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 observing the effects of exposure, aperture, filters quite literally in the darkroom has made me much more curious about all those settings on my camera -- and the meaning of Instagram. Bottom-line: my friend who’s also taking the class says she enjoys going to the darkroom because it’s “therapeutic”. I can’t exactly disagree -- where else can you close your eyes, dream, and still be productive?

Here are some of my works from the semester so far; the first is a rayogram, the rest are all 35mm prints. Feel free to ask any questions about artsy classes at MIT, or anything else!

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 Truck Economics", "Social Media for Food Trucks", all led by experienced food truck entrepreneurs from the Boston area.

Here are 5 Random things I Learned

1. Food trucks do most of their food preparation in a “commissary” (sort of like a shared kitchen) -- not inside the truck!

2. The city of Boston requires food trucks to install GPS in them so they can be tracked constantly.

3. How much you need to spend before you sell anything on your truck: between $65,000 and $200,000.

4. Mei Mei Food Truck buys a 250 lb pig every 2 or 3 weeks; they butcher it themselves. PORK.

5. “How much can you charge? Whatever you want.” Hmm...

Eating at food trucks is a common MIT experience. At an (guestimated) average of $5 per lunch, food truck meals are also amongst the more affordable and convenient options. Since Boston is expected to have 56 food trucks out and about this spring, I really hope to see more offerings around campus. In addition to Clover, we have four other trucks covering Asian, Middle Eastern, and Mexican cuisines. They've been written about on the blogs before in the form of a Food Truckin' list and a Food Truck song. And when in doubt, there's Yelp! (Review for "MIT Trucks")

Do you have food trucks where you live?

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. :) 

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.

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 through these classes, I have a sneaky suspicion that if I just stop using Chinese (which has been the case since I finished Chinese IV last spring...), my language skills will once again hover at second-grade level. 

When I see Will and Kristina display so much enthusiasm for a foreign language, I feel ashamed. Past the guilt, however, I can't help but feel inspired to hold on to my native language.

Here, Will and Kristina talk about how they fell in love with Chinese at MIT. 

And for a soundtrack - press play on this video of Will (CubanCrescendo!) singing JJ Lin’s “我很想爱她”, recorded right here on campus in Maseeh Hall:

(Really, this guy did not know Chinese before coming to MIT.)

How did you first become interested in the language?

Kristina: My mom had a career with the State Department, during which she learned several languages. Growing up, she told me stories of being able to connect with people when she spoke to them in their native language. That connection drew me to language in general. I decided to learn Mandarin because it's the official language of the most populous country of the world, and also because it connects the speaker to a rich history spanning millennia.

Will: Before I got to MIT, I basically had 0 Mandarin-speaking friends. My high school friends were mainly Spanish speakers, some people from the Philippines, some Cantonese speakers, but I'm talking like maybe 7-8 or so close friends fit this category. When I got to MIT, and especially when I got to Next House, let's be real....all I heard was Chinese. I remember my closest friends freshmen year were Chinese-Americans, but they spoke to their families in Chinese on the phone. I would just sit and listen as they spoke to their moms and dads on the phone and continually wondered what the heck they were saying. I started remember parts of their conversations and then I would go up to random Chinese friends I had to practice and they would laugh so hard at me because I thought I was saying certain things right, but they were so wrong! Now it's not so much like that, now i get more respect for the amount of stuff I know.

But anyways, I participated in the Student Leadership Program (SLP) through China Development Initiative (CDI) and so I had the opportunity to go to Shenzhen and I think that was when I was really really really really really really interested and wanted to keep studying it. It was so fun being around the language and watching native Chinese faces with their look of surprise at how much I knew. But after coming back from that 2 week trip to China, I immediately emailed the Chinese department at MIT and explained my interest! Overall, it was definitely a combination embracing my “culture shock” and see how fast of a learner I was. I'm sort of a perfectionist when it comes to language, so when my Chinese friends told me things like "it's close enough", I never settled for that. I'd say the same word over and over and over again till it sounded spot on. I think the drive to sound more authentic was definitely a big factor.

How much Chinese did you know before coming to MIT? What about now?

Kristina: I didn't know any Chinese (not even 你好 - nihao!) before coming to MIT. Now, I'd say I'm somewhere between conversationally fluent and being able to speak Mandarin in a professional setting.

Will: Before MIT, I can recall one character that a Cantonese friend of mine taught me in high school, 冬(dōng), which means winter or cold. I don't even remember how we started talking about the character, but I never forgot it. Aside from that character and my unyielding belief that Panda Express was the best "Chinese" food in the world, I basically had no idea what Chinese people, language or culture was like.

Now my view is unbelievably different even to the point where some of my American Chinese friends tell me "you're more Chinese than I am!". That's always funny, but at the same time, it feels really good because to me it shows that my hard work has paid off. I'm starting to be recognized linguistically and culturally by the Chinese-speaking population. People often describe me as "fluent", but to be honest, I am nowhere near that level. In fact, that's one thing that I've always loved about the language is that I feel like I'll need another 5 or 10 years before I even feel close to fluent, so there's so much left to learn and explore. It's something I had never felt while studying another language before (I studied German and Portuguese before I began my Chinese adventure). I can say that I've definitely grown much more comfortable with my Chinese over the last few years. I've gotten to a point where it's not really about learning the language itself anymore, now it's more so about continually practicing all the skills I've already acquired. I'd say I'm pretty conversational, I can read and understand most of what I write. (Having the chinese version of Facebook really helps).

How did your time at MIT contribute to you learning the language? 

Kristina: When I first got to MIT, I jumped right into language classes. I took Chinese I (21F.101) in conjunction with 21F.076, Globalization, the Good, the Bad, and the In Between. In my sophomore year, I participated in MISTI-China's China Educational Technology Initiative (CETI), travelling to Hunan province to teach high school science. This early exposure to language combined with an early opportunity to travel is something that I think is unique to MIT. Being able to apply language and connect with my students when teaching inspired me to continue studying Chinese. I guess it goes along with MIT's "mens et manus" approach to learning. Application is instrumental to learning.

Here, Kristina takes a photo with a CETI student at Zhuzhou No.8 Middle School, after a massive water balloon fight demonstrating projectile motion. 

Will: I think MIT contributed in three major ways:

1. The Chinese department is amazing. I remember after coming back from Shenzhen, I was deciding whether I wanted to take Chinese 1 or Chinese 3 (only the odd classes are offered in the fall, even classes in the spring, so 2 was not an option). I wasn't sure if I had really learned enough in my free time with my friends to cover 2 semesters of college Chinese. I had to go and interview with 张老师 and luckily that experience confirmed that I was ready for the higher level. In Chinese 3, I was the only student that went to office hours weekly to make sure I knew everything from Chinese 1 and 2 as well as all the material we were covering in 3, but 梁老师 encouraged me beyond belief and helped me grow in confidence. I don't even know where to start with 陈老师. He's gotta be one the funniest guys I have ever met and his humor in the classroom and overall belief in my Chinese abilities is what ultimately led me fall more and more in love with the language. There was a Chinese speech and talent competition at U-Mass Boston and he really pushed me to enter saying "I know you'll at least get 3rd place" and I'll never forget the look on his face after I won the entire thing. I owe a lot to him in terms of my Chinese education, he always had faith in me and it's given me the same faith in myself.

2. As I mentioned before, MIT really gave me the Chinese friends that were so essential to practicing my language skills I had never had. I can't tell you how many times I met someone from China or Taiwan and immediately just started practicing with them. I would check almost every homework assignment with a native speaker to get any questions I had out of the way. I definitely owe a great deal to all my friends who pushed me and continued to encourage my love of the language.

