I AM CONNECTED! by Laura N. '09

So dear readers, I have finally made it to MIT. I���m writing this from my own room in Burton-Conner on my new (to me) laptop and will soon be posting it to my blog thanks to my wireless Internet connection.

I drove up the East Coast on Saturday morning (well ok, my parents drove) and arrived on campus around 5:30. I checked in at the front desk of my dorm and my family helped me carry all my crates of junk up to my room. Speaking of my room, it got changed. Several times. I was originally supposed to be on the Burton half of the building in a double, but my room had to be “crowded” (meaning they were going to squeeze and extra frosh in there and make it a triple.) So when someone elsewhere in the building moved out, they “un-crowded” my room and gave me a single on the Conner half of the fifth floor. Only no one ever told me. So when I got an email saying that I had been moved from one single to another, I was really very confused. The rooming chair was very nice, she went back and checked what happened and cleared everything up for me, but it made yesterday a little boring and lonely. Yes, I was looking forward to having a roommate. Leave me alone.

Right after moving my stuff into my dorm, I headed over to the Student Center to check in with the Orientation people. (This is a great idea, because that way you can get your MIT ID card, which has your TechCash account on it. And where would you be without that?) It was there that I met my first frosh friends- Jake and Kevin, who are both here early for cross country. (All the freshmen who are here this early are either doing FPOPS, or they’re international students or athletes. Everyone else comes in for Orientation next weekend.)

I went back to my room and organized some of my stuff, until I found out my parents went out to eat without me. (They’re staying until Monday morning.) So I made my way over to Characters, the bar/restaurant at the Kendall Square Marriot via the Infinite Corridor. Now, one of the things they give you at Orientation Check-In is the “101 Things To Do Before You Graduate,” which Sam has already alluded to. Number 88 is “Count your steps down the Infinite Corridor.” So I figured, “Hey. It’s my first day on campus. What better way to start off my MIT experience than by doing something on that list?” It’s not like I had anything else to do while walking around campus by myself. Now, I’m not exactly sure of the exact definition of the Infinite Corridor, so I didn’t start counting until I was out of Lobby 7, but I got 233. You know, in case you were wondering.

After eating with my parents, I headed over to the Z-Center to activate my card for their facilities. (They hand you a couple of forms at the Orientation desk. You fill them out, hand them in at the front desk of the Z-Center, and you’re done in about 30 seconds.)

Yesterday Amanda ’08 from my floor stopped by to tell me that our GRT (Graduate Resident Tutor…these are known as RAs in the rest of the world), Keirnan, was hosting a floor lunch. It’s great having friendly upperclassmen around. I got to meet some people and eat free pizza, so I gave the event a thumbs-up. I also met Katie ’09 there and we went to the field hockey team dinner together. The team is awesome- all of the upperclassmen are so friendly and helpful. (We’re going to need that on Wednesday, when the freshmen are responsible for the team dinner. Yikes! Expect a fun story about that one….)

After the team dinner the 5 freshmen field hockey players went into Boston for ice cream and then kind of wandered around campus visiting random people we knew. Then I came back to my dorm to try to set up my Internet connection…

I had removed my ethernet…thing to put in my wireless card, and the computer got mad at me for that. It kept crashing as soon as I turned it on. After playing with it for awhile, I finally managed to get to the point where the wireless card detected a signal. From there it was only a matter of entering my Athena usernname and password and…

You guys, I’m so, so proud of myself right now. It was probably the simplest thing I ever had to do on a computer but hey! It worked! I’m excited! I can use the Internet now!

Today we had THREE sessions of field hockey practice. It really wasn’t that bad, because we did a lot of skills and we even scrimmaged a couple of times. We ran 2 miles in the morning and that was the worst of the day. It feels so good to be playing again- to be out there on the field in a game situation. It feels not so good to be sweaty aaalll day long. I was never so excited to take a shower.

Campus is slightly deserted at the moment, so things are a little slow, but I’m already excited to be here! Case in point: Kiernan just knocked on my suite door to offer me a cookie! What more could I ask for?!

P.S. One last tip for frosh- make sure to pick up your copy of the How To GAMIT (How to Get Around MIT) on the first floor of the student center. I’ve already used mine several times. =)