May 8 2013

Night Vision

Posted in: Miscellaneous, Academics & Research

This semester I’m taking Intro to Photography. For the first half of the semester, we were thrown into the darkroom. It might as well be a time-machine (film? what’s that?)....and a time-warp. The darkroom is time-consuming. I spent countless hours over the last many weeks pouring, shaking, and sifting, not thinking much at all except keeping track of how long I’ve been doing each aforementioned action. It’s brainpower-consuming -- I can’t actually think about nothing when i’m trying out specific techniques to make what I see in my head manifest on paper. It’s emotions-consuming -- when multiple test strips fail to produce what I want, I cry, if only there was a preview button.

For all the inconveniences of the analog process, practicing making non-digital prints has actually done something extraordinary for my digital photography life. (Photography people, try not to shake your head too hard.) For the past two years that I’ve owned a DSLR, I’ve never used it on manual. But... read the post »

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Mar 6 2013

We Eat At Food Trucks

Posted in: Miscellaneous, Life & Culture

Last Thursday, I went to “Food Truck 101: The Conference”, a 4-hour event coordinated by Clover Food Lab and MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning. When I RSVP-ed for this event, I totally forgot I was planning to go to the Nate Silver event the same evening -- but that’s okay, because Michael covered it fantastically.

That's the outside of Clover Food Lab.

And this is the inside.

Clover Food Lab, which grew out of a single food truck serving the MIT campus, now represents an entire fast food chain with eleven trucks and two restaurants (with two more opening this spring). Clover food is: local, fresh, and organic whenever possible. To be honest, the food tastes a little too "healthy" for me, but plenty of people rave about exactly that.

Ayr Muir, Clover’s founder/CEO and host at this conference, is actually a graduate of MIT’s material science department! We listened to presentations on "How to Invent Food on a Truck", "How to Build a Food Truck", "Food... read the post »

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Feb 20 2013

This is it.

Posted in: Miscellaneous, Academics & Research

Hi friends,

My final semester at MIT is well underway and spring break is in 4 weeks and graduation is looming on the horizon and real life is about to catch up to me (just kidding, I'll most likely still be a student in graduate school, but more on that in another post). In any case, I still have to get through all of the following classes in order to graduate with a major in Architecture and minor in management.

Well, good luck to all of us this spring semester!  Feel free to ask about classes or anything else at MIT. :) 

Discussion

Feb 10 2013

One More Look At Our Snow Globe Life

Posted in: Miscellaneous

Hi guys,

Here's another look at blizzard weekend on campus. Sadly (I mean...) school is open tomorrow, so it's back to a mostly snowballfight-less life. :P

Nemo just getting started in Boston -- dedicated joggers forge on...

3:57 pm -- you got 3 minutes to get off the road cars!!! (The state instituted a ban on cars from 4PM on 2/8)

There is kind of a lot of snow now -- and the only vehicle is a plower.

Nothin' to do but line up for blizzard sundaes at my dorm, Burton Conner.

And then the Institute-wide snowball fight happened.

And maybe I can get the bread I want next week.

Discussion

Jan 10 2013

Falling in Love with a Language at MIT

Posted in: Miscellaneous, Life & Culture

I met Will and Kristina in very different parts of campus. I was psetting at Next House during spring semester of freshman year when Will popped up and started speaking to my friend in Chinese. I hardly even got his name, but in my mind, he was already The Hispanic Guy Who Speaks Really Good Chinese. I got to know him better last January on an IAP trip to Korea - during which he still brought out his workbooks to study Chinese...

Kristina and I were teammates on the MIT Sport Taekwondo team. While we all waited to fight at tournaments, Kristina would do her Chinese homework, sometimes asking me for help. When I see Chinese-language updates on Facebook, Gchat, or Tumblr, there’s a good chance it’s from her.

I came to America from China in 2000, having just finished second grade. The next time I took a Chinese class would be at MIT - and I ended up taking three more to fulfill the concentration requirement. While my speaking, writing, and reading abilities have all improved... read the post »

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