3. Here's my advice: If you're serious about doing a language and want to learn it really well, go anywhere and immerse yourself wherever the language is spoken. I mentioned my experience in Shenzhen, but I had the best summer of my life this past year teaching throughout Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Mainland China with the CETI program. Not only did I have meet tons of students and friends and experience new places, but it was so fun to rely on the Chinese language to survive. Even now while I am back in America and no longer at MIT, my main method of keeping up with Chinese is by chatting with my students, friends and family in East Asia. I can't express enough how valuable this experience was for me and I really want to do it again (and I encourage you to do it as well). That summer honestly changed my life in more ways than one. It confirmed for me that I wanted to go into Education and gave me a means by which I could practice and improve my Chinese, which I was scared I would lose after leaving MIT.

Will teaching and traveling in Taiwan 

What are your goals for learning more in the future, do you think this love can be sustained after MIT?

Kristina: Now, as I finish my last year here at MIT, I plan on taking advantage of MISTI-China's internship programs to begin building international internship experience between graduation and graduate school. This will help me achieve my goal of using my language skills in a professional setting. Eventually, I'd love to go beyond Mandarin and learn other dialects of Chinese. MIT was instrumental in giving me the tools to take the first steps towards learning Chinese. Learning is a life-long process, and I'm confident in my ability to sustain my passion after graduation.

Will: As for the future, I'm pretty excited for what it holds in terms of Chinese. As I mentioned, I think that this past summer gave me dozens of friends that I will always keep up with. Some of my students want to come to college in America or even just come and visit and I've welcomed and encouraged them to make that their goal. This winter alone, my students from Beijing are coming to visit America and I have every intention of visiting them and showing them a little bit of America the same way they were so willing to welcome me into their country. Building off of the fact that I did not really have many Mandarin speaking friends in my community growing up, I hope I can be able to bring that new part of me back here to Los Angeles. Since returning after graduation, one of the things that my students and friends are most interested in are my travels abroad and so many people are interested in learning the language. I'm currently enrolled in a teaching credential program at USC and hopefully I can be teaching it to students in my area soon. If there's one thing I've learned from studying Chinese it's that the number of opportunities you have after learning it are endless. You make new friends, gain the ability to communicate with about 1/5 of the population, and get exposed to a whole different kind of culture. Chinese has helped me find a new side of myself that I never realized existed before MIT, it has transformed and defined my undergraduate career at the Institute and I already know that it will impact and continue to influence the rest of my life.

-----

As I try to reach for my own life goals of mastering French and Korean (and keeping at the Chinese), I know I'll continue looking to these two as inspirations.

Let me know if you have any questions about foreign languages and study abroad at MIT... or anything else!   

These past two months have been a blur. I actually hate saying that because this being my last year here, I desperately want to remember every moment. So I find myself reviewing my to-do list, à la a wonderful service called Teuxdeux (try it out: it's designy, simple, and amazing). I write down everything i have to do each day (both work and fun) and when something is done, I only cross-out never delete. So whatever day I look back to, I'd have an alibi. On October 16, I watched the second presidential debate. 

How do I make the most out of MIT before it's over? This has been a constant priority this semester. Here's one answer I found: going to lectures by the super cool people who come here. 

In September, Junot Diaz  - MIT professor, Pulitzer Prize and MacArthur 'Genius' Grant winner - held a reading of his new book, This is How You Lose Her. 

He said we can't live without art. 

In October, Masaaki Kanai (President of MUJI) and Hartmut Esslinger (Founder of Frog Design) gave a joint-lecture on "What MUJI and Design Can Offer the World of the Future".

They challenged us to think about the "optimal, ideal inhabitant of the world" and form a new economic model revolving around not money but our grandchildren. 

In November, Fernando Garibay (Interscope Records executive and producer/friend to Lady Gaga) highlighted the ways technology has disrupted the music industry.

He encouraged us to disrupt it some more - but focusing on changing the perception of music so that songs can change lives again.

Listening to these speakers over the past couple months has given me a lot to think about. I'm certainly thankful for the opportunity to attend and pass on the message. 

Have a great Thanksgiving holiday everyone! 

Also, I've arrived at home! :D 

September of senior year in high school, she invited me to go to a MIT info session with her. At that time, I wasn’t really considering MIT, because as my earlier confession would confirm - escaping math and science was one of the things I looked forward to about finishing high school. But with classic Asian parents watching over my shoulders during application season, the MIT information session was a stellar opportunity to "spend time with my friend in an educational environment." But seeing as I'm going through senior year at MIT right now, I clearly got more out of that info session than the usual chitchat and pamphlets.

My dad dropped me off at the venue, and right away, I spot my friend and her classmates from her new school. They were chatting effervescently about cookies or something. I caught onto the “cookies” part, because why wouldn't they serve cookies as refreshments before the info session? So I asked enthusiastically, “Cookies? Cookies? Where?! Where??” They glanced over at me, but nobody said anything.

Later I realized they were talking about browser cookies.  

At that moment, I thought, Wow, this is a sign I don't belong here...  

But the info session turned out to be really convincing and I decided to apply to MIT. If you've been following my entries, you'll know that my path here has been kind of unorthodox. Back during the application season, I was pretty optimistic, and thought that if I am just honest in my application, wherever I end up will be good for me, and I will be valuable to it. That place turned out to be MIT. I certainly have never regretted applying to MIT or choosing MIT. But I do wonder every so often just how much I belong here - was I what the admission officers call a "right fit"?

It didn't appear so at first. In senior year of high school, I was not understanding AP Calc BC at all, so much so I was scared to send out mid-year reports. And when I got to MIT, I would proceed to get C’s on pretty much all of the GIRs - calculus, biology, chemistry, physics... It was quite a disheartening start.

These days, my GPA is surprisingly above water. What I've learned is that though on the surface I’m not the typical MIT candidate, something about my intellectual spirit clicks with MIT. I always pass through this one hallway and see a panel that quotes our former president Susan Hockfield, “MIT is where science and society meet.” 

Right then, my body is so invigorated, my mind so inspired, and I know that here, I have something to gain and something to give.   

*** 

Represent yourself honestly in the applications. If you come to MIT, you might fit in in unexpected ways, and if you end up at another school, who knows what values you will hold? 

I’m writing to tell you about two events the MIT Society of Women Engineers (SWE) is organizing for high school students interested in MIT and all the science and engineering that happens here.

Last year when I posted about the Exploring Majors Fair, many interested students were disappointed that they did not live close enough to Cambridge to participate.

This time around, however, SWE is holding an “Exploring Science and Engineering” essay competition open to all high school students (guys, included!)! This means no geographic barriers, although all entries must be in English. (Note: Winners will be announced at the Fair, but if you can't be there, the award will be mailed to you.)

So for those of you near Cambridge, come check out the fair! And for those dreaming about MIT from more distant lands, get involved through the essay contest!

This is the official message from SWE’s outreach chairs.
---
Hi,

We are pleased to invite all high school students to participate in two exciting events also presented by MIT Society of Women Engineers: The MIT SWE Exploring Majors Fair and MIT SWE "Exploring Science and Engineering" Essay Competition.

Through this interactive, engaging fair, high school students will have the opportunity to explore a diverse number of science, math, and engineering fields and work on career development. The students will be able to network with current MIT students. Students can find more information and fill out the registration form at http://swe.mit.edu/highschool/exploringmajors.php

This year the date is set for Sunday, November 18, 2012 from 2:00 to 4:00 pm at MIT Building 32, Room 123. Please RSVP by November 4.

For the essay contest, cash prizes will be awarded and winners will be announced at the fair. More information about the essay contest and how to submit can be found at: http://swe.mit.edu/highschool/essaycontest.php

If you have any questions or concerns, please email mitexploringfair2012@mit.edu

Thank you and we look forward to seeing you at the fair and reading your essays!

