who was sitting next to him] in an airport. We were delayed in Frankfurt after the airport was forced to close due to low visibility and snow, and it seemed like our flight back to the US seemed unlikely that morning. We were both pretty bored and was looking for someone to chat with, so we started talking and it pretty much clicked from the get-go, or as the expression goes. I was coming back from an academic conference and she was coming back from a business trip – but soon we realized that we had a lot in common. Well, to make a long story short, we ended up spending seven hours or so waiting for the weather to clear up – we went and got lunch, and some coffee afterwards. After returning to the States, we exchanged phone numbers, and soon began seeing each other on a regular basis. About a year later, we got married. Sometimes I ask myself what would have happened on that day if the flight never got delayed or if I haven’t just happened to be sitting next to this particular lady. You know, at times, I still look back on all these years and everything seems too good to be true, just like what happens in movies – but wouldn’t you agree that the best movies are those that mirror human life?”

I told my mom this story, and she plainly said,

“You know, in real life, it’s near impossible to have a situation where you can’t do anything for seven hours except talk to a girl.

He must have been really lucky.”

Since the middle of June, I have been interning at a fairly large Asian public health clinic in Oakland, CA. During our stay, I shadowed doctors, attended healthcare lectures, designed surveys, debated in health discussions, helped the clinic to fundraise, interpreted for patients, and participated in community health outreaches and even one protest in front of the state Capitol in Sacramento.

Truthfully, despite being a premed, I knew very little about the current US healthcare reform debate prior to this summer (and I'm still learning). Growing up under Taiwan's Universal Health Plan, I really had no sense of the great disparity of wealth and afforded healthcare in the American population. In Taiwan, seeing a doctor for ailments such as coughs and sneezes is commonplace, and I remember that my mom would whisk me off to the doctor for medicine at the slightest sign of a recurring cough or a stuffy nose that refused to go away. I remembered that in middle school, copayments for each outpatient visit to the local clinic was 50 NTD (less than $2 USD per visit, even with all the meds that the doctors give you). Since then, the price has increased to generally 150 NTD (about $5 USD), but this is still an extremely trivial amount to pay for a doctor's visit and getting two week's worth of medicine.

At MIT, I'm covered under the MIT Extended Student Insurance Plan, and except for a semesterly figure on my tuition bill, that's the extent of understanding my own health insurance. (i haven't been to MIT Medical much anyway - the only time when i actually felt bad enough to go to Medical was last fall? when i had severe diarrhea for like 3-4 days and i panicked once i started vomiting and having a light fever. the kind doctor gave me two ginger ales and chatted with me for about half an hour, then sent me home. i stopped vomiting that night.)

Then I come to this clinic in Oakland, and see that 95.2% of our patients are either uninsured, covered by federal/state/county aided health insurance (Medicare, Medi-Cal (California's version of Medicaid), and Healthy Families (children lacking health insurance and fall under a certain income level; sponsored by the state California)).

Fully 97.9% of the patients fall below 200% of the federal poverty level (for those of you who are too lazy to click on the link, i'll spell it out for you. FPI is $22,050 for a family of four (69.6% of the patients are below this income level) and 200% FPI is $44,100 for a family of four (another 28.3% of the patients are below that figure). if you consider the fact that MIT covers full tuition for families making less than $75,000, you'll realize that $22,050 is very, very little money for a family).

Adding on to this is the fact that nearly 80% of the patients are "linguistically isolated" (defined as an individual that speaks an language other than English at home and does not speak English "well" or "very well"), it's been an exceedingly powerful learning experience at times.

One patient held up a hospital bill for $11,000 USD, the cost of a 3-day inpatient stay at the county hospital for treatment. He was uninsured. He expressed to the doctor that if he knew that the bill was this steep, he would have refused to go, even through his condition warranted hospital stay. He was unemployed, and so was his wife. The only option now is to enroll him in Medi-Cal (state Medicaid) and see if the state will retroactively cover his bill.

