Monday, April 15, 2013, I was sitting in the Margaret Cheney Room Women’s lounge on the 3rd floor of building 3 with a graduate student and we were both working furiously. I had a deadline at 5 pm for my Economics of Health class essay, so everything else happening around me was kind of a blur. Then I heard two loud claps of thunder. I looked up at the sky and it was greyer than usual and the only thought in my head was “I thought we would have beautiful weather today for the marathon? But it should be done by now though” and went back to work. Half an hour later, I checked my Facebook and couldn’t believe what I was looking at. It was one of those catatonic moments, when your body was so shocked you couldn’t move. It wasn’t thunder. I immediately called my mom who was in Vietnam, even though it was 3a.m, because I needed to talk to somebody.

After the initial shock reaction, the only thought in my head was “I volunteered in the ER at MGH, I can help, I need to help”. I called Milton, the head of the volunteer department and he told me to come down. So I put all my things in the locker and ran to the T.

The atmosphere at the hospital was visibly different, and security guards and policemen surrounded the premise. Since I left from campus and didn’t have my ID with me, I couldn’t enter the ER. Instead I helped out at the lobby, directing the traffic flow and helped bring families of runners/ spectators to the Blum center to locate their loved ones. The faces of family members stricken with worry and sadness would be engraved in my mind. I wanted to hug them, and tell them that everything would be okay. But I didn’t know that, so I didn’t. I prayed for every single minute that the patients would win in their fights against death. My heart somewhat lightened up as I witnessed how many people stopped by to ask where and how they can donate blood. “I am O-, and donating blood is the first thing that came to my mind”, one lady said. I saw other patients and their family members comforting the family members of the injured runners & spectators. People of Boston came together in vulnerable moments like this. It was love. It was kindness

Classes began on Wednesday with everyone trying to grasp, to understand the situation. Why? The question of why this happened came up again and again. I am in my last year of college and I can say with confidence that this is a peaceful and loving city. When I first arrived in the US from Vietnam, I literally didn’t understand how people could be so nice and welcoming. My host family picked me up at the airport, gave me cooking utensils, bowls, dishes, kettles, fans and all those little things that a freshman would possibly need and made a delicious meal every major holiday/celebration. People smiled at me on the street. Sometimes I was on campus until 3-4 am and didn’t feel a tinge of fear when I walked home because the MIT police drove around campus throughout the night to make sure that everything was fine. There are emergency notification posts scattered around campus that allowed students to be immediately connected to the police department. And those cold snowing winter nights when I didn’t even want to think about walking across campus to get back to Macgregor from the library? MITPD was always there to offer me a lift. But the atmosphere I saw on Wednesday was different, it was stressful and tense… it was because we haven’t had any closure.

And then the most tragic thing happened. A young and passionate officer from MIT PD passed away in the line of duty. A friend of mine, who is also a friend of Officer Sean, wrote a note yesterday on Facebook that moved me to tears. It was a message about a young man who was so full of life, kindness and optimism about the future. It was a message of love. Everything happened too abruptly, too suddenly. The image of the Stata Center that you saw online and on the TV? That is where Tech shuttle drops students off for class, for lecture or for lab everyday. Who could have thought? Who could have known?

I stayed at my dorm for the next 24 hours, watching the entire Cambridge and Boston area being emptied like ghost towns. Anxiety escalated as hours passed by with no signs of capture. I got some sleep at 7 am after an alert right outside my dorm. It was the strangest, most perturbed sleep that I have ever gotten: I woke up every hour or so, checking my newsfeed, my twitter, my Facebook, everything… hoping to see closure. And it came; the pressure and the anxiety suddenly disappeared in both Cambridge and Boston.

Online, I saw that image of 19-year-old Tsarnaev being captured that was circulated on Reddit, Facebook and every news channel, next to a video of students who celebrated the capture in the streets of Boston, next to news about the Fertilizer Plant Explosion in Texas, next to messages about Islamophobia, next to articles about Czech ambassador explaining "Chechnya Is Not the Czech Republic”, next to immigration debate, gun-control debate. A whirlwind of emotions formed inside me, so many thoughts jumbled up. I turned off my computer as I think I needed to take a step back to process all the information that flooded my newsfeed.