Sincerely,

Jennifer Li and Mary Guan
MIT SWE
Event Outreach Co-Chairs

---
Feel free to drop a comment if you’ll be partaking in these events, I’m curious. Have fun and good luck!  

The night retreated, and I woke up to sunshine and a gentle old man painting the Boston skyline outside my window.

You should know that in Boston, the weather can change from pleasant to ominous in a matter of minutes.

And that's when I go out terrorizing teddy bears - like this little guy belonging to my dear friend Juhee. (Juhee, this is a shoutout.) 

REEEEEEEEMIX 

So I actually spend days of my senior year passing out the latest issue of Rune - MIT's art and literature magazine (We have a Facebook page now!)

...eating mint chocolate chip & vanilla ice cream topped with Oreo bits 

...and hot and sour ramen 

...and at some point, I go do important stuff like attending a graduate school fair, picking up swag, and coming back to campus to swarm tech info sessions with Dropbox and Yext, eating more food and picking up more swag.  

The End. 

Moral of the story: I wish I were programming as diligently as I was Instagramming.

My courseload this semester might look like that of a confused sophomore who is still unsure what course to major in. But the reality is not quite so. I'm a senior who's majoring in Course 4 Architecture and will graduate as so, but this semester I'm taking:

1.00 - Introduction to Computers and Engineering Problem Solving - also known as programming in Java. You know how they say "Do one thing that scares you every day"? My "thing" will be 1.00, every day of this semester. But I promised myself I must not leave MIT without being able to robustly code something and 1.00 also satisfies the REST requirement.

21W.735 -  Writing and Reading the Essay -  this is one of the two classes I'm taking "for fun". I don't really need it per say, but since I want to go into journalism, a writing class would make sense. It also helps that the professor is Ta-Nehisi Coates, who writes for the Atlantic - which in the past year became my new favorite magazine. Stoked, I am. 

STS.043 -  Technology & the Self: Science, Technology, and Memoir - this is the other class I'm taking for fun. We're trying to understand science, tech, design in the context of the self - aka we're going to be writing a memoir! The professor is Sherry Turkle, who has written/spoken extensively on how human relationships are impacted by our growing dependence on technology. This human-tech connectivity is all I ever want to talk about, kind of.

15.501 - Corporate Financial Accounting - I need this class for my Course 15 (Management) minor. We learn to read financial statements, balance sheets...and all that money stuff I'm not used to. Which is probably the number one reason I should be taking this class. 

15.567 - The Economics of Information: Strategy, Strategy, and Pricing - I think this one is very important. With all that technology, we get endless information. Big data. Social networks. Wisdom of the crowds. The future of I.T. So much to think about. The scary part here is that most people in the class are MBAs, mid-career Sloan Fellows...we also have to form a IT-based startup in a team...And I think a lot of the more experienced folks are trying to form a living-breathing startup, whereas I'm still thinking in a more theoretical realm...

I love that all my classes touch upon each other in some way. Twilight of the Elites, the book we're reading for 21W.735, discussed balance-sheet frauds, which involves what I'm learning in 15.501. In STS.043, I’m reading about how computers affect the way children learn math-y things, like programming...which is something I'm DYING to do in 1.00.  In 15.567, we're talking the economic impact of social networks, etc. which informs the whole discussion on connectivity and technology in STS.043.  

Click around the ThingLink on the top to get more of an idea of the classes I'm taking. The links correspond to where the classrooms actually are! Clicky-clicky! 

I've lived in Burton Conner since freshman year. BC residents are not enrolled in the MIT Dining Meal Plan, but we are blessed with full kitchens, which I haven't really taken advantage of save for ramen and the occasional pasta. (I'm actually really ashamed.)  For the past five semesters, I've also lived under the architecture studio lifestyle, which somewhat stipulates that every living moment, you should be working on your studio project; that was not an environment conducive to learning and practicing cooking. So I bought many, many meals from the eateries and La Verdes convenience store in the Student Center, a three-minute walk from studio. That cannot be healthy or economical in the long run. 

This summer, I had the opportunity to live in an apartment in Somerville, MA with some friends. We had a kitchen with all the cooking utensils I can imagine. We did not have the Student Center. And so begins my journey of "Non-Ramen Cooking in the Kitchen". 

The beginning of the summer was a little depressing. 

This was one of our first "classy apartment dinners". 

I eased my way into "actual cooking" by boiling corn. Baby steps.

And then I took a bigger step, and bought meat for the first time in my life. And cut it. And activated the once-dormant Asian stir-fry gene in my DNA. And I never looked back.

(I didn't have my own rice cooker, so all my stir-fry concotions were served with angel hair pasta.)

Hodgepodge of ingredients! 

Meat! 

Korean spicy stir-fried pork (recipe)

Chicken + Tomatoes + Zucchini 

Pork + Eggplant 

Beef + Peppers 

Now that I have some experience with stirfrying a few things, I'm excited to learn the intricacies of this way of cooking. Stirfrying is such a simple procedure, there must be other factors that determine whether you did it well or not. To continue this exploration in the dorms, I've completed step one.

I bought a pan. 

We'll see where I go from here...

How do you like to cook? 

Sometimes, the way we perceive other people can get in the way of relationship-building, but here are three things I’ve concluded from the past three years of college life: 

1. People are not as cool as you think they are.
2. People are just as awkward as you think you are.
3. People are more willing to help you than you think they are. 

Sure, there are a lot of cool and a lot of awkward moments at MIT, but all together, I think we balance out pretty well. :) 
 

A colorful shot from my Discover Urban Studies and Planning FPOP back in 2009. Aye, time flies. 

The Great Gatsby, “the Great American Novel”, is a book most of us have to go through to graduate high school. It’s also a book that has left me with a great dilemma: be yourself or create yourself - just which one is it? I wager that half of the successful and famous people will tell you, “just be yourself”, and the other half (plus the countless pseudo-inspirational quotes on Tumblr) will tell you, “you don’t find yourself, you create yourself”. In the novel, James Gatz created and became Jay Gatsby - the wealthier, glitzier, suaver version of himself that he put forth to win over the love of his life. Forgive me if I spoil the ending, but “Jay Gatsby” does not succeed in that one goal.

For me, MIT was a golden opportunity to “create myself”, even literally. Since “Jenny” is not on any of my official documents, I could’ve came to MIT and introduced myself as Chloe (which I mention in my blogger intro). I’ve always thought Jenny was too common of a name and coming to MIT confirmed those suspicions; there are at least three other Asian Jenny’s in the class of 2013. Ultimately, I wasn’t brave enough to follow through. 

But freshman year at MIT was also fertile ground for challenging other aspects of myself beyond my name - hobbies, likes/dislikes, means of socialization, etc. were all fair game. The diversity of people and options here made me confront the person I was in high school. Frat parties? I’ve never been! Super Smash Bros? I’ve never played! Midnight IHOP runs? I’ve never tried!

In the rush of finding friend groups and fitting in, freshman year can be overwhelming socially. Especially with Pass/No Record, it may very well seem like everyone’s hanging out all the time - for real or under the guise of pset parties - exchanging numbers extensively à la CPW. But in retrospect, the rush of freshman year is also a good time to explore who you really are.

For several weeks in fall of 2009, I wondered if I was anti-social - it seemed like everyone was hanging out more than me. (The plan was to become more outgoing, not less.) I actually did go to IHOP and a few frats, played Super Smash Bros and other games...but choices were definitely made in the process. It’s so easy to get FOMO - fear of missing out - nowadays because our devices constantly tell us what other people are doing. Not doing everything does not make you anti-social. The tricky part is putting yourself in position for rich, new experiences that could somehow shape your identity. But the exciting part is remembering that you have the power to choose where your time goes. 

