Well, there was Obama. And then BJ Novak – Heck, I don’t even watch The Office and I felt all giddy @ his comedy show. (Yes! He was here on 10/24, standing on the stage in Kresge, thanking Pres. O for a great opening act - he was one funny dude).

But aside from all those exciting diversions, I must blame my darn itchy hands for escaping necessary work+studying way too often.
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1 AM on a Friday night, I decided to break out my art supplies and recreate an image captured on my little 2-megapixel camera phone several evenings before. You see - the walk down West Campus’s dorm row is a (weather-permitting) pleasant one, especially starting from Burton-Conner, where the frontal sight escapes from the tennis courts to a vast Briggs Field trademarked by the always-astonishing Simmons Hall and a wildly nebulous sky. The colors change from day-to-day, hour-to-hour in fact – one moment, all you see is a Claritin-clear blue, the next it’s all about a muggy purple. But the image on my phone encapsulates the singular instance when everything else is drowned out by the blinding rays of a familiar sunset.

I adore the sight too much not to enlarge, enshrine, and share it with the world. Well, five 1-or-2 hour sessions later, I can show you somewhat close to what I saw:

Sometimes, a paintbrush sounds so much more attractive than a mechanical pencil, and the ensuing distraction becomes a euphemism for procrastination.
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2 Nights before my second 3.091 (Introduction to Solid-State Chemistry aka Chem. General Institute Requirement) exam, I betrayed my trusty iCal. The schedule blocked out that Sunday night for studying x-ray diffraction, cubes, semi-conductors, and doping…but I figured that iCal isn’t going to jump out of the screen and stop me from carving some pumpkins.

That night, the Porter Room (Burton-Conner’s now-defunct dining hall) hosted a warm-and-fuzzy pumpkin carving competition with gift cards to favorite vendors’ on the line. Even better, all the tables were prematurely equipped with Halloween candy. I must confess: I ate all the AlmondJoy’s at our table (there were 4 of them) and grabbed 2 more from another table. That was great.

But yes, pumpkin! It started out like this:

-all orange, round, shiny, cute, perfect!

Having never carved a pumpkin before, I was rather clueless. But someone gave me a knife and told me to carve out the inside. Still unsure, I timidly stuck a petite knife in:

-and left it there...

Until killer instincts kicked in:

I had envisioned sort of a …crazy… hip-hop-man-beaver-with-fauxhawk pumpkin….WELL in the end, it turned out like this:

and after carving all I could carve within the time-limit, pumpkin man turned out like this:

...with hair shaved in the pattern of “MIT” in the back:

This would all look much better in dark with candlelight shining out, but as a first-timer, I did not consider that larger carved-out areas meant more light projecting out…SO FOR FUTURE REFERENCE GUYS – carve them big!

But here are some pumpkins by BC residents who obviously knew what they were doing – I was speechless at the sight of these masterpieces.

Can you tell that it's a witch? (Carved by Andrew Hoy '10)

Do you see what's in here?

To no surprise, these were two of the winners. [Excuse the blurry photography & credits (and crazy props!) to whoever carved these!]

Half-past ten,I left the Porter Room in sweat and pride, awe and admiration, and guilt for all those AlmondJoy’s and Snickers and pumpkin muffins…but everything added up to a jolliness that lasted into the AM. And boy – a pleasant mood in the wee hours is hard to come by around here.
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3 Days before the real Halloween, I ordered various glow sticks over the Internet. If they arrive on time, my hands will be up all night figuring out a glowstickman costume for Halloween – or not. Who knows. Those mens et manus are fickle … after all, that’s how I get sidetracked in the first place. But glow sticks are fun for all occasions right?
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MORE EXCITINGLY, 4 Mornings later, all you early birds will be free birds! Or you’ll feel above-the-clouds, basking in the sunshine for a little while…You've worked hard (so, so, hard - I'm sure), So after the initial wave of relief, please celebrate by releasing all that stress build up in your mind over the past few painstaking months!

Bake something, draw something, build something, sew something, take photographs, crawl through piles of fallen leaves, dig a hole, climb a tree, relax – play!

The sense of balance that follows is amazing. And the ability to find your own little oasis from time to time is important at MIT...

ALRIGHT you can snap out of that pristine serene dream now - breathe & take the final steps in the application - all the way past "Submit".

See you on the other side of " Nov.1st "! Good luck :)

It’s no secret that MIT is not an athletic giant – for one, Briggs Field conspicuously lacks a shiny football stadium. Nevertheless, I was surprised to find MIT more “jock-y” than I expected. So many students play varsity sports, and discussions about various practices and games span classroom chatter and advising seminars. The general scheduling rule here is classes from 9-5, sports from 5-7, and other activities from 7-later. Students are dedicated. One of my suitemates is on the Varsity Field Hockey team and attends to a hockey-related event almost every day; for hours at a time. And it's always refreshing to see people get up and leave during classes for athletic commitments. Even better, some of the highest-achieving teams here (like crew or sport taekwondo) are completely open to walk-ons and beginners. My impression is, there are plenty of chances to play if you’re willing to dedicate.

