Today I found out that the Friendly Toast in Kendall Square, the location closest to MIT, is closing permanently :(

Like many others, I’ve forged plenty of fantastic memories of the Friendly Toast. It was my go-to brunch place to catch up with friends. My significant other and I have spent our last two Valentine’s Days there. They had breakfast ramen, y’all. It made such an impact on me, I even set a scene there for my novel.

Since my novel comes out in 2022, I’ll have to change the setting for that chapter. So, to commemorate the Friendly Toast, here’s the scene, edited for spoilers.⁠07 It’s a first draft, so please forgive any awkward sentences. I promise my actual book will be more polished! : 

The Friendly Toast is astir with early-morning chatter and the bubbling of a coffee machine somewhere. Quirky knick-knacks dot the lime-green walls: yellowed postcards, doll parts, surrealist art prints, license plates. 

My eyelids are still thick with sleep—after Stef and I walked back to the hackathon last night, we stayed up for hours, building the backend for our app. We ended up crashing in the hackers’ lounge for only a few hours before I had to get up to meet Drew.

I find him and his teammates sitting at a booth near the windows. When they spot me, the guy sitting next to Drew shoves him teasingly. He flushes and shoves his friend back.

I slide in across from him, next to a blond guy with limbs that seem too long for the rest of his body. He folds and unfolds his arms like he can’t figure out what to do with them.

“Guys, this is Char,” Drew says. 

[long, non-Friendly-Toast-related conversation, removed for spoilers]

A curly-haired waitress stops by our table, tray laden with drinks. “Strawberry frappes for everybody?”

Oliver nods, and the waitress places soda glasses of pink froth in front of us. A swirl of whipped cream sits atop each. Red-and-white striped straws poke out. It looks Instagram-worthy. It looks expensive.

I trace a fingertip along the contours of the glass, gathering up droplets of condensation. “Wait, did we ask for these?” 

On the rare occasions my family eats out, we never order beverages. I’m not paying two dollars for a ten-cent soda, my mom always says.

“Oh, we ordered before you came,” Drew says. “Hope that’s cool.”

“Yeah. No problem.” I swallow. It’s not that I care about what we’re eating, but we’re probably splitting the bill, and I don’t exactly have tons of money to throw around. It would’ve been nice if he’d at least checked in with me first. 

Next, the waitress swoops in with plates of fries, glossed over with—

My eyes widen. “Is that blue cheese?”

Four strawberry frappes, a few dozen blue-cheese fries, a platter of fried-chicken-and-waffles, and nearly a hundred dollars (oof) later, we make our way back to campus. 

You can order online for the Friendly Toast’s other locations here!

I’ve recently started to use Notion on a small scale after Kathleen bestowed her wisdom upon the bloggers. It is unarguably god tier for task management, once you get over the small hump of activation energy to actually set everything up.

The Notion renaissance has made me reconsider the ways in my life that I’ve used task management, especially for goal setting. During the school year, I don’t actually use much task management other than maybe keeping a list of to-dos in Google Keep, or my halfhearted attempt at keeping a Trello last fall.

yes, it’s super low effort, and I made no effort to organize things into categories or prioritize or anything

Trello is relatively uninteresting though because it’s just for task management. Task management is for the school year; goal setting is for the summer.

During my summers, I always try to set some concrete goals for things I want to do, both for my job and for other things. These goals normally fall under the categories of work, self-study, reading, school work, exercise, and personal projects. There are some random other things that make it in there as well. This summer, for example, I made a valiant effort to get through my backlog of games.

Since freshman summer, I’ve kept my summer goals in a markdown file in a Github repo. This idea was started by some friends who I took 6.006 with, and we all wanted a way to keep each other accountable for actually achieving some of these goals. As a result of this setup, I actually have an immortalized edit history of the goals I’ve kept over all three summers I’ve been an MIT student, which is pretty cool.

There is one pattern that I have noticed from keeping these particular records, and it’s that I’ve definitely gotten better at actually achieving goals I kept for myself. To be clear, I’ve never come close to finishing everything on a goals list, but it’s interesting to see how much more concrete and doable my goals have gotten over the years. Goal setting is a skill! Practice it!

Work

I never really ever set goals for my actual internships, because that came as a part of actually being an intern – somebody teaches you how to set deadlines and timelines for yourself. I did, however, always set summer blogging goals.

It looks like I did pretty good freshman year, tried to be ambitious sophomore year, and reverted back to what worked for me originally junior year. Also, there’s always that one blog post every summer that I say I’ll write but then never end up writing. For 2018 and 2020, it’s pretty obvious which ones those are, and for 2019 it happened to be the mutual selection post, which we DID end up writing but it ended up being irrelevant. Oops.

Self-study

Here’s a category in which I learned my lesson in particular. At the beginning of every summer, I feel a particular flash of motivation to get ahead on my classes for the next semester. This has NEVER worked.

lmao @that total failure freshman year

When there are other fun things to do, getting ahead on your classes – or taking extracurricular classes, for that matter – is literally the last thing you want to do. I learned my lesson hard after freshman summer, in which the only thing I did was read the first chapter of Artin’s Algebra, and wound up dropping 18.701 anyways.

Sophomore year, I did a little better and set a very small goal – learn Blender on edX. Since I was fairly motivated to do this, that actually worked out. But this summer, burned out after an intense spring semester and exhausted of having to use my brain, I finally acknowledged to myself that learning new things would not be happening. And that’s fine.⁠01 Important point #1

Reading

I NEVER read during the year. It’s just hard to find time to actually read, let alone want to read. Hanging out with friends is a much more productive use of my free time. Over the summer though, with a much larger percentage of free time in my day, I do attempt to read my yearly book quota.

oof

As you can probably tell, I SUCK at reading over the summer. Other than my valiant attempt to read all of Cracking the Coding Interview⁠02 and honestly, I can't even claim to have genuinely read that much of it; I skimmed most of it , reading is hard for me. I think it’s because without unfettered access to a library, my motivation to read goes way down – I’m not into e-readers or reading through PDFs.

But, again, despite not doing very good in any year, I did learn that framing the goal as ‘read 10 books’ rather than ‘read a bunch of books from this PBS Top 100 list’ did a lot more for my motivation to read. In the end, though, I had to spend a lot of my summer reading papers for research purposes. And I did find a place to start collecting papers – Paperpile is this GOD TIER Google Chrome extension that makes using Google Scholar SO much easier. So at least that’s something.