--
To return to the question of "“be yourself or create yourself” , I think the first step is to know yourself - so well that the “creating” part becomes natural and authentic. In the three years I’ve been at MIT, I haven’t become any less of an introvert, with enough introvert energy to spend a whole day in my room just reading magazines. But by recognizing that introversion is an irremovable part of me, I chose to maximize bonding activities especially helpful for me - simple things like sharing a meal. (Despite all that emphasis on networking, the guaranteed hard times at MIT mean that the depth of friendships will be just as important as the breadth.)

I have not really become “Chloe” in any way except that now, “Chloe” seems to be a marker of all the things that are important to me and representative of my experiences. This green basket pictured below carries the valuables I took with me to MIT as well as the valuables I acquired since starting college. This basket helps me remember where I came from and where I’ve been, which in my experience, really helps in deciding where to go next. 

There are books and notebooks that I used in high school to learn French and Korean, the two languages I hope to master someday. I visited Korea last winter so France is definitely next on the list. There is a mini-Bible from before college, but I actually just became Christian last semester. I acquired a copy of Strunk & White’s "The Elements of Style" after my decision to change from architecture to media/journalism. 

But of course, you can’t possibly always know what’s good for you. MIT is also breeding ground for those out-of-comfort-zone moments that can uncover new things you love and value. Practically speaking, this probably means all sorts of study abroad experiences, out-of-the-blue work opportunities, accompanying a friend when he or she wants to go somewhere on a whim, etc.

Or on some funky days, it might actually mean becoming Chloe, even if it's just at Starbucks. 

(And Genevieve; my dear friend Kathryn accompanied me.)

Back in April, when I was still anxiously waiting to hear back from the slew of internships I applied for, a strange idea popped into my mind: what if I took the risky route and just stayed in Boston - writing and pitching articles? Like some fancy writer in a Paris café, except in a roasted apartment in Boston.

Fantasies aside, it’s a fact that many MIT students take on full-time, 40-hour work weeks during the summer - interning, researching, among other commitments. I was not ready to take on the idea of part-timing or trying out the freelance lifestyle, but the idea had already entered my mind. And we all know from Inception, an idea is a terribly scary thing to plant in the mind...Because we tend to act on it.

So every Thursday and Friday this summer, I hop on a bus to work at WGBH, the organization that produces NOVA, Frontline, Arthur, Curious George, and basically more than two-thirds of the programming on PBS. In other words, I’m working for the organization that was responsible for teaching me English.

When I first came to America in 2000, I literally sat in my room all day and watched PBS Kids. I’ve probably seen every Arthur episode twice, read all of the Arthur books, and played Arthur’s Reading Games on the PC day-in and day-out. I also watched the show ZOOM religiously.

(Does this sound familiar to anyone? or am I dating myself...)

These shows were my after-school routine and I have to admit, even in middle school, I still watched them occasionally. So you can probably imagine how excited I was when I walked around WGBH and saw these:

The actual project I’m working on at WGBH is PBS LearningMedia, which is PBS and WGBH’s effort to give K-12 teachers free online access to tens of thousands of resources adapted from educational programs like Arthur, Zoom, and NOVA. We can see from developments like MIT and Harvard’s edX that education is trying to embrace digital as much as anything, and PBS LearningMedia is trying to do the same for K-12. My role in all of this is mostly marketing: strategizing how more teachers can use PBS LearningMedia in more engaging ways, how to develop a Pinterest presence, etc. Fun fact: back in the day, the WGBH studios were housed in the present day Stratton Student Center at MIT.

Monday through Wednesday though, I’m playing a different role and tackling the working-from-home life. It is actually quite difficult because the Internet is the mother of all distractions and working-from-home is excellent at blurring the line between "work" and "home". In any case, as the editorial intern for PBS MediaShift, I'm writing articles, doing research, etc. My first article on the implications of the new Internet domain names went up last week and now it’s on-to-the-next one for me.

Plans really do work out in funny ways, and before you know it, you might be doing things you didn’t quite plan for. That’s what happened to me this summer, anyway, and I’m not complaining. 

--

And not to forget family-time, we went to Maine! 

Before I knew it, my mouth had stopped moving. It’s their turn now.

I have to admit, I don’t really understand your project.

I tried to sum it up again, but another critic zooms in on a detail.

You do know that your building needs legs to stand up right?

No s***, I thought. But how can I even think that when I know it’s my fault my project is behind on development? He kept going.

Let me demonstrate for you.

He walked up to my boards and started drawing a stick figure with legs. My classmates laughed.

And then my professor threw the last bomb.

Now I’m questioning if you even understand your project...

Boom. Boom. and Boom. When your own professor, the one who has seen the promise and struggles of your project since the inception begins to question, what is there left to salvage?

I had seen glimmers of hope while putting this presentation together, but at that moment, I had no idea what I was arguing for, what my project is trying to achieve, why I’m still standing there taking their bullets.

I had tuned out near the end and as soon as the chairs started shifting to the next presenter on my left, I’d started walking right, past Steam Cafe and into the bathroom. I’d already felt the tears rushing up while I still stood up there and I wondered if anyone had noticed. I like to pretend they didn’t. My mom has always told me that crying is a sign of weakness, that real life doesn’t believe in tears. But in my defense, I knew this wasn’t about criticism. Every review in the five architecture studios I’ve taken has had its own share of criticisms, to which my classmates and I all knew we had to absorb and many times challenge.

No, this was something more. It was the result of a build-up, the result of everything I loved, hated, and learned while being an architecture student at MIT, the result of knowing that after this semester, I will be leaving this very special kind of life behind. 

---

I’ve been debating my path on the architecture career for quite some time now. But it has taken a long time for me to admit that, because at MIT, the work really does never stop. As new projects piled up in my face, I was of course excited - out of novelty, curiosity...but was it a relentless and humble excitement, a mobilizing force that will propel me to want to learn more for the years and years to come?

In an earlier entry, I talked about the fear of falling behind and never taking the time to question what you’ve been working hard for. If anything, my dramatic mid-review presentation experience showed me once again how easy it is to get lost in the production of THINGS - whether that means drawings, models, renderings to show your professor, or publications, awards, salaries, Twitter followers, or LinkedIn connections to show everyone else. Looking beyond the products of our constant hard work...when the critics come rolling in however unwelcomed, can we still articulate our own missions? I could not do so in that presentation.

These thoughts piggyback on Chris’ latest entry explaining “the merits of not working too hard” and forgoing the “treadmill” path through MIT. I think by far the biggest rude awakening while crossing the bridge from high school to college is to learn that hardwork doesn’t end with getting into college. We can count on ALWAYS being in a rush to accomplish more. So as Chris suggested, it is truly up to us to peak out from the work zone every once in a while to make sure that we still know where we’re going, to realize what kind of fertile soil or quagmire is really among us.  

---

At MIT, architecture is one of the most personal educations you can get. There is no skipping studio class. Your professor expects to see you every other day (and once in a blue moon, on a Saturday) and expects to see your progress. When you’re not doing well, the professor and jurors tell it to your face. It’s a course where how much you work is directly proportional to how well you do; so when you do receive criticism, it’s always your problem. As difficult as this dynamic can be, I really love it. We get so personally invested in our projects that we have an unparalleled sense of accountability. This building better work out, or it's on me. But here is the plot twist. This coming fall, I pre-registered for five classes spanning the Management, Writing, and STS (Science, Technology, Society) departments. Architecture is conspicuously missing. I still have two architecture classes to take to graduate, but those will happen next spring.

You can probably imagine the horror when I told my parents I don’t want to be an architect. The first question is - what do you want to be then? Well for now, I'll say that I'm in love with media studies and details will emerge in future entries. But the next popular question is - what have you been doing for the past three years then? And this is when I explain how I have never doubted being an architecture undergrad. From what I’ve experienced, the course 4 design education has far greater lessons than the things we produce in studio and collect in a portfolio. And this is when I share them. 