Another patient waited nearly 18 months to get a routine colonoscopy since the only medical facility where he can get it done is the local county hospital due to insurance coverage. If you had private insurance and is decently well-off, you can get one scheduled for next week.

Yet another patient had a scheduled referral at the county hospital, where she sat in the emergency room for six hours, after unsuccessfully trying to flag down medical staff to obtain an interpreter. She could not speak English; none of the doctors nor the nurses knew what she wanted. She came back to the clinic asking for help. Knowing the overbooked schedules of the county hospital medical staff and the scarcity of interpretation services there (even though this is a federally-mandated law under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, 1964 and Executive Order 13166 under President Clinton, 2000), the clinic sent one of their interpreters with her, and she was finally able to get seen - but not after waiting another six hours.

Such is the predicament of low-income and linguistically-isolated patients in our country.

Try this exercise: find a friend. Pick one to be the doctor, and the other will play the role of the patient. The doctor and the patient both have limited vocabulary; the doctor may only use words that begin with the first 13 letters of the alphabet (A-M) and the patient may only use words that begin with the last 13 letters of the alphabet (N-Z) (articles and pronouns included). Neither side may use vocabulary that obviously aren't used in everyday speech.

Then, these are the objectives:

Patient: Diarrhea and vomiting for three days, feels slightly dizzy, tries to drink water but keeps on vomiting it up, fever of over 100 degrees, has no appetite, tried taking tylenol but it doesn't really help.

Doctor: Recommends plenty of rest, don't eat anything too heavy, try to replace fluids lost, if cannot keep water down by tomorrow, come back for an IV, will prescribe tylenol with codeine and see if it works better than regular tylenol. Call if doesn't feel better by tomorrow noon.

When I tried it with a friend, this is what it ended up sounding like:

Patient: Poop water poop water poop. Vomit yesterday yesterday, yesterday, today. No sense of straight. Walls slanted. Once water take, vomit soon. No want yummy things. Tylenol take, no work.

Doctor: Be in bed much. Eat light foods. Drink juice, cola, flow from faucet. Day after, feel bad come back for drip-drop in arm. Me give extra good medicine. Call me if feel bad day after.

This sounds funny, but at least we're speaking the same language. Many times, with linguistically isolated patients, doctor consultation visits turn into wild games of charades, adding pressure on top of the doctor's already overbooked appointment schedules.

And these patients are never too far away from you - they share a seat with you on the BART (the SF equivalent of the Commuter Rail in Boston), they made the egg tarts that you've just delightfully bought at Chinatown, and they probably pressed the laundry you brought in yesterday to dry-clean.

This is who the fight is about; this is the population who are on the cutting board of health care reform.

On July first of this year, the State of California caved in to Medi-Cal budget cuts, eliminating many areas termed "optional care" for low-income individuals. Patients solely on Medi-Cal will no longer be eligible for dental, podiatric, and optometric services. This means no more dental check-ups, no more feet check-ups for chronic diabetics, and quite literally, no more eyeglasses. Now, these measures were passed as a response to the California budget crisis, and I understand that the government's hands are tied somewhat, but it's important to realize that there's often a personal side to all of this.

Next time you read about health care reform on the news or follow HR 3200 through Congress, remember these people. Remember the elderly dishwater couple who survive on a salary of $400 a month, hoping fervently that neither gets sick because there's just no more money to spare. Remember the new immigrant borrowing English cassette tapes from her friends after her 15-hour shift just so she can hopefully pick up enough phrases to find a job outside of the factory. Remember the $11,000 medical bill.

Pick up the phone. Get a postcard. Write to your legislators. Follow the news. Become involved.

This is their fight, but it is ours too.

My preceptor was Dr. Lee, Course VII '76, who went to MIT when West Campus went only as far as MacGregor, and there was an official Course XIX (Meteorology - but of course, an unofficial Course XIX still lives on to the present day). I met Dr. Lee last week when my supervisor at the Oakland clinic I worked at introduced me to him when he came by. We chatted at length about MIT, his current work (he went on to UCSF after MIT and is now a practicing cardiologist), and applying to medical school.

