What do you do for fun around here? by Chris M. '12
What,this isn't fun to you?
A friend of mine ended up studying lit at a nearby college here in Boston. (If you didn’t know, Boston has approximately 10^24 colleges. Per m^2). She asked if I’d mind showing her around the ‘tvte, as it seemed like a pretty interesting place (SPOILER: It is.) and I happily obliged.
As I walked her around the myriad of different labs that serve host to mechanical wonders in various states of disarray, blabbing incessantly about how cool and entertaining everything was I remember her looking me dead in the eye and saying “What do you do for fun around here?”
It caught me off guard. To me, this was fun. I get to spend every waking hour (which I’ve traded a few sleeping hours for at market price) surrounded by gadgets and gizmos soldered and smoking around me. I love that. I love that I can spend 16 hours straight in the shop soldering my PCB boards* and carrying on a conversation with my friends who are desperately trying not to kill themselves while trying to build something that is both impressive and a valid psychological analysis.
One of these friends recently completed an analog controlled segway knockoff called “Segfault” and made a video of it. I think it’s a pretty good peak into the sorts of things a few of us think are fun, and you’ll probably find no better video clip to summarize life at MIT than the segway jousting at the end.
*This is belongs to a class of acronymically redudant phrases (or ARP phrases as I like to call them) that bug me. Other such examples include PIN number, and ATM machine. But if you want to be a functioning member of society you have to speak like them. *grumble grumble*
I think it is pretty cool.
I was going to say “I filmed the segway jousting clip at the end!” but then I realized no, I filmed a different one for them, later that day. With much less flimsy broomsticks
>_I was going to say “I filmed the segway jousting clip at the end!” but then I realized no, I filmed a different one for them, later that day. With much less flimsy broomsticks 
>_<
I seem to have accidentally dual smiley faced the last message. Whoops.
SEGWAY JOUSTING
that’s how we roll in da Tech
Brilliant! Now this is fun I dream of!
That looks awesome!
@Charles
It wasn’t between 4p and 6a AKA you weren’t awake
You know that I wake up for important events and emergencies.
Your friend is missing out. Hey, why didn’t you take her around to meet *ME*???