Flavor of Love by Sam M. '07

DID YOU KNOW? If I had been born a girl, my father would have wanted to name my Marya (MAR-ee-uh). Marya Maurer. As it was, Sam’s Mom wanted to name me Ishmael, but somebody managed to talk her out of that one.

You know, Ben Jones, there’s no category for “FREE FOOD!” in this vast blog entry classification system that you have devised. Honestly, I think that it’s such an important part of MIT undergrad culture that the site is really incomplete without one. We even have a [email protected] e-mail list, which is really cool (although half of the messages are like, LOTS OF KETCHUP PACKETS, 33-541!)

I’m going to be getting free food five times this lovely Thursday afternoon, so I thought I could not only tantalize you with tales of my free food, but also tell you about the fine student organizations that have given me these incomparable dining opportunities.

Career Fair

If I’m being honest, not a lot of undergrads seem to be really successful at finding careers here–it’s more about making contacts, finding channels through which you can apply, and exploring the wealth of options available to you as an MIT graduate. Most of the people Course X end up finding careers through monstertrak or one of the myriad interviews and information sessions set up on campus. But undergrads don’t have trouble plundering the treasure trove of free stuff that all the companies give out. Basically, all you have to do is go up while the representatives are talking, and FREE COOKIES/TOYS/T-SHIRTS/LIGHT-UP PENS!! I recommend hitting up Shell first, because they give you a bag full of free stuff, in which you can carry all your other free stuff.

In a related note, Xanga was at the MIT career fair. Creepy.

Student Center Reading Room rededication or something like that

I was actually headed back to lab after the career fair, but I saw a poster in Lobby 7 that said something like “FREE FOOD! TODAY! 4 PM! Since it was 3:55 and I am easily influenced by casual suggestions, I shimmied back over across the street and up 5 flights of stairs to the top floor of the student center, where Tim the Beaver was presiding over a platter of delicious chicken wings and an assortment of pastries. There was a sign there urging me to give blood, and to be honest I would have done that too if I didn’t have somewhere to be in 45 minutes. I looked inside the new reading room and, you know, it really s a lot nicer than it used to be. I had actually only been there twice before, just because I’m never on the 5th floor of the student center, and both times involved me being kicked out for loudness by angry grad students. But that won’t be a problem now with the community study spaces! Well done, MIT! Now just renovate the Infinite Lounge and we’ll be all set!

MISTI Germany program orientation

I was there with Ling ’07 to give a presentation on all the opportunities that a MISTI internship will open up, which all of my blog readers have no doubt heard about to no end, and also to grab some free pizza. We got a little carried away on making our presentation and ended up with like 107 pictures, although we only managed to get up to around 38 before program coordinator Dr. Berka nimbly cut us off. But they were 38 good pictures. And even though they got generic pizza this year rather than Beauty’s, I still have to say: MISTI rocks.

Concert Choir “social event”

Basically this means that the sopranos bring in cookies and you walk around awkwardly introducing yourself to people. For some reason I’ve never felt the urge to be terribly social with people in choir other than my fellow tenors and my “best friend” Genevieve, and that was only because she sat with the tenors all the time instead of the 50 googol altos. But, hey–free soprano cookies.

Conner 2 Study Break (no link because we’ve been a little lax in updating our web page for the past 3 years)

Are you on the MIT campus Thursdays at 10:30? Then quit your studying and come on over to Conner 2 for $15 worth of free food split 20 ways! Most halls I know seem to host some kind of weekly communal feeding event sponsored by dorm funding, and we’re no exception. We even rotate duty between our incomparable GRT’s Chris and Summer and the individual suites on our floor. This week it was their turn to make fruit pizzas, and then next week my suite has got chili.

But I really have to do a pset now, so check back later tonight. Or tomorrow. Or something.

Wow, according to Movable Type it took me 3 days and 23 hours to finish this entry. Sorry, dudes.