Honestly, even learning how to frame your own goals is an important life skill. Saying that you’re going to do a BUNCH of things is always futile; you will inevitably get overwhelmed. Setting a discrete and achievable goal, even if it isn’t that lofty, is a good way to keep progressing up the ladder all the way to a reach goal.⁠03 Important point #2

School Stuff

I always wind up with a few left over school responsibilities every summer. As expected, they have increased quite a lot over the years.

those hall rush posters never get done on time

Freshman summer, I didn’t really have many responsibilities. My UROP was my full time job, and the only major thing I did was order all the swag⁠04 granted, this is a lot of swag - like 10k of it for East Campus Rush/REX. I was also a rush chair for my living group, but those deliverables never get finished until the VERY last minute. Sophomore summer, I tried to get ahead on the jobs game, do my UROP project part time, and also be a rush chair again. This was pretty unsuccessful. I could NOT muster up the motivation to work on my UROP – or work on anything hard, for that matter – after a long day and a long commute in the hot LA sun.

This year, though, I sort of figured my shit out. I lowkey did my UROP for ~10-15 hours a week while also having a 40 hr/week internship. Obviously, I wasn’t as productive as I had hoped I would be. I really only finished the two main projects I had been working on previously, but even just that was a LOT. I really had my nose to the grindstone this summer, and it ended up being worth it, cause I’m gonna be PUBLISHED WOOOOOO!!! (blog post coming soon)

I’m not sure what motivated me to be way better at actually doing this work this summer. I think it might have been some combination of remote work not being as tiring as actually physically going to work, and my pure love for my UROP. I do credit not having to commute as a huge time saver in my day, though; honestly, I’m sort of a fan of remote work. I think that if I could live somewhere I really enjoyed, I would thrive.

Exercise

Exercise has consistently been my biggest summer enemy.

man i sucked at achieving goals freshman summer

As you can see, I literally gave up that first summer, and really did not do ANY exercise at ALL. Summer #2, I tried. I really did. But running in LA made my lungs burn with mostly pain with a side of shame, so I gave up on it pretty quick.

This summer, I actually had gotten really into running just prior, so I started out pretty good. And in fact, even though I didn’t run 5 times a week every single week, making it look like I didn’t do much this summer, I did manage to run at least once or twice every single week. I feel like that’s definitely progress, and this markdown file is not the best way to represent it.⁠05 Important point #3 Suggestions for how to better display that would be appreciated.

Personal Projects

This is probably the category which hurts me the most. I haven’t ever managed to get this down, and that sort of sucks, because my ability to do personal projects has definitely increased dramatically over the summers.

maybe i didn’t make those 2018 ones into checkboxes cause I knew I’d never do them

Freshman summer, as you can probably tell, I didn’t really have a concept of personal projects. I wanted to learn new things, and didn’t really end up learning any of them, oops. Sophomore summer, I actually did do some cool things, and even made a blog post about it cause I was so proud! This summer, I fully intended to FINISH my personal website, but…did not do that. I do have a base for it, though, so once I get the aesthetics down it shouldn’t be that bad.

There are a lot of cool projects I’d love to do if I had the time. They flash through my brain occasionally, but I never have the time nor the energy to pick them up. I think that in an ideal future, I’d have both of these things left over after working for a day, and be able to actually execute on some of these ideas. But for now, I will remain tired, exhausted, and mentally unable to do anything outside of what is absolutely required of me.

Lessons Learned

I think it’s easy to look at these trackers from all of these summers and think to myself that wow, I didn’t really do much. Objectively, my freshman summer, I didn’t really do much. I didn’t know how to set goals for myself, let alone take steps towards achieving them. Sophomore summer, I iterated and got incrementally better. This summer, I managed to successfully have a whole other part time job on top of a full time internship. I think that’s progress.

Learning how to set actionable goals and work towards them has been a skill that I’ve carefully honed over my time at MIT – or rather, had it honed for me by getting my butt kicked in classes so often. Over time, I learned how to take on harder classes and bigger courseloads without absolutely tanking like I did the first time I tried to take a huge courseload freshman year. I now can juggle many more things at once, and manage to find success in more than just one of them.

This semester I’m going to try to keep practicing that. It’s my last semester, and there are a lot of things I want to achieve before I leave MIT as an undergrad for good. I hope I’ll be able to stay on top of all of them, but honestly, it’ll be fine if I don’t. I don’t think I’ll have any regrets for how I spent my time here.

So, sure, it’s easy to look at my tracker for this summer and lament all the things I did do. But honestly, despite the eternally nagging feeling that I should have done more, I’m going to choose to look at the things I did do and celebrate.⁠06 Important point #4! I had a successful internship and really enjoyed myself. I ran a decent amount and kept in shape. I got a freaking paper into a conference! And, I’m learning to internalize that my worth isn’t solely based off of my productivity, and that life is for living and doing the things you enjoy, not checking items off of a checklist.

For the year 2020, that’s pretty damn solid, if I do say so myself.

I did this for my classes last semester, and it was pretty tragic, so let’s see if this one goes  bit better this time!

Here’s my gcal! This semester I’m taking 6 classes, but I like to tell people it’s 5 because one of them is a 3 unit class, meaning it really doesn’t take up that much of my time!

My classes:

• 8.021 – Physics E&M; I originally took 8.02 this past spring, but got a 25% on the first midterm, meaning I dropped that immediately because there was no way my grade would recover from that. Or there was a very slight chance of it, but I just had to get 100s on the psets and above 80s on the remaining midterms, which was…a very low, low chance. The 8.0×1 classes (like 8.021 and 8.011) are classes offered to students who failed or especially struggled with their parent class (8.02 and 8.01 respectively) in a previous semester. Since I got that hefty 25%, I qualify!
• 18.02 – Multivariable Calculus; Just a GIR I put off til sophomore year because I wanted to take some Course 6 classes instead. Honestly really excited for this class since Semyon is teaching it and he’s a very kind little man who dances at the end of every lecture.
• 6.009 – Fundamentals of Python; You’ll recall from my last semester blogpost that this class was the bane of my existence and I actually dropped it a week after being in it. Real nervous to take this one.
• 21G.703 – Spanish III; My kind of wild card class! I really wanted to take a language this fall and I really think Spanish is the way to go, since I took three years of it in high school, every year in middle school, and every year in elementary school. You’d think I’d be better than Spanish 3 for all those classes, but no! I took a placement test with Helena, one of the Spanish department faculty, and she said I placed “somewhere in between Spanish 2 and 3.” I then opted to take Spanish 3, try it for a week, and if it’s too difficult, drop into Spanish 2.
• 15.000 – Explorations in Management; This is a small 3 unit pass/fail class I’m taking since I recently discovered my interest in management and business. I wanted to use this class as an opportunity to, well, explore more about the field that I’m entering and learn about the sheer breadth and opportunity within management. I’m really excited to honestly be listening to a bunch of lectures from experienced work people. Normally, we would get food in person every time we attended, but unfortunately due to the pandemic, we just sit at home and be sad.
• 15.312 – Organizational Processes for Business Analytics; Since I’m still trying to figure out if I’m a 15-1 or not, I’ve decided to take a business class this fall to try and test out the waters. I’m really excited for this class, though I do know it’s a bit discussion, reading, and paper heavy.

Tuesday

Classes

21G.703

I start off my first day of my sophomore year with 21G.703, Spanish 3, at 12:05 PM. I was really nervous that I would really struggle in the class, but upon entering the Zoom, I found myself able to follow my professor’s instructions and conversation accurately! We eventually split into breakout rooms to introduce ourselves and make small talk in Spanish and I was really relieved to hear that no one actually fluently spoke Spanish. I was really nervous that I’d be paired with some Spanish-speaking deity who was just taking Spanish 3 for shits and giggles, but instead, I found it was all people who more or less could speak at the level I could!

We were then assigned some reading for the next class and I was pretty happy with my experience. I then took a small break to grab a snack and prepped for my next class.

8.021

So as many of you may or may not know, I really struggle with physics! It is by far the hardest subject for me to grasp conceptually. I was really nervous for 8.021, but let me just tell you that I would take BULLETS for Joe Checkelsky!!!

When I hopped on the Zoom, I saw this kind looking man with a bandana and lots of plants surrounding him and I quickly realized that this was my professor. The class is relatively small, about 13ish people in the class, and I recognized some friends in there like Julie and Diane.

He proceeded to talk about how he spent a lot of time working on his set-up: a three camera whiteboard view with velcro to sticky them down, and fancy wipes and spray to clean up the boards efficiently. I was very endeared by this funky little man’s behavior and he just seemed to genuinely care about us and our learning.

We even asked him midway through lecture if he preferred we turned our cameras on (since no one at this point had them on) and he very shyly said he’d appreciate it if we did, but understood if we didn’t since it is Covid times and knows that not everyone is comfortable on camera. It was very heartwarming to see four or five us, including myself!, turn on our cameras and see his little smile when he exclaimed, “Aha! There are people!”

As you can tell I am very endeared by my 8.021 professor. The entire time I had this strong urge to make him soup or knit him a sweater because I just think he deserves good things. Content-wise, he explained things so well and I’m really grateful for this change of pace compared to the very fast and confusing 8.02 from the previous semester.

After Class

After classes, I worked on Lab 0 released by 009. As you all may recall, I really struggled with 009 around this part. Like really hard. I stayed in office hours every day and submitted my code about 5 minutes after it was due and was awkwardly crying in Stata in front of one of the 009 LAs.

On this day, I spent a couple of hours doing the lab, needing minimal assistance (save for a DM to Emi, a frosh!, who had already completed the lab, and within those hours, I ended up finishing. This was a HUGE accomplishment for me. I did the lab mostly by myself, working through any bugs or hiccups I ran into with rationality and a level head, and I am just so, so proud of the growth I’ve demonstrated. Comparing this lab with last semester’s lab, it’s obvious that my coding and problem solving skills have improved immensely. I was able to  get my checkoff, a live session where we explain our code to an 009 TA/LA, with ease, and she even ended up complimenting my code and style!!!

I was absolutely ecstatic about this and I am just so, so happy to see how far I’ve come.

Wednesday

Classes

Wednesdays are definitely the most hellish day out of my week, featuring a straight 11-5 Zoom session with a brief thirty minute break from 3:30-4.

6.009

I started off my day with 009 recitation, where we covered how Python interprets data passed through it. It’s really interesting to see how Python handles code and how different attempts to change information will rely heavily on the data structure at hand. Like how you can edit lists directly, but not tuples. Or how you can add onto strings and it’ll make new objects entirely, but you cannot change the original string itself. This class really represents me learning the deeper meat and potatoes of coding that I used to ignore, and I’m really glad to be taking this class so I can learn it!

21G.703

I immediately hopped into Spanish 3 right after and we held some basic discussions about the difference between the terms Latino and Hispanic, the common misunderstandings between these labels, as well as the increasing population of Spanish speakers within the US. I really love Spanish 3; I think it’s a really good cleanse and break from the hustle and bustle of technical classes, while simultaneously giving my mind a challenge since a lot of the class is improvisation and speaking in Spanish.

8.021

This time we had 8.021 recitation! We were led by this really nice graduate student TA named Geoffrey who was really kind to us and went through problems really thoroughly with the class and, since we’re such a small class, even paused to go over extra things he didn’t originally prepare for recitation. I feel a lot more comfortable in this class so far, and I really think the small class size plays a huge factor in that. I’m able to communicate clearer and quicker to faculty and it overall is just a very homey feeling.

15.312

So this class was really awkward at first because we were placed into breakout rooms for 15 minutes with no other instruction than to “introduce ourselves.” But after that really awkward 15 minutes of silence, we talked about the concept of “firefighting” within businesses, specifically looking at product management and design. Essentially, firefighting is where companies who don’t invest a lot of time or resources into the beginning stages of a product — audience research, design process, etc. — have to put out quickly arising problems, or “fires”, around launch time.

We read a paper that essentially said that firefighting begets firefighting. In other words, firefighting, in the moment, can seem heroic and good for a company. After all, they’re essentially saving your company’s new product from crashing and burning and saving it from this brink of disaster. However, the reality is that the resources you’re utilizing on this last minute firefighting depletes resources and time originally dedicated to the next big product. And as a result, you rush that product’s beginning stages. And then have to put out those fires. And so on, so forth. Firefighting creates a vicious cycle.