The most burning question I have in my mind is as an individual, what can I do to help with all these issues? Hatred, poverty, prejudice and violence tend to follow in a vicious cycle that is so so hard to break. Arguments, whether it's personal, national or international can get overheated and escalate beyond control in a split second, just because of a single act, a single phrase sombody says. Calmness, truth and positivity are hard to come by these days. So I decided to follow a religion, the religion of kindness. I need to drown out in my heads thoughts of negativity, of pessimism, of worry, of fear and live in the moment, passing on the message of kindness. Those moments when I was so occupied by work that I lost my perception of time, those moments when I was stressed and tired that I felt like I could collapse anytime anywhere, those moments when I chose surfing online, indulging in social media and watching TV shows over enjoying a beautiful day outside or reconnecting with my friends? No more. No more. Life is way too short. Look, my four years of college are almost over! And it only seems like yesterday when I first arrived at Logan. Yes, I will pass on the message of kindness and of love everyday, whether it is volunteering, whether it is helping someone cross the road, whether it is calling my parents, calling my friends and telling them I love them, whether it is helping someone pick up something he/she drops on the floor, whether it is forgiving someone, whether it is giving thanks to the baristas at Dunkin Donuts or at Starbucks, whether it is giving those little boys and little girls at the Stata Childcare Center the biggest smile I have when I pass by there every lecture. And when I have children of my own, kindness is the first thing I will try to teach them. Passing on the message of kindness is the most crucial thing, because once it multiples, the impact will be beyond what you can imagine. It is difficult, no doubt, as we have so many responsibilities and plans. But it’s do-able if we keep this thought close to our heart.

As I watch this beautiful little boy playing at Steam Café in building 7, I can only hope that the next generations will have a better and more peaceful future. I will contribute my part today and the days to come and I hope you guys are with me.

P/S: The little boy just came over to say Hi! So much love.

Courtesy of The Tech

A steady stream of visitors paid tribute to MIT police officer Sean A. Collier in front of Building 32 

Messages and gifts of thanks and in remembrance of MIT police officer Sean A. Collier were displayed at the lobby of MIT Police headquarters.
 

The Green Building at MIT was lit in tribute to MIT police officer Sean A. Collier on the night of Apr. 19.

“Playing the bagpipes helps me get over bad times,” John Graham ‘16 said after he played “Amazing Grace” on the banks of the Charles River, in tribute to the victims of the Boston Marathon attacks earlier that same day.

My god I can’t believe it! It has been almost 2 months since I arrived in Boston. I have been up to my ears in work, dance practices and MCAT. No kidding. I sleep like a baby every night cuz I am so tired by the end of the day! But I am really happy though since I am doing all the things I love. I will also be back at MGH soon to volunteer so it’s just a lot of exciting things going on!!!

First up, my work this summer! This summer, I am doing research in synthetic biology as a member of the MIT iGEM team. What is iGEM, you may wonder:

“The International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Foundation is dedicated to education and competition, advancement of synthetic biology, and the development of open community and collaboration. In 2012, iGEM spun out of MIT and became an independent nonprofit organization located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. The iGEM Foundation fosters scientific research and education through organizing and operating the iGEM Competition, the premier student synthetic biology competition. It also fosters scientific research and education by establishing and operating the Registry of Standard Biological Parts, a community collection of biological components.”

Taken from iGEM website (URL: http://igem.org/About )

More specifically, I work on the tissue culture (TC)/ transfection part of the project with some amazingly driven and hardworking individuals! Even before I arrived in Boston, Kristjan Eerik Kaseniit ’14 made an effort to update me on the project via Skype when I was in England and has been working tirelessly on the system’s designs. Nathan Kipniss ’14, also a member of tissue culture team, has helped me so much with catching up with the team’s progress (since I came back from England after the start of the project), while always being on top of his experiments and data analysis!! We also danced around in the lab when we got good data and celebrated by nomming the delicious macaroons that Nathan baked!
Another person I would like to give a shout-out is Katie Bodner ’15 (whom I called my lab baby bear). Despite this being her first research experience, Katie has been working really hard to learn new techniques and how to design her experiments and now she is a pro! Good job to all my baby bears (I am so proud!)

