bringing my digicam to class for a “week” by Veronica P. '27

Hi blog,

I am an avid user of what kids these days are calling a digi— those digital cameras from the 2000’s that fit in your pocket, can document the date in the bottom right corner, and have a somewhat-unreliable flash system. 01 I currently use the Canon Powershot ELPH, but I also really love the Sony Cybershot I think a big part of the appeal is the nostalgia— the photos look like the ones you covet of your parents before you came around, when they were young and fun and carefree. As college students, now is our prescribed time to be young, fun and carefree. What better way to document it than with a digi?!

Now, despite being my inspiration, my parents absolutely cannot get behind this. Isn’t the whole point of a phone that you have all of these devices in one? 02 My roommate got me an iPod for my most recent birthday, only exacerbating their pain even more Why do you keep spending so much money on old things? 03 They've essentially given up at this point on the thrifting front And, admittedly, I have blown through about 3 E-bay cameras in my time, but I have absolutely no regrets! My phone is an exhausting, anxiety-inducing time-suck at least half of the time. The more I can do to reduce my dependence on that rectangular prism, the better. As for the ‘old’ stuff: it’s taking up space in this world anyways, why not give it a new life? 04 Let's call it 'pre-loved'

However, I’ve come upon a recent dilemma with my digi usage. This whole young, fun, and carefree expectation I’ve put around it has made it such that my camera only really gets its mileage at 10 PM on a Friday. Or when I’m on vacation. These photos are great, but as a senior who is hyper-aware of her senior-ness I find that I want to capture every aspect of my life at MIT, not just the weekends.

So, I set out to bring my digi-cam everywhere for a whole week of school. Let’s see how it went.

monday

monday, again? 

After this first semi-successful day, I completely forgot to bring my camera around for the rest of the week. So, I present to you: more Monday. I wore the same outfit, totally for continuity and not by accident at all…

tuesday…

Not for lack of remembering, I chose not to document my Tuesday this week. After office hours on Monday, I started to do work grad school applications and, realizing just how real and imminent they were, began to feel incredibly overwhelmed and out of my depth. It was a rough night, and I felt even worse the next morning. In the afternoon, I had my weekly meeting with the grad student who supervises my UROP. I expressed a few of these feelings, and she was sweet enough to dedicate the hour to giving me guidance and support I needed to get back on track. Perhaps a blog for another time! I called my dad to update him on my talk, spent some time with my friend in Hayden, and then headed to a Mech-E grad school info session, motivation renewed.

wednesday

In the morning, I showed up to the booths in Lobby 10 to help Camp Kesem (also a blog for another time) promote their application cycle! I got free coffee and was able to catch up with a few counselors. I then went to Barker to send out a few grad-application emails I had been putting off, and then spent some time in Pappalardo preparing for the 2.009 build challenge on Friday (many, many photos to come). In the evening, I had System Integrator training for 2.009. Having lost my momentum, I didn’t document much.

I did manage to get one photo, though…

the bloggers!!! wrapping up our biweekly blog meeting. ft. many masks because freshman flu is real…

thursday

Okay, wow, I’m bad at this. I had a wave demo lab for 2.016 (Hydrodynamics) and drawing for designers class.

friday

BUILD CHALLENGE DAY!!! All of the 2.009 teams gather onto Killian Court to compete on a challenge course using cardboard devices. These devices had to move our teams payload (puzzle pieces) 16′ at a time as quickly as possible, without leaving the loading/unloading zones.

We were given the following materials: cardboard, paper tape, wooden dowels, cotton robe, and two-five gallon buckets of water.

Our two devices had the following unique requirements:

Device 1: Can only touch the group in loading/unloading zones and a 3′ x 3′ box on the ground in the middle. This ended up being our school bus!

Device 2: Can only have one actuated rotational degree of freedom. This was our Lightning McQueen!.

However, the prize isn’t actually for moving the most puzzle pieces the fastest, it’s for team spirit! So, here’s some photos of Red Team on the competition course, featuring my teammate’s digi as well!

And there we have it! Sort of a week in my life, through my digi lens. Everyone knows that social media only captures the highs, but I really underestimated how difficult it would be for me to photograph the lows and the room-temperatures of the week. I’d love to attempt this again, with more than 3 days to show for myself. For now, however, I’m glad to have these snapshots to look back on, and remember when I was young, selectively fun, and definitely not carefree.