Hellweek Begins: Part I, II, and III

To the right: Feel the Overload...
So I'm gearing up for three solid weeks of what we call HELLWEEKS--times where exams on top of p-sets on top of reading on top of studying on top of sleep on top of whatever extracurriculars one has take precedence. In case you're not a course 18 major, that's a lot of precedence. In order to describe my life in brevity, I'm dubbing it the collective HELLWEEK PENDING, all rolled into one giant mass of Awful with the vector Suicide pointing in direction Me. This will most likely be the only post, therefore, for quite some time, hence the Parts I, II, and III.
Let's get at 'em, then...
This past weekend has served somewhat as a calm before a storm, in that we had a Monday off for Columbus Day/Suicide Prevention Day. It was also coincidentally Thanksgiving in Canada, so we decided to have a Thanksgiving Hall Feed for the one Canadian who lives on our hall. I wish somethin' fierce that I had pictures, but alas, I have no picture-taking device, so my glorious narrative will have to suffice! (Crowd of children: Hooray!) The cast: 4th Ware residents fulfilling various roles, as we first held a Canadian Thanksgiving Pageant, then eating, as we secondly held forks to our mouths.
The Pageant begins--AKA we storm into the room where people are playing board games and the Canadian is working on homework. She had no clue of any of this, by the way...:

Xiao Xiao (as Narrator)- The year is 1872 in a magical land called "Canada."
Audience- OOOHHH, Canada! (It's cold...)
Xiao Xiao- The prince of Wales has fallen awfully sick. With....Liz.
Justin (as prince of Wales, bedecked in top hat adorned with pink ribbon) and Liz (as the Sickness) enter. Justin groans. Liz sort of leeches on him and dances about. (Whoops, excuse my dialect. Aboot.)
X_X- The people of Canada are worried...
Audience (catching on)- Oh, no!
X_X- and Parliament is very sad.
Parliament (Scott, Jesse, and Me)- *Tear!*
X_X- But then... (Points finger/gun) BANG! BANG! (Sickness falls dead, Justin straightens up) The Prince got better!
Everyone- YAY!!!
X_X- Then Parliament decided that because the prince was better...
Me- We'll have a national day of Thanksgiving! EVERYBODY CELEBRATE!
X_X- And ever since, each year the Parliament tells Canadians what to be thankful for! The End!
Everyone- LET'S EAT!!!

And so ended the saga of Canadian Thanksgiving. I had a merry trek to Shaw's, the nearest grocery store, beforehand, and we had turkey burgers on bread (we're on a college budget/timetable, give us a break), gravy, some miraculous mashed potatoes with fresh parsley and cheese, maple cornbread, and some fabulous apple pie afterwards, supplied by Liz and chosen solely to be ironic... Our floor is that much fatter and closer because of it.
In other news, the election draws closer! With the intent of not spending my night on here griping about one well-learned politesse or another (if you get that song reference, you rock. And need a life), I will remain undeclared, but if you want one flamer of a politics blog, my friend and hall-mate Erik Fogg runs a great one:
www.foggofwar.com
He loves readers, and not just on toast with jam.
Have yourselves merry little autumns, and talk to you when Hellweek's over!
Viva la Senior Haus!

Hubris: the Ride

Only brushed upon in past entries, I feel I must further elaborate on that "East Campus wooden roller coaster" that I mentioned in passing. It happened during Rush, and it happened in East Campus.

BEHOLD THE GLORY.

It was called Hubris: the Ride, meant to incur the wrath of Gods. It came complete with mural depicting EC set on fire as punishment for building such a shine to the Physics Gods.