A note to freshmen entering this fall: When you are doing your UROP (Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program) this fall or the coming spring, don’t hesitate to ask your supervisors or colleagues in the lab a lot of questions and take a lot of notes. Never be afraid that you will “sound stupid” because everyone has to start somewhere and freshman year is the time to build your foundational research skills. At the start, you might not know a lot of things but I guarantee after 2-3 months of hard work, you will be a whiz! Also, it’s important to maintain your experimental techniques because believe it or not, they might be lost!

Sneak peek of iGEM project

Magical power of fluorescence proteins:

\

Magical power of inducible genetic circuit:

First you see yellow fluorescence:

Add another plasmid, now you don’t!! :)

And last but not least, magical power of robots that do mundane pipetting procedures for you (brought to you by Felix Sun ’15 and Chelsea Voss’15 who did most of the coding). That was Chelsea right there next to the robot!:)

What else happened this summer? Yes, dance!!! I have been a member of MIT Ballroom Dance team for the past 3 years, oh, may be two, since I was away for a year (I did ballroom with the Cambridge team though!) Anyway, apart from the regular trainings we have, this summer, I am also involved in a concert that the team is organizing this fall! Ballroom is one of my greatest passions, so I am gonna need a separate post for this but in short, it has been nothing short of amazing training with our brilliant and experienced coaches this summer! I wish I had 48 hours a day so that I can train and dance more!

And lastly MCAT: Ooooh MCAT, the nightmare of most pre-meds. Well.. at the beginning, it was somewhat enjoyable because I was reviewing a lot of the things I learnt during my freshman/sophomore years. I went: “ Oooooh, I knew this!” so many times ! MCAT materials also overlap with my classes in Cambridge! There are also brand new materials, which are quite exciting to learn! BUT. now that I only have like a week left to my exam, I am feeling some butterflies in my tummy :( I need to keep up a positive attitude though!

AND I HOPE YOU ALL ARE PUMPED ABOUT ORIENTATION! SEE YOU ON CAMPUS SOON 16's!!! :)

Love

Linh

Sorry for the super duper long hiatus :( After my final exams which ended early June, I immediately set off for some traveling (I was in desperate need of some de-stressing) then came back to Cambridge to pack my whole life there into 4 suitcases, attend a May ball and say farewell to all my friends. I then flew back to Boston on 20th June and started work/research the next day! Sounds exhilarating and somewhat exhausting, doesn’t it?

Now it has been more than two weeks since I left England. It feels somewhat surreal how time flew by so quickly! I am now a rising senior *letting out a little scream in my head*. After a year studying abroad, I thought I should do a little reflection on my experience for MIT students who are considering spending one or two semesters abroad. I feel that this is also something freshmen should know about, surprisingly enough. One regret I have is not planning my classes properly before my year abroad and now, I can’t take some of the classes I really want to take, since my schedule for senior year is already so packed :(

Studying in Cambridge is a great experience. On the top of my favorite-things-in-Cambridge list are actually the courses (Tripos) I took, which consist of physiology, pathology and biochemistry. Physiology is my favorite subject of all times! It’s supposedly really similar to MIT’s 7.20J Human Physiology, but since each Tripos lasts for one whole academic year, it was taught at much greater depth and breadth. We learnt about the cardiovascular system, respiration, endocrinology, renal physiology and body fluid homeostasis, reproduction, development, fetal and neonatal physiology, exercise physiology and man and vertebrates in extreme environment!! (Try saying all that in one breath!) Such materials are very different from the biology classes I took at MIT during my freshman and sophomore year, which mainly focus on biochemistry, molecular and cell biology. Physiology to me, acts as a bridge between the cellular and the whole-organism levels, helping me gain a very balanced and complete picture of biology as a whole. It is also an excellent partner to my other two courses, Pathology and Biochemistry.

By the way, Pathology is a really fascinating Tripos too! Now, every time someone sneezes, coughs, has an abrasion or even just talks of a disease, in my mind I think of the mechanisms of infection, activation of the immune system and tissue repair! I know, it sounds REALLY geeky, but it’s truly a fantastic feeling to understand the biological processes happening around you! 

My labmate, Suehern during one of our physiology lab sessions on exercise physiology

Checkout my review walls (or parts of them). Pretty intense eh?

