The Exams are Coming! Get the Chainsaw and Holy Water!

A really nice thing about being in a technology school is that they seldom have problems with computers. Mind you, when they DO have problems, they are consequentially and exponentially bigger, but the overall system is still pretty darn brilliant. Take for example the main system, Project Athena, a terminal of which I type this to you right now and have been doing for the past three weeks. Athena is comprised of "clusters" around the campus, and you can log on to the system anytime, anywhere, and access settings, documents, ect., that you have already saved on another computer. Athena also has its own network of shareware, like drafting programs, word processing, spreadsheets, math programs...anything you'd normally have to pay big bucks for to get it on your own computer. Printing is also free from Athena (they come after you after about 5 reams a month, through an office named, no joke, "Tree-eater"), and since such copious quantities of white copy paper lies about, packs have been known to fall into backpacks and end up as P-set scratch paper. Our Calculus teacher, Sammy, has unabashedly proclaimed paper theft a wise use of resources and uses the prevalence of "free" paper to say we have no excuse to not show our work. You can print to any printer in Athena from any cluster, so theoretically one could send a job to a printer en route to class, then breeze by and find it completed. Theoretically. I've known some printers to be quite bitchy about their toner...
Printers are almost the goddesses of the MIT community: supplicate to them, cajole them, and don't ask too much, and thou shalt be provided for. Rush them, curse at them, and tempt them with the tantalizingly too last-minute-need-this-five-minutes-ago requests, and they are the ultimate bitches. As if the wise Course 6 (computer science and EE) lords of Project Athena knew this, they entitled them accordingly: our Laser-jet Olympus includes a Ceres, Echo, Electra, Pandora, and Celine. We enjoy clever things here.
The exams have arrived: Chem last Thursday, Physics this AM, and a big honkin' Calculus Midterm this Wednesday. Glory Hallelujah. I was up until three last night studying Physics, having only gotten back from the review session at 11:30. I walked with my instructor some of the way back, during which I remarked to him, "I can already see that sleep is the x-factor in the great equation of MIT." I expected him to allay some fears, bolster some confidence, give some reassurance. Instead he laughed and said, "Yeah..."
So every Saturday from now on we have some element of "Mandatory Fun," a phrase so coined because it is the Swedish term for proposed "Fun" that is "Mandatory." Not complaining, because I know I'll rarely have the chance nor the impetus to go to Martha's Vineyard, Six Flags, or see the Boston Pops fireworks show every summer, but when they come on a Saturday at a strategic point in studying (AKA- I goofed off for the past two nights), it can make Sunday, the "day of rest," quite the opposite. Martha's Vineyard was the destination for this weekend, and it was a very nice little island--as touristy as any given holiday on the Lake, but not bad. No, we didn't see the big ole shark, for which I was most disappointed. I told the groups I was with all we had to do was go to the butcher, get some scraps, and send someone out with a bucket and a pair of Floaties, but no, let's never listen to MY ideas. It would have been quite cool, though cooler if we had had a video camera... and Jaws XXI-whatever hadn't already been made...
This weekend is a "friendly" competition (defined as one pint of blood loss each) between Interphase, us, and the MITES Program, them. The MITES are juniors who are doing the same sort of program as us, although I've heard it's harder, just to scare them off and keep class size down. I think Basketball, Soccer, and Volleyball are the areas of war. Underwater Lawn Darts wasn't included, so I think I might have to sit this one out...
The "WHAT!!?!?!" Moment of the Day: Walking over to this cluster in the Student Center, before I even round the tennis courts I head the "clang-clang-OUCH!" that can mean only one thing: Broadsword training. The. Coolest. Thing. Ever. D&D geeks beware: those things were big, and fast, and unwieldy. Only at MIT. Now about inventing the Light Saber...