I am proud to say I helped construct it, at least in its later stages (read as: closer to the date where the housing administration said to have that junk heap out of sight). The explanation behind the overwhelming appearance of Red Bull cans is that the East Campus kids, industrious blighters that they are, approached RB and asked them for a sponsorship. Red Bull said, hell no, we're not putting our name on your elaborate death machine, but here's 5 free cases of Red Bull instead. So their contribution WAS integral, just non-transferrable. So in order to prove that it was NOT a death machine, they sent the one and only guy to try it down with a can in hand. Yay, irony!
More explanation: I know the guy quaterstaff fighting the green-haired girl with a 2x2. He's got a hat. He's a neat guy.
More MORE explanation: The fireball at the end is when they decided a randomly-selected teddy bear might enjoy a ride... But the friction! We need some material as a heat-sink. Let's try LIGHTER FLUID! (Which led to, "Whoops, I spilled some on the cart! Whoops, I'm dousing some on the cart!) *

After that run, it was dismantled via crowbars, recip saws, drills, sledgehammers, and body parts that though they were much harder than they actually were, and put in a big pile by the volleyball courts. Its Dark materials live on, since many people scavenged this lumber and made sleeping lofts and tables.

Adeiu, Hubris.**

*(Note to Red Bull Corp.: Fully specialized and trained firefighting technicians, AKA, some juniors from EC, were standing by at all times with fire exsanguinators. Worry not. Please send free stuff.)

**This is an oxymoron. Don't get excited, I spotted it.

To Punt, to Tool, or Otherwise...

MIT is a place of balance. For example, ART vs. FUNCTION. There was once some sort of Massachusetts ordinance that required 1% of all funds for major building projects to be dedicated to art. Because of this, our campus is dotted with arcane hunks of "modern art" scrap metal around the place, some displaying somewhat cool feats of design and engineering ("The Giant Sail"), some being just plain Ugly ("Transparent Horizons") (see this article). Sometimes these two qualities merge and make something swell (the Stata Center, Simmons Hall Dormitory), but there is a big divide between engineer's functionality and the insensibly artistic. Simmons, for example, was designed by an architect who had wanted giant concrete, free-form shafts to go up the length of the building and serve as lounges. Mr. Fire Marshal took one look at the plans and said "Flues!" Mr. Architect said "Fudge!" and consequentially divided the shafts up. He still insisted on installing bookcases full of holes, however...
Another instance where MIT totters on the brink of partiality: COLLEGE vs. INSTITVTE. Let it be known that we are here to work hard, and hard work we do. Additionally there are not many places where to plan one's Friday night itinerary, one must choose between hearing a presentation of ground-breaking research, seeing a play by a European Shakespeare troupe, or attending a lecture by the President of Rwanda. On the other hand, there exists the fourth option that not many people would believe prevalent at MIT: typical college behavior. The thing about getting inventive kids together is that they will throw increasingly more inventive parties. So far this year there has been an "Anything but Clothes" Party (my Canadian and Cuban friends were planning on wrapping themselves in their respective flags), a "Food Orgy" Party (lots of food, but you can't feed yourself!), and just this weekend, the yearly Reawakening Party (where the residents of 5th East Floor on East Campus reawaken their resident god Krotus, He Who Feeds on Suffering, by sacrificing a virgin). So yes, by day, MIT students are good little students. By night, the Big Bad College Mentality tends to shine through...
Last but not least, the most pressing, most deadly, and most precarious balance lies in the age-old battle of PUNT vs. TOOL. Immortalized on the Brass Rats of many subsequent classes, this is the balance that can make or break a student, and make or break it does. For clarification, PUNTING is MIT-ese for putting off work, studying, and any generally unpleasant thing, applicable in the sense of "I'm totally punting that P-set due in 36 hours--who wants ice cream?" or "I don't like the dentist...I think I might punt..." TOOLING, on the other hand, is defined as working diligently for extended periods of time, sometimes without regard to social, nutritional, hygienic, and sleep well-being. Tooling is very necessary in many cases, but getting into the mindset can be a difficult thing, especially when your entire floor is loudly proposing a trip to IHOP in the lounge outside. Right now, finding time to tool is where my difficulties lie. I must be a tool, but MIT is too fun a place to waste on studying...

Time Flies When... Yeah, Time Flies.

