Love,
Lulu

from Santa Cruz, CA

"You do know that MIT is unlike almost any other college in the country, right?".

A few months ago I was cooking dinner with my boyfriend and he was telling me about his visit to UCSC. He had gone to see a friend from high school who was either a junior or a senior there and was blown away by the setting. "Absolutely beautiful," it was exactly his kind of place, too. Full of a very wholesome, very natural beauty. Everywhere was mountains and trees and ocean and hippies. She had spent several days showing him and a few others around, introducing them to her favorite trees and caves and perches from which to view the sunset. And at night there was always something to do. Parties with friends and bonfires in true collegiate style. Wow, sounds perfect, like a movie, I said. Yeah, he thought so too, but then she said something strange. Toward the end of his visit, she'd asked, "What are you supposed to learn in college, anyhow?"

By his account she is an intelligent girl with a good head on her shoulders. She's had a picture-perfect time at UCSC so far but couldn't shake the feeling that she was missing out on something. So she pulled him aside, at a house party I think, and said, "Do you feel like you've learned anything in college?" She was genuinely curious. "I don't know if I have."

My boyfriend's a physics major, like me. He was my junior lab partner second semester, if you remember. He didn't know what to say.

So he told me this, and I dropped what I was doing. "Wow, I can't even imagine what that's like," I said.

I realized soon after that that wasn't the case. I know exactly what that's like. To miss out on something, that is. I know all about waking up in the morning to a boston day in the spring, one of those rare ones with the power to obliterate all memory of even the tough as rocks New England winter and life is just bursting out of every crack and crevice in a great green flood. On those days I've open my windows wide, picked out an outfit with a smile on my face, packed up my things and stepped outside in a t-shirt and my favorite skirt thinking this sun is exactly what I need so today I take the outside, round-a-bout way to the library and promise that when I'm done and there's still sun, I'll walk into town or maybe I'll bike across the river, either way I need the exercise and I could use the getting away from this place. And how many days have I've sat until my butt was sore and finally given up at 11, or 1 or 2, with these daytime thoughts long gone from my head now stuffed full of the things my text book says and wondering, how did it get so cold out and why didn't I bring a jacket. I look up at a black sky with a spattering of stars and I remember back to freshman year when I felt so tough and so proud that this is what I've become, but now at this moment, I'm cold, I'm thinking, "Man, if only I were in California." and "I'm moving out there as soon as I graduate."

How do you know when you have to choose? I didn't know that I was choosing. How do you know, with things so bright and so bleak, that this is what you have to choose? I didn't really know what I was choosing. Then how do you know you've made the right choice? That, there's no question about that.

First, I imagine what it would have been like if I had missed out on 4 relaxing, beautiful years of my youth, a "4-year party", my boyfriend called it ("You do realize MIT is unlike almost any other college in the country, right?"). That's easy, because I have, so I know. I think about it and for the most part it amuses me, that I didn't have this experience. It makes me a little sad, but mostly, it makes me want to take a couple years off between college and grad school (haha). Then, I try to imagine what it would have been like to have had all that, to have been carefree, to have gone out every night, to have missed out on this education.

It doesn't even compare.

These entries might take a lot longer than I thought. Gotta start over. Good thing I already turned in my thesis.

In light of the halfways, quarterways, three-quarters-ways done with MIT posts that have been popping up left and right and the all-around mayhem of everybody waxing poetic about their life experiences hoping someone out there is reading, learning something, or just caring out of the corner of their heart a little bit from time to time, well, here's my announcement that I'm throwing my hat into the ring with the rest of them. Nobody is startled. I'm sure. But I'm going to do it anyways. I've lost the element of surprise, alas, but I'll try to make up for it in thoroughness.

Seeing as how I have two weeks of free time between now and graduation, and I've broken many, many promises of various entries on this and that in the last years, I'm embarking on a multi-part project called "Where are you going, where have you been" named after a rather creepy (but incredibly good) Short Story, the context of which has absolutely nothing to do with what I will be talking about (unless you're a lit major or you have a particularly sinister view of what I'm trying to do here), I borrow the title because it's beautiful. It's ambiguous. And it pertains to these entries on a superficial level precisely so I don't have to make justifications like this along the way. Go figure.

