Generativity

As I recall from high school psych (the class, not the thing people do where they're about to throw things at you), "generativity" is the phenomenon that occurs when a member of an older generation, in the pangs of losing their youth and wishing to do SOMETHING with the wisdom they've gleaned over the eons, attempts to take the youngsters under his wing, showing them his mistakes and giving them lots of advice that they will most likely ignore. The freshman class of MIT is in a similar situation: we have talked with potential applicants, who will know for sure this Saturday (Pi Day, of all ironies), we have given them our stories, and we have squeed in remembrance of a time when we were in their shoes. Unbeknowst to those pre-frosh hopefuls, we are also undergoing our own sort of maturation: the pressure is on to select majors. MIT requires students to declare a major at the end of their freshman year, so that one can get to their personally-opined "good major stuff" within the following year. This means big decisions, lots-o-pressure, general life angst, acute anxiety, more crap to do in the evening.... In other words, nothing new.
All in, mighty winds are blowing this spring.
Things I'm looking forward to:

• Spring Break--gawin a stay round herr and get my sand together. Is it sad that whereas most people think bikinis and sunshine y mucha cerveza,. I get excited about an opportunity to build things and start making course Bibles?
• Building a boat-- 4th WAR has decided that the blue plastic, SEARS shopping cart we stole from the basement would make a wonderful boat. How do we make it river-worthy? Wrap it in bubble wrap... It should work, according to Bernouli's equation, and we can get really fancy and even add a wee motor on the bottom.
• Publsihing Slander-- As secretary of Senior House, it is my primary duty to collect, organize, and publish SLANDER, a little booklet that comes out and brightens days during Finals Week by taking embarrassing quotes entirely out of context (My roommate: "It feels nice when I rub against it!"). Getting people to contribute a sufficient amount of material is the key.
• CPW-- The Senior House Zombie Defense Initiative is holding some workshops (boffer weapons, anyone?). Also, I might get a prefrosh, which helps with the whole generativity thing.
• Steer Roast-- Massive happy fun tyme.
• Covering realtivity in 8.022-- Okay, so I'm not in the class, but the lectures are flippin' brilliant, and worth the time. I've always wanted to learn about it, and what better context than a Fizix course?
• Building an underwater robot-- For an Intro to Engineering Design class. Our design is SCHWEEEET.
• Bouldering-- I'm registered for a PE class for indoor rock climbing. Learn to belay, climb every week, good stuffs.
• Helping in getting a tarantula-- Wilheim's parents said yes! He's planning to name it Morty.
• Free time to play more with SolidWorks-- Wait, what's free time? Oh, yes, Spring Break... (Happy thoughts... My version of palm trees and sarongs...)

That's all for now: Physics reading awaits. Ciao and Good Luck!