Biochemistry labs

Where I spent most of April and May- Queens' College library

Enough about classes though! In Cambridge, I also fell in love with the history and beautiful sceneries of this little town. I mean, Cambridge is voted as one of the ten most beautiful places to visit in England for a reason! The charming town replete with cobblestone streets epitomizes the quintessential Englishness: beautiful Gothic and Tudor architecture of cathedrals, libraries and dining halls, punting on the river, garden parties, sipping Pimms on the lawn, lads looking as if they come straight out of a Jane Austen novel and students biking everywhere around town.
I would like to share with you all some photos of Cambridge taken by a fellow CME student, Ho Yin Au! His photos are truly fantastic and they manage to capture the breathtaking beauty of Cambridge!

St Johns Street

Clare College

Cam river

King's Parade

Sunset in Cambridge

Punting!

Trinity College Chapel

King's College

Bridge of Sighs, St John's college

Thank you for the photos, Ho Yin!

Another aspect of Cambridge that I greatly enjoyed is Formal Halls and May balls. Formal hall is a dinner held at different colleges where students need to dress in formal attires and often gowns to dine. It's usually held 3-4 times a week. May ball, on the other hand, is a ball only held at the end of the academic year. The ball is organized by any one of the colleges of the University of Cambridge. It's a "glitz and glamor" event that starts around 9 p.m. and lasts until well after dawn, "Survivors photographs" are taken of those who last until morning.

St John's college being all glammed up for May ball and its fireworks! 

Old friends and new friends at St John's

Check out the fashion of the men of Cambridge!

Mr Photographer taking the survivor photo at St John's

Another great perk of spending a year in Cambridge is traveling around the UK and continental Europe. In the UK, I visited London, Oxford, Birmingham, Reading, Bath, York, Edinburgh and Brighton while in continental Europe, I went to Switzerland (Bern and Geneva), Germany (Freiburg and Karlsruhe), Spain (Madrid and Toledo), Sweden (Stockholm) and Lithuania (Vilnius). Yes. I have the travel bug.

Even though, this is my forth-consecutive year I visited Europe, I was still amazed every time I reached a new destination! For instance, in the small and quiet town of Toledo (a municipality south of Madrid), my mind was blown away by Catedral Primada Santa María de Toledo’s breathtaking architecture and stained glass, as well as the cathedral’s stunning collections of valuable artworks by El Greco and Francisco Goya!

Seeing the sunlight penetrating through the ceiling windows, forming a brilliant circle of radiance did make my heart skip a beat.

The best thing about traveling to all these places though, is the company of all my wonderful friends/hosts. Mathilde, a fellow student from Cambridge, shows me the beautiful cities of Bern and Geneva with bears (REAL BEARS!) and giant fountain Jet d'Eau. Danielle’12 and CJ ’13 showed me the cosmopolitan action-packed Madrid. Karolina, my Cambridge ballroom teammate, drove me around Vilnius and also took care of me when I had high fever and horrible sore-throat when I just arrived in Lithuania. I also had the chance to reconnect with my secondary school friends from Vietnam and my high school friends from Singapore, who are currently studying or working abroad in England and Europe. I even met up with a friend whom I knew from an international science fair in India five years ago!

With all that said, I did think about MIT a lot during my stay in Cambridge. At the beginning of the school year, being away from all my friends and getting used to the new environment weren’t easy! I also received tons of emails of new exciting happenings at MIT that I would have loved to join but couldn’t since I was away.

What I missed the most is actually those late nights working together with my friends trying to solve a difficult problem set or to work on a group project. Such experience at MIT gave me a strong sense of camaraderie, mutual support, “we-are-all-in-this-together” sort-of feeling. Also it has created a close-knit and caring community who helped me overcome many obstacles during my first two years of MIT. At Cambridge, group work and group projects are rather uncommon; grades are determined by end-of-year final exams and the most important exam component is writing essays, a somewhat segregated process.

