anew by Kanokwan T. '25

What a wonderful word: anew.

Google defines it as “in a new or different and typically more positive way,” which I think perfectly captures my return to MIT after taking leave this past fall. I’ve been thinking about the breakdown of it. The structure of the word entices you to wonder what’s next. It’s literally “a” and “new”. A new… what?

You may be wondering why I decided to take the last semester off. There’s much to unpack, so I’ll save my leave for another blog and instead focus this one on my return. 

I just came back, and everything feels lovely. It feels as if rose-colored glasses⁠01 Listen to <a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/2RJfK2pOvGpnxC255YOy5k?si=7b5523d087c6456b" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Rose-Colored Boy</a> by Paramore. It’s so good! have been put on me, leaving me to see the world with happier eyes. MIT has welcomed me back with open arms and I’ve fully felt its embrace. I can’t seem to find better wording to describe my current state other than “violently joyful?” Like, I feel I could explode into a flurry of confetti at any given moment. Gosh, this is so cheesy I could throw up. 

This joyful state is most provoked when I stroll through campus and observe things. I love the danger signs that line the entirety of the labs in the tunnels. I enjoy passing by quick performances in Lobby 10, from flute ensembles to juggling acts. It’s funny watching people try to look so ~serious~ as they make their way down the Infinite,⁠02 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_Corridor" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">long, central hallway on campus</a> and I am guilty. The Stata Center continues to still look so weird, like a fantastic piece of art that changes every time you look at it. I wonder about the stories behind the things people carry, like why was this one dude holding three rubber ducks, the guts of a desktop computer, and an orange?

Coming back to the namesake of this blog, here are some things I find anew this semester (told in alliteration because why not?): 

1. People

Since freshman year, I’ve lived on Beast, a floor in the dorm East Campus. While I’ve been away, the culture of our floor has flourished. There’s always someone in the lounge to hang out with. The group chat is so alive, yet not overbearing. It seems there’s always a game of nertz⁠03 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerts" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a fast-paced multiplayer card game involving multiple decks of playing cards</a> or questionable cooking going on. One-off and regular events happen left and right. It’s obvious that people want to spend quality, fun time together. I could gush on, but instead, I’ll give you one line that captures my love of Beast: every night, I look forward to coming home. 

My friends generally seem more settled into college life, as people tend to be after their first year. It’s refreshing. Some have figured out more about what they want to study or do after graduation, at least for right now. Some have found cozy times in their days to cook healthy meals or go on runs. Some feel less like imposters and more like comrades. It’s lovely to watch people grow, as I also have from afar while at home.

2. Places

I finished building my loft! In the fall, during the week before school began, I very quickly constructed a loft for my room with the help of my neighbor. Though, something funny happened in the time between the fall and spring semesters: my twin mattress mysteriously disappeared. Luckily, I happened to have a spare queen-sized bed that I was using as a bouch⁠04 bed couch under the loft that I decided to move up on top of the loft. This required I build an extension to my twin-sized loft frame so it could become a queen-sized one, so I spent my first Saturday morning of the spring semester measuring frames, cutting wood, and screwing all the pieces together. It’s extremely convenient that my dorm has a woodshop, tool room, and tons of free wood in the basement. Some beasties⁠05 residents and friends of Beast helped hold up the extension while I secured everything in place. 

created a CAD model of my room for reference in designing the loft

mid-build of my fall loft

There are a few other structural changes I made to the room because I love interior design. I’ve been stuck in many house renovation YouTube rabbit holes. Here’s the summary:

• Secured a super long 80/20 metal⁠06 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-slot_structural_framing" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">my favorite prototyping metal <3</a> bar, which I found in the Stata loading docks,⁠07 a dock underneath the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stata_Center" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Ray and Maria Stata Center</a>, where MIT people tend to dump their tech trash (aka my treasure) to an existing hanging shelf, effectively creating an extended closet. It’s kinda scuffed the way I did it because I chopped 45° wooden slats and slid the metal bar through four somewhat-colinear screws that were definitely not made to hold up 80/20 metal, but it worked.

cursed screw usage

• Moved an old coat rack from my closet to my door, so I can coat up right before exiting.

ty to the previous resident for leaving this here :)

• Mounted curtains to the underside of my loft, creating a cozy nook where I nap, read, and reset.

