Summer & the Coming Commencement by Lulu L. '09
stuff and things.
I’m happy to be here again for the summer. So I did this once my freshman year, stayed on campus, that is, working with the LIGO burst team, next to the Plasma Science and Fusion Center (with the enviable name), this was all on Albany street in those serious-looking and poorly landscaped NW buildings that no one really ever visits on a whim. Living in EC back then I managed the walk to work every day in half an hour on my scrawny legs but this year they won’t nearly have to carry me so far because I’m living at Bexley for the summer and working just a short distance away in the Kavli Center for Astrophysics (Bldg 37) on Vassar Street. I’ve already talked about what the deal is with my research (I’m continuing from last summer), but I’m happy to see it move away from its SBU phase and hear that it’s finally totally legit to talk about it :). Though I used to enjoy the summer’s day’s walks to the NW buildings, today, this new location was a blessing. Yesterday, it was so hot and today, it is so cold again, and it rained on me in my tshirt as I crossed Mass Ave but that’s totally all I needed to go. I prefer the hotter weather, I put my two opposing windows to use in my EC room and mixed the air all up with the fan and it felt good like another time, like freshman orientation all the way back when and I’d found myself an MIT student for the first time and it was just so unbelievably hot here and nabbed this grungy old fan from a junk heap somewhere in East Campus and named her Lakeisha and promised we’d be together forever.
And yet, I found myself at a Lysosomal Diseases and the Brain Conference in Sacramento this last weekend and got introduced as a senior at MIT. Yikes. Of course, all the actual seniors are graduating come Friday. And I don’t even remember when i signed up to be a commencement volunteer but here I am attending the training today and all looking forward to waking up at 6:30am on friday. I’m stationed left of the stage, and I’ll be looking snazzy and likely disheveled in my red commencement vest. I’ve got no complaints, I have like a microscopic view of a bunch of my friends graduating, I get to take care of your heat strokes and I’m fed free breakfast and lunch. My favorite part of any commencement is always the 50th year reunion class in their adorable red anniversary jackets marching in w/ the graduates, and just brimming and so so proud. So, yeah, kinda, I can’t wait. I simply can’t be cynical about a thing like this that brings so many people together with so much happiness.
I love my room, I get to come back to it finally after the summer is over and the asbestos is gone:
Are they redoing (de-asbestosing, I guess) all EC rooms this summer?
Nah, everyone gets to stay put except a column of goodale rooms. just a lucky few i guess :/
Well, more specifically, a lot of rooms have already been abated (de-asbestosed, if you will), but they’re being pretty sluggish about doing the rest. I know for a fact that after this summer all of goodale will be clean all down the five floors, bemis and walcott are already good except for a couple rooms, and all over on the west parallel i hear not only have they been abated but also they have carpet which is totally unfair.
Its awesome that you’re working in the Astrophysics center during the summer. Im hoping I can get a UROP next year in a astrophysics related field or hopefully continue on the research I’ve been working on at my local university on pulsars. By the way, your room look really cool with the spotlights and the blue paint.
Wow…I love the lighting in your room :]
ooo i volunteered for commencement last year! it was pretty tiring but still fun! i hope the weather’s nice that day.
it will be cloudy, which is probably ideal
–> less heat strokes
Yay for space projects that go out of the planning stages!