Anyways, I thought I'd put this up tonight, because it's 6:40am and I'm not sleepy yet, because a thunderstorm has brought in the day, because everything is so still except for the low constant rumble of the city, because my mom called to say that she was proud of me, because everything has to go, everything, because nothing is real but what you take with you, but mostly, because if I didn't get this up now, I will probably lose the motivation in a couple of days, and this will never happen, and I think I will be sorry if that is the case.

Hi Lulu,

I was wondering about your thesis since I hadn't heard from you and the due
date was last Friday. You can have an extension until Thursday, May 21. It
is the absolute last day I can accept a thesis. I am in the office from
1:30 to 5:15 so drop it off sometime between those hours.

Good luck with the completion of the semester and your thesis.

Have a great day!

[Course Administrator]

As of right now, I have 12 pages written, and sketchy headers for the next 7 or so sections (Shot Noise, Dark Current, Variations in Quantum Efficiency, Saturation and Pixel Overflow, Readout Noise, A/D Converter Nonlinearity, Background/Bias subtraction, Relative Photometry... guess what my projects about? ).

I've been trying hard to work on it every free minute I have, but there's always something that gets in the way. First there was my photography final project, which took up 3 weekends of shooting, editing, and writing. But it took me out on the commuter rail to a part of the state where I don't normally find myself, which made for an enjoyable change.

There was philosophy, with 2 problem sets due this week, which I keep meaning to go to, but continue to pathologically oversleep because I'm miserable in the morning from allergies. If you live in the northeast and you have allergies, they /will/ get worse when you move here. This makes me so psyched to leave.

Then, just in time for the home stretch I caught a terrible stomach flu that had me prostrate on the bathroom floor for a long miserable Monday night. Tuesday I started the last General Relativity problem set, which contained two of the easiest problems and also probably the most difficult problem we've had all semester (4 hours went into #1 and #3 together, we've put at least 10 hours into #2 so far just to end up with a black hole for a star). Not to mention I haven't blogged in over a month. Just a lot of loose ends to tie up, you know?

I'm taking data for my thesis at this very moment. After tomorrow I'm handing in my last problem set in college and then it's work work work on this final thing that has been causing me months of unfocused rage. When I met with my advisor at the beginning of term, he threw down a dusty volume of text on the table between us. He is this German physicist with white hair who can at times be quite tall......

THESIS. He said.
It was, like, at least 100 pages.
I replied,
there's no way I'm going to write that much.

I think I'm pretty right about that. It will end up being more akin to 40.

In lighter news, by this I mean I'm going to talk about things that cause other people misery now, tonight I spent 2 hours taking the draft final for 8.022 to "make sure it was ok". And it is. :)

My point is, I don't have any finals at least. haha.

Update:

Life is still pretty good.

In any case, last night, I picked a classroom in building 66, parked my butt down for 3 hours and took a full length exam. I got up to leave at about 3am, gathered my stuff, pretty tired and confused, turned around and saw this:

(Someone's conclusion at the end of a lengthy economic analysis.)

...and everything was illuminated.

lol, it's good to be a senior.

3:30am MANDATORY EDIT:

In all seriousness, maybe this post is giving people the wrong impression.

The first thing you learn at MIT is how to manage a heavy courseload. The last thing you learn at MIT is how to manage without. I believe this. If you're a second semester senior taking 8 classes, you're doing something wrong.

I hope this important point isn't lost on you guys. Classes aren't everything: here's my actual week

Well, in order to understand me, what drives me, what might be my short term and long term goals, it's important to go a little ways back in my history (what history I have), not too far, just a blink of the eye really in the scheme of things, back across the years that made all the difference in the world to me, or none at all, depending on how you look at it. I was 8 and lived on the outskirts of one of the fastest growing cities in Sichuan, right along the fault where the developing, oftentimes ridiculous city just dropped off into the farmlands like a cliff. I was just a breath away from the main highway they'd started building to connect the major cities of Sichuan, but I couldn't have been farther away from the knowledge and innovation that they carried. I lived with my grandparents, and we had none of the technology, especially none of the purpose, of this rapidly changing landscape, going from green to grey, ecstatically.

