Photographic evidence by Laura N. '09

So I thought I’d show you just what I was talking about in my last entry where I talk about the horrible trigonometric torture I endured in my 2.001 lecture.

You see the double-angle formulas, don’t you? Yuck.

After that, I was working on my 2.001 pset, which thankfully didn’t cover all that much trig just yet, but was still firmly entrenched in algebra. I did the following two pages of it:

…before finding out that my method was completely wrong. Don’t you hate those moments?

In other news, I have a confession to make to my fellow VMars fans…

…Ready?

I think I have a fictional character crush on Piz. I can’t help it, he’s just so freaking cute! Of course, he’s totally in love with Veronica and while part of me desperately wants him to get the girl, he’s way too good for her. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I basically aspire to be Veronica in all of her snarky goodness, but sometimes these pesky things like her sheer stupidity (um, helping Donut kidnap his own freaking kid, worst plot EVER), completely biatchy nature, and dating habits are less than stellar. Also, this curly hair thing? So not working for me.

Anyway. <3 Piz. That’s all.

Responses to questions:

Thuita Maina said: Am just concerned about admission chief, Marilee Jones, blogs. I haven’t seen her blog since I got hooked to the MIT site – four months ago. Is she very very busy? I would love to hear from her, and I guess so would many applicants.

Well, I’ve never been the Dean of Admissions of anywhere, but I imagine she is pretty busy, especially now that reading season is starting! I don’t know for sure, but I’d say you can expect to hear from Marilee only a few times a year, usually around crucial dates in the admissions cycle, so stay tuned.

Mona said: Hi. Thi[s] i[s] not a re[s]pon[s]e to thi[s] pot, but rather a concern regarding the application proce[ss]. I hope you can help me. What do I do with the teacher recommendation[s]? [s]hould I [s]end it my[s]elf or [s]hould they [s]end it? And [s]hould I [s]ign the part on top where it [s]ay[s] I waive the right to review thi[s]? I know it'[s] better if I don’t [s]ee the paper my[s]elf, [s]o I ju[s]t need to know what'[s] the right way to do it, and [s]hould I [s]end all the [s]tuff together in one big envelope?

Thank[s]

([s]orry my keyboard i[s] broken! :( )

Man. I feel your pain. I didn’t have an “i” key for the longest time last year. So. Annoying. As for the recommendation letters, my guidance counselors made me sign the waiver part, but I’m honestly not sure how much it matters. I guess your teachers might be more honest if they know you won’t be reading it, but one of my teachers actually gave me my own copy of his letter, just because, I guess. So I can’t really help there. As for who should send it in, my guidance counselors took care of that. They actually did tons of work for us- we submitted all of our completed applications to them and they shipped the whole thing off at once. Even if your guidance counselors aren’t that helpful, they still need to fill out some forms for your app (school profiles and counselor recommendations), so you could ask your teachers to give their letters to the guidance office and have it packaged that way. If that’s not possible (or you don’t trust your guidance office…who’s seen Orange County? Awesome movie…), you can certainly ask the teachers to send the letters separately (just make sure they have the appropriate address and they label the pages with the appropriate identifying information the college wants- usually name and birthdate or social security number or something like that). You can also send the letters yourself. Just have your teachers seal the letters themselves, then toss the sealed envelopes into a big folder to be mailed. The more pages you can package together, the better, as it obviously reduces the risk of things getting lost. But it really doesn’t matter how you do it- as long as all the pages have your identifying information, just pick the system that works out the best for you (and your teachers and guidance counselor).

Jacqueline said: Definitely understand what you mean about the angles. The last problem on my physics final last year was of those “hypothetical situations” where a boat is crossing a river leaving from the south shore and the wind is pushing it northeast and the current is flowing west and a school of goldfish is exerting a southwest force on the stern, and the coefficient of friction of the seaweed scraping the bottom is 4.2 x 10 ^ -4242.

That is truly, truly horrendous. I’m so sorry for you.