I’ve never taken a business class before, but I really, really enjoyed the discussions we had in this class. We had a lot of useful conversations about why firefighting occurs, essentially comparing it to procrastination and also just human nature. The ways to prevent firefighting just are very counterintuitive to the human mind. One solution was to simply kill your darlings, or in essence, triage your failing project. But as humans, we are reluctant to do this because we view the world under three main lenses: algorithmic/rational, promise/relational, story/cultural.

For context, we discussed why people simply do not avoid firefighting.

Algorithmic/rational: I’ve already invested far too much. It would be a waste of resources.

Promise/relational: There are people who have worked on this project. Their hard work would be destroyed.

Story/cultural: If I save this, I will look like a hero.

This business lecture really felt almost like a church sermon to me. It was very much the experience I had (back when I was a kid) and I’d listen to the priest preach to me about some overarching moral gained from the Bible, taking a story and then producing some great worldly conclusion from it. I was so entranced by how my professor could take this concept of firefighting and suddenly place it into this wider business context and lens. I really, really enjoyed it, and, although the lectures run a tad bit long, I thought it was really engaging.

18.02

So far I think 18.02 is my …least favorite class? None of the lectures are synchronous and the recitations are really overwhelming and scary for me. I really prefer live lectures because you can ask clarifying questions afterwards, and also the 18.02 Q&A live sessions are during my 8.021 lectures, so really I just think I’ve fucked myself over.

Hopefully they get better…

After class

Honestly I had a lot of commitments, even though I desperately wanted to just Rest.

Panelist Training

I was accepted to be an MIT Admissions Panelist, where I go into Q&A webinars about twice a week and talk to prospective applicants about life as an MIT student! We went over basic things like conduct, expectations, etc.

Meet MIT Consulting Group

I’ve been looking to join a lot more clubs this semester (looking at CodeIt, Sloan Business Club, TechX, MIT Consulting Group, MIT Women Business Leaders, and MIT Minority Business Association) that are more tutoring/mentorship and consulting/business focused since I’ve identified those as new interests that I’d like to explore! This event was a really nice introduction to what the club does and what consulting really is. I’ll hopefully do a blogpost in the future on the result of all of these applications (since these are all application only clubs…) and maybe talk clearer more on what my commitments are for the fall.

Thursday

Classes

I only have two classes today, so it’s not that bad!

21G.703

We do some fun breakout sessions where we talked about the growth of the presence of Spanish in media, the workplace, and the US as a whole for about 20 minutes and it was really fun to talk about very heavy real-world topics in a foreign language to improve our fluency. We then did some exercises about reading numbers in Spanish and also the cardinal numbers! I really like the class, honestly.

8.021

I had another cute lecture today!! It was super helpful and clear and I even was able to ask some clarifying questions on some mistakes made in lecture and was thanked for catching them, so that definitely made my heart feel very happy. I really love these small setting lectures and 8.021 even has a ten minute break around the midway point for us to get lunch and sit and talk. It’s super duper nice.

After Class

I went over to my mom’s hotel to watch a movie with her before she flies back home. It was really nice having my mom here to help me move into my new apartment, especially with my fractured ankle. I definitely needed the extra help.

SWE x Mujeres

I only briefly stepped into the SWE x Mujeres Latinas panel, but essentially it was a panel to highlight current issues surrounding women and women’s rights, alongside a q&a panel designated for frosh to learn more about MIT. I’d love to be more active with SWE things, so it was really nice showing up briefly to the panel.

MIT McKinsey Info Session

Since I’m looking more into business-y things, I’ve decided to look more into business and consulting related internships. One part of this is attending a whole shitload of info sessions to try and get acquainted with these companies and craft a better idea of my ideal workplace.

Student Council Meeting

For those of you who don’t know, I’m the MIT 2023 Vice President! My current project has been working on the 2023-2024 pen pal program, where stuco and I are working on pairing MIT 2023s with MIT 2024s for mentorship and camaraderie based on a Google preference form they submitted about two weeks ago. It’s a really difficult and arduous, but simultaneously very rewarding task, so I’m just really excited to wrap it up and get it done soon.

Friday

This Friday, I basically had no classes. 8.021 quizzes are typically on Fridays, but, seeing as we just started, there wasn’t really anything for me to do. 18.02 lectures are fully virtual, so there’s also nothing to do.

But in short, let’s just say Friday was a frustrating day.

This was the day I was supposed to pick up my boxes from Random that I had stored back in March when we were suddenly kicked off campus. However, they Forgot I was coming this day and didn’t let me into the building because the woman in charge of letting me in just…left. And wasn’t going to come back until Tuesday.

So, understandably, I was pretty frustrated and upset. On top of that, the mail system lost my iPad that was supposed to arrive so I was already pretty pissy. Let’s just say Friday was not a good day.

Saturday

Saturday was notably much, much better! I woke up today and had my TechX THINK interview, where I talked for about 20 minutes about my experiences with mentorship. I then proceeded to work out, do my panelist training (I’m going to be an MIT panelist and answer people’s questions !!!), do laundry, do my 009 lab for a little bit, go to some rush events for IFC, and then even meet up with some freshmen (Sarah, Mel, and Selena!!) for some socially distanced LA Burdicks and Pokeworks. It was a really nice time getting out of the apartment and socializing and talking.

All in all, I’d say it’s a pretty solid week.

I’m also going to end the blogpost here just because I don’t think my Sunday will be all too eventful — just psetting, cleaning the bathrooms, and more laundry.

It’s been an absolute dream living with my roommates. My boyfriend’s been kind of teaching me how to cook, or in other words, I just help him cook and he tells me what to do because I’m pretty useless without proper instructions. It’s really nice to have MIT resources just right outside my door, but I also get my own private room to watch Zoom lectures and study. Hopefully, I can write a follow-up blogpost to this about when I get my official responses from all the things I applied to so I know what my commitments will look like for the fall!

Hi everybody!! As the first week of class winds down, it is my greatest pleasure to introduce to you, in my role as blogger captain,⁠01 this basically means it is my job to be enthusiastic and helpful at everyone and occasionally remember a deadline our newest group of bloggers. This year, 69⁠02 nice people completed applications (and 60 people started an app, but decided not to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known). There were many excellent applicants — in fact, we think it took us longer than it ever has before to make our decisions. But the six bloggers we eventually picked are going to be so good, so so good, and I am very excited for you to get to read their stories.

