MIT student blogger twins Danny and Allan G. '20

Beyond the Stop Light by Danny and Allan G. '20

it's been a ride, MIT

In the road trips we used to take with our family, we would glide down I-95 at a constant, rapid velocity for hours. Sometimes it would drizzle, creating the soft ambient noise of tiny tap dancers, and sometimes it would be sunny, heating the window up like a campfire. Either way, through the consistency of that one speed, we would get comfortable. Actually, we would get so comfortable that we always felt a little sad as we got off the highway, as we approached a stoplight, as we felt the deceleration -- as we felt a change. We got into a rhythm at MIT, a fast yet consistent one. Whether the conditions were rainy or sunny, hosed or happy, we felt comfortable in the steady pace we developed. We stopped feeling just how fast we were actually going, how fast the events of our undergrad, like the trees looping past our view on the highway, were actually going by. The speed distorted into the background, and we grew not only accustomed to it, but fond of it. Because we are days away from graduating, we feel like we are now slowly approaching a stoplight coming off a highway. We have been noticing our last responsibilities gradually decreasing, and we are now just here, at home with our parents. We feel the deceleration, we feel the change. We feel nostalgic for all the experiences we had at MIT - the welcoming communities we joined, the incredible people we connected with, the amazing fun we had with friends, and even the stressful times - and we are sad that these experiences are over. On the road trips we used to take, after the initial feeling of sadness that came with approaching a stoplight, we would always feel excited for reaching our destination. We would arrive at our grandparents' home in Brooklyn for the summer, and knew fun adventures awaited us -- rollerblading with our uncle and aunt, cooking with our grandmother, fishing with our maternal and paternal grandfathers. This is what we are reminding ourselves of today. We know that soon our feelings of sadness and nostalgia will shift towards feelings of excitement. The red of a stop light is the predecessor to the green of a new journey. Next year, we will be starting our master’s at UPenn in Computer Graphics and Game Technology, a program that will allow us to dive deep into our interest in animation. We are really excited to see what it will be like beyond the stoplight. So, this is it, our last blog on MIT Admissions. It’s been an absolute joy to share our stories here with you, so we want to leave off by saying thank you! Thank you for reading, for your comments, for your emails, for your hello’s during CPW, and for your friendships. The past four years have truly been a gift, so for that, thank you. :A :D

P.S. Even though we won’t be posting on the MIT blogs anymore (at least, not regularly or consistently), we will still have online presences! If you would like to see our content beyond these blogs, we will be posting art on our recently created artstagrams here and here! We are starting out with separate artstagrams but may in the near future make a twinstagram lol

We’re bad at goodbye’s so, for realsies now, bye!