But to get to the semi-main point of this entry: DODGEBALL!

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It might be kind of pathetic that I’ve never played dodgeball in my entire primary and secondary school P.E. career, but that’s what college is for right? So three weeks into MIT, intramurals were set up, teams were made, and schedules began popping up. I joined team tennis (I had played in high school) and dun dun dun – dodgeball! (because it’s both foreign to me and involves less running). Tennis has yet to start, but we've already completed three dodgeball games.

Rewind a little bit-

Intramurals (IM) here involve all different groups of people affiliated with MIT: fraternity brothers, graduate students, cultural or religious student organizations, dorms, etc. My team is called the Burton 1 All-Blacks (Yea, like that passionate New Zealand Rugby team, and well, we live on Burton 1 – the first floor of the Burton side of the Burton-Conner dorm. To live up to our name, we wear all black, and have a somewhat-prepared, sometimes-performed war dance. ☺

While Dodgeball is played in the Z-Center – a central fitness complex on West Campus – its exact location is very well concealed. After three flights of stairs and at least five double-doors, you will find MAC courts, a multi-purpose arena with basketball hoops and enclosed by 10-feet high transparent plastic walls.

Burton 1 All Blacks on standby, waiting to go in the game; @ the super-exclusive MAC courts

Dodgeball itself is a peculiar game. The concept is elementary, really – you either hit someone with a ball, or dodge a ball thrown at you, catch a ball to take out the thrower, or deflect a thrown ball with a ball to keep the game going. But regardless, everyone gets so into it! Bam! Bam! Bam! Auuuhhhhhhrrrrrahhhhghh!

Come to think of it, dodgeball is really like recess. Considering the typical MIT day, when midnight really means mid-day, a 10 PM dodgeball game is the prime opportunity to undo all the stress and in-activity accumulated over a day or days. Yelling, jumping, falling, playing - like little kids. And at the end of it all, we shake hands, cheer for the winning team, trek back to the dorm, and promptly disperse to rejoin our p-sets. Sweet.
Here’s a quick video to visualize the mayhem.

P.S.
At 8:30 PM yesterday, I finished my first salad meal…ever! [Half-influenced by my salad-eating suitemates; half out of guilt for consuming pastries and whatnot for dinner the night before.

Just had to share this. :)

I think my bio page gives a good idea of who I am – random, likes artsy stuff, etc, etc.
But to round out the intro: I’m a freshman @ MIT, trudging through endless piles of work while juggling the crazy new power/responsibility that is FREEDOM! It’s been over a month since I arrived @ MIT and naturally, I have processed more than enough thoughts to fill five entries.

But let’s start in media res – I did pretty legit badly on my 18.01A exam yesterday.

18.01A, in MIT lingo, is “accelerated” Calculus I, meaning we get a whirlwind tour of the second half of Calculus I in six insane weeks. Now it’s the third week or so, which would make that test the “midterm”. I don’t like how the syllabus disguised the test worth 22 percent of the final grade as a harmless sounding “Exam 1”. I also don’t like how I borderline-passed/borderline-failed my first exam @ MIT.

What I dislike the most right now is the fact that I’m feeling awfully normal about it. Perhaps about the fact that I didn’t straight up bomb it and get that painful “fail-mail” in my inbox telling me to schedule a makeup exam. But it’s more like this is not exactly how I imagined my first test here. I know I’m really slow at math, and this is college, and this is MIT at that, and there are tons of smart people in the class, and it’s pass-no-record the first semester, and I should try out lots of other activities during first semester, and what not…But I never thought it would be so easy to practically fail.

Almost everyone who’s here was probably one of the most academically successful people at their high schools. And I’m pretty sure I brought along whatever brain and work ethic I had from high school. But, the fact of the matter is, MIT work is a lot less BS-able than HS work. The myth is true: few questions are straight from a textbook or test only one concept; everything is about application and integrating (harharr-the bane of my existence!!!) multiple ideas to solve a key problem.

Yeahhhhhhhhhh--- I don’t like the fact that I’m feeling this okay after doing awful on that test (not a good prognosis for life post pass-no-record) – but I’m liking the crazy things MIT has been doing to me: I finally buckled down and memorized the most irritating trig identities - a precious success after trying half-heartedly many times before, for class, for SAT II’s, for AP’s; I finally understood the Shell Method beyond just the automatic integral-of- 2-pi-r-y-dx. I solved a partial fractions problem…I don’t think I’ve ever agreed more with the time-honored: “It’s not the destination, but the process of getting there that counts.” I haven’t gotten far yet, but it’s already tasting like a worthwhile trip.

OK – this all sounds very nerdy right now, but when I figure out how to work pictures onto this blog, life will suddenly be more colorful. :P