Please welcome:

• Amber V. ’24 of Arizona, who was named after the stop codon in DNA (!!!!), writes novels and has published short stories, and spent her gap year backpacking around Europe (and milking goats!)
• Waly N. ’24 of New York, and yes it’s pronounced like Wall-E, our new resident memelord, who much to Petey’s chagrin loves to binge-watch Avatar: The Last Airbender
• Paolo A. ’21 of Nevada, isn’t that the guy with the scooter, who can teach you the secrets of making those dotted lines on chalkboards and knows Many Things about economics and education
• Mel N. ’24, of Iowa & Minnesota, who was born in CANADA which is exciting perhaps only to me, sits on a hoard of unused pretty notebooks (let’s be real, who can’t relate), and loves Studio Ghibli, Chinese webnovels, and exclamation points !!!
• Masha G. ’24, of New York, who is on language number 5, best friends with a milk frother, and carries three separate notebooks everywhere she goes
• Alan Z. ’23, of South Dakota, who knows exactly how many students from South Dakota go to MIT, will break out into a song from a musical at the slightest provocation, and owns some of the weirdest mailing list names you’ve ever seen

They’ll be sharing their first posts with you in the near future, so get hype! I know I am :D

(I also want to thank, very much so, everyone who sent in an application this year. I’m very grateful that you shared your work with us, and I’m also excited to see what each one of you does and creates in the future. <3)

I got back to campus a few days ago. The journey here from South Dakota was, for the most part, uneventful. I happened to be on the same flight as a friend who had also fled campus for SD in March,⁠10 incidentally, this is the second time I've been on the same flight to MIT as a friend without planning it in advance so we shared an Uber from the airport. MIT Medical was closed by the time we arrived on campus, so we headed straight for our dorm, Next House.

I’d been warned by all of my friends and by all of the informational videos about on-campus living in the fall that there would be a lot of restrictions. Things will be different, they emphasized—there will be biweekly testing, daily health attestations, physical distancing, quarantine week, the whole nine yards. I’d applied to live on-campus knowing this—but deep down, I wondered how it would feel to be back. The cliché goes that “home is where the heart is.” Was home the physical space, or was it the friends that gathered there?

As the elevator doors opened on the 4th floor, however, I saw the duct tape on the wall which marked the entrance to the wing of Next House where I live—⁠11 4W, pronounced “four west”, also known as the Shire. named as such because it is on the west half of the fourth floor of Next.
and I was home. Not everything was the same, of course—the beanbags and squishables in the main lounge were gone, as were the chairs at the tables—but there was enough to remind me of everything I had missed about this place. The memories of late nights spent doing problem sets in the main lounge, of study breaks and MarioKart tournaments and everything in between, flooded back to me. Home was here, not because the place had meaning on its own, but because of the memories that had filled it, memories of the community which had sustained me through my freshman year.

The next morning, I walked to MIT Medical to get tested. Medical and Next are on opposite corners of campus, about 0.9 miles⁠12 1.45 km apart, so on the way I had plenty of time to take in everything around me. For the most part, campus looked almost exactly as it did a few months ago, and as I passed through memories replayed themselves around me. It felt like I was exploring campus again—not the physical space, but the stories around it. Psetting on one of the sculptures on Killian Court, hanging out with friends in the East Campus courtyard. Home.

I’ve been in quarantine ever since, waiting for the end of this first week. I haven’t left my room except to get my second COVID test, use the restroom, refill my water bottle, or get dinner.⁠13 Next is known to have one of the best dining halls on campus, and so far the food is still mostly up to par Some things have changed—taking the stairs instead of the elevator, wearing face coverings everywhere outside of my room. Some things remain the same—waking up to the Charles outside my window, the cool refreshing water of the fourth floor elevator lounge water fountain.⁠14 there have been dorm email fights over the quality of the water fountains in various locations throughout Next In spite of it all, the sense hasn’t faded. I’m back. I’m home.

The night when I arrived, I called a few friends of mine who’d lived in 4W with me last year. We talked about the coming semester, our thoughts about the spring, our lives since we’d last spoken. One of my friends talked about his summer UROP and paper writing, another talked about moving to Taiwan and seeing large gatherings of people again. I talked about getting the admissions blogger job and my new room. The call wasn’t long, but our conversations reinforced why I’d attached all this feeling to these buildings and rooms. Home was the physical space—and all the memories and friends we’d made there.

There’s a wooden sign that hangs in our main lounge. On one side, it proudly declares “ye Olde Shire.” On the other, it reads: “a true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.”

Our circumstances have changed. My friends are distributed across the world, from Taiwan to San Diego to right next door, and I’d much rather see them all together, in person. For now, however, we have Zoom and Messenger and all the communication methods in between. We have new memories to make and new stories to tell. It’s not the same, but it’s still home.

I landed in Boston on a cloudy day about a week ago, and…it sure has been A Week.

Freshmen aren’t invited back to campus this semester, but I’m renting an apartment in Cambridge with two other lovely frosh—shoutout to Selena and Sarah—mostly so I can spend some time away from my parents and get to know other people within a pandemic pod. It’s really close to campus, actually. Like, so close that I get this breathtaking view out of my kitchen window every day, featuring the moon, the Charles, and the Boston skyline:

it’s so pretty i could cry

Whenever I’m studying at the kitchen table and I look out at the river, I feel like I’m in some sort of cliche coming of age movie.⁠01 i watched lady bird (2017) a few days before i left for boston, and i cried...a lot. the complex mother-daughter relationship in that film and lady bird's entire journey—that really hit home. highly recommend. It really is magical. Interacting with humans outside of my family has been a well-needed breath of fresh air, and my roommates are wonderful.

Except I barely had any time to appreciate it all before I plunged deep into the pits of Zoom University.

On top of setting stuff up in my apartment (unpacking, buying groceries and necessities, figuring out laundry & chore rotations & shower schedules etc.), I had to register for classes, move my schedule around, and get ready for the semester to actually start, all in the span of two or so days.

