On the night admissions came out (two nights ago), my good friend Steve '11 (freshman ex-roommate) was reminded of the story of Tim Tebow after the decisions were released. I knew about Tebow from talking with Steve many nights (or rather, him talking to me) about football, and I thought it was really a good story, and maybe some of you would enjoy it.

But yeah, that's it. Think of this as some light diversionary reading if you will. Remember Tim's promise.

Best of luck in the weeks ahead! :)

-Chris

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You're probably feeling down right now. You know you'll get over it but you feel like you never will.[1] So if I can offer any advice it's just to emote. Let your psychological immune system kick in. Get off the blogs and let out a few tears. Then watch some awesome YouTube videos Or eat a Vermonster with your friends.

("editor's note:" so for the people that don't know, a vermonster is essentially a gigantic tub of ice cream that you can get at Ben and Jerry's, an ice cream chain that's pretty prevalent in the US - fun fact: it contains 14,000 calories :D but makes for a good bonding ritual followed by heartburn :P)

I'll give you two sentences to stop reading. The rest of this post will be here waiting for you tonight. Kthxbai.

There are two things I want to say. But first, listen to this important message from Dan Gilbert, a professor of Psychology at the other Cambridge school.

A lot of events in life-both good and bad-are the products of factors that you cannot control. As Dan's story shows, some things that seem bad turn out to be a blessing in disguise. More importantly, you don't have to go to MIT to be a success. You can go to a community college and still end up at the top of your field.

Now, I hope you don't obsessively dwell on this blog in the future. It's time to move on, so I will bid you adieu with an inspirational true story.

Tim Tebow was the best college football player to ever played the game. That is a fact, not an opinion. He was the first sophomore to win the Heisman Trophy, a two-time national champion, and the most statistically dominant player in history.

Yet last December he was sitting on the sidelines watching Alabama crush his dream of winning a third national title in four years. He started sobbing because he just couldn't choke back the tears (see video). He invested so much in his team, his last season, in the championship run the media said destiny, that he couldn't hold it together.

They say you shouldn't cry over spilt milk. I guess you shouldn't cry over college admissions either, it's not that important in the long run. But even Tebow admits that many things, including academics, are more important than football. That didn't stop "Tebow crying" from becoming the number one Google trend of the day.

Of course, this wasn't the first time Tebow let his team down. A little more than a year earlier he failed to gain crucial first down and it cost his team the game. But that's not the important thing. What happened next is part of college football lore: the promise he made (see video) is etched in stone at the University of Florida.

Tim Tebow could easily be known as the wunderkind who choked when it was 4th and 1 or the baby who drowned the Georgia Dome in tears.

But he's not. He's remembered for picking himself up and making a promise to do better.

As you probably can guess, Florida won 22 consecutive games and the BCS title after Tebow made "The Promise." A few weeks after losing to Alabama, Tebow played the best game of his life in the Sugar Bowl.

Today he is remembered as the greatest not just of our time, but of all time.

Don't let setbacks set you back. Thanks for reading.

[1] - Most people say something stupid like "I'll never eat again" after eating too much on Thanksgiving. They know they'll be hungry the next day-they are every year-but to a remarkable extent people are simply stuck in the present.

"If I have kids, I'm going to name the first one "Control" and the second one "Experiment.""

-an embarrassed '12

"Can anyone help me eject my device?"

-an embarrassed '11 guy

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Good luck with decisions, everyone! :D

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WHY ART HISTORY IS AWESOME

LIST OF ALL ALLUDED WORKS

TAKE 4.601 HERE AND BE AWESOME (AND CULTURALLY LITERATE!)

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While we are on the subject of speeches - for all to-be valedictorians, this is a great commencement speech. So is this one.

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So it's a week before spring break. I'm super stressed. I don't know what is going on in one class, or make that three. I just took a test and I'm not sure whether I failed or passed. But I just know that I tried my hardest to fill in the blanks. And my history classes cheered me up. :)

BUT LIFE IS GOOD. LIFE IS ALWAYS GOOD. :D

GOOD LUCK WITH PI DAY! ^_______^V

Here are the Valentine's Day pictures that I got!

The first entry comes from Jess W., from frigid North Dakota! (wow ND - look at all that snow in the back!)

