CPW Recap (Guest Entry) by Bryan

Hey everyone! My name’s Allison.

Well, I officially arrived in Boston two days prior to the start of CPW to visit family and such. One quick thing I must mention is how infinitely cooler it is to visit the East Coast when you know you’ll be living there. As my mom drove me from Providence to Boston (I’m actually from San Diego, but our plane landed in Rhode Island), I practically squealed at every tree (I’m not used to forests), house (they all look really quaint and cute), and names (Seriously! Woonsocket and Braintree? How awesome are those?).

But I’ll try to avoid rambling about my fixation about the East Coast culture and move on to CPW. :)

So, I officially arrived at MIT on Thursday, only to be greeted by my uber-awesome host Christina, who happened to be working at the registration desk. I got a booklet of the several hundred events going on during the weekend along with a folder filled with papers about classes, SafeRide times, and a handy-dandy TechCash card filled with $20.12 (get it?). Unfortunately, I lost this card after the first day (Christina would probably roll her eyes at this, seeing as I constantly lost stuff during the weekend). So, as I had never before this day set foot on the MIT campus, I first decided to roam around the campus for an hour. Of course, I ended up in the Infinite. And of course…

After that, I headed back to the student center and visited the Coop. There I found this:

Do you get it? :)

Then I went back to the CPW Registration desk to see Christina and go to her Introductory to Psychology class with her. The class was really interesting and centered around personality (what defines it, how it becomes more definitive over the course of a person’s life, and the influence of genes). I’ve never really been that interested in psychology now, but I’m definitely excited to take it now (since I’ll have to if I decide to go into Course 9).

And then after that I headed back to the student center, talked to a bunch of Alpha Phi people who were awesome, and then finally “trekked” to Baker with Christina to put my stuff in her dorm.
Here is the view from her dorm:

And this is her super cute lamb-ball!

bahhhh!

So I headed over to opening ceremonies, which proved to be highly entertaining. The first act was a group of stompers (steppers? I’m not sure what they’re called) that were really good and fun to watch.

(Sorry about the picture quality. I have a horrible digital camera and it doesn’t take good pictures inside)

Soon after, Stu came up to give a talk, and embarrassed a couple kids by bringing them up to say happy birthday. (And personally, I think Stu looks a lot like Stephen Colbert.) Next came the Logarhythms, an a Capella group. Somehow, I managed to see them 3 times over the weekend (I have another pic of them later on in which they are dressed a bit differently…).

When the ceremonies finished, we headed over to the fair via conga line where a bunch of fun stuff was happening. I think the following pictures will do a good enough job summarizing:

Dry ice drinks.

Massive Twister game.

Break dancing.

Me playing with a super fancy camera.

And afterwards, I headed over to Baker’s Rooftop Party, where I had an awesome view of the Charles River and the Boston City skyline (which, unfortunately, you probably can’t see very well in this picture).

So, now I’ll move on to Friday!

For you people on the West Coast, isn’t it weird that they call Boba Bubble Tea?

Okay well anyways, as a San Diego girl, I reali
zed I was sorely unprepared for cold weather. I probably should have checked my umbrella before packing it…

I later got a chance to screenprint a shirt! I’ve been wanting to try out screenprinting for so long.

Then I played with the scary chairs in Baker, that lean incredibly far back, giving you the feeling you’ll fall on your back.

In the evening, I went to check out the Cultural Show.

I was confused when I first walked in, because I thought it said “Dishroom!” Anyways, the dancing was really good, and the accompanying video segments were hilarious. A person told me they were on YouTube, and I’d definitely recommend checking them out if you want a laugh.

Dancing:

We left at intermission to go back to Baker to hang out more and then get ready for some party hopping. Beth (who was my aunt for the weekend) tried on an Alpaca sweater of Ari’s (another Baker person) and acted like a bear.

Beth and I then took Will’s (err, I hope that’s his name. I met too many people to remember them all) longboards out for a ride outside, which was somewhat scary as it’s hard to steer out of the way of people. I then unwisely asked Will to try a certain trick on his skateboard, which caused it to break in half. Oops. Yeah I still feel bad about that.

Our first stop was DTD’s Goldfish party. I told a bunch of my friends back home about it, and I think a lot of them think MIT kids are really weird now, ahaha.
Here’s a picture of Christina and me. Eep, my eye’s kind of red (allergies).

And here I am with Stephen.

After that, we headed over to another party, which was called the Heaven & Hell party I believe, although I forget which frat was hosting it. Then we made the unwise choice of walking back over the bridge for the second time. My feet almost died that night. :(

Then came Saturday. I took it easy most of the morning, as my eyes were bothering me. Later on, I went over to visit the Archery Club, as I actually do archery and I wanted to see what the club was like at MIT.

Unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures of people shooting. But hey everyone, you should all try archery out, because it’s an awesome sport!

I then headed over to the Green Building to check out an a Capella concert that Beth was in, and once again ran into the Logarhythms! This time they looked quite different…

Before MIT, I’ve never really heard any a Capella groups. Especially after seeing the concert, I’m so amazed at how talented these groups are and how much hard work they put into their music. The range of music they perform is vast as well. In the concert I head Christian music, a song from the movie Chicago, and a remix of Kanye West’s “Stronger” (yay Daft Punk!).

In the evening, I went across the river with Christina to the Alpha Phi house for the Alpha Phiesta! I had some yummy tacos and chips and it was all good. Plus I got a personalized tour of the house. :)

We made it back in time to Baker to catch the last half of the Hypnotist, which was probably the funniest thing I saw all weekend. Essentially, this guy, a hypnotist, picked out people from the crowd, hypnotized them, and made them do silly stuff. I find it somewhat hard to believe that they were actually hypnotized, but some of the people I asked said they couldn’t remember anything they did, or could only faintly remember it. Nevertheless, it was highly amusing.

Here is Sam playing the piano with passion. And, oh my god, I can’t even express how hilarious it was to see her sing the alien national anthem loudly on a microphone. I’m still really angry that no one video taped it because I could probably crack up for hours watching it. Unfortunately, a few minutes later the fir
e alarm went off and we all had to head outside.

And here’s a picture from outside. Apparently it was just steam from the boiler room that caused a false alarm.

The alarm went off probably 10 or 20 minutes later, and this time most people didn’t evacuate. I even know some people just turned off their lights and had a dance party, using the flashing lights from the alarm as strobe lights. :)

I later attempted to go over to PBE for a rooftop party, but the police had came and wouldn’t let anyone else enter the building (MIT parties for you, eh?). So for the rest of the night I hung out in Baker and talked with people for awhile. Deciding against staying up really late to go across the river to some parties, I went to sleep around midnight in hope of getting a good amount of sleep before I’d have to wake up super early. Of course, at 5 in the morning, I wake up from flashing lights. I’m confused at first, until I hear the woman’s voice on the PA system telling us to evacuate the building because of a potential fire. At 5 in the morning, it is freezing cold outside. None of the firefighters seemed very happy to be up at this hour and barked at the students to move out of the way. However, it was quite amusing to see everyone in their pajamas and bathrobes. Luckily, I was able to go back to sleep for about an hour or so before I had to get up to catch my flight.

I had a blast at CPW, and it was the perfect introduction to MIT and all it has to offer. I am exhilarated to be spending the next four years of my life at this amazing institution. The best part of CPW is all the people I have met, and I know it will be nice walking on campus already having several friends to say “hi” to as I walk past them in the hallways. So thank you for everyone who put this together!

Also, if you happened to meet me over CPW and aren’t my Facebook friend, friend me! :)
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1054530123