WHEW! Still alive. Are you still alive? Are you sure? Got a pulse? Good to check now and again.
It has been a month, but oh, what a month it has been. Shortly after my last entry came Pre-Orientation Programs, then Orientation, then Dorm Rush, then Frat Rush, then Sorority Recruitment, and now classes. They all included too many adventures to count, too many conquests won, too many enemies slain and tasks completed and health level drops to zero--enough to put Link to shame.
It's a unique feeling--both comforting and terrifying at the same time--to know that you're assimilating. When you used to marvel at how someone could ever utilize the 9-hour time limit on the public Athena computers, then learn about the people who essentially live at the workstation so their own server space isn't obliterated by the numbers they are crunching. That explains the wrappers and piles of clothing (no exaggeration). When the jargon of Senior House sneaks into your vocab so much that you need to explain the word "cruft" to a sophomore from McGregor. ["Cruft": n. 1) random obsolete CRT monitors, half-complete keyboards, ancient printers, etc. that dot the halls of the Infinite, awaiting trash pickup or rescue by industrious passerby. 2) Alumni who never left. adj. "crufty": 1) being in the nature of "cruft." 2) Being old(er) and wise and so awesome that one is made of Bears.] When someone says a building number, and your mind immediately jumps to that location, along with handy mental thumbnail. When "All Hail, Pass/Fail" becomes a rallying cry to appreciate on the deepest level of experience. Like I said, cause for rejoice and worry at the same time.
What's happened in the world since...since. The Republicans have fetched themselves a clown act to follow the Diving Plunge of the last eight years. I shan't delve into the political here; remaining unbiased is ironically the easier way to operate when a reader base is involved. I will say, however, that my hall mate from Lancaster, PA, keeps a stellar blog on all things political and important: www.foggofwar.com
Major tribulations at the moment: those tempters collectively dubbed "extracurriculars" have a habit of hovering around, waiting to consume free time like blue sharks want to consume a dead whale. So far, I've only agreed to one--helping with costuming and odd and ends with "Kiss Me, Kate," the Musical Theater Guild's fall production--but I'd really like to look into learning kickboxing, learning more about the MIT Energy Initiative, and finding a research post, a UROP, for the winter. I also really need to get in shape--it becomes increasingly harder to do so when it's cold and one is tanked from a monster p-set flood-- and check out the free bouldering wall in the basement of Walker Memorial (the one "Ballroom" at MIT).
Any news from the section of the world known as Garrett County? Is the new school year desolate and cold and confusing without the winning personalities of the class of 2008 warming the halls with irrepressible candor and charisma and charm? The correct answer: If that statement = f(x), the truth is most likely 1 / f(x). In other words, the opposite function. Hurray, math jokes!
Keep me posted with news of GC, and enjoy the sweet corn! You'll never know how good GC corn is until you choke down an ear of any other...





I like last one best. What are YOUR favorites?

The Effects of Random Standard Time

Happiness is...
A. Knowing you won't get this kind of sleep again for at least 4 months.
B. Finally getting "the cross" on the first layer of a Rubik's Cube.
C. MIT ID's TOMORROW!!! WOOT WOOT and all that, what what...
D. Being able to look back on Interphase and see it for the good, not for the extra 20 kilos of notes it added to the load I had to drag from Next House to Senior House yesterday...
The answer: X. ALL OF THE ABOVE.