The second entry is from Emily C., from San Jose! (where it's probably sunny now? - and yes, gummy chocos are pretty awesome, and your isef shirt is too :P)

What's better, a Gummy Choco tube or a MIT tube? (The choice is obvious)

And we have Lindsay S., from Scottsdale, AZ. Have you run out of frames to frame your MIT certificates yet? ;)

Then we have a Californian trio of Esmeralda R., Michelle C., and Helen W., representing San Diego, San Diego, and Goleta, CA. Michelle and Helen, are you guys holding beaver plushies? :P

Thank you all! :D Welcome to MIT and see you all at CPW! ^_____^V

(where are all the 2014 guys? :p)

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Want to be famous?

Want to be famous like Shannon was before she even became a blogger?

SEND ME your name, location, along with your best pose with the tube, the early admit card, the early admit poster, your brita water pitcher, your neighbor's cat...WHATEVER YOU WANT WITH THE MIT STUFF and I'll post them on the blogs! :)

My email's up on the banner :D

For inspirational examples, see:
the 2013 kids!
and
the class of 2012!

You have till 23:59:59, Valentine's Day, Samoa Time Zone.

GO!

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Non Sequitur, November 3, 2009

As applicants, what are your thoughts?

In these last five days, I feel like I've experienced the five stages of grief (one of the few things I managed to retain from high school Health) -

DENIAL: "No this CANNOT be happening to a Mac. I have a Macbook Pro for goodness' sakes!!"

ANGER: "What do you mean you can't fix it? Do you really work for the Apple Store?"

BARGAINING: "What do you mean I need to pay $1,200 to fix it? I'm still covered under AppleCare!"

DEPRESSION: After sending the Mac to a third-party Apple Authorized Repair person. I don't think I've been physically separated from my computer for so long (except non-working vacations or trips).

ACCEPTANCE: Well, I guess I might have to look into a new computer. I'll hear back from them about the status of my computer tomorrow, but if it costs more than $300 to fix (I think it may be a motherboard issue), I'll probably just get a new computer. I hope I at least get all my files (five semester's worth of essays - and music!!) back though!! :(

Haha - so this is what happens after your laptop dies at MIT. I feel like this is almost a side-effect from being here for so long - you become tethered to your computer through your daily life.

Case in point - walk into any common lounge at MIT where a group of people are clustered watching a movie on TV, and you'll see open laptops although their owners are still very much engaged in watching the movie. Walk into any communal psetting area, and you'll see laptops dispersed throughout the sea of papers.

Although it says somewhere that MIT students can theoretically get by without owning a laptop, I have to say that that probably takes great moral fortitude in its own way. MIT probably has a higher number of computer labs dispersed throughout campus (we call them "Athena clusters" - based on the name of the computing system that the computers run) than any other college, and clusters also exist likewise in all MIT dorms. However, I feel except for diehard Course VI majors, personal laptops have really taken over the scene and is most definitely the norm now for most MIT students after its wide availability in the previous decade. (wow I sound so old after writing that word)

That, and factor in the incredible wireless network that MIT has (i read somewhere that we have the fastest, broadest-coverage wireless network in any university in the US - perhaps even the world. i usually can get MIT signal in even peripheral buildings in Cambridge like the Marriott Hotel in Kendall Square).

Anywhoo, for me personally, the only inconvenience that I can (or cannot, really) whine about is physical proximity. I'm the odd pure science + humanities major in a school full of engineers, so I never had to sit down in a Athena cluster chugging away at Matlab, Maple, Python, or the like (fact: in my 5 semesters here at MIT so far, I have only used Matlab for assignments twice, and the only regular Athena commands that I know how to do is pine (to check email), zephyr (to IM, once in a blue moon), tellme combo (to figure out the darned code to the Athena clusters every time it changes), and lpq (to check printer status)). All of the other times I spent in Athena clusters involve using OpenOffice Word Processor (we don't have Microsoft Word on Athena) and Firefox. Haha. I'm probably a terrible "MIT student." You can laugh at me now. (the irony is I used to be quite proficient in Python back in my junior year of high school because of SSP. kids, it's a great program, apply to it!!!!)

But in all seriousness, I'm taking four history classes this term and I've never really realized the convenience of being able to type an essay in the comfort of one's own room or research the Russian Land Decree of 1917 in the common lounge rather than being holed away in a barren Athena cluster (although I must say this GREATLY helps with productivity, since there are no speakers on these computers so you can't get distracted with music or youtube).

So far, I've spent six or seven hours in the New House Athena cluster these last few days drafting summer internship applications and writing essays for my history classes. I must admit this had been a really new experience, but I'm still feeling some withdrawal effects....