Another aspect of MIT that I missed dearly in Cambridge is the ability to do UROP/research during the school term. At Cambridge, it’s extremely rare for undergraduates to participate in a research project during term time. For me, such direct participation in the brainstorming and problem-solving process, as well as the opportunity to use cutting-edge technology in research, not only reinforces what I learn in class, but also fuels my enthusiasm for science!!! Furthermore, learning about my friends’ research projects, their ideas and insights greatly inspires and motivates me. They do some really cool stuff that I would love to talk about in future blog posts!

All in all, studying abroad at Cambridge is an unforgettable experience. It helps me gain new academic perspectives, appreciation for other cultures, and many amazing new friends! Thanks to CME, I also realize the different aspects of MIT that I appreciate and treasure the most. When my plane landed at Logan airport, I did whisper: "It's home"

:) :) :)

Sorry for the recent lack of post! After an epic trip around Europe (which I WILL DEFINITELY blog about later!), I have to go straight to exam revision (yes, over here people say revision, not review :)). Anyway, as you can tell from my post tittle, I wanna talk a little bit about what MIT peeps do during the summer since the holiday is fast approaching (of couse, after the horrifying super intense final week for people at MIT and my crazyfrightenthelivingdaylightsoutofme 9-paper exam at Cambridge.) SIGH. I will look like a zombie for 2 months ☹ But it’s okay though, because I love what I am studying!

My life:

Anyway back to the summer experience. Usually MIT people do epic stuff so I am super excited to share with you all! This post will be split into 2 parts because apart from talking about my summer experience, I have also invited two awesome MIT people to write about theirs!

First say hello to Saba Mohsin, class of 2011. Both of us are members of Sigma Kappa sorority and that’s how I got to know her!! Since the first time I talked to her, I have always thought that she is an incredibly intelligent, motivated and inspiring individual but when I heard her describing her summer experience during her four years at MIT, my response was “WOW”. Currently, she is doing her Masters in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University. Anyway, here are Sabah’s epic summer experiences!

“Some of my fondest memories of MIT life took place during the summertime. I was lucky enough to find three programs that allowed me to travel for 1-3 months and I can say with conviction that I am who I am today because of those opportunities.

I lived in Paris for about 10 weeks during the summer of 2009 through the MISTI program. I worked in an experimental fluids lab at ESPCI and lived smack dab in the middle of one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. I spent my days capturing the effect of surface tension on submerged jet deflection and my nights strolling through the Bastille, munching on macarons.

The following summer I obtained a PSC Fellowship to spend 3 months working on a portable water project in the small community of Santa Ana in the Amazon region of Ecuador. During these three months, I was challenged in more ways that I could even imagine. It was both a humbling and strengthening experience and I left there with such strong bonds with my host family and friends that I have since returned to see them again. I am so thankful that MIT gave me this part of my life.

My twin host sisters (Shirley and Samira, 6 years old) who always made me laugh with the older Sacha (11), who is someone I admire very much.

Collaborators from Santa Ana who helped us develop the community water system

Our three team members (right to left: Mauricio, Israel and the late Antonio) who helped us with our water project and taught us more than we taught them. They were colleagues, bodyguards, jokesters, and dear friends.

In 2011, two weeks after my graduation, I traveled to Costa Rica where I spent 8 weeks working alongside the Ministry of Science and Technology launching a nationwide high school science camp series as a part of "Talento Joven". MIT students collaborated with Costa Rican university students, with the Costa Rican Institute of Technology, and even with HP Costa Rica to run some of the most well-received science camps ever. I was so proud to see my students finding their love of engineering and later to see them going on to college and pursue that love. It's the MIT spirit and I'm glad it has infected others."

Me as coordinator with the students of Costa Rica's first science camp.

The most hardworking and brilliant group of counselors I could have asked for. What great people!

Coordinators and counselors at the inauguration of Talento Joven.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

The second person I would love for you all to meet is Qing Li, Class of 2012. Again, we met at Sigma Kappa and I adore her wonderful personality, always cheerful, friendly and optimistic. I have always known she is a great swimmer but when she told me “I am going to swim the English Channel”, I believe my response was “WHAT? Pause. AGAIN WHAT?” This is an extremely difficult feat even for highly athletic people, but at the same time, it’s an incredible thing to do. So yes, I can’t wait to share with you all Qing’s summer training and swimming the English Channel!