What MIT Architecture has taught me about design and life: 

1. Architecture is never anonymous. Your work will be seen, so do work you'll be proud of.
2. When you discover a problem, don't ignore it. It will still be there and come back to haunt you as an even bigger problem.  
3. Beware - there’s a danger to closing off options early on: they could be opportunities to go beyond your present imagination. 
4. Don't bypass or underestimate research into precedents. Nowadays, it's common to feel like we NEED to be original. But sometimes, new ideas really do come from studying how people have done it before.   
5. Own it own it own it. Dress up for reviews. (Or at the very least, make time during the all-nighter to go home, shower, and make thyself presentable. Real-talk.) And bring your enthusiasm! if you don’t buy it, no one else will.
6. Don’t get caught up wth 100% functionality...In its dysfunction, you might redefine what the very thing you’re designing could be.
7. Indeed, design is about solving problems. Be observant to where the problems are.
8. Be rigorous. There are ways to test everything and argue why your idea works. Rigorous studies become research and evidence, and in this way, design gains the objectivity of science and engineering.
9. If you are staring at the computer screen and are stuck, stop staring at the computer screen. Talk to someone. Eat something. Go to the bathroom. Stop staring at the computer screen. 
10. And finally - it isn’t always about requirements, but rather what best conveys your idea. 

These are the notes I've jogged down for myself to remember, and I hope they may be of use to you in some way shape or form. 

---

And one lasting testament to my studio life? 

Piles and piles of Moleskines.

Every semester or so, the MIT Press (located to the Eastern edge of the campus) hosts a legendary Loading Dock Sale where several rooms are lined wall to wall with moderately new books at prices reduced up to 90% off. How could they afford to sell them for such low prices? Apparently, the books are mainly MIT Press overstock, or with minor damage, or out-of-print. But these factors are no deterrents!

Students, educators, and other segments of the MIT community crowded room after room, carrying baskets filled to the brim, and accumulating checkout sums of several hundreds. It could get crazy in there and it wasn’t hard to see why.

The content range was incredible. From computer science to political science, to architecture, to music, philosophy, linguistics...you name it. I tried very hard to tame my hoarder instincts. My friend walked away with an impressive coffee table book on the art of Duchamp. But here’s what I ended up with - I had to stop myself before it got out of hand, and so I can hurry off to the CPW Activities Midway.

Honest Signals is written by MIT Media Lab professor Alex (Sandy) Pentland on the significance of our nuanced ways of interaction. Inventing American History investigates historical events written to serve specific political interests. Designing Media is a collection of interviews with media pioneers, probing media of the future. And lastly, Ai Weiwei's Blog is a translated collection of blog entries from the Chinese artist/activist/true-multi-hyphenate.

I am still giddy about these purchases this very moment. 

So If you love books and will be at MIT, this is a quick public service announcement! There should be another one of these events this coming fall.

What are you reading these days? Any recommendations?  

The MIT Society of Women Engineers would like to invite local high school students to participate in the exciting annual engineering competition, BeaverDash. BeaverDash is an event specifically designed for high school students and is held each year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). No previous engineering experience is required, and male and female students of all science and math levels are encouraged to participate.

This year the date is set for Saturday, May 5, 2012 from 9:30 am to 4:30 pm. The topic of the competition will remain a mystery until the morning of the competition. When students arrive on the day of the competition, they will be assigned to small groups and matched with an MIT undergraduate student mentor. During the competition, students will learn about practical engineering techniques and will be encouraged to practice their creative thinking skills. The students will engineer and design their contraption within the constraints of the competition to compete later in the day for great prizes. Free t-shirts and lunch will be provided!

For students interested in science and engineering, Beaverdash is a unique opportunity to gain hands-on experience and interact with MIT student mentors. Students can fill out the registration form at http://swe.mit.edu/highschool/beaverdash.php

Please sign up by Saturday, 4/28. If you have any questions or concerns please email Jennifer Li at mitbeaverdash2012@mit.edu. Thanks and we look forward to seeing you at the competition!  

-----

Get on it if you're close enough to MIT! :)

Thanks for reading! If there are other aspects of MIT you'd like to learn more about, let me know in the comments below!

And finally, here are some resources that address the support network at MIT:

• GRTs and other forms of residential advising 
• Academic, Personal, and Spiritual Support 
• Residential Life Programs 

- J

I'm sure we all fall victim to surrendering minutes and hours to the Internet - aka procrastination. But is it me or are we all getting desensitized to the negative connotation of procrastination so that now it has become you know, a staple part of our day? 

- Hey whatchu up to? 

- Procrastinating. 

I don't blame us. The Internet these days is filled to the brim with appealing content - things to make us laugh (memes), things to make us react in one way or another (Linsanity), things to make us stalkers (Facebook)... just kidding.

But sometimes!

When I stumble upon neat stuff about my professors, I feel just a tad bit redeemed.

Two examples from this past week. 

ONE.

I was scrolling through my Tumblr dashboard (Tumblr is a micro-blogging platform by the way).

Usually it'd look something like this:

A New Yorker cartoon and a Jay-Z&Beyoncé picture (I'm a big fan.)

But on one very exciting day last week, I saw this:

Ok so Beyoncé is still there, but SAY WHAT? What is that interesting looking house with a seemingly robot face on the siding? 

I follow several Tumblrs that post pictures of fresh designs in architecture, etc. Usually I just look and admire, but this one I recognized. It's a design by my current architecture studio professor William O'Brien. Needless to say, I was excited and promptly took a screenshot to share with everyone I knew. (You can read more about this work and others here)

Then I went back to work. Possibly.

TWO

Several days passed and I was frolicking about online. Then someone tipped me off about a MIT professor in Fast Company's article, "The World's 50 Most Innovative Companies".

I flipped and flipped and flipped through the pages until I saw this:

(Images belong to Fast Company)

Jan Wampler! My studio professor from last semester! If you've been following my posts, you might remember that I wrote about how one studio project last semester had us build our own shelter out of bamboo and canvas. Well, Jan took that project one step further in light of the Occupy Movement and worked to figure out shelter possibilities for Occupy protesters. 

And that's the story of how procrastination doesn't get your work done - at all. But it does bring up points of interest.

The End. 

According to a recent New York Times blog titled "The Rise of the Toilet Texter", 91 percent of people between 28-35 have used their mobile devices while on the toilet. Blame it on all those apps for everything you can think of.

As our Internet culture continues to mature, words such as "social media fatigue" are becoming legitimate concerns. 

I wasn't fully aware of this problem in my life until our trip to Seoul in my last week of IAP in Korea. 

South Korea may be the Starcraft capital in the world (with its own serious Internet addiction problem to tackle), but it is also a country with such distinct and concentrated culture that upon exposure, inspires many thoughts about the differences in the ways we live our lives. One such distinction is the 찜질방 (jimjilbang), which refers to a Korean bathhouse. And it is my encounter with the jimjilbang that showed me...it might be time to pencil in some downtime. 

Although the first public bath house opened in Korea in the 1920s, the Korean bathhouse has a history dating back to the 15th century. The most traditional element in these jimjilbangs are the hut-shaped charcoal kilns with varying temperatures. (I remember going into one that was 50 degrees Celsius or 122 degrees Fahrenheit, which isn't even high in sauna standards; but I was nevertheless taken aback by the number.)

The New York Times ran an article last summer on jimjilbangs, and for visual reference, here's a photo from that story. 

(Photo credit: Woohae Cho for the International Herald Tribune)

While today's bathhouses boast restaurants, spa services, arcades, Internet cafes, movie rooms, etc., the focal point of the jimjilbangs are still the heated kilns that allow hardworking Korean men and women, young and old, to escape the fast-paced demands of modern life. That night in Seoul, our group of MIT students were among the many locals who retreated to the jimjilbang, happy to be sheltered from the brutal winds of winter at the very least.

