CPW at Random Hall! by Lydia K. '14, MEng '16
While the science gets done, you can build a neat fort with the Settlers drinking comp sci and juice.
Freshly minted prefrosh! Three years ago I was in your comparatively less soggy shoes, battling a CPW-long downpour over and under rooftops without my future dark green double-canopy umbrella. I got lost in the Infinite Corridor. I used a power drill. I got my arm signed by 
Chris M. ’12. I even did my differential equations homework in close proximity to real MIT students doing their own differential equations homework. Very exciting.
My advice to you—
If you brought homework, don’t do it. Meet people. Visit every dorm. Talk to fellow incoming freshmen and talk to upperclassmen. Don’t watch fun from a corner like I sometimes did. Finally, Random Hall has a step at the entrance. Don’t trip over it.
Tomorrow you should come to Meet the Bloggers so that you can meet us, the bloggers, and you should also come to Random Hall so that you can meet us, the Randomites. Next fall you might find yourself wanting to be a Randomite (or an honorary Randomite), too.
Also, someone who stopped by Random today recognized me and asked for a sticker because of something I said a year ago. If that lovely person is you and you would still like your sticker, please ask me again anytime this weekend or next semester and I will give you your well-earned sticker. If that lovely person is not you but you would nonetheless appreciate a sticker, please stop by Random Hall this weekend and I can give you a sticker, too. It can even have glitter on it, if you’d like.
What follows are this CPW’s super-exciting events at Random Hall:
| Thursday | ||||
| Dumpling Hylomorphisms | Anamorphism: the building up of a structure. Catamorphism: the consumption of a structure. Hylomorphism: both an anamorphism and a catamorphism. This event? A hylomorphism on dumplings. Come learn the basic fold, or just perform a metabolic reduction on food. | 13:17 – 14:17 | ||
| LN2 Truffles and the Chocolate Nash Equilibrium | First, make your own truffles using liquid nitrogen. But don’t leave, because then we’ll use all that delicious chocolate to learn about game theory. | 14:17 – 16:17 | ||
| Nerd Trivial Pursuit | Show off your nerd cred with Nerd Trivial Pursuit. When the categories are Literature, TV & Movies, Science, Anime & Manga, Games, and Comics, will you have what it takes to win? | 15:17 – 16:47 | ||
| mitBEEF and Meatballs | Roll your own beef meatballs! While they’re cooking, we’ll sing beef carols together and maybe write some new carols. mitBEEF is a club dedicated to educating the MIT community about beef. (Note: this is a club event, not a Random Hall event) |
15:30 – 16:30 | ||
| Chess is a Game Best Played with Nerf Blasters | None of this tame nonsense! Use nerf darts to skip your opponent’s turns and capture their king. | 16:47 – 18:47 | ||
| Math and Tea | Math is beautiful, cookies are sweet, tea is tasty. Come enjoy all three as we discuss topics in math ranging from algebra to topology. | 17:17 – 20:17 | ||
| Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream!! | I scream, you scream, we all scream for 77 Kelvins. | 18:17 – 19:17 | ||
| Roofdeck BBQ | Meat! Ribs, sausage, burgers, and more! Come eat, talk, eat, and see the awesomeness of having a roofdeck. And eat! Food of the non-meat variety to be served as well. | 18:47 – 20:17 | ||
| Dubstep with Destiny | Come test how loud our kitchen’s sound system can get when we blast all the bass-heavy music I hear kids these days enjoy! | 21:47 – 22:47 | ||
| Friday | ||||
| Disney and Pancakes | Random Hall, it’s a quiet village. Every day like the one before. Random Hall, full of little people, waking up to make… PANCAKES?! Dig into blueberry chocolate chip spicy cinnamon pancakes while singing along to your favorite Disney songs! |
08:47 – 10:00 | ||
| Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream!! | Served steaming cold. | 11:47 – 12:47 | ||