“Last summer, I set out to accomplish my dream of swimming the English Channel (EC). This had been my dream since junior year of high school, when my history teacher gave out end of year awards. Some people got "Most-likely to cure cancer" or "Most-likely to be senator" or even "Most-likely to be arrested at a peaceful protest."Mine was "Most-likely to swim the English Channel."...because I was the only swimmer in my year.

Swimming the EC is 20% mental, 40% physical, 20% luck, and another 20% mental. Though, retrospectively, I really wish I had brought MIT's weather machine with me, seeing as I had to swim through a lighting storm and 20ft waves.

I prepared physically by biking, ellipticaling, and swimming about 4-5 hrs a day as well as getting open water and night time swimming experience on the weekends. I built my swimming yardage up to about 25-30 thousand meters a week. This was the fun and easy part. (Warning: the next sentence is my public endorsement of MIT, Boston, UROPs, and LAI) Having a UROP position at MIT's Lean Advancement Initiative allowed me to pursue my research in systems and lean engineering, in collaboration with Boston Medical Center Diabetes Services. I also allowed me to have access to MIT's great athletic facilities and open water spots such as Walden Pond, Nahant beach, Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, Portsmouth NH, and other fun places in the greater Boston area. I trained with a friend from the varsity team, Anna Kokensparger, as well as two girls from Smith College who were also attempting to swim the EC last summer (and who had also succeeded).

My training buddies

Even though swimming the English Channel was physically challenging, the biggest obstacle for me was the mental aspect. I worked hard by talking with my varsity swim coach, MIT masters swim coach, and other EC swimmers to find out what I should expect from the swim and how to define the swim to make it my own. The mental preparation beforehand really helped me deal with my doubts about not finishing, the nausea, the physical pain, and the cold.

My preparation with Coach Bill of MIT Masters swimming helped me greatly. He had told me about the idea of "treeing." This is the technique triathletes use to forget about small things that go wrong during their race by channeling all the negative thoughts into a tree. After passing that tree, they would forget about those thoughts and, instead, focus on what comes ahead. I counted a forest by the end of the swim.

My thoughts of giving started with the first hour of the 17 hour swim. I already had motion sickness from the boat before I got into the water causing me to vomit eight time during my swim. And as I swam into the night, brought a darkness that blinded my senses and cooled the air and water to the low 60s. I shivered uncontrollably. Despite this, the lowing sun behind the white cliffs of Dover flooded my eyes with the most beautiful sunset I had ever seen. I was swimming in a National Geography foldout!!

Beautiful sunset!

The most challenging part of the swim came when I was just 5 miles from shore, which I knew it would. As we headed towards the eleventh hour, my head spun and my spirits were bruised from battling sea-sickness, cold, and storm. Light appeared and I began to see sea-birds, but still no land. As I swam on, the swells grew and fatigue set in and I struggled to stay along side my boat to take my feed. When I finally decided to as where I was, the answer I got was "Three and a half miles away. How long do you think it will take you?" Ha! Ha! Haha!! 3.5 mile? That's 6,106 yards! Or 5,632.704 meters! Or 5.6 kilometers! That's just a two hour practice! Well, long story short, it actually took me five hours instead of the two hours I was hoping for.

However, hearing I was so close was enough to renew my energy. I thought of everyone's support and the journey I had taken that summer. I knew I could not have even thought about attempting the swim, let alone getting that close to shore, without so many supporters. My goggles filled to the brim with tears (and it wasn't because my face got thrown into the edge of the boat right after my feed). Though my shoulders hurt, my stomach churned, and the waves sloshed over me, it was the support of everyone that allowed me to find the courage and energy to continue to swim.

Looking back, it wasn't the pain or the time and resources needed that ever detracted me from my goal. Nor was it the pure feat of swimming the English Channel that drove me to finish. What I gained from this experience was the opportunity to learn about myself, meet new people, and gain great friendships. Some say that the finish is almost anticlimactic. As you reach the red shores of France, the is a daunting question of "Great, I'm finished. What now?" For me, even before I swam, I knew I had gained so much already through that summer. The opportunity to swim and the ability to finish the English Channel was the cherry, the whipped cream, and chocolate frosting of an amazing journey.

After I reached France, with my parents. 