Admission was just 10,000 won, which is a little less than 10 dollars. The entrance fee also came with a set of cotton t-shirt, shorts, and two towels.

The bathhouse is open all 24 hours of the day, but signs specify that you can only stay for 12 continuous hours each visit. That's still pretty darn long. We wondered if and how the Korean bathhouses filter out the homeless population. I wondered if and how similar jimjilbangs can work into American culture. It's also interesting that while many Americans pride on going to the gym regularly, the Koreans go to the bathhouse just as often to relax and sweat toxins out. Americans are notorious workaholics - we get 10 vacation days with an additional 10-15 days for full-time employees, which is still almost 10 days fewer than the 34 that South Koreans get. And it's not like the American economy is performing extra stellar.

We had arrived at 10:30 PM, and there were still families trickling in. Grandmothers, mothers, granddaughters. Young men. Old working men. Another foreigner looking for an authentic Korean experience.

We laid inside the kilns, napping, chatting about economic theories (I was just a listener to that conversation), eating hard-boiled eggs, comparing our temporary dwelling to summertime in Las Vegas. We moved from kiln to kiln that escalated in temperature until it was too much to handle. I also clumsily tripped a little on the way out and brushed my forearm against the inner surface of the kiln. Of course a mark appeared soon enough; it would be my souvenir of the night. 

During the whole experience, I felt like a baked pig. I've never paid to go somewhere to relax, sweat, and frankly, do nothing.

Paying to relax and get pampered may be on the calendar for the affluent or grown-ups working in the real world, but for a student like me, this seemed nonsense. We should be on the go! All the time! Multi-tasking! Weaving in and out of the constantly refreshing feed of life. I closed my eyes and tried to adjust to this mode of doing nothing.

Soon I found myself thinking...

Dear jimjilbang, I respect you for being a time-honored cultural tradition that not only sustains an impact on an entire nation, but also challenges the frenetic way of life we're accustomed to today.

After the endless flights, we finally settled in the dorms of Jeju National University. Then we went outside... 

The sky was overcast, but I spy with my little eyes...OCEAN. 

And then there was fried chicken. SPICY fried chicken.

On December 31, the teachers gathered with the program coordinators and Korean teaching assistants for a banquet reception.

Here is my friend Maggie'12 and I. 

Don't let the business casual fool you. That's not how the night ended. The Korean people did not forget that 12/31 was the night before 2012 and we were about to find out how Jeju does New Years'. (I apologize in advance for the screaming. :X) 

Holy cow. Considering how I spent last new years' eve watching TV and painting my nails, this was quite refreshing!

Since then, our Jeju experience has been a mix of Korean kids, Korean food, and Korean...language; yet once in a while we still pause and realize, Wow, we're in Korea. Merp...

Bibimbap! 

Kimbap!

And then it snowed X_X.....

...

But food was still nice

Some kind of bulgogi (beef) stew

And of course, students!

Trying to float their boats and 

Will M. '12 poses for a photo with his debate class.

Oh, it gets dark here, too.

But occasionally we wake up to blue skies

and the biggest mountain on the island 

Then one day, we went South and it suddenly felt like Orlando in Korea...

Where there is a Teddy Bear Museum!

And two teachers explore the coast...

And sunset...

Not to sound corny or anything, but the beauty in all this has me in awe. 

That said, IAP has officially started, a lot of my friends are back in Boston, and a part of me REALLY misses MIT. 

But heyho two more weeks on this island - plenty more to see :] 

For one reason or other that I cannot fully explicate, this semester has been a blur, passing by faster than I could process. While one always needs a certain level of conscious judgment to go to classes, carry on coursework, etc., I feel like this semester, I've been putting school on cruise control. This functionality might come from having been at MIT for a while already - from becoming an "upperclassman" and developing a programmed rhythm for handling a semester, all the way from pre-registering classes to finals…

A parallel (or antithesis?) to this apparent cruise control on the school side is a burgeoning urge to just LET. LOOSE. and jump on everything not class related. I'm not sure if this makes sense, but basically this has been an impulsive semester.

Early in the school year, I kept getting emails about spending IAP  all-expenses paid in Korea, teaching kids science/English. I never gave it a second thought, because it's just not something I imagined doing during IAP. But one night in September, I was checking my emails, writing down my French Word of the Day and then Korean Word of the Day, and then a lightbulb literally went off in my head. I could be learning Korean from these emails...or I could be learning Korean in Korea... !? I mean, why CAN'T I be on the other side of the world during IAP? Why MUST I do something completely career-related (the career part of which I'm not totally sure about yet anyway)? So I just grabbed a notebook, jumped on my bed, wrote down ideas, and sent in an application. 

So here I am on Christmas Day, putting together several weeks' of teaching materials for this Jeju Global Initiative, which is a very new project aiming to connect MIT students with talented young students in Korea who already have some experience in English. The bigger goal here then is to inspire an interest in science, technology, debate, and thinking-out-of-the-box in general. Twenty-two students, myself included, will be heading to Jeju Island, Korea and teaching courses on site at Jeju National University. Over the month of January, I will be teaching a three-week class on the impact of design and a one-week class on the power of modern media. We're also doing night-time lectures on random, fun topics. Some of my topics are: typography, American slang, hip-hop, and rapid prototyping. 

And Jeju Island itself isn't too shabby :P

But we'll be going in January...so maybe it'll be more like this. 

Anyways, side story -

This semester, I also got my ears pierced for the first time. You know, if you're a girl and you didn't get your ears pierced by your parents when you were a baby, or before 7 years old, or during that preteen phase when everyone did it - it's going to take some convincing. Or maybe I just think too much. Anyway, I've been considering getting my ears pierced for several years now, but  just couldn't go through with it. 

The first phase of doubt was simply pain. (But I didn't want to admit to being a baby and got over that.)
Then it was the practical concern of too much maintenance and inconvenience. (Again, this seemed lame.) 
And most recently, I preoccupied myself with a more high-brow excuse: I don't want any part of my body altered from the way it originally was. (Yeah….ok.)

Despite this towering pyramid of the stages of psychological defense, I went to a piercing parlor with my good friend Juhee on a random Wednesday and got it done. (Shoutout to the Juhee who got the industrial piercing that day and made sure I did not back out).  At the turn of November, I haven't really gotten over all those previous concerns but getting my ears pierced suddenly felt like somethingIjusthavetodonow. Inexplicable, but I did it! And it's done! And there's no going back! And I'm very happy about it :) 

I was chatting with a friend in studio in the middle of the night about one thing we've both learned this semester - so much can change in just one week. It took just a minute or two for me to decide I want to do the Jeju program, and another to decide on pierced ears. Live anticipating nothing but surprise, often from yourself. :)

On that note, I am leaving on Wednesday and will update from Korea!

Have good winter breaks everybody ~ 

As a junior, it's imminent that I think about what happens after MIT. In fact, the thinking has already been brewing. As I'm talking to my peers, it seems like "post-college plans" are a dreaded can of worms that no one wants to open. Except I tend to be the one prying at it until everyone around me is stressed and apprehensive - sorry, friends. But really, "life after college" is a scary but also exciting topic to think about.

Because for the first time in our lives perhaps, there is very little structure. We grew up knowing that 3rd grade came after 2nd, middle school came after 6th, and of course, college after 12th. College. Something so important and life-changing. Some people even get engaged in college - how scary is that? As much as our high-school selves may put "college" high up on some kind of maturation pedestal - and it is worthy of the hype I can tell you - but college is not a destination. And more than halfway through it, we are necessarily confronted with the fact that crap, there is still a whole life of decisions to be made.

