Good Morning, Sportsracers! by Danny B.D. '15
*erases introductory post draft for the umpteenth time in the vain hope that he'll stick it this time around*
Introductions are generally a clunky thing for me. There’s some basic bio information I can give when I meet people around the Institvte (“Hi, I’m Danny; I’m a senior majoring in physics with CS classes sprinkled to taste, and I live in East Campus.”) but I feel a weird level of pressure trying to summarize myself in a few sentences. Should I mention the weird accumulation-of-facts thing that I do constantly? Am I going to be judged for quoting HMS Pinafore in this person’s presence? Would this be a bad time to replace an introduction to this person with just scrunching up my face in a ridiculous manner? (That last one has worked a couple times in the past, by the way.)
I’m weird, in case that’s not clear.
Nevermind the why and wherefore: let’s roll back the clock to April 2011, when I was getting ready to attend my own Campus Preview Weekend (CPW). I had been fairly quiet through the first half of high school, and it had taken a number of years before I could convince myself that I had a close-knit friend group. This timescale felt too long for college: I wanted to meet people right away, but my complete inability to remember names and faces made this process during the whirlwind of CPW seem particularly daunting. I needed a conversation starter, and looking around my room, I found one.
I flew in to Logan Airport on the 7th, wearing my propeller hat. When I arrived via shuttle to MIT, a campus police officer watched me disembark next to Kresge Lawn, pointed at my hat, and yelled, “You! You’re gonna fit in here just fine.” I wore my beanie through the entirety of CPW, and it got enough stares (especially in strong wind) and when Orientation rolled around in late August, lots of people recognized me as “propeller hat kid”. Since playing the part of an ice-breaker, the propeller hat has reappeared on special days including the first day of school, through finals, and when I need a blog avatar which is an animated GIF[?]. (Thanks Lydia!)
*breathes* Okay, I think I’ve made it through this intro post in one piece. I’m sitting here in my room playing ze frank’s “An Invocation for Beginnings” (which is a fantastic video but a bit profanity-heavy) trying to fight back the fears of blogging I’ve had in the past. Discarding prior blogging attempts, discarding my own self-criticisms of my writing, discarding the latent fear that the average prospective reading this is going to wonder who the heck I am and why the heck I’m dedicating my intro blog post to a hat. Putting those in the discard pile. Excited? I’m excited!
“And God, let me enjoy this. Life isn’t just a sequence of waiting for things to be done.” – ze