While this challenge was tremendous, I can't say it has proven me worthy of accomplishing everything I want to in the future. I probably will not cure cancer, nor will I become senator. However, I believe this experience as well as four years at MIT has prepared me to face the future with the best tools available and probably, most-importantly, gain the capacity to learn."
 

Thanks Saba and Qing for sharing with me and MIT admissions blog readers their incredible summers. I hope you all are inspired by them and plan great things for your 2012 summer. Next post: my summer fun!

Love
Linh 

(Source: leslieland.com)

Man, I feel excited for you guys! *Wipes sweat* I know you are counting down (consciously or unconsciously) to the hour of the decision release. Many of you will be glued to your computer on Wednesday or do things to distract yourself from your computer. I don’t remember much what happened during my Pi day; I think I went for some retail therapy and watched a few episodes of Friends to distract myself. (I wished I had gone bungee jumping or skydiving or stuff like that. That would be some story) 

Anyway, I just want to say this: Thank you for loving MIT and choosing the institute as one of your college options. Thank you for working hard on your applications. I really hope that everyone, whatever result you have, will take it in stride and move forward. Throughout all of my years in school, especially during the seven years studying abroad, the greatest lesson I have learnt and want to share with you all, is: Life presents us with many obstacles, challenges and adversity; we might fall down once, twice, or even more. But anytime we fall down, we get right back up and keep walking (we did this even when we were little babies, remember?) And if you keep working hard, you will finally get what you want and it’s going to feel so good.

Imagine me sending good luck kisses from across the pond.

Ooh, and to serve as a source of distraction, here are some cool things I did last week! I was in London twice, once for serious business and once to meet with my high school classmates in Singapore (It’s amazing how we managed to meet at another city half way around the world!) 

For my first trip, I tried to think of touristy things to do so that I could take advantage of my day in London. So I decided to go to the Natural History museum! Giant trees and giant dinosaurs? Of course I am in! My trip was pretty much: “ooohhh… aaaahhhh… wow” and “Lookie! Museum shop!”

Cool stuff I learnt? 

As a bio Major, I ran here and here:

And as an MIT student, I couldn't resist this:

My second trip was all about catching up with old friends and the magic of Wicked! Wicked was definitely the highlight! As students, my friends and I can buy discounted tickets and they were 4TH ROW SEATS. We were so excited that we could barely sit still. The musical was magical and I swear Wicked’s “Defying Gravity” and “For Good” are NOTHING like what you see on Glee. So much more emotion and meaning! At the end of the musical, I was singing and dancing in the street (as you can tell from the picture). My friend and I also did the famous “Toss, toss” (hair-tossing) of Glinda, which entertained many people on the subway.

And I also realized why my recent picture at Little Venice in London gave me a deja-vu.  

I hope my nerdy/silly photos gave you all a good laugh!  :) Relax, be confident and believe in yourself!

Love 

Linh

After having lived abroad for 7 years and visited many places, I thought I would get a little lazy and wouldn’t make an effort to travel. But every time I managed to drag myself out of my super warm electric blanket (hooray to Mommy who made me bring it to England) and went somewhere new, I was reminded of why I love traveling so much. Was it the unusual calmness of the bustling city of Bath that you can only see in the morning? Was it the break-taking architecture of Bath Abbey? Or was it the company of my fabulous traveling buddies? I think it’s the whole package.

The highlights of our trip must be the Roman Bath and the fashion museum. I got a little bit unreasonably excited when I was explained about the formation and chemistry of the hot springs that have been supplying water for the bath for thousands of years (my course 5 friends will be so proud!) But I decided to keep it cool because I was kinda surrounded by friends who are future bankers, economists and media specialists.

The fashion museum was rather entertaining because we could try on panniers, which are undergarments worn in the 18th century that extend the width of the skirts beyond your widest imagination. Yes, I did feel like Marie Antoinette. Yes, I did tiptoe and try to walk really fast in the most graceful manner possible. And yes, I did stumble, only a little bit (I recovered pretty well)

Another wonderful aspect of traveling is making new friends! In this trip, I met a wonderful and charming chocolatier from France. Thanks to my three French classes at MIT, I managed to have a decent conversation with him! He talked to me about his chocolate creations, his hometown and how he met Nicolas Cage here at the store. The whole nicolas-cage-was-here was obviously a joke (or IS IT?); but you know, French humor. And everything else was really interesting! He really liked our feisty group of girls so he decided to give us this little pink pig made out of marzipan as a little souvenir!

