Summary of CPW 2006 by Melis A. '08

I had a blast during CPW and I hope you all did too! Here’s a rundown on what I was up to this weekend:

Thursday night: At the opening ceremonies, the Bloggers listed the Top 10ish Reasons to come to MIT. I had follow Nance’s “Beaver” act, but managed to draw a few laughs. I was disappointed to find out that people still didn’t know what a UROP was! I have clearly failed. So, help me educate those who are unfortunate enough to not read this blog by spreading the word that UROP stands for Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program and allows MIT undergrads to get research experience in all the labs on campus. It’s one of the many things that make MIT unlike any other school in the world. As a freshman, you can work in the lab of a Nobel Laureate, get a paper published, and go to professional conferences. And if that doesn’t get them pumped, add that it’s what all the cool kids do… that’ll get their attention.

Afterwards, I worked at the help desk with Laura and McGregor (another admissions officer and Marilee Jones’ assistant). While fighting fires related to the airport shuttles (or more like watching the fire be fought by the professional squad), McGregor shared stories from medical school, since he’s working in the admissions office while studying at Harvard Med. I learned all about teratomas. I would put a picture up, but teratomas are a rather shocking sight.

My shift ended at 10 and Bryan and I went to the amazing festival and got even more amazing honey-flavored liquid nitrogen ice cream. Can you say “yum”?

Friday: My prefrosh, Minh, was quite the trooper and wanted to come to my 9:30 AM biochemistry class. So, after a breakfast in Burton Conner, we listen to Prof. Brown tell us everything we will ever need to know about mono- and disaccharides. We parted ways afterwards, as I went down to the bunkers of the basement of building 3 to work on my robot for 2.007.

Unfortunately, the MIT weather machine was temporarily out of order (maybe it was a secret hack?) so a group of prefrosh and upperclassmen battled the wind and rain on the way to dinner at Royal East. I had a chance to meet some of the prefrosh Intel finalists and we had a grand ole time hearing stories of their shenanigans.

Afterwards was the Meet the Bloggers Party! Thanks to everyone who came!!! It was so nice to finally meet a lot of you. You are all awesome and I can’t wait to see your lovely faces on campus next year. According to one prefrosh, Sam is the funniest one… *shake it off, Melis and the 10 other bloggers* So, here are some classics: “A neutron walks into a bar, orders a beer and begins to open his wallet when the barman says: ‘For you, no charge!'” Didn’t like that one? Here’s another: “Two muffins are sitting in an oven. One muffin turns to the other and says, ‘Wow, is it me or is it hot in hereпњљ’ The other muffin replies, ‘AH! A talking muffin!'” *bam bam ching* I’m here all week, folks.

Saturday: The weather machine was still broken at this point… but nothing stopped Mitra, Sam, me, and over a hundred other people from running the Back Bay 5K, supporting the Boys and Girls Foundation and sponsored by Chi Phi. Mitra and Sam creamed the competition! They’re too proud to tell you themselves, but Mitra got 4th in the college women category, and Sam got 11th overall! I had a more modest place… props to anyone who can guess (hint: it’s more than 50 but less than 100 (wahoo!)) Looks like I need to take some lessons from the pros. (Look at Mitra’s blog for pictures.)

And of course, Saturday night was Battle of the Bands!!!! 500 people came and enjoyed the super amazing bands. By the way, Spirtual Rez won, though Tremulant won in my heart. In any case, Bryan’s blog is way more thorough than I can ever hope to be, so check it out for some professional pictures. Battle of the Bands tickets: $6. Seeing Tim the Beaver crowd-surf: Priceless. Also priceless: watching the Joneses rock to the Counting Crows! My roommate turned to me and said “Only at MIT.” So true. (Click here to watch an amateur video of the Joneses)

In conclusion, thanks to all of the prefrosh who I met for:
-making me realize how lucky I am to be a blogger (apparently it will be the most wanted job in the universe next year)
-being bright-eyed and bushy-tailed
-laughing at my reason to come to MIT (bad jokes: priceless)