Last night was the final banquet for Project Interphase 2008. I had spent the day waking up from the last totally refreshing and rejuvenating sleep to be had in Next House, packing up last-minute paraphernalia, keeping textbooks separate in order to turn them in to the TSR Office in time, waiting two hours for the carts that were never brought back, agonizing over the amazing amount of junk I had accumulated over the last three months, helping Alex G. move into Simmons and thus securing a Simmons cart, realizing I had five minutes left to turn in textbooks before I was charged for them, loaded the cart using the laws of physics ("The coefficient of friction between the trash bags is too small!" "The momentum will cause them to slip!" "What will we do?" "Got any duct tape?" Two voices: "I DO!!!"), and finally made the long, sweaty trek from the Easternmost dorm on campus (Next) to the Westernmost dorm on campus (Senior) with a LOT of help from our friends. After a quick stop at Quizno's in Technology Square, we returned the cart to Simmons, where I nonchalantly checked my email. The stern message about how unreturned textbooks will be billed to YOU reminded me: I hadn't turned my books in. It was 1.5 hrs. past the designated interval. Holey pocketbook, Batman! (Get the pun? No? Darn...)
In the end, I was able to drop them off at the OME and not pay, which meant I had four hours before the Interphase Final Banquet. I killed time by reading Hitchhiker's, which turned into a nap, which turned into rushing to the banquet five minutes late. The food was lovely, and Dr. Karl Reid, the main man of Interphase, said some stirring words. Looking back on the summer, it was hard work, it was intense, and it certainly drove one out of one's comfort zone, but I can't express how much I'm glad I did it; whatever adjusting was done during these past seven weeks, were grades don't count, has now vanished from the upcoming semester, where grades DO matter. Quite massively. The friends, too, will prove invaluable in the fall. Heck, Fun has been Had already with them thus far... Last night's post-banquet adventures included an ice cream sojourn to Tuscanini's, home of the Cocoa Pudding cone that will renew your faith in the good of man, followed by a massive screening of "A Fish Called Wanda" at Random Hall, where Bethany and Jesse are staying. When at Random... Fun ensues. I won't say until when, since Random Standard Time is hardly "Standard" and quite complicated to explain, so rest assured that the non-RST time of when we all returned to our dorms was...atrocious. It was awesome.
It's quite a different atmosphere, now that Interphase is over and we're all scattered to the winds. Lots of people went home, while the rest of us are temped in literally a combination of every dorm on campus. It adds a new dimension, since the question of "meet at my dorm or your's" never came up when we were conglomerated at Next. New excitements, indeed...
And speaking of excitements, Orientation doth quickly apporacheth! We're looking forward to the insane amount of fun that Orientation entails, but not so much to being told "This is where we eat lunch! This is how to use Athena!" Sorry to break up the tour, but we've been living this way for SEVEN WEEKS. The mundane will undoubtedly be overridden by the gloriously insane fun that awaits, however.
Well, cheers, hope things are fun at home! Enjoy the fair, as I'm sure folks are doing as the ALWAYS do without fail, and be thankful for sweet corn. I miss sweet corn...
And now for something completely (not so) different: More funnies!











And last but not least...

FREEDOM, Sweet Freedom!