So if you're a MIT student and doesn't own a laptop, I commend you from the bottom of my heart.

ps. Valentines Day pictures will have to wait till I figure out the status of my laptop...
pps. No pretty pictures this time :(
ppps. US WINS IN MEN'S HOCKEY OVER CANADA!

So you've probably heard of the comic strip Doonesbury. Basically, back in 2006, the author of the strip invited readers to decide which college the character Alex should attend. You can read about the history, which was chronicled by Matt, here, HeRe, and HERE!. Of course, pollhacking is not new, as demonstrated by the Victoria's Secret hack that happened my sophomore fall.

Okay so all of this was the backstory of how Alex decided to go to MIT. Here's some of the things that happened after she got here. (also - she's "graduating" this year!)

A compilation:

September 10, 2006- On Orientation

September 11, 2006 - What AM I doing at MIT?

September 25, 2006- On the HASS-D Lottery (it's not that bad)

October 14, 2006 - On Hacks

November 05, 2006 - On Being Hosed

October 15, 2006 - On Stata Center

January 08, 2008 - On Freshman P/NR (but it's only for one term)

March 08, 2008 - On IAP (and Charm School)

May 20, 2008 - girls at MIT = trophy girlfriend?

April 08, 2009 - on nerds

January 24, 2010 - most recent installment

Got any more? :P

...I basically just went home for six weeks.

But I had a reason for doing so, you see. In a little bit more than 48 hours, I will be taking the monster of a test known as the Medical College Admissions Test, or the exam that tests your ability to choose correct responses to 144 multiple choice questions in the realms of biology, chemistry, organic chemistry, physics, and English in four and a half hours. (oh, and write two essays while you're at it)

FUNNNNNN. (especially after spending the entire IAP poring over thousands of pages* of prep material).

* no joke. i read through at least 3,000 pages of material this break. if you think the SAT is bad, wait till you get to the MCAT.

But that's enough complaining on my end.

IAP (or also known as January Term in some other colleges - but MIT's is very unique!), is one of the many reasons why I love MIT. Our IAP gives us the flexible opportunity to pursue study abroad opportunities (like what I did in my last two IAPs), to work on projects (both abroad through things like D-Lab, and on campus in research labs through UROPs), to enjoy the multitude of craziness that goes on on campus (see our IAP listing, and Mystery Hunt!!, see this year's), or to just go home, chillax, and do something that you always wanted to do (like backpack across Europe in 4 weeks, which is what one of my friends is doing). I actually haven't to date had one IAP on campus, but rather spending three different IAPs in three different countries. I think it'll have to be next year. (this class still calls!! and I'm finally 21 :P)

I only regret that I have but four IAPs to spend during my tenure at MIT. =p

Anywhoo, I'm writing right now from a Starbucks on O'Farrell St. in downtown San Francisco, where I'm spending the last 5 days of my IAP. I arrived here yesterday amidst the pomp and circumstance of the unveiling of the Apple iPad (which, by now, you should know about unless you've been living under a rock in a barren desert devoid of Internet connection). I went to Yerba Buena Center for the Arts to find out what the hype was about, but I realized that there wasn't much to see from the outside, so I left, haha. IMO, iPad is basically a glorified iPod Touch, so perhaps this article did had some merit after all =p (oh, Mad TV predicted the coming of the iPad 3 years ago. since the video has PG-13 content I can't post it here, so please go youtube it =p)

I <3 SF. It's great being back.

Hahaha it's actually a pretty hard to read graph, but it's sequential by major number starting from the top and going clockwise.

Taken from here:

Sometimes, it seems like MIT people only speak in numbers. You'll hear sentences like "I have 6.001 in 10-250 at 2:30, then my Course 9 UROP in Building 46." This is part of MIT-speak. Here's a primer.

Each of MIT's majors - known as Courses, with a capital C - is known by a number (sometimes given in Roman numerals). These numbers are in approximate order of the founding of MIT's course in that area. For example, Courses 1 through 5 represent MIT's original five majors:

Course 1: Civil & Environmental Engineering (founded as Civil & Topographical Engineering)
Course 2: Mechanical Engineering
Course 3: Materials Science & Engineering (founded as Geology and Mining; Geology is now a part of Course 12, Earth, Atmospheric & Planetary Sciences)
Course 4: Architecture (founded as Building and Architecture)
Course 5: Chemistry (founded as Practical Chemistry)
A full list of the Courses can be found here.

