End of term by Matt McGann '00

While the period known as “End of term” certainly brings finals anxiety, it also brings many events and traditions celebrating the conclusion of a great semester. You’ve probably already heard about many of these, including the last 3.091 lecture (described here by Kevin), all of the festivities that Mitra did, and the “MIT celebrity”-served midnight breakfast, starring President Susan Hockfield and Dean of Admissions Marilee Jones. For me, I was happy to partake in the Lab for Chocolate Science’s finals hot cocoa (very yummy) and our annual Admissions holiday luncheon.

At the Admissions holiday luncheon, we had a traditional New England “Yankee swap,” a funky gift swap (described here) that sounds more like a 6.001 recursion problem (maybe Scheme is why my entries always have so many parentheses). I brought a nice mug I bought at the cool Korean market just north of campus, and ended up with some great wine glasses at the end. Nice! Another office at MIT morally opposed having a “Yankee” swap, so they had a “Red Sox Swap” instead, swapping socks (of all colors) — you can’t make this stuff up.

Now, just as many of you are getting to take a vacation, so will I. My wonderful parents are coming up to visit this weekend, and we’ll get to do a whole bunch of fun Boston things. Then, I’ll head home for holidays with the family, and New Year’s Eve with old MIT friends in DC. Should be quite nice. I’ll be blogging a bit less during this period, but hope to check in periodically since there are some questions I’d like to address and of course there’s lots to say leading up to the regular action deadline on January 1 (hello, regular action and international applicants! We’ll be talking more soon!). I’ll be back in the office for the first week of MIT’s famed Independent Activities Period (IAP).

Happy holidays, everyone! =)