That was when I loved the sky. Before I knew about massive objects and space-time and the various wavelengths of light, the sky was a black sheet and stars were holes in it. And that suited me just fine. I never thought twice about not knowing. No one I knew ever took any issue with not knowing. Except maybe my grandpa, who, later, would be the proudest of me out of anyone when he learned I was studying to be a scientist, but back then I never heard it. He was a reader, a talker with his quiet streaks, and one day he told me that stars came in all colors, that they were bigger than me, bigger than the biggest sky scrapers, bigger than our mountains, bigger than the whole wide world. Just huge. I tried to imagine. I stared and stared. I still remember that sense of awe. I still feel it every time I look up into the cold night sky up here in Cambridge and I'm glad of it.

It's easy to not know, but once you know something there's no helping it. It changes things. I came to America to live with my parents. I'd left everything behind but a strange restlessness. The restlessness of living on the edge of great change: an encroaching city of NeiJiang, a bottomless ocean of knowledge.

Knowledge is love. It begins out of curiosity, continues out of duty, then every once in a while it takes on new meaning that makes it all worthwhile. My friend once told me that when he first met me, I was obnoxious, but I had this wide-eyed look, and that's how he knew I was ok. I realize, now, strangely, that this is how I feel about physics. Through it all-- the competition, the hierarchy, the work, the grants, the brick walls in research, progress at a standstill-- that is still what I love about it, those big, wide open eyes that just love to see-- that take everything in without discretion. Science. Beautiful science. And we created it. I think about that and I feel such a sense of pride, I do.

A lot has happened. My grandparents' flat was torn down to make more room for roads. I've gone to school in three different states and twice as many towns. I've lived in Cambridge as long as I've lived anywhere and I'm graduating in the spring. I can't tell you honestly where I'm headed. I don't know that much. I do know this: MIT gave me an opportunity and I seized on it. Everywhere I go I see open doors and windows. In some sense college has changed me forever, and in some sense it never could. I'm stepping into a empty space armed with only highly specific knowledge and common sense; I'm guided by several things: A strong belief in education. A joy in teaching and sharing ideas. A restlessness that keeps me searching. And above all a love for all things.

Maybe at this point you're wondering if I did indeed write all this for Arecibo or if I just copied and pasted from some college essay I had lying around. I want to assure you, this is how I felt best to answer the questions of my background, my goals, and my scientific interests. I guess I had a lot on my mind. I like to write, but this is getting rather long. My research experience will have to be represented in the resume I attached.

I haven't visited China since I started college. I think I will go. This summer, after graduation. Graduation.

And there I go again, getting all queasy thinking about life after college, without the routine of classes and classmates and well-defined goals. Without the people and the place that have become a home for me. Well there's no way around it. After a couple years of getting comfortable MIT gives you the boot in the butt and tells you to get lost. And then what do you do? "What are you going to do after school?" I don't know, honestly. The prospect terrified me just last year, but with every incoming class, I can relate less and less and then I know it's time for me to go. And I think the prospect terrifies me as much as it ever did, but now it feels right that next semester is my last. It's a funny thing, one minute you think you'll never be ready to leave and then suddenly you just can't wait. You realize you've been preparing mentally for this day for four years.

So here it is, what became the biggest dilemma of my day: picking a yearbook photo.

I've narrowed it down to these, voted most popular among a sample of my friends/parents, arranged in order of smiley-ness.

#1: Are you looking at me?
#2: Everybody just calm down
#3: The one where my mom thinks my dimples look ugly
#4: Awkwaaaard.../I may or may not be in charge of my own destiny
#5: LOL. my gums are showing and I'm probably falling off this stool.

A more complete collection here. What do you think? Honestly, I probably have one in mind already and I just don't know which. I like the more serious ones over the more LOL ones. Just 'cause I'm a very very serious person.

And taking some pictures. Finals seemed like forever ago.

Taking the train back to New Haven tomorrow.