One of the most interesting things that Dr. Lee pointed out about life in med school was actually that the first two years of med school was HARD as a MIT grad. But you ask: doesn't MIT prepare students well in the science curriculum? The answer is yes, but Dr. Lee pointed out a very important distinction between the MIT method of scientific teaching and that of premed-prominent universities in America.

At MIT, Dr. Lee said, the focus of science is to teach you to THINK rather than to memorize. Thus, premed students from MIT often emerge as excellent critical thinkers, but average fact-retention machines. This actually is a disadvantage during the first two years of med school, where you're taught to primarily regurgitate the information obtained from textbooks.

After I thought about it some, it made a lot of sense:

-During 7.05 (biochemistry), every exam was effectively open notes, and we didn't have to memorize a single thing about any of the intermediates in any of the biological cycles (Krebs, Urea, Purine Synthesis, Citric Acid...etc.).

-A lot of bio exams are about the application of fact, rather than simply stating what you read in the textbook. For example, often bio exams (starting from the most basic class of all, 7.01x) would begin with "Suppose you are an UROP student working in a lab and you discover this interesting phenomenon that...." You can almost see these test questions more as critical thinking exercises, rather than standard memory retention exams. Intro Bio, then, is vastly different in other college campuses, where freshmen are taught to memorize phylum names and label parts of a plant for their exams (UC Berkeley).

"I realized that my classmates, say, from Cal, were better adjusted to the med school learning style especially during the first few years [of med school], but I think the MIT style of education makes you a better doctor down the road, when you need to consider the causes of disease and create a plan of treatment and prevention, rather than merely applying memorized models to clinical situations."

----

Without further ado, here are the "finalists" for the photo contest from, uh, almost three weeks ago. :$ haha. I wanted to have a cutoff date but entries kept on coming in, so thank you for your enthusiasm. =p Unfortunately, since I received so many pictures, I'm unable to post every single photo. But thank you if you sent me something!

Honorable Mention

From Ryan - '14 hopeful:

My name is Ryan, I live in Prescott, Arizona, and I will be applying to MIT this year.

Attached are two pictures. The first one is of the Director of Photography shooting a scene inside a police car. And the second is of one of the actors, Robert Funaro (who played Eugene Pontecorvo on the Sopranos!), and yours truly. :)

From Steph - '10 Transfer Prospective

Hello, I am a transfer 2010 applicant from Antelope Valley College in Lancaster, California. Other than touring Caltech and one of California's largest botanical gardens, Descanso, I recently (well....yesterday to be exact) visited the front gates of Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch in Los Olivos, California (no one was allowed on the property). Too bad I only got half the gate (the side that matters most, I guess heh). There were too many people crowding me. haha

From Aubrey - '13

I took this off of the San Clemente Pier (also in CA). My last relaxing weeks before MIT begins. ;)

From Arooshi - '13

I am Arooshi, Class of 2013. In the attached picture I am with my twin sister Smriti, also MIT Class of 2013, who is on the left. We are pictured in Ladakh, India. We are standing on the highest point on earth that can be traveled in a vehicle called the Khardungla pass. This is in the Himalayan mountain range near the border between India and China.

From Szymon - '14 prospective

This is my summer activity! I'm sending you some photos. My primary hobbies are chemistry, physics AND flying RC aircraft! Every year, in July, there is the largest organized remote control aircraft fly-in in Poland. This year's event was on 17th and I had to hurry up to finish building my latest electric glider (it was in my workshop in pieces a week before). I attach two pictures I took during the 2004 event. The first one shows two large (5m wingspan) glider replicas (SZD Mucha Standard) and beautiful airfield in the Beskidy mountains which we use for our event. Second is a very fine looking PZL Wilga model and its pilot.

