Small talk by Laura N. '09

Well my friends, yesterday I took a little bit of a nap on the bus on the way home from my field hockey game, and when I awoke, what to my wondering eyes did appear but…

snow?! I kid you not. It was snowing. And sticking! I’ve already mentioned that I’m from New Jersey- I know what snow is. I’ve seen plenty of it before. I’ve seen it piled 3 feet high, layered with ice, piled in drifts…I’m no stranger to snow. But snow before Halloween just weirds me out, man. Seriously. Yikes.

Speaking of weird, despite the fact that there was definitely a layer of snow on the ground yesterday morning, it had all melted by last night. This isn’t exactly weird, since it is still October, and the snow was pretty wet. What is weird is that last night (and today) were downright pleasant in terms of weather. I just don’t get it.

Anyway, I thought I’d wrote a quick little entry here just to answer some questions that have been posed to me over the last week or so…

Timur said, “I hear MIT even has a mailing list specifically to notify students of events that have free food. :)” This is most certainly true. I’m not personally on that particular mailing list, but I was planning to write a little feature about MIT mailing lists in the near future, so stay tuned!

Mike asked, “hey, just a question about athletics. I am interested in playing football at MIT. Are football practices from 5-7 as well? That’s really short! I haven’t had a chance to contact the coach yet.” I’m pretty sure all sports follow pretty much the same schedule. According to Section 2.12 of the Rules of the Faculty, no classes or tests can be scheduled during those 2 hours. If coaches decide to hold practices say, from 4-7, some students will have conflict with classes, and since the NCAA has really strict rules about Division III athletics, that can get really messy. I can also say that the field hockey and football teams often pass each other on the way into and out of the athletic center during those 2 hours. That said, next time I see Kevin ’09, who lives next door to me and plays football, I’ll be sure to check. =)

In my entry about Woodie Flowers, Nehalita asked, “Btw, how involved were you in FIRST as a highschooler?” I actually only spent one year involved with FIRST. I started working with the team during my junior year because a friend of mine finally convinced me to join. I had a great time (go team 30!) but a whole list of unfortunate things happened to our team over the course of that year. We lost our corporate funding, our advisor was getting tired of the massive time committment, and our principal just kind of got rid of the whole thing. So our team died and I didn’t get to participate during my senior year, which was pretty sad. But during that one year, I definitely became a core memeber of the build time (staying at school until 10 PM on the days leading up to Ship Day…)

In my entry about duct tape, Jonathan asked, “Ok, just have to ask after the duct tape comment… are you from Texas?” and I’m just going to assume he was talking to me so I can answer and not feel guilty for not responding to his question. As I mentioned just a minute ago in this entry, I’m actaully from New Jersey. And what is it about duct tape that makes you think of Texas?

Also, Merudh asked awhile ago about how his school doesn’t rank…to be perfectly honest, I don’t even remember how I addressed this on the application. I’m sure there’s some box that can be checked that says “school does not rank.” I do know that I wrote up a small description of my high school/district and stuck it into that “anything else?” section of every application I filled out. Also, I’d love to tell you my point of view about the MCVSD and MIT admissions, but it would be a waste to post it here, since it applies to exactly no one else. (Merudh and I went to high schools in the same district. We even met on a nerdy class trip.) But feel free to shoot me an email with any questions you might have about it, and I’ll be sure to get back to you!