It could be graduate school - but for what? Or work - in which specific industry? Gap year - will it really be productive? Volunteer? Start your own business? "Post-college" is such a vulnerable frame of time in which everything seems possible, still unjaded by the responsibilities and consequences of adult life.

As much as the central decision-maker in this situation is ourselves, we can't help but be influenced by the people we care about. Parents, for one, is on the top of my list. Expectations of parents. What a struggle. Given MIT's prestige, I think I can safely say my parents expect me to either go to an awesome graduate school, followed by a Ph.D pursuing something hard and technical, or on the other extreme, get a stellar job with stellar pay. It feels like that's the MIT way. As if it's not one of those two options - I'm missing the point of going to MIT. Obviously, I object to that sentiment. I believe thoroughly that like the college application process, the actual college experience is a holistic process - whose lasting and far-reaching impact we won't be able to escape. 

Last month, Huffington Post published an article called "America's 'Brain Drain': Best and Brightest College Grads Head for Wall Street". This article really struck me, particularly the argument that smart people such as MIT grads are responsible for cooking up crazy ideas like credit-default swaps (the insurance policy much blamed for the great financial meltdown of 2008.) It makes sense, i think. Not everyone can manipulate numbers like that - I can't, and that's why I've had no problems resisting the lure of Wall Street. Amidst all my considerations of what should happen after college, this article touched upon some of my concerns. This is a difficult time in the American economy. College students, even those from the best institutions like MIT, can't take it for granted that there's that stellar job with stellar pay waiting after graduation. How are these peculiar circumstances influencing our career choices? And the harder question, do we pursue something we love or something society needs? Ideally those two values would coincide but it''s not difficult to understand why the health sector is more in demand today than say, comparative literature. 

Is there a perfect post-undergrad plan that makes the best use of my MIT education, that I love, that is also socially-responsible!? Does the arrival at this "perfect" combination finally constitute "success"? In the meantime, how do we prioritize? 

Just my thoughts. Feel free to discuss. 
 

Truth be told, RUNE is traditionally small, with a staff never far beyond 10, and low-key; think of us as a weekly reading club …that produces a beautiful magazine at the end of the school year. I personally like the mellowness - that way, it's easier to avoid bureaucracy, value each staff member's opinions (which do often conflict), and focus on the creative works. To me, RUNE is at once a bigger mission to support the arts @ MIT as well as a weekly relaxation session. We meet every Sunday at 2PM, on some cozy futons in a small room in the Student Center. Packed into the hourly meetings are art and literature submissions that paint places as close and mundane as MIT and as far-away and unfathomable as the limits of fantasy allow. Certainly a change of rhythm from the chaos of the same old coursework during the week. 

Here are some scans of artworks from our latest issue. 

(See more works by Dorian '11 here) 

What do you think?

In any case, just putting it out there that there are two things we constantly need at RUNE - and they are submissions and funding. We need submissions to compile a quality magazine, and funding to keep it free for the MIT community.  So if you're a member of the MIT community, feel free to submit your best creative work. For literature:  rune-lit@mit.edu.  For art:  rune-art@mit.edu ….. And if anyone has any leads on relevant sources of grants/funding, please let me know in the comments. Thanks! 

Lastly, while RUNE captures the art in text and images…there are some incredible living breathing instances of natural art that must be savored live-action.

OMG! 

So two weeks ago -
…the assignment was to construct a bamboo-and-canvas shelter to be erected on the lawn of the Endicott House - MIT's private mansion used for conferences and fraternity/sorority semiformals, etc. Our structure has to

• provide sleeping area for the 10 people in our class and
• provide shelter in rain or shine
• be designed and built in one week 

And this is what went down. 

We slaved away at the woodshop day and night to prepare the bamboo structure - 

Then slipped on the canvas roof cover sewn by ourselves - 

And built 5 sets of double "beds" so that there'd be 10 beds in total.

--

Before the entire process began, our professor warned us "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong."

We didn't WANT to believe him, but we still held our breaths as everything unfolded. And for good reason, because who knew that the night before we were supposed to go camping, the sewing machine would stop working when we still had to sew a whole set of beds as well as parts of the roof cover?? Or that the week before our camping date, the weather forecast predicted sunny clear skies with only 20% chance precipitation... but when the time actually came, Tuesday - our camping day - would be the only rainy day that week?? 

Personally, I was perversely excited by these emergency obstacles, because really, it was the closest I've ever come to Project Runway - and being confronted with a Tim Gunn "Make it work" moment. (any Project Runway fans?) 

Did you guess? We made it work. I'll let the pictures tell the rest ~ 

Moving in at last! 

And the cots were surprisingly strong enough! 

Er...so what's the moral of the story....ANYTHING THAT CAN GO WRONG, WILL GO WRONG! 
Maybe that's not the best takeaway, but just so you know, it could all happen. :O Pay attention to detail, and be prepared for the unexpected! Everything that goes wrong...can work out after all. 
   

I'd like to pass along a message from Jennifer Li, the Event Outreach Chair of MIT's Society of Women Engineers (SWE) - one of the most active groups on campus.

"We are pleased to invite all high school students to participate in an exciting annual event presented by the MIT Society of Women Engineers: The Exploring Majors Fair.

"Through this interactive, engaging event, high school students will have the opportunity to explore a diverse number of science, math, and engineering fields and work on career development. The students will be able to network with current MIT students in a casual environment and discuss how MIT students chose their respective majors, research and internship experiences, and college in general.

This year the date is set for Saturday, October 29, 2011, from 2:30 to 4:00 pm in Lobby 10 at MIT.

Students can fill out the registration form at http://swe.mit.edu/highschool/exploringmajors.php If you have any questions or concerns, please email exploringmajors2011@mit.edu

Thank you and we look forward to seeing you at the fair!"

If you're a high school student living somewhat close to Cambridge, MA, be sure to take advantage of this great opportunity! :)
 

As soon as we got on the bridge towards Boston, I knew it was going to be a good time. Walking along the river at sunset was definitely an unparalleled dose of relaxation. 

Before we knew it, we arrived @ the Hatch Shell

And then there was You and Me. 

It doesn't even really matter that we couldn't see the dude performing; I just really loved being among random Bostonians. 

(Sorry the video is so shaky but hey, he told me to wave my cell phone in the air.) 

Despite sleeping something like 16 hours this past week, classes went over fine and we're on to the next one.  Amen to "Time enjoyed is not time wasted". 

--

While on the note of random funtymez, I've been meaning to share this since the end of summer...

I had heard that Steven Holl, the architect who also designed MIT's spongey Simmons dorm, recently designed an award-winning residential complex in Beijing called Linked Hybrid. 

Of course I had to see Simmons' sister in Beijing before I left, so I looked up the coordinates on Google Maps and found a way to get there via public transportation. But once I got "there", surely I see a trace of Linked Hybrid, but it's hidden behind highway overpasses, cars, random trees - in a phrase: see but can't touch. 

At this point, I'm wandering along this empty sidewalk, shuffling through options in my head - I could go back to the bus station, go find a subway station, or a magical carpet will come and give me a lift me over this traffic junk...

As I'm walking, Linked Hybrid sometimes looked closer than before, and then all of a sudden, went into hiding again - my mood turbulently tumbled between being hopeful and pissed.

And then I walked some more, and while no magical carpet came to the rescue, a "skybridge" did. (In retrospect, I should've expected it; a "skybridge" over the highways is just so China). Linked Hybrid looked still very far away from the other end of the skybridge, but despite the fact that it was rainy and getting dark and far, there was a skybridge! And wasn't getting to the other side all I ever wanted?

So I took off and it was indeed a very very long walk to Linked Hybrid, but every step closer was just an exponential growth of awe. These pictures don't do justice to the power of this bizarre but beautiful monstrosity. And I loved loved loved the fact that some of this is in Bejing and some of it is with us at MIT.