FREEDOM! says Aretha Franklin.
Oh, sweet day! Oh, Glorious day! Oh joyous, wondrous, blessed day!
That was Saturday afternoon.
It is now Monday evening, and we have only recently been left free from the grasp of "training." Or, as we like to call it, "innodation."
Let me begin at the beginning (a very good place to start):
Last week was finals, and let that serve as excuse enough for why I haven't posted in eons. An in-class essay in Humanities, then Calc (auuch), Chem (ONLY one I really concentrated on), and Physics (Hail to the Gods of Partial Credit!). So, naturally, since finals marked the end of all things and the last one was over at noon on Saturday, the exhaultation was tremendous. Big plans were made, excursions into Boston were taken, Shaymus and Bethany and I went on an ice cream quest, and Fun was Had overall. I even got a chance to visit my Aunt and Uncle who live in nearby Weston, since the time was nonexistant before (thanks again for the couscous and goodies!), and the miraculous day was topped off by a jovial game of Patrol. Sunday, being sort of rainy and Bostonian, saw everyone mooching around the dorm, watching the Olympics, delving into the new books and hobbies they promised themselves for the Freedom Time (I've got a compilation of Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy and a Rubik's Cube--two experiences NO student should be without). The Olympics, by the way, have been quite popular here, since we all have nothing else to do and everyone is from some country or another, so we all cheer for everyone. Except the French. The foundations of Next House shook when Michael Phelps and The Americans won the 4x100 Relay and showed just who was "smashing" whom. We spent the night reencating the "Phelps Roar." The Chinese Students' Club at MIT has been getting into it, even providing food at a screening of the opening ceremonies and singing along with their national anthem. I went; it was fun, and I got some tortelini from the Chinese club. Go figure.
Anyway, I digress, point being that the weekend was the first real bit of summer vacation we'd had thus far. We did the obvious thing and enjoyed ourselves and were lulled into a false sense of carefree-ity, thinking there was nothing malevolent hovering on the horizon. Oh, how wrong we were.
On the overall schedule, an event was cryptically listed from the beginning only as "training" to follow finals. Earlier in the week we had been given surveys that were, to be blunt, bizarre. There were no questions, simply an order to "rank" certain phrases. The phrases ranged from "I like to be challenged" to "It's okay to torture a person to death." Macabre, right? But the kicker is this: we arrive bright and early today for this "training," and it turns out they had hired some motivational speaker who had interpretted our ranked feelings on torture, studying, bombing buildings, time management and the like (is there even a "like"?) to show whether we had enough self-esteem and practical thinking. The guy was an ex-NFL player, someone undoubtedly near and dear to the hearts of the football enthusiasts of MIT Interphase (*cough*). Not only did he offer NO scientific explanation for how ranking crop failure as worse than natural disasters realted to my work abilities, but he jumped into his whole speal about how YOU can be proactive and change YOUR lifestyle for SUCCESS, based on what the paper told you about the way you think. I called it as B.S. early on, but some people adopted the same mentality as circusgoers at the fortune-teller's booth: "Ooh, look! It says I don't empathize well with people. That's so true! I threw a rock at my brother once!" He then proceeded, this Dr. Phil of a football player, to pick students out of the audience and dissect their "profile," identifying them as perfectionists, hard workers, or self-driven people in turn. WELL, DUH. This might be news at a community college somewhere, but...YEAH! This chicanery lasted from NINE to THREE, with a break for lunch which we were begrudingly allowed. Innodation, I tell you.
So the end of my tirade is this: no matter how high you score, how well you perform, or how far you run, motivational speakers will follow you. Might as well give up now. I know we have to troop back out to play "physical team games" tomorrow, same time, same duration, and I'm sure same crock of nonsense. The only strength the motivationees have lies in the "feedback form." If I had written mine any hotter, it would need asbestos paper to convey the sentiment. Most people, however, are lazy, and in order to fend off the self-righteous motivation speaker, will glibly write, "Sure, yeah, changed my life, thank you much." Come on, people! Complaining is just as much fun on paper, you know!
Humph. Thanks for the vent through which I expunge the Bad Thoughts. Your patient virtual ears are not unappreciated...
In other news, well, yes, the Olypmics are exciting. I'm in love with a guy named Douglas Adams. Unfortunately, he's dead, but not before they compiled a big volume of Hitchiker's. So long, and thanks for all the fish! Oh, I also have accompished a major goal in life: I'm going to see a band of rock gods before they all die! Although the glory that is Jethro Tull slipped by when they were in Boston during finals week, I have secured another: THE WHO! Well, the Who and Ringo Starr's son on drums! GASP! SHUTTER! DIE! I figured since I had some extra funds (the ones I've been living on had I not been in this program all summer), I could even go for the quasi-cheap seats, so I'm at the front of the balcony senction. Not close enough to catch a guitar shard, but still, THERE! And getting the ticket was half the fun; because they went on sale at 1000 sharp and I was quite anxious about them selling out (the tickets, not the Who. They've long since sold out...), I faked a coughing fit, ducked out of the "training," snuck up to the Athena Cluster, and logged on just as the clock hit 1000. Snuck back, and no one was the wiser. It was a rush. THE WHO!
Well, now that this post is insanely lone, I still have dinner to get, errand to run, series to read, and Cubes to solve, and I'm sure you have supper to fetch, beavers to skin, tattos to select, iron to send through the Bessemer process, the meaning of life to discover, Python skits to memorize, Parapeligics to date, and tobacco to weed, I'll let you go. (50 points if you find the link of relevance between any two of those items. A fabulous vacation to the luxurious Loony Bin Resort if you followed it all.) Pip pip!
Last but not least, a funny:
Tee hee...