Each class - or course, with a lower-case c - in each department also is designated by a number. Hence, the introductory calculus class in Mathematics - Course 18 - is known as 18.01. Similarly, an advanced astrophysics course in the Physics department - Course 8 - is called 8.971.

Here's how the course numbers evolved.

More on each major: Class of 2013 Major Advising Site

Here's what all the numbers stand for!

Course 1 - Civil and Environmental Engineering
Course 2 - Mechanical Engineering
Course 3 - Material Science and Engineering
Course 4 - Architecture
Course 5 - Chemistry
Course 6 - Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Course 7 - Biology
Course 8 - Physics
Course 9 - Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Course 10 - Chemical Engineering
Course 11 - Urban Studies and Planning
Course 12 - Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Course 14 - Economics
Course 15 - Sloan School of Management
Course 16 - Aeronautics and Astronautics
Course 17 - Political Science
Course 18 - Mathematics
Course 20 - Biological Engineering
Course 21A - Anthropology
Course 21F - Foreign Language and Literatures
Course 21H - History
Course 21L - Literature
Course 21M - Music
Course 21W - Writing and Humanistic Studies
Course 22 - Nuclear Science and Engineering
Course 24 - Linguistics and Philosophy
CMS - Comparative Media Studies
STS - Science, Technology, and Society
WGS - Women's and Gender Studies

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If you find yourself bored at home with nothing to do this break, LEARN MULTIVARIABLE CALCULUS!

If you don't know by now (and you should know), MIT has this really awesome site called OpenCourseWare, where MIT posts the course material for A HECKLOAD of its courses for students all over the world to self-study (and also serves as a great repository of past exams for us students who are taking the live lecture version of the subject during the term). Over the years, they've been filming live lectures and putting them online, which is super cool because they're the exact same lectures that we had here! (be sure to also check out 8.01 with the globally acclaimed Professor Lewin)

During my freshman year, I took 18.02 (a requirement here for all students - Multivariable Calc) with Professor Denis Auroux, who is a simply outstanding professor. I was actually IN THE SAME CLASS as this set of video lectures from Fall 2007!

Sadly, Professor Auroux is on leave at UC Berkeley now, and the froshies this year didn't get to have him for 18.02, but his lectures are nothing short of legendary (how many classes have YOU been in where students gave standing ovations during the last lecture?! - see the last lecture of the series). For other Auroux related fame, just youtube "A Lovely Phone Call" or facebook and youtube "Auroux." :P

I won't be blogging again till 2010, so a very happy new year to everyone! ^______^V

(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.

(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.

(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

-excerpt from George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language", 1946.

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So once upon a time, I wrote a blog comparing the college essay to froyo. Since then, the application has been revised, and although I still believe in the merits of the first blog in regards to a long college admissions essay (500-1000 words), it definitely doesn't apply completely to the new short-answer system that MIT adopted.

A few months ago, I created a bogus account on my.mit.edu so I can actually catch a glimpse at what the new application looks like (it really doesn't look that different, ha) and I've been thinking about how I would approach these essays. Although nothing here is the product of intense cognition, I thought I'd share some of my views on these small essays.

Essentially, you have 5 "mini-essays" - What You Do For Pleasure ("pleasure" - 100 words), Department at MIT ("department" - 100 words), What You Do That's Creative ("creativity" - 250 words), World You Come From ("world" - 250 words), Significant Challenge ("challenge" - 250 words), and that's it! Less than 1000 words total.

The easy things first - the "Pleasure" and the "Department" prompts are not really "essays," but short answers, so they can be easily answered. My advice is just to go ahead and be honest with them (well, you should be honest in your entire application ;P), especially with the "Pleasure" essay. The admission officers ("adcoms") are not looking for "standard" answers, and you won't get brownie points by putting down "programming," "building robots," or other "MIT-y" answers (although they also definitely won't penalize you if they do happen to be things that you do for fun). Just be honest!

Many people stress out about the "Department" essay, but I can tell you that MIT DOES NOT admit on a quota, and you WILL NOT be penalized by which department you put down on that blank (I don't know how many emails I've gotten on this subject already - seriously, the adcoms are not lying at you, and no - there is no conspiracy either). Therefore, you will not seem more impressive if you put down Philosophy, over, say, Mechanical Engineering. When I applied, I put down Chemical Engineering (oh, such were the days of my innocent youth, when I believed that Chemistry was trivial), but now I'm happily a Biology (and pending History) major. Your interests may shift after you enroll at MIT (and realize how brutal some of the courses here can be), and that's perfectly fine! So don't worry too much.