Sometimes when things feel impossible … or you can sense something great in that distant place but is afraid of difficulty or disappointment or starts feeling that maybe that thing wouldn't be worth it anyway - go on with it. Maybe even go on just because you can.

You knew that, didn't you?

So did I, theoretically, because that's what we're used to hearing. But we're all capable of doubting, and it's really the doubting that's not worth it. 

This post is dedicated to the current seniors, stressed and potentially freaking out about how this long, arduous college application business will eventually pan out. Take a break, let's see those cell phones up in the air sometimes. There are no magic carpets, but life really has a way of sorting things out. 

Anyways, besides just missing things outside the bubble, I'm increasingly feeling like it's also easy to get too-focused inside bubble. People who come to MIT are usually ambitious, have goals and dreams, and are willing to commit to making those dreams happen. For me, "being an architect" was not my childhood dream, or teenage dream. I've just always loved art and design and cities, and in the last year of high school, somehow synthesized those likes into "architecture" ...and thought studying architecture @ MIT would be really cool. (And so far, it has been really cool.) But still, it's like, I've been trying so hard to do well in school, be productive in the summers and you know, keep moving towards that "architect" goal. But this summer, interning in China allowed me to really step back and re-evaluate what I want to do.

And I finally understood the appeal of a semester or year off. Because once you get into the MIT momentum, it seems like there's only pushing forward. You don't want to ever feel like you're falling behind. And really, you can't afford to (with the default fear of not graduating on time, etc.) The fast-paced nature of MIT makes "big changes" an intimidating task. 

But being in China this summer was really inspiring in a way, because this was a country with soooo many people (still an understatement) in a wide variety of career fields. People are really practical but also "literal" in terms of their career choices. People who want to cook learn to be chefs, people who like to draw practice to be artists, people who want to make a lot of money go into the financial sector, people who care about research or want job stability go into academia and people who find out they don't like a field or said field is not faring so well change fields in a moment's time. I guess that's basically the case everywhere, but it was just highly visible in the current Chinese culture - where people are reconciling the pragmatic need to be employed with the newer, perhaps more modern/Western mindset that one can and even should follow his or her passions. 

It's not that my internship made me like architecture less. In fact, I actually really like and admire the process of designing and turning concepts into real constructed spaces where people can use. But the fact that billions of lives in China were changing every second just reminded me how it's never too late to be in charge of what you want to do. And that on the flip side of fearing "falling behind" is being constrained by the pressure of following a well-planned path that may or may not still be what you want. 

I picked Architecture before I came in to MIT, looked around, and liked it. I declared course 4 with no hesitation and was relieved that the decision came so easy (whereas my friends were having dilemmas with 7 or 10 or 20 or 15 …or 21 or 2? or some combination of those). I'm not even a senior yet, but at this half-way point, I would tell my freshman self to explore more and don't be rigid for convenience sake. Right now, I'm enthusiastic about finishing my major in Architecture, minor in Management. But I'm also looking into Comparative Media Studies. There are so many possibilities with all of those. 

I met with my advisor yesterday, and at some point he said, "When the time comes, I'll tell you why it's better to work before grad school". I think he by "time" he means registration day in the spring term. Meanwhile, it's going to be a constant calibration process.

P.S. I'm not especially advocating a gap year or a semester off, but just that don't let the fear of falling behind keep you from stopping to explore other options. I honestly really love the entire design process, especially the design mentality of looking at things through different lenses and rehashing them until they're just right. And it's exactly this mentality I want to share with everyone.  

I interrupt the great back-to-school flow of these blogs to deliver a semi-personal, semi-existential rant.

I am THIS close to ordering an e-book reader (the brand of which I will not specify but you should have an idea.)

And then I dwell on the fact that you can soon checkout books from your public library via said e-book reader. 

First I’m like - HEY! That’s great!

And then I remember, the public library IS MY NO.1 MOST FAVORITEST THING ABOUT THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. It's an uniquely American institution. 

At a time when budget cuts across the nation are slashing public libraries’ staff, programs, hours-of-operation,

Do I really want to help undermine the value of the physical public library - an air-conditioned, wifi-ed, water-fountained, educated, cultured - safe haven?

All of these consequences are fast-forwarding through my head like a scary movie, rolling like a fireball towards Fahrenheit 451.

-

On the flipside, said e-book reader will be so convenient and I know I will love it. At this point, I am really scared of technology. It’s chasing away so many, so many things for convenience, efficiency, and power.

And that’s also one thing you can’t change about technology: it won’t ever stop. You can stand back, observe - but eventually fall behind and become obsolete like a floppy disk.

I can hold my reservations about said e-book reader and put off buying it, but it won’t stop the Kindle 3, 4, 5, Nook Color, Metallic, Convertible, or whatever from coming out.

It can only keep going, or we wouldn’t be where we are today.

IN CONCLUSION: I wish I had a conclusion to this rant.  

--

And here I am, going back to Massachusetts Institute of Technology in less than 2 weeks. 

What tradition-bending innovations will arise in the upcoming year??

brb, figuring out life. 

Last week, MISTI-China interns in Beijing welcomed Malgorzata Hedderick (Associate Dean of MIT Undergraduate Education), Melanie Parker (Executive Director of the MIT Global Education and Career Development) and Sean Gilbert (MISTI-China coordinator) to Beijing. Sean makes a trip to China every summer, but this is a brand-new cultural experience for Malgorzata and Melanie. We gathered at a restaurant that specializes in the Peking Duck - Beijing's most famous dish. 

Over dinner, we discussed our most memorable experiences in Beijing so far.  I talked about the agonizingly stressful yet undoubtedly invaluable process of apartment hunting... Others talked about meeting lots of different people from Chinese and international universities. Our conversation seems to suggest that MISTI is one mens et manus answer to the "study broad" buzz word in higher education. MIT calls it "applied international studies." 

I want to call it going off the leash.

MISTI internships have no set itineraries, so we get to manage our time for work, travel, leisure. (At the moment, some of us are planning a trip to Inner Mongolia). And no constant bubble of interactions, so we get to manage our contact with co-workers, local students, foreign students, neighbors, etc. (I just hope i don't have to call my realtor or landlord again.)  It's about trying to survive and thrive in another country, in an experience that hopefully differs from person to person - and that which we can call our own. 

"My own" today involves these mysterious lotus seeds. 

- which come from lotus flowers:

Every morning i bike through a cobblestone path, and everyday, an old lady sits on the side with a pile of green things in front of her. She's very old, 70-years at least I'd say. She's not very pushy, as is often the case with other Chinese salespeople. But if you turn in her direction and make eye-contact, she starts advertising in Chinese, "Buy some lotus seeds!". Every time I see her, i want to stop by and buy some, but I haven't…because I'm insecure about my Chinese and also... I don't even know what to do with them. 

Biking through that path today, I made eye-contact with the old lady, rode past her… and then in a brusque, awkward fashion, stopped and turned back…

Our conversation carried on for a few minutes. I understood 65% of what she was saying (she had an accent from a different dialect of Chinese), but this is what I found out:

1. You're supposed to eat them.
2. They're only "in season" during the summer. 
3. You can buy 4 of them with 5 RMB (which is roughly $0.80).
4. They help prevent inflammations in your system.

Thank goodness I asked her how to eat this, because really, can you guess where the edible part is??? I couldn't be sure.

Here's a demo:

You have to first break out the "seed". 

Which is this:

But wait -

You have to find the real seed. And eat that. 

--

The taste caught me off-guard. 

I feel like the lotus seed is symbolic of many things I see embedded in Chinese culture and modern China. Multi-layered. Bittersweet. These are still observations brewing in my mind.