BREAKTHROUGH BY MIT! Read for your own good...

Whether you knew it or not, your life was affected by this day.
Today was the day that Professor Daniel Nocera and Postdoc student Matthew Kanan unveiled to the world the device that will revolutionize the way we think about obtaining energy. Here's the situation: for years we have had the technology to harness the power of nature in clean, Carbon emission-free ways such as wind power, solar, tidal, etc. The problem with these sources is their reliability--no one will use a system where a cloudy Sunday afternoon means they can't watch the big game--and their cost. The sources are abundant, indeed, since Prof. Nocera himself says that in one day the earth receives enough energy through sunlight to meet the needs of its inhabitants for a whole year. If only we could run off these sources when they're available, but also store energy for times when they're not. If only...

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html
www.mit.edu Pretty picture...

The crazy thing is, hardly three weeks ago, a faculty member at the OME was kind enough to arrange a lunch for those interested where we could meet with Prof. Nocera, discuss energy policy, and even hear in a sort of "sneak preview" the project he had up his sleeve: this ingenious device. He's really confident in its potential, having already made an arrangement with a company in the Middle East that's developing an entirely green city. Think of the possibilities: no need to be hooked up to the power grid, houses could generate enough electricity from their own rooftops to heat and power the house and charge up the electric car before the next morning. The innovation of clean energy devices like photo-voltaic cells and wind turbines are finally made practical! All with a low-cost, low-tech system whose only waste product would be reusable, purified water.
Now I know this all sounds quite idealistic, and it would be naive to think there won't be snags along the path to mass implementation (the pocketbooks of the oil moguls, for one). But the admirable thing about what Prof. Nocera and his MIT crew have done is that they have released it, on this day, to engineers the world over, inviting them to jump on the challenge of making the device efficient, fully adaptable to today's P-V cells, and commercially available. The actual device might be a long way off, but the world is racing to work on it...
So, MIT births yet another good one... This is such a crazy environment, where the guys you eat lunch with one day are the ones who change the world the next... That settles it: I wanna be an environmental engineer!

Sport Death, Rock On, Break a Leg, and Integrate

The many roles of the student... The last few days have been pretty outrageous, as the policy here is to be extreme in all things, including the Having of Fun. It takes precision, balance, and too much energy for the molecules of the normal human body system to realistically hold. Give supporting evidence, the Writing teacher says; And I shall! says I. This Tuesday was the eve of the due date for a Calc problem set. Since I had spent the previous night and weekend writing essays and finishing Physics (see last post), I was faced with a one-night time parameter for the entire Calc assignment. So I got in at five o'clock, fully intending to start my p-set right away, feeling perky and awake and up to the job, just let me sit on the bed for one moment to check my email-ZONK. I was awoken at ten o'clock--yes, TEN--by my friend rapping on my chamber door to make sure I hadn't died. What ensued was a frantic rush to Office Hours that I shall hope will never be repeated. Sleep debt is a very real, very stealthy thing.
But come the weekends, one feels one can let down the defenses and commence in the Having of Fun. Consequentially, a Rock Band video game system graciously provided by a guy named Tim--thanks, Tim!--was dragged out of its hiding place and put into full gear. The game is like guitar hero but equipped with drums and a mike in addition to a guitar, resulting in high-capacity crowd pleasing. I haven't spent as much time on it as other folks, but it is quite the addictive machine...
I also went last night to see a play by the MIT Shakespeare Ensemble. It was loosely--VERY loosely--based on Macbeth, but it was still pretty good. One guy in it, a Theater and Electrical Engineering major (yeah, find THAT someplace else), was the villain, and he had long brown hair streaked with pink. That means he's from East Campus.
Segue to...I'm going to be living in East Campus. Well, not technically, since Senior Haus is directly across the street from the physical East Campus, but the two intermeld in location and mindset. I found this out the other day and have been excited ever since: while Senior Haus has not the foam weapons that are Random, nor the plywood amusement park rides that are East Campus, it has the tire swing, yearly steer roast, basement mosh pit area, and annual bouncy ball drop that IS Senior Haus. It's the oldest dorm on campus, and it's right next to the Institute President's House, so it's got some history. Its motto is "SPORT DEATH, FOR ONLY LIFE WILL KILL YOU." Good stuff...
And about the pink hair... I've been told that dying hair is specifically an East Campus/Random/Senior Haus thing, with Randomers tending to be green and blue and the others gravitating more towards pink and red and orange. I've already been warned not to buy hair dye because they have a dorm-wide stock. I was thinking, though, of sort of trying to unite the dorms and dye my hair every color I can find... Just kidding, Mom. I'll stick to green...
Well, I've got to go exercise, for tonight is Patrol (see last week), and I have no other time to do so.
Hope everyone is enjoying the last throes of summer back home. Send me some sweet corn and green beans! Just throw it in a box, it'll be fine... Cheers and whatnot...

