What pretty hair… by Sam M. '07

So, in my dorm, there seems to be this really close, almost familial relationship between three floors–Conner 2, Conner 3, and Conner 5. I think of Conner 5 as a nice blonde older sister who just finished getting her master’s degree but still lives nearby, so she bakes you fresh cookies every once in a while. Conner 2 is the adorable youngest daughter, outfitted in a blue dress, with ribbons tied around her pigtails and definitely the parents’ favorite child. Then Conner 3 is like is the red-headed middle boy, a little frustrated by being the only boy and by being the proverbial middle child and by having red hair, so he compensates by acting out a little, not really in a dangerous way or anything, but just by being somewhat more outgoing than a boy his age might typically be, and he thereby becomes quite popular at school.

Being a deskworker is the single greatest job you can get at MIT; you get paid $9 an hour to play Snood, press the “door unlock” button, and manage the rental movie collection. Pretty much 80% of Burton-Conner deskworkers are from Conner 3, so you can usually find them hanging out behind desk in large groups. Tonight, they were coloring Levi’s hair behind desk. So, when I walked into the dorm, the first thing I saw was this:

Now, really, this isn’t that unusual for Conner 3 so normally I’d just say “hi” and continue on my merry way, but the moment she saw me, Erica ’07 (on the right) exclaimed, “Sam! You should blog this!” Well, I can’t argue with that. Luckily, I had my camera phone ready.

Kendall ’07, Gemma ’06 and Erica ’07 were giving Levi ’06 what I assume were red highlights. I didn’t stick around long enough to get an “after” picture, but Levi did seem to be pretty excited about it.

Another thing Conner 3 did this summer was make a homemade papier-mache pinata for Phil ’05 on the night before he left for his graduate studies in chemistry at UIUC. Since they couldn’t find a blindfold, they used their MIT engineering ingenuity and wrapped his head in toilet paper.

I’m sure they also did a lot of stuff that’s more fun than on-the-job hair dying and pinata making, but I wasn’t there. Until Ben sets up http://conner3.mitblogs.com, you’ll have to use your imagination.

One time at MIT I fell asleep on a kitchen table and woke up to find my entire body wrapped in four rolls of toilet paper.

In other news, my one month of vegetarianism ended in a bowl of suan la chow show at Mary Chung’s this evening. It was kind of anticlimactic, actually, and I don’t feel nauseous or anything either. Darn. I’ll try to have a more detailed entry up tomorrow featuring the recipes I used to keep myself sane over the past month and lots of meat-free pictures.

CULINARY NOTE: Mary Chung’s makes an utterly delightful and inexpensive scallion pie appetizer. It’s not on the menu except for at dim sum, but if you make a request, sometimes they’ll serve it at dinnertime too, especially on the weekends.

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Since Joe mentioned Les Mis in his comment for my last entry, I thought I’d take this rare opportunity to famewhore a little and mention that I myself was in my high school production of Les Miserables my senior year. I was Javert, the stern, authoritarian singing policeman. See, I can prove it:

This is about 30 seconds before I commit suicide. I think the exact line is “and the stars are black and cold,” if memory serves me correctly.

I never set foot in a research lab in high school, but I gave up to 40 hours a week to the musical every winter and 30 hours to the marching band every fall, and then I did regular chorus and band on top of that. Yeah, sure, I did quiz bowl and science olympiad too, but they were listed third and fourth on my application.

MORAL OF THE ENTRY: Don’t worry about doing a ton of “science-oriented” extracurricular activites just to get into MIT! Actually, not very many people I’ve met here had research experience in high school. Just do what you’re really passionate about and keep on truckin’.

Bet you didn’t expect that conclusion to an entry about hair dye.