For the "Creativity" essay, I would encourage you to look at the connotation of "creativity" from a new angle (in a sense, be creative about exploring creativity :P). You can go broader than physical things like creative projects or creative inventions. I would investigate writing about creative ideas, creative ways of looking at things, creative ways of solving problems, for example. I wrote about a concrete research project I did when I applied, but I thought that was quite boring in comparison to the other things that could have written about, so I encourage you to explore this topic a bit further. :)

Ah - ok, now we come to the challenging 250-word essays.

So back in the day, we had a choice between these two essays to write a long essay on, but I guess now they're requiring you write on both of them, but as shorter essays.

Actually, I really enjoyed the "world" essay - and I thought it was the one of the best prompts out of the prompts for the 15 colleges that I applied to (number one was still Stanford's "photograph" prompt - I loved it. Sorry MIT :P). The challenge now, however, is how to condense all the things you want to convey into mere 250 words.

In order for me to see what a 250 word word limit is really like, I wrote a 250 word essay. Not on MIT's prompts, though.

He held up the sheet of wrinkled paper, his eyes in silent protest.

The tattered bill requested 13,800 dollars for a three-day hospital stay.

"Why call the ambulance? Just leave me alone!" the frail old man muttered. Just a week ago, Mr. Vu suffered a stroke that required hospitalization. Because he could not understand English, Mr. Vu had not applied for health insurance, resulting in the exorbitant bill.

An internship at an Asian clinic opened my eyes to the untold story of limited-English proficiency patients, who often struggle to obtain health care in a maze of foreign forms and convoluted policies.

Suffering from a worsening stomachache, Mrs. Wong was neglected in the county hospital for over two hours, unable to flag down a passing nurse for assistance because of the language barrier. Clutching a X-Ray order, Mr. Park searched in vain for Radiology in a blinding flurry of English letters.

Over the summer, these stories became too common - accounts of immigrants fighting for their right to care in a shockingly monolingual health system. After the internship, I participated in a medical interpretation training program and was licensed as a Mandarin health interpreter in November. I wanted to change the status quo.

My experiences this summer solidified my conviction of entering into public health, especially immigrant health, as my future course of study. America has long prided itself as a "melting pot" of cultures. Isn't it only fitting that there exists equitable access to health care, regardless of the language spoken?

The word limit is kinda short.

Now, a disclaimer: I want to stay that this is not intended to be a "model essay" (I think the ending can use some more work, among other things), but I thought this would be easier in illustrating a point.

If you look at the essay, I like going narrative -> point -> how it connects to me. In fact, this is what I use for most of my essays :3

Here's the same essay, deliberately made worse (but to illustrate a very common problem in college application essays):

Last summer, I worked in an Asian clinic in Oakland, California. Over the course of the summer, I realized the plight of immigrants when it comes to obtaining equitable health care. In the modern health industry, immigrants and other residents who possess limited English proficiency are often overlooked because of their inability to communicate their symptoms to the doctor and complete paperwork in English. This problem is exacerbated when they cannot apply for health insurance, resulting in exorbitant health bills. In a country that claims to be the "melting pot" of cultures, this kind of neglect is no longer acceptable.

Many patients suffer extended waits in the hospital, unable to obtain assistance. It is possible that a worsening stomachache is the initial sign for appendicitis, which needs to be treated expeditiously. Often, hospital signs are also not translated into other languages, making navigation difficult for elderly patients. These scenes are played across hospitals in the nation everyday.

After my experiences this summer, I realized that I wanted to channel my energy into the revitalization of this system. It is no longer sufficient for us to stand on the sidelines and watch. To this end, I participated in a medical interpretation training program and was licensed as a Mandarin health interpreter. I hope I will be able to contribute my efforts to the field of public health, especially immigrant health, in the future. These patients cannot afford to passively wait for language-accessible care and continue to sacrifice their right to treatment.

Also 250 words, but this essay is riddled with problems, many of which Orwell pointed out in the blurb above.

1. The essay is filled with extraneous and needlessly difficult words. ("I wanted to channel my energy into the revitalization of this system")

2. The essay lacks a personal voice - it's very passive ("These scenes are played," "immigrants are often overlooked," "the problem is exacerbated")

3. The essay never "shows" - it only "tells."

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Show, don't tell!