• Drilled in screws for my neon lights.

I finished the structural modifications in the first two weekends and plan to get aesthetic modifications done in the coming two weeks: painting the walls, installing background lighting, and hanging up art. Stay tuned!

Another place close to my heart is Metropolis, one of the central maker spaces run by Project Manus. As someone who’s mentored for them since my freshman year, I’ve been so pleased to see how the maker community has grown. It’s actually been insane. Last year, there were 15 mentors. This year, there are 50 of us. 50!!! Also, for context, I can count on one hand the total amount of people that attended my trainings and open hours last year; it was dismal. This year, all of our sessions are flooded with people eager to learn how to make cool stuff. I think we’ve finally overcome the post-covid maker slump. Also, we have so many new tools this year. There’s now a welding lab, glasswork station, table saw, flush trim sander, multi-color 3D printer, electronics lab, 3D AR photo booth, and so much more! Shout out to the three Project Manus staff from last year (Seth, Jess, and Robyn) for setting up the important groundwork and to the two new staff (Lee and Alicia) who have worked really hard to grow everything. I’m so excited to learn how to make all of the things, and perhaps even more excited to teach others how to make too!

3. Pursuits

I haven’t formally taught since my gap year, so it’s been around 3 years. I missed teaching in an academic setting and have a deep-seated love of waves, so those two things coalesced in my decision to TA for 8.02.⁠08 work as a teaching assistant for the class Physics II: Electricity and Magnetism  Waves are so strange. Please ask me questions about them.

Teaching a subject after having learned it makes the content feel new and big. I feel like I have fresh eyes and can understand the topics more wholly. There’s much I enjoy about this role: practicing explaining complicated stuff in simple ways, learning to listen to what specific things people are confused about, and so on. But, the particular thing that makes me love TAing is seeing people light up from understanding new concepts.

There are a few thoughts that have been recently playing on repeat in my internal brain jukebox, and one of them relates to 8.02. I’m about to change your life. *breathes in, puts hands together in a serious manner* Okay. Have you ever thought about how waves are LITERALLY all around you? Like, there are a gazillion waves (sound waves, light waves, radio waves, microwaves, etc.) pulsating through you at every waking (and sleeping!) moment. In fact, Wi-Fi signals (radio waves) probably have transmitted this blog to whatever device you’re reading on right now. Sometimes, I just sit in my room and look around at my technology wondering “could I build this from scratch?” Like, who would think that if you put this metal with this wire you could send waves across the entire world? The overwhelming bulk of recent human innovation has been founded on seemingly-invisible waves that we’ve learned to detect, create, and bend to our will. They permeate through everything, everywhere, all at once.⁠09 i love this movie so much 💞 Isn’t that terrifyingly beautiful? 

And, of course, blogging is one of the things I’m most excited about this semester. I was actually supposed to start blogging this past fall but had taken my leave and subsequently decided to postpone. I absolutely was not in the state to blog. There are a lot of different cues I know about myself that indicate a bad state, and one of them is a lack of creativity. I had no blog ideas. I couldn’t seem to put words on the page. I hated writing. But, thankfully, that season of life has passed.

Nine years ago, in 2014, I first heard about this little place called MIT. After my friend’s dad mentioned that it was a decent school, I looked it up and immediately found myself reading the blogs. I devoured them, binge-reading during empty pockets of the day. I so loved how open, silly, and sweet everyone was. It felt real. I basically knew nothing about college by this point and exclusively visited the blog tab of the school website, not even bothering to look at other tabs until weeks later. I remember trying to find blogs from other schools as well, but they were largely sparse and empty. It made MIT feel like that much more of a special place. The school really cares about the student, for the most part: centering their voices, providing freedom of expression, and letting the world see for itself what it’s really like on campus. I love it here, and I hope that my stories make you at least consider falling in love with it too.

What a wonderful world.