Needless to say, it was stressful. New problems kept coming up and I was basically playing whack-a-mole with the way I was dealing with things. I originally signed up for 21L.015⁠02 children's literature with 21L.004⁠03 reading poetry ranked second for my HASS class. I got into 21L.004 and decided to remove myself from the waitlist for 21L.015, but then I had to figure out how to switch sections from afternoons to evenings because it conflicted with my 18.01A lectures, which involved many panicked messages sent to my associate advisor Hanna as I wrangled emails and the registrar. They were super helpful through the whole process, though, and it (somehow) worked out!

Then I got slammed with work for all the rest of my classes: 7.015, 8.01L, and 18.01A.⁠04 introductory biology with a focus on modern trending topics</p> <p>physics i that covers material over a longer interval that goes into iap</p> <p>calculus i, but squeezed into six weeks instead of a full semester

The first two weren’t so bad this week, actually. I love biology and I’m thinking about majoring in 6-7, which is CS and molecular bio, so 7.015 is a good time and I like that it’s a smaller class, with about 70ish people. 8.01L is a similar situation: it’s smaller, and even though physics is probably my least favorite science, Pablo is a great professor.

18.01A, though.

Oh boy.

Last month, I did not do so great on the math diagnostic for a variety of reasons. I got a 5 on AP Calculus BC in high school, so I was expecting to get credit for 18.01 easily, especially since most of the upperclassmen I asked on Twitter said that the diagnostic would be fine, but it was not fine. I definitely cried about it afterwards, and then I dealt with the residual sadness by not responding to anyone for a week and playing a LOT of Maplestory.⁠05 my favorite game when i was growing up, and also the subject of one of the sample posts i wrote on my blogger app

I still signed up for 18.01A, though, thinking that since I had a decent background in calculus, I would be able to get through it quickly and move on to multi-variable calc without any hitches because relearning is a faster process than learning.

I WAS WRONG.

The first 18.01A lecture was already a lot to handle, and the first assignment on MITx almost made me cry multiple times. Here’s a graph I made after I finished, with great difficulty:

yikes…

Then the second lecture came around, and I was PMing my friend Daniel⁠06 we share a lot of classes together, actually. 7.015, 8.01L, <em>and</em> 18.01a, at least before i switched out. it's definitely nice having someone to bother in dms during lectures on Zoom during the lecture asking him whether I should drop out, because I had no idea what the hell was happening. Plus, I had a strong feeling that I should try to get a more solid foundation in calculus at MIT.

I texted Cami about this, because she went through a similar situation last year. Thirty minutes later I submitted my add/drop form to my advisor and shot an email to the 18.01 professors to tell them I was switching in.

Danny now has to struggle through 18.01A without me, but I’m rooting for him! He sent me a video of him sadly crossing my name off of his pset document during 8.01L and I had to struggle not to laugh because my camera was on.

Through that first week, I kept myself afloat by eating ungodly amounts of sachima, since Selena brought over two huge bags. It’s kind of like a Chinese Rice Krispie, made with fried batter and a sugary syrup. I don’t really know how to describe it, but it’s amazing.

Hot chocolate was also a lifesaver.

Towards the end of this summer, I started drinking it every night because I quickly found that it was a great way to make myself fall asleep. When I came to Cambridge, I made it a couple times with my roommates, except Selena is lactose intolerant so we had to use oat milk, but it still turned out pretty well. And then we got lactose-free milk, which I didn’t know existed, but it tastes exactly the same as normal milk.

I think making and drinking hot chocolate can be considered a form of witchcraft, actually, because it works magic on me, instantly making me feel more centered and relaxed. It reminds me of home: summer nights spent talking with Quinn, my friend from high school, staying up way too late drawing fanart of characters from Chinese webnovels.

With the help of hot chocolate, I got to Friday, finished my first week of classes at MIT, and breathed out a huge sigh of relief.

Saturday was amazing, show-stopping, spectacular, incredible. Saturday made me feel like a Real College Student. It was a dream. I spent the first few hours of it drawing stuff late into the night to work out my creative braincells and take a break from academia, which helped so much, honestly. I finished coloring my last doodle at 3 a.m. and felt this sense of peace settle down around me as I plugged my iPad in and turned out the lights.

I woke up at around 11 a.m. and caught up on all the things I missed in 18.01, which I’m really happy about! I’m lucky that I switched early on in the semester—I didn’t have too much late work to make up for and I finished everything in about three hours. Larry and Sanjoy seem really chill, too, so I’m looking forward to the rest of this class!

In the afternoon, I took an Uber for the first time in my life (it was a slightly nerve-wracking ordeal) for socially-distanced hot chocolate at LA Burdicks. Then we went over to Pokeworks to grab some food, sit outside and just talk about MIT things. It was a really good time. By the time we left, I was brimming with pure happiness and social energy. I also spotted Jeremy (the AO), which was wild.

That energy carried me through the rest of the night as my roommates and I wandered around Harvard Square. We ran into a girl just as we were crossing the street to go to CVS and she asked us if we were Harvard kids, to which we responded that we were actually MIT kids, but we exchanged Instagrams and it turns out she knows AnaMaria, my friend from ISEF 2019! It’s a small world out there. We met three more Harvard students when we were buying groceries from Wholesome Fresh, and I’m kind of in love with the way the universe works in Cambridge—how you’re probably just a few connections away from the strangers on the streets.

So, to sum up: things started out a little rough, but I think I’m on my way to getting the hang of it now, and I hold firm to my belief that a good cup of hot chocolate can solve anything.

I’ve included my hot chocolate recipe below if any of you would like to try it. I am by no means a professional chef or chocolatier.⁠07 some of my classmates definitely come close, though. there's a channel in the 2024 discord where people can send pictures of their creations, and oh my god, allison and danny could probably sell their food/desserts at bougie restaurants. This is just what I like best from experimenting over the years.

—

mel’s recipe for hot chocolate

what you need: 

• milk of your choice⁠08 i prefer using whole milk because i like the texture better! and also because i've been drinking that type of milk my whole (haha) life. it’s up to you though!
• 2 or more squares⁠09 technically they're rectangles but something about typing rectangles here did not vibe with me of hershey’s special dark chocolate
• favorite mug
• saucepan
• spoon

instructions:

1. pour as much milk as you want into your mug, then pour that into the saucepan
2. turn the heat onto medium
3. vibe
4. when bubbles start to form around the edges, put the chocolate into the milk
5. stir with a spoon until the chocolate melts thoroughly. i used to use a metal spoon for this, but i keep forgetting that metal…conducts heat…and i’ve burned myself more times than i’m willing to admit. wooden spoons work a lot better!
6. turn the heat off and pour the hot chocolate back into the mug
7. drink it slowly and let the warmth remind you that you are loved, and that no matter what the universe tries to throw at you, you will find a way to handle it

In the past few weeks, I’ve been pretty busy with SCUFFY,⁠01 Support Communities For First-Years ESC,⁠02 Exploring Support Communities and other general freshman orientation/recruitment events. It’s been a lot of fun, but also quite emotionally taxing.

