Off to Southeast Asia by Matt McGann '00
Even Admissions Officers get to take a vacation sometimes.
Today, I leave for three weeks of vacation in Southeast Asia. Nominally, the purpose of the trip is to be in Malaysia for a (Malay) friend’s wedding, but while you’re over there, you might as well do some tourism, no? So, I’ll be visiting Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, and I’m pretty excited about all of those places. Should be a great trip.
While I’m away, Ben will be posting for me a number of blog entries I’ve pre-written. Two of the forthcoming entries will introduce you to two new additions to our office, Jenny Rifken and Bryan Nance. You can welcome them to MIT in the comments section of their posts. I’m disappointed that I didn’t get to do a Questions Omnibus before I left, but I promise to do one including questions & comments both pre- and post-vacation, so feel free to leave questions while I’m away.
I suspect my next real-time post will be on August 12th. In the meantime, I’ll probably be fighting off urges to blog every time I see a computer…
Have fun! I’m sure everyone will be eagerly awaiting your return.
Have a great time on vacation! Seems like you’re visitng some pretty awesome places.
Too bad I’ll be missing you in a couple weeks, but have a wonderful time!
that seems so cool!
have a great vacation, and we sure wd be missing you!
Have a great vacation! We’ll all be egarly awaiting your return!
HOLA!
Cool vacation plans! Good chance to practice your Chinese, yes? Have fun, and buy me a t shirt, k?
ADIOS!~Kiersten~
Thought you might find this article interesting: http://www.boston.com/yourlife/home/articles/2005/07/21/young_potter_readers_need_to_talk_grieve/
Didn’t raelly have time to find the potter post, since I’m at work, but this shall do.
Later,
Mike.
Matt… you should have told us earlier! Some travel suggestions when you get to Taiwan…
For shopping you have to check out Shi-Ling market… it is the best market in the entire country… it’s like MIT, the vendors there don’t sleep… or in their case, close shop until like 3 a.m. so if you’re jet-lagged… it’s THE place to go.
Also check out Kwon-Hwa market for DVDs and stuff… I’m not supporting piracy of any kind but it is quite an amusing place.
They also have a pretty awesome jade market for jewelry and trinkets… so you can get presents for everyone a year ahead of time…
There’s also a pretty awesome museum… I’m sure you’ve heard of it, but it has all of the greatest treasures imported from China. While you’re there check out the grasshopper on the Napa Cabbage, which is probably the most famous exhibit.
Also, they have people that make really awesome noodles with their hands… since you’re a math person, they’ll tell you how many noodles they have in their hand each time they make more… sometimes you can get a chef that gets into the thousands!
Also for food you have to go to Ding Tai Fong, which is the best food place there is in Taiwan… if you can get past the REALLY long lines (many businessmen from Japan order boxes and boxes of their food to take back to Japan) their food is amazing.
Hey Matt,
Will you be popping by Singapore?
Eric
Singapore! You have to drop by Singapore! =P Sorry but I have to do some promoting here.
Have a great vacation! Nice to hear that you’re coming to Thailand (my home country
)!!
Hey Katharine, I know EXACTLY what you mean. Man, you hit all the place to visit at Taiwan. Haha..the night market is the best.
Matt,
I hope you have an awesome time in Asia! I came across this blog after I registered for MyMIT and I really appreciate all the time the admissions officers and others put into the blogs.
I met you in Phoenix at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, and since then, I’ve become interested in MIT. My brother was admitted to the class of ’08, but declined the offer. He really loved Cambridge, and I can’t wait to visit myself.
Iddoshe
Wow! Im sure you’ll have loads of fun! Be safe!
Since you said you’ll be doing another omnibus when you get back here, I’ll leave a couple of more questions (in addition to the four I left in the July Omnibus). Now that the application for the class of 06 has been released, I have question 4 answered (about where to list classes taken at a community college through dual enrollment), but I also have two more questions.
1. What if you have trouble listing all your classes that you have taken? A lot of my Social Studies classes are semester classes, so I quickly ran out of room there (and maybe in a couple of other spots).
2. On the section where you list AP courses, can I list AP courses where I’m not actually taking an AP course (since my high school doesn’t have one) but am planning to take the exam?