From Garrett - '13

Hey Chris,

3. Post-sunrise at Alishan.

(from Chris: those little dumplings originated in Shanghai, but is extremely popular across East Asia now. one restaurant in particular, the taiwanese-based Ding Tai Fung, has managed to transform the dumpling business into a lucrative restaurant chain across China, Taiwan, Japan, and the US (in cali!). the dumplings are yummyyyyyy. =p also, the last picture is sunrise at Alishan, which is one of the must-see tourist destinations in Taiwan. it's famed for the "yun hai" (cloud ocean - essentially a thick layer of clouds which forms between the mountains - you can see a bit of it in the picture) and also for its majestic sunrises - taiwan is so pretty!!! haha sorry i just gotta put in these plugs =p)

Third Place:

From Aditya - new Grad student!:

Hi!

I had been to the Himalayas, and trekked up a mountain, at 13,800 feet. That's 4200 meters. You've already calculated, I know! It was an amazing experience! The Himalayas are so beautiful, its almost like a dream. If you are into trekking, hiking and camping, you just have to experience the highest mountain range on earth at least once! Here are a few pics.

Second Place:

From Liz - '14 hopeful:

Ok, this is a picture that I think is awesome (though awesomeness, like everything else is wholly subjective). I like this picture because:

I have a disclaimer though - I actually took this picture last summer at the lab. I'm working in the same lab again this summer, but I'm in the clean room sometimes (it's really hardcore, I can't take in anything from the outside world except myself, so I certainly can't take in a camera!), and I'm also working with a delightful grad student on some experiments/learning to make programs in MATLAB (funny side note - I coded my program to play Handel's "Hallelujah" chorus when it spits out the answers I'm looking for).

First Place:

From Andy - '13:

Hi. My name is Andy (MIT '13), and this is a picture of me taken on June 22, 2009 at the top of Echo Mountain near Pasadena, California. One of the first things that I did this summer was hike up to the top of echo mountain at night with a bunch of friends with a telescope. Aside from stargazing, we also saw several satellites and had a picnic at the top. We then pointed the telescope to the suburbs below and started observing the cars, a soccer match, and a tennis game. This is the first out of a long list of things that I want to accomplish during this summer (other activities include going to the beach to dig a giant hole, eating a giant ice cream sundae with at least ten people, putting together a 10,000 piece puzzle, having a snowball fight, etc.).

(from Chris: this won because I've been wanting to take a picture like this ever since going to SSP during my junior summer. =p)

The Prize!

In keeping with the current news frenzy, the grand prize is SWINE FLU!

...okay, which is more like a big pink ball of fluff =p but please enjoy having H1N1 in the comfort of your home. you can even bring it on to the airplane without getting escorted off by a regiment of N51 masked men in green spaceship suits and chlorine spray!

Thanks for playing! ^______^V

Polish mountains are pretty majestic! (she's the girl in the picture)

Which got me thinking - what are YOU up to this summer?!

I'm going to open this up to you guys - send me a picture of something cool you did/are doing this summer, and I'll post it on my next blog!

What: A picture that's somehow related to your summer which looks awesome. It's preferable that you are in it too but it's not necessary.

Please include:

where you took the picture.
affiliation with MIT (year, or year of application for potentials)
anything interesting you would like to say about yourself/where you live/what's in the picture/blahblah

Other than this - the only other thing is to try to make your picture sizes reasonable! (so it doesn't take forever for me to load them - I have slow internet here) and don't send me 5 pictures that are 3 MB each. kthx. :P

My email's up there on the banner. Will post once I get enough pictures! You'll have at least a week to send them in.

Prize: There is a physical prize for the picture I deem the best. The actual prize will be announced afterwards, but will also be awesome, just like the pictures. XP I reserve the right to cancel the prize if I get less than 10 entries. :)

GO!

Phew, it's been long without blogging! During this long hiatus, I've been back in Taiwan (for 3 weeks!) catching up on sleep, eating many yummy things, and completed a 3000 piece puzzle. (sadly, there's no time for puzzlemaking in MIT usually).