From August 23rd to the 30th, dorms hosted events to introduce frosh to their culture and subcommunities, which was the equivalent of a virtual REX.⁠03 residential exploration, usually what happens in the week first-years get to happens Then, frosh were placed in dorms based on a ranking form they filled out. From Aug 31st to Sep 8th, 2024s explored subcommunities within dorms, which was followed by their placement into a community.

Before SCUFFY began, I spent a bit of time working on Burton Conner’s website, which is a true work of art. I honestly could not be happier with how it turned out…I feel like we captured the memey, spontaneous, chaotic energy of BC perfectly. I’m a big fan of the “testimonials” section and even wrote my own, but decided to not include it in the final version of the website…

burton conner…my god, is she a beauty. from b to shining c, burton conner offers many delights; hilarious people, suites that feel like home, and amenities that will make you positively QUAKE with wonder. 

let’s be real though—you can’t live there for a good while, and neither can we. but although we can’t seduce you with descriptions of our mice-infested suites and amenities (which actually are just ok, hence the renovation), we can tell you about the culture and history that were created within them. 

BC is home to nine vibrant communities that, ever since leaving MIT earlier this year, have found ways of staying together. we’re passionate about maintaining the traditions of the dorm we love so much and are eager to welcome you to our floor cultures. so…the renovation was never going to separate us, and COVID certainly won’t either!

you may be wary about your living situation in spring, and though we can’t offer you certainty on our physical dorm, we can assure you with confidence that by joining the burton conner community, you’ll meet dozens of dope as hell people who’ll stick by you for your entire time at MIT.

and living groups are about the people—not the infrastructure, right?

I’m also kind of hype about the Admissions Blogs section of the site—jeez, I hadn’t realized how much I blog about BC.

Helping with the website made me really freaking happy. I love that I’m so attached to my dorm community despite having lived there for only a few months!

Later, I represented Burton Conner in the Class of 2024 Discord. Most of the questions I got about BC—unsurprisingly—were about the renovation, but it was still nice to talk to some froshlings. I also repped my dorm in the DormCon channel in the Orientation Slack, but sadly, there were too many representatives and too few active 2024s to really make a difference.

On Sunday, my community, which is known as the Burton 3rd Bombers, held our first ESC event: Strange Meets. It usually is an event where we chill with freshmen at the Burton Conner grills and serve bizarre forms of meat, but we translated it into a “come meet the Bombers” kind of thing. It was cute, and we met a lot of dope frosh!

I spent Monday continuing the tradition of making a slew of absurdist posters to advertise for the event Deep Talks with Shallow People. The event has been held every REX in the past decade or two, and it gets progressively weirder each year, as seen here…

2019 posters

And here are the ones I made:

2020 posters

Yeah, you probably can glean what my floor’s⁠04 on second thoughts, it might just be my sense of humor sense of humor is like.

On Thursday, we had the event Where’s My Wallet??, which was created by my boyfriend two years ago. I thought I’d help continue the legacy, so I wrote two of the riddles and helped plan and run the event. It’s structured as a series of riddles/games that take freshmen through various rooms and suites on the floor. We decided to utilize the platform gather.town to do this virtually and repurposed a map already in use by another floor of Burton Conner. It worked pretty well until there were dozens of freshmen in the event who were swarming all the Bombers involved; things got a little chaotic and all order to the riddle-solving was lost. It was still fun, though!

my favorite so far

Our last event—Bomber Guess Who—was on Sunday. We made a Kahoot with two truths and a lie for the freshmen (and some bombers) to play and it was a great time. Our usual event is a bit more interactive; a freshman is asked something relating to a certain Bomber and then has to choose which of 3rd people the statement applies to. There’s a lot of yelling involved that doesn’t translate well over Zoom. Oh, well.

(freshmen who came, I hope you haven’t lost all your respect for me)

On Monday, we launched into subcommunity exploration. My floor hosted a few events, including No More Table and Talent Show. The former, a chaotic, physical Deep Talks/game show-esque event created by two ingenious ’23rds during CP*, was scheduled incorrectly, so our attendance was crippled. The latter, which is a longstanding FLEX tradition,⁠05 my two roommates and i danced to My Neck, My Back last year for our talent show. great bonding moment and super iconic was held on the last day of SCUFFY, so we also had low attendance due to Zoom fatigue.

As for general, BC-wide events, we had two virtual FLEX sessions on Saturday and Monday. The first was a Zoom event with rooms representing each floor, as well as exec and the REX chairs. I wasn’t able to attend since I was busy with moving into my new house, but I heard that it went well. The second was a two-hour gather.town event where first-years could wander the floors and interact with different people. I’m really glad the experience of exploring BC could be replicated in some shape or form!

In the final leg of the SCUFFY process, first-years ranked their floor using a Google Form based on the one we’ve used in past years. And then boom, freshmen were sorted and SCUFFY was over! Wild.

I’m so drained after that process. It took a lot out of me, and I wasn’t even present for every event we hosted. It was worth it, though; a lot of freshmen told us they enjoyed how much effort we put into our events. I truly feel that our events were unique—how could they not be, considering how chaotic they were—so I’m glad we could offer interesting experiences to the freshmen who attended them.

And now we have an incredble class of freshmen! I’m so excited to get closer to them throughout the semester, and to finally meet them in person in spring.

