Dancing Days by Sam M. '07

DID YOU KNOW? Almost all household plumbing originally contained lead, which was a bad thing for kids, since lead ions in aqueous solution taste sweet, but also promote brain damage. In fact, the word “plumbing” comes from that latin root “plumbum,” meaning “lead.”

So forget the world-class faculty, plethora of student groups, proximity to the cultural center of Boston, and numerous career development opportunities. My absolute favorite thing about MIT is that about 90% of the student body really has no idea how to dance. You know what that means? When you go to a party and there’s dancing, you can shake it, much like one might shake a Polaroid picture, however you want to shake it, and nobody’s going to care or judge you or, well, do much better than you at dancing. It’s great! I know in high school, I would always stand at the way back of the dance floor watching some of my more outgoing classmates get their freaks on, then get sternly reprimanded for said freaking by the school guidance counselor or driver’s ed teacher. Here, whenever I get the chance to go to a party with dancing, I’m on the dance floor all night, injuring the rest of the party guests with my patent lack of coordination and personal boundaries.

So, last night my dorm went on a three-hour tour of Boston Harbor with the Spirit of Boston dinner cruise line. It was, of course, totally awesome, except that there was a high school prom there or something, but that didn’t bother us too much. We had a delicious buffet dinner and then about 90 minutes of solid, revolutionary dancing. I took some pictures, too.

And here they are now!

Laura suggested that I title this picture, “We’re blogging this.”

One thing about living on the East Coast is that there are no sunsets… unless you’re on a boat! Mitra took this picture with the official admissions camera. I think I was too busy to go outside and appreciate my one opportunity per year to see a real sunset because they were playing “Baby Got Back” or something.

There are, however, excellent sunrises if you get the opportunity. One summer night, after staying in lab doing extractions with benzene until 6 AM, I was motivated to go down to the aquarium on my bike and check one out. It was cathartic.

Here’s pretty much all of my floor out on the boat, directly following the abovepictured sunset.

Mitra color-coordinates with her date, Mike ’09 the Italian Cowboy, during dinner. Our GRT, Chris (basically a graduate RA), is from texas and dressed in full cowboy regalia circa, like, 1898 or something like that, so we ended up passing around his backup hat all night on the dance floor.

I know Cassi Hunt. In fact, she was my “date” to the boat cruise, meaning she forgot to bring a jacket and I lent her mine.

Do you know Cassi Hunt? Last year, she allegedly shared around 272 illegally downloaded songs on i2Hub. The RRIAA caught her using her MIT IP address, and decided to sue her, as they are wont to do. Now, they usually charge $750 per song, but decided to, instead, cut her a deal and allow her to pay only #3750. In other words, “just a little less than it would cost you in legal fees to hire a reputable lawyer.” Anyway, she called up the RIAA to negotiate this fee and brought it to their attention that, as she’s a college student, she didn’t exactly have $3750 lying around. An RIAA representative responded via telephone that “In fact, the RIAA has been known to suggest that students drop out of college or go to community college in order to be able to afford settlements.”

She composed a extraordinarily well-written and passionate article about this for The Tech entitled “Don’t Tap The Glass” and put up a website instructing you to “Love Music, Screw Pirates.” Within a few weeks, she was Slashdotted and Farked and recieved 60,000 hits on her article on The Tech’s website. Now she’s done radio interviews, appeared in an editorial in the LA Times, and is pictured in this week’s issue of ROLLING STONE.

I knew her when!

So this picture is of Cassi ’08 demonstrating the scurvy ways of her music piracy, and of Jeremy ’09 also acting like a pirate, probably just because it’s fun. ARR!

There was also entertainment on the cruise, described as “The most entertaining thing you might possibly see in your lives.” However, I have to say that I found it less entertaining than the television show “Strangers With Candy,” which I was watching the rest of the weekend. Here’s some girl singing “Boogie Wonderland” or something.

And here’s the beautiful Boston skyline at night. I think I can top Ben’s tales of nerd love with an incident that took place against this magnificent scenery: two anonymous ’08s, both taking 7.05: Biochemistry this term, were having a conversation in each other’s arms, presumably whispering sweet nothings in each others’ ears. The girl suddently let out a quiet giggle and said something aloud that resembled “like, NAD + hydrogen yields NADH.” And then they started kissing.

No, really. No. Really.

Coming soon: Dorm tours? Yes! Dorm tours!