Senior Ball 2008 by Melis A. '08

Have you all had your high school proms yet? If your school doesn’t have prom or if you decided not to go, then you probably aren’t missing much. Prom is a nice excuse to dress-up, see what your friends look like with make-up on, and maybe ride in a limo, but in the end you’re just dancing awkwardly under the watchful eye of your teacher chaperones (“Sally, you’re dancing awfully close to Jimmy…”) Have no fear, for if you come to MIT you will have the opportunity to go to Senior Ball, which was held last night for the Class of 2008.

We received the invitation in the mail a month or so ago, and I was surprised to see that it was exactly the same stationary that my high school prom committee used.

The last few months of MIT are tough for most seniors – we are torn between our ever-worsening condition of Senioritis and the stress of knowing that we should be writing our Senior Theses and final reports that are prerequisites to graduation. So the time between receiving the invitation and the actually going to the ball went by really quickly, and before I knew it, it was May 3rd.

In addition to the stress of graduation, we also needed to find dates. Luckily for some, the Senior Ball Committee of 2005 created a Survival Guide (http://web.mit.edu/2008/seniorball/survival.htm) with pointers on how to find a date, things to discuss with your date, etc. They even provided a list of nerdy pick-up lines:

Pick Up Lines for Nerds (from http://askthebeaver.blogspot.com/)
–Hey, baby; wanna test the ‘k’ of my bedsprings?
–Are you the square root of 2? Because I feel irrational when I am around you.
–How can I know so many hundreds of digits of pi and not the digits of your phone #?
–You are one well-defined function.
–Hey, baby – wanna be sinusoidal functions? We could oscillate horizontally¡K
–Want a hot Euler body massage?
–Oman, I want Djibouti!
–Hey baby, how about I tinker with your software while you turn on my hardware?”
–Hey, you’re O positive too? Guess you’re my type!
–Remember my species – you’ll be classifying it later.
–Why don’t you come over later so you can balance my equation?
–Asexual reproduction is for pansies.
–Let’s get together later to converge.
–Hey, I’d like to sample your population.
–I think I need to work on the structural formula of your fatty acid.
–I’m just a cute piece of DNA who is still looking for that special transcription factor to help me unwind.
–Hey baby, can I be your DNA helicase? ‘Cause I can unzip your genes

(note: I don’t think anyone legitimately uses these lines…don’t assume that we’re crazy nerds. Except, in the spirit of full disclosure, my roommate did buy a t-shirt from the Coop that says “Talk Nerdy To Me.”)

Before heading over the Harvard Bridge (yes, the bridge connecting MIT to Boston is called the Harvard Bridge; it’s because it was built before MIT moved to its current location) to the Sheraton Back Bay hotel, most people picked up their dates and met up with a group of friends to take pictures. Here’s a picture of my group:

At 6 pm, hors hors d’oeuvres were served- bread, crackers, cheese, deli meat. Since most seniors are over 21, there was also a cash bar (but they checked IDs and gave wristbands at the door. For some reason they thought it would be a great idea to use blue and white striped plastic bands that made just about everyone’s outfit look tacky.) It was great to see almost the entire class in one place, I even ran into some people that I hadn’t seen since freshman year. I should also note that there were many non-senior present, both younger and older (for example, I had gone to the Senior Ball of 2006 as a sophomore.)

Here’s a picture of some of my Alpha Chi Omega sorority sisters. Gwen, on the left, made her own dress! She’s very artistic, clearly, and I don’t see how she finds the time to sew dresses when she’s on the Varsity Crew team and a Civil Engineering major…

At 7:30, dinner was served and a nice jazz band played in the background. You were allowed to send in the names of people that you wanted to sit with at dinner, and the Senior Ball committee did their best to make everyone happy.

After dinner, there was a dancing… lots of dancing. The music selection was pretty interesting, usually we’re overwhelmed with a continuous stream of hip-hop songs that direct us to get low and throw our hands in the air. But for some reason, the songs alternated between Latin and 80s music. It was great at first, but we quickly exhausted our small cache of dance moves.

At about 11, everyone started to go their separate ways. A few of us decided to go to Top of the Hub for a plate of freshly baked cookies. They’re delicious and I’d highly recommend them, as well as the view from the 52nd floor of the Prudential Building. The weather wasn’t fantastic, but this was the view from a previous visit:

Alas, I am happy to report that Senior Ball was fabulous and I hope you’re all looking forward to going.