Then, I returned to the States, and I've been happily living at Berkeley, CA, for the last 2 weeks. I'm working in Oakland, at an Asian health center there, serving as one of their summer interns. I'm really learning a lot (including more and more Cantonese words, haha - I have resolved to start learning Cantonese as soon as possible, since this is probably the most useful Asian language to know in the States, due to the amount of Cantonese immigrants).

Each day begins with the 8.40 Bart (it's like the commuter rail in Boston) ride from Berkeley to Oakland, getting to work at 8.59. During lunch, I'm off to explore the countless restaurants, cafes, hole-in-the-walls that dot Oakland Chinatown. After work, it's MCAT class for 3 times a week, or napping at UC Berkeley's sunny Memorial Glade (it's a grassy elliptical quad in front of one of their libraries and for some reason is located strategically to get maximal sunshine exposure in the afternoon =p).

In short, life is good.

Couple observations about Bay Area:

1. San Francisco Bay is really pretty. o____o
2. Asian food is so much better here (sorry Boston)
3. Why are strawberries $3.50 per box at Shaw's (supermarket next to MIT) and $0.65 here?
4. Fisherman's Wharf = tourist heaven,
5. It gets real cold here after the sun sets.
6. 9.75% sales tax sucks!!
7. MUNI is a really cute name for a mass-transit system.
8. I want a car.
9. I do not miss psets or exams. I'm soaking up the sun as best as I can. <3
10 If you grew up here, I envy you. =p

Yesterday was a super bright, sunny, and clear day, so I decided to head into the city and go up to Twin Peaks (otherwise known as "San Francisco's boobies" -> according to a local, lol). Basically, they're these dual hills on the southwestern corner of the city, and supposably there's an impressive view of SF and the Bay during the day, and an amazing night view after sunset.

On the way there, I also visited MIssion Dolores, which is probably the most underappreciated tourist site in the city. Mission Dolores is the original Spanish mission of San Francisco, and one of 21 California missions. The original church (made out of adobe! it's super cool inside since adobe is like natural air-conditioning) is fairly small, though it has a really cool geometric patterned ceiling that was derived from Native American designs. The adjoining basilica is huge, domey, and filled with beautiful mosaics and stain glass windows (there's 21 panes alongside the length of the church, depicting the 21 Spanish missions and the day that they were founded). There's also a cemetery adjoining the complex, and it really reminded me of the Boston Granary Burial Grounds...haha.

Anyone know what these flowers are called? I'm really curious!! They're in full bloom here in Cali (you can see them in many gardens).

After about an hour on foot after leaving Mission Dolores, I made it to the main viewing area on the mountain, where there's a big parking lot for your car if you drove up the mountain.

The Pink Triangle is preparation for the Pride Parade in the city today - it's basically this huge pink cloth that's set up against the mountain.

You can see Golden Gate from the top.

Click here to see the panoramic I took on top of the mountain. Sorry that the right picture is obviously darker than the left, lol -_-

After getting down from the mountain, I took the muni back to the center of the city and had great korean bbq before heading back to berkeley. Awesomeness <3

ps. I got a better grade than I thought on Orgo! By some miraculous act of God, I must have done much better than I thought on the final. Like MUCH better.

On the other hand, I got, frustratingly, a B+ for 7.02, ironically the class that I was most confident of going into the semester. (MIT grades on absolute letter grades, which means +'s and -'s have no meaning. thus, +'s are the grades that are most frustrating to get at MIT, since it basically signifies that if you just tried a LITTLE bit harder, you'll have had a -, and a whole 1.0 increase in GPA for that class. it goes without saying that A- is the best grade to get, since it's the same as getting an A+ in terms of GPA, muahahaha =p)

So in the end, I guess 5.12 and 7.02 balanced themselves out, after all.

That's MIT for ya. It's a real mixed bag of nuts.