Our day ended with a visit to Sally Lunn’s house where the famous Sally Lunn Bun was sold. Sally Lunn was a young French refugee who baked this rich round generous bread, light and delicious, a very popular delicacy in Georgian England. It was an awesome weekend getaway; I was a little sad to go back to Cambridge and face with the mountain of essays and applications. BUT FRET NOT, something really exciting happened yesterday! Drum rolls… I attended a talk by a professor from MIT, here in Cambridge!!! How awesome is that?

Meet Professor Angelika Amon, an HHMI investigator, who currently works at David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. When I saw a poster pasted on the Department of pathology’s notice board about her talk on aneuploidy, I just had to go. Firstly, I just learnt about aneuploidy in cancer in my lecture a few hours ago. Secondly, beaver love. Nuff said.

It was a really cool talk, not only because it was right on the topic I was learning in class, but it really changes my perspective on posing the right questions in scientific enquiry. So aneuploidy is characterized by any deviation from an exact multiple of the haploid number of chromosomes (fewer or more). It’s different from polyploidy, which describes the state of having more than 2 sets of chromosomes.

In humans, aneuploidy is the leading cause of miscarriages and mental retardation. Interestingly, it is also a key characteristic of cancer. More than 90 percent of all solid human tumors are aneuploid!! I know both of these facts, but I haven’t never questioned why aneuploidy, a condition that is so deleterious in fetus, causing proteotoxic and energy stress, actually leads to cell proliferation and cancer in adults? If we can figure out how the proliferative ability of aneuploid cells comes about, we will gain a much greater understanding of evolution of tumor. And, perhaps, if we exaggerate the adverse effects of aneuploidy, say by inducing further energy stress, to eliminate the aneuploid cells, we can find new treatments of tumor!  How cool is that!!

Needless to say, I was pretty excited by the end of the talk. During the reception afterwards, it’s even more inspiring to see Professor Amon talking to other researchers at Cambridge’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology who are working in the same field. She got really excited about the findings shared by these researchers that she pulled out her laptop to discuss further about those results she gathered!! Man, I felt incredibly lucky to be able to meet such a passionate and talented individual!!

Thanks everyone for such a fantastic week :) and thanks to my dear friend Thu Hang from Warwick University, who took all those beautiful pictures of our trip to Bath! 

Umh, say what?

You might wonder whether these words are even English. Well, they are (I learnt them in England, from British people.) These words are among the many additions I have made to my vocabulary since I commenced my study at “the other Cambridge” *mysterious music ensues*

Yes, Cambridge in Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom, is also known as “that other place across the pond”, “Harry-Potter-style city”, a world-famous university with 61 Nobel Laureates (only 15 fewer than MIT, no biggie- notice the new sense of humor I picked up in England) and last but not least, the place where the structure of DNA was discovered (I am a biology major, I have to throw that in).

Now you wonder what in the world I am doing here, on MIT Admissions blog. Well, I am also an MIT student! (Trust me, I have beaver fever.)

Hi! I am Linh, a junior majoring in Biology (Course 7) and I am currently participating in the Cambridge-MIT Exchange Program. For those who are not aware, MIT has organized an exchange program with Cambridge University for the past 10 years (CME) and I am proud to be one of the students on the exchange program this year. Even though I am pretty much madly in love with MIT, I know that MIT creates all these study-abroad and exchange programs for a reason: to broaden the students’ horizon, develop our life skills and enrich our knowledge. Therefore I took that chance and I am glad I did.

So, one day, when I was reading MIT admission blogs, which I have frequented since I had the intention of applying to MIT, I suddenly thought: “Why not blog about my life here in Cambridge, from my classes or extracurricular activities, to trips that I made around the UK?” In this way, potential applicants as well as MIT students will know more about all the exciting study-abroad/ international opportunities that MIT has to offer. I asked the admission office and here I am! I hope everyone will enjoy reading about my college journey, at MIT and abroad. Hopefully I will be able to let all the readers know more about MIT and its awesomeness :)

Love

Linh