I can't emphasize this enough. This essay points out many problems of the health care system, but doesn't offer any examples of the problems. At the end of the day, which essay will readers remember better? An essay that speaks in general terms or Mr. Vu with his bill?

Personally, I think after MIT made the switch from the long essay to short essays, this point is even more pertinent. You just can't afford to waste words speaking in vague terms that doesn't convey much in terms of meaning.

When adcoms read thousands of essays on end, you need to stand out. Ideally, your essay should pack enough punch (that's a cliche :P) so that your readers have a "take-home message" (another cliche :P). Simply put, you need something memorable about your essay. If you feel bored writing your essay, chances are that the person reading your essay will be bored too. Make it vivid - let your story shine.

Finally, the other point I want to convey:

Trim the extra fat!

I narrowed down the first essay from over 400 words to just 250. Chances are, you can do the same too. The second essay is plagued with extraneous words, and actually it can be narrowed down to just this without loss of meaning:

Last summer, I worked in an Asian clinic, where I realized the struggle of immigrants in obtaining equitable health care because of the language barrier. They often cannot apply for health insurance, resulting in exorbitant bills. This is not acceptable in America, which claims to be a "melting pot" of cultures.

Many patients suffer long waits in the hospital, unable to get help. A worsening stomachache can lead to appendicitis that requires rapid treatment. Often, signs are only written in English, making navigation difficult for elderly patients.

It is no longer sufficient for me stand on the sidelines - I want to make a difference. To this end, I participated in a medical interpretation training program and was licensed in Mandarin. Eventually, I hope I can work in the field of public health, especially immigrant health. These patients cannot afford to passively wait for language-accessible care and continue to sacrifice their right to treatment.

This new essay is only 154 words. Although it definitely sounds stilted and shouldn't be submitted as a complete essay, it still goes to show how much excess fat one can usually trim from a typical essay.

Not to reiterate myself too much from the previous blog that I wrote, but the effective essay, IMO, is the essay that really shows who you are, where you're coming from, and what your loves are - in your own voice. Both the "world" and the "challenges" essay are structured so that it's focused on you and your stories. Use these opportunities to tell a story - to convey who you are. There's no need to repackage your tale in fancy rhetoric or educated vocabulary.

Just as we see in world literature: often the best stories are, really, the simplest stories.

Go and change the world! Buena suerte! :)

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Some things I learned this semester:

Here's a fun experiment. How do we perceive emotion? The faces pictured below are either Angry, Fearful, Disgusted, Happy, Neutral, Sad, or Surprised. Two are used more than once.

Taken From: "Coding Facial Expressions with Gabor Wavelets." Michael J. Lyons, Shigeru Akamatsu, Miyuki Kamachi, Jiro Gyoba. Proceedings, Third IEEE International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition, April 14-16 1998, Nara Japan, IEEE Computer Society, pp. 200-205.

Taken from Hood, Clifton. 722 Miles: The Building of the Subways and How They Transformed New York. John Hopkins University Press, 1995.

A 1907 ballad, "The Subway Express" depicted the Interborough as an arena for sexual flirtation where the motion of a crowded rush hour express threw two strangers, a young man and a young woman, into each other's arms. As the train sped from lower Manhattan to the Bronx, they fell in love:

(Boy)
It was in no sheltered nook
It was by no babbling brook
When romantic'lly we met.
(Girl)
Ah, the scene I can't forget
We were thrown together in the Subway Express.
(Boy)
You were clearly all at sea
As you wildly clutched at me
When around that curve we swung.
(Girl)
Yes, and though I'd lost my tongue
I made a hit with you, you must confess.
(Boy)
Yes, you hit me in the back
And as around and round you flew
I inquired if I could tender a supporting arm to you.
(Girl)
To which I answered, "No sir!"
When the guard yelled "Move up closer"
And clearly there was nothing else to do.

(Boy)
We first met down at Spring Street
And then upon my word.
(Girl)
I felt I'd known you all my life
When we reached Twenty Third.
(Boy)
You won my heart at Harlem
(Girl)
At the Bronx I murmured yes,
(Boy)
We lost no time in that hour sublime
On the Subway Express.

Now isn't that an amazing way to fall in love?! :P

ps. Just in case you were confused, some of the classes I took this term were Ecology (1.018/7.30), Neuroscience (9.01), and History of New York City (21H.235). That's where all the things are coming from. :)

Back to studying!