| Victoriana Tea | Gather to bemoan the decline of our Queen Victoria’s empire or gossip about the most recent painters at the Salon. Tea will be served; enjoyment will be had. There may be Downton or Emma: A Victorian Romance. | 13:17 – 14:17 | ||
| Cooking Vegetarians | Uhh… I meant vegetarian cooking. Yeah. Come tuck into a meat-free feast prepared for you by Randomites. If you eat vegans– vegan! I meant vegan! – there will be plenty of options available. | 14:17 – 15:17 | ||
| Build a Cardboard Fortress, Then Fight a Nerf Gun War | Step 1: Erect large cardboard structures Step 2: Kick back and relax? Step 3: DEATH TO THE INFIDELS WHO CONSTRUCTED THESE INFERIOR CARDBOARD FORTS! |
15:17 – 17:17 | ||
| Nerdy Singalong and Kit Kat Lasagna | Go ahead and leave me – I think I prefer to stay inside. Sing along to our favorite nerdy songs, and then make lasagna entirely out of candy. Hopefully we’ll be still alive. | 17:17 – 18:47 | ||
| Fantasy Feast | The lovely ladies of Fortress Awesome invite you to their castle for a glorious feast. Eat stews, breads, meats, and vegetables that you might find in fantasy movies or shows. | 18:47 – 20:47 | ||
| Computer Science and Juice | Algorithms! Data structures! Computational models! Come and enjoy delicious juice and learn some fascinating computer science. | 20:47 – 22:47 | ||
| Pecker Board Game Night | Build a Dominion in Puerto Rico to prevent your Descent into Revolution. Through the ages, board games have been a leading tradition of Random Hall. Come play them with us! | 22:17 – 02:47 | ||
| RHOP | Random House of Pancakes. Pancakes pancakes pancakes pancakes pancakes pancakes pancakes. Wow, pancakes is a really weird looking word. | 03:17 – 05:17 | ||
| Saturday | ||||
| Saturday Morning Breakfast Cartoons | Do you want to Catch Them All? Have you harnessed the Heart of the Cards? Come watch the cartoons you loved while tucking in to breakfast foods from your childhood. | 09:47 – 11:17 | ||
| Deep Fried Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream | What happens when you subject ice cream to a 400K temperature gradient? Om Nom Nom!!! Pun not intended. | 10:47 – 11:47 | ||
| (Almost) Life-sized Settlers of Catan | Come play (almost) life-sized Settlers of Catan! Hoard (and eat, when it’s not your turn) marshmallow “sheep,” pretzel “wheat,” oreo “iron,” and graham-cracker “bricks”! Trade them with your neighbors, or foil their plans and keep everything for yourself. Build roads, villages, and cities! | 11:47 – 13:47 | ||
| My Course Is Better Than Your Taco | We love our majors. We also love our enchiladas! Come munch on authentic home-cooked Hispanic food while listening to the upperclassmen talk about why their major is the best thing ever! | 15:17 – 17:17 | ||
| Random: the Gathering | Have you ever wanted to cast Global Thermonuclear War? Come play Random: the Gathering. It’s Magic: the Gathering with a Random Hall theme! | 16:17 – 17:17 | ||
| Cheese and Chainmail | Ever been woken up by swordsmen breaking down your door? Lost sleep while craving for brie? Well, you’ll rest easy after this event. Make armor worthy of the thirteenth century while sampling all the cheese Random has to offer! | 16:17 – 17:47 | ||
| Boff for Fried-dom | Stab your friends and enemies alike with foam swords on Random’s roofdeck! Champions (and everybody else) will then get to fry all kinds of delicious foods in our two deep fryers. | 19:47 – 21:17 | ||
| Sweet Rave Party | Rave: An underground party in which electronic music is played, dancing occurs in a very free-form fashion. The dress of the partygoers is quite unrestrained. — Urban Dictionary | 22:47 – 01:17 | ||
| Sunday | ||||
| Spinning and Leftover Brunch | Things which you’ll learn to spin in Random Hall: poi and staff. Things that make your head spin in Random Hall: the prospect of a delicious Sunday brunch made from leftovers. Awake and hungry? We’ll teach you, and we’ll feed you. | 09:47 – 11:47 |