Of Boring Essays and Assassins- That's What I Call a Dipole Moment.

So here I sit, broken hearted, trying to sleep but only f......finished my Humanities essay, that's what! (What were YOU thinking?) Down with humanities. I'm seriously tired of humans. If one comes near me on my long, lonely trek back to the dorm, I think I'll whip out the moves I saw in Batman the other night... Stupid humans. Them with their NINE PAGE essays. Humph.
Anyway, Batman was the best superhero movie I've EVER seen. I didn't like it for the fact that it was a superhero movie (those are usually quite daft), but for thematic stuff. There was way cool cinemetography, and the symbolism, and THIS GUY. See above. He may be dead, but he can sure wear his mascara. One of our Physics TA's is a little nutty^infinity about Batman (today's quiz: "If Batman jumps down from an h height onto a moving van with mass M in order to thwart the Scarecrow, with wind resistance Fr=bx..." you get the idea.) Tonight marks the third time he's seen the thing, and he's got IMAX tickets coming up. He's on a crusade (without a cape, incidentally) to get as many people to see it in its first week (ending Thurs.) as possible so it can beat out "Titanic" for highest-grossing first week. I sort of agree with him. Do you realize "Titanic" has had its ungodly reign of cheesy lines and historical inaccuracies for 10 years now!?!?! Something needs to be done to stop this injustice. This looks like a job for... (You say "Underdog," I keel you.) Dadadadadada, BATMAN! So yeah, go see "The Dark Knight," becasue it's worth it and "Titanic's" not.
So upcoming happy things include a Chem exam, Calc Homework, which if I don't start tonight I will have to do in its entirity tomorrow, despite the fact that it was given to us TODAY. Yeah, riddle me that...
Oh, yes, and I've discovered what is officially the best club ever. With the coolest name, too: The Assassin's Guild. What it is is a bunch of students, mostly from Random, who join up every Saturday night in the building where we have our classes. There they play "Patrol," a game that involves headbands and rubber dart guns and running and hiding and avenging and killing Shaymus five times. Shaymus and Bethany and I all skipped out of the Interphase social event we were supposed to be "enjoying" and went and joined the game of "Patrol." Devilry ensued. They have other games, too, some with plots like video games and some that have actual objectives. Those sounds sweets, preciousesese....
http://web.mit.edu/assassin/www/
Well, as might be quite evident, I am tired, and doth wish to retireth promptly. After my hike back to Next House. I am very tired becasue I am initaiting the time inwhich large superfluous lugubrious and cantankerous workds are bandied about like so many angry ocelots thrust together in a rudabegger sachel. Buenas Noches, esteemed ones...

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...