Hopefully. :)

there was this time three weeks ago, when i was still living in baker, that the internet went out for a while. it was around 7:45 pm, and i went downstairs and took a walk, and the sun was setting. so i tried to find as high a point i could stand on to watch the sunset. i ended up walking to, i think it was pi beta phi, and standing on top of those low brick walls in front of the house.

i think that was the first time in five months that i actually felt my body. i felt my muscles wrapped around my arms and legs, i felt my feet in contact with my slippers, i felt anchored, i felt grounded inside my body, i felt its shape around me.

i’ve spent long enough days over long enough months feeling like a mind plugged into a computer, my focus pointed wholly on an article, or a video, or a pset, all my attention poured into a single thing. i helped run a program for two thousand students without leaving my chair. i attended the first week of classes, and the only times i went outside were for getting food or getting tested.

in days like these the body feels like an inconvenience. i have to tend my hunger. stand up every once in a while. remember to blink, because if i don’t, my eyes begin to hurt so much i want to gouge them out.

last wednesday morning i went to my first class of intro to acting, which i’m taking this semester because i need hass-a credit and i was also interested in seeing how it’d adapt to a virtual format. after spending an hour going through the syllabus and a couple minutes doing introductions, we did some warm-ups.

the professor asks us to stand up, and i do, and tells us to just shake our body around, and i do, and to pay attention that we’re here, present, inside our bodies. “you are here, now, in reality; not virtual reality, but reality,” or something like that. we close our eyes and breathe, in, out, focusing our thoughts on our breath. we’re asked to pay attention to how our feet are in contact with the ground, to how our knees can keep our body up but still be loose, not locked in position.

after the class, i felt my body feel a little larger. as if it was trying to burst out of its shell. the outlines on things felt sharper, the colors more vivid. it was like taking the focus that i was so used to pointing at a single thing, and inverting it and diffusing it, and my mind felt plastered on everything around me at once.

i talked to alan z. ’23 yesterday, in that socially distanced, let’s wear masks and be outside and be more than six feet apart just to be safe, way. i’ve forgotten how to interact with people in real life, like how to make eye contact, or at least look in their general direction while talking to them. it’s also hard to resist reaching out and offering a hug. even if we’ve tested negative several times already, i do think it’s important to exercise an abundance of caution.

tomorrow, instead of getting lunch from talbot, the lounge in the first floor of east campus, i will be getting it from the student center. and i will be doing this for the rest of my lunches. which means i’ll probably bump into more people i know. i’m not sure how i’ll handle that.

in a week from now my pe class will start. i am taking swimming this first quarter, which will also be an interesting experience. again, partly because i want to see what socially-distanced swimming class will be. but also, it’ll be interesting as i have tried (and failed) to learn swimming in nine separate occasions. by the end of the class, i’m expecting to have tried, and failed, to learn swimming in nineteen separate occasions. from my understanding, you don’t have to pass the swim test after taking a swim class, so i can at least get that requirement done.

it just seems that the next few days are lining up to make me actually use my body, remind me that i’m still inside it. in the end, i’m still forced to do things through the body. i’m not sure how ready i am for that.

arcade fire’s my body is a cage is, i think, supposed to be a song about insecurity. it opens

my body is a cage
that keeps me
from dancing with the one i love
but my mind holds the key

my mind holds the key, here, meaning that the person is held back, partly, by their own mind. the first verse says i’m standing on a stage / of fear and self-doubt, which i think makes this clearer.

the meaning that i want to push on the song, the one that i like better, focuses on the body itself. if not for the body, i could be anywhere right now. i wouldn’t have to worry about eating or sleeping, i wouldn’t have to worry about housing myself, so i wouldn’t have to worry about a job, or any of that. if not for the body, i could be anywhere in the world, talking to anyone i want, without having to worry about social distancing or traveling.

i could be with my friends again! i wouldn’t have to do it through a screen! i won’t have to be alone anymore!

but i can’t hug people without a body.

maybe that’s one good reason for having one.

September 1st may have been one of the most simultaneously exhilarating and utterly terrifying days I’ve had in a long time. Especially since I’ve become a real-life potato since quarantine started and things like 1+1 is starting to seem like a challenge.

Day 1 of September rang in a new milestone for me. It was the first day of my MIT experience,⁠01 aka being firehosed so it reminded me of an exercise I did before for the program I participated in last summer. A little over a year ago in July 2019, I wrote a blog post for my summer program imagining a sample day at my future college. At that point in time, I had no fixed idea of where I was applying, what on earth I was doing, or anything of that sort, but I could imagine how the start of my college life would be like. So I wrote as follows:⁠02 abridged version of my original

“My dorm-mates and I eat breakfast, talk a bit, as we all get ready for the day. … After my first class, I meet up with some friends. I walk outside on the campus, with a cool breeze. It’s fall but the weather is still nice. We go to a nice part of campus and just eat some food and joke around.”

As you might be able to tell by now, this has aged horribly thanks to my lack of 2020 vision. Though to be fair, no one could have seen anything this damn year threw at us coming. 

Starting this semester at the internationally acclaimed Zoom University, I do not have dorm-mates, nor have I seen more than a few pictures of MIT’s campus this fall. Currently, I’m living at my home in NYC, and the start to freshman year has been rather odd. It definitely doesn’t have the feel of walking around campus to it like I wrote. More a feeling of typing on my computer till my wrists hurt, as I am doing right now. 

Faces have been replaced by profile pictures. Names have been replaced by screentags. In this virtual landscape and these unprecedented times,⁠03 favorite phrase of 2020 there’ve been many things that have made this fall feel like an uphill battle. It’s often harder to connect and bond with people, make friends, and reach out. A few days into the semester has already put a highlight on some of these things. 

But despite those factors,  I’ve still been able to feel a sense of community amongst ourselves in the class of 2024 since committing back in May. I’m not always certain where it comes from, but I’ve still been able to feel a sense of belonging. And for that, I have to thank student-made groups like our 24’ Discord server a lot for that. 

Because without them and all the people in it, all the hard aspects of Zoom U would be far harder. All these groups have really forged a community and family for the 24s, one that I couldn’t find anywhere else. You can go ask a question, joke around, discuss politics, or virtually anything else. It doesn’t matter whether this community comes from mutual suffering, shared interests, or just a sense of comradery, people are always there and willing to talk, chat, or support you. Through micro-interactions, I feel I’ve gotten to know a few people just online. Not feeling solitary as an incoming student has made such a difference when we are all in different places, time zones, states, and countries.

Over the summer when we were still prefrosh, communities like our Discord helped turn events that can feel tedious virtually to fun-filled hours, serving as a miracle antidote to zoom fatigue. It’s helped make course registration, amongst many other things, a less confusing process. It’s helped ease a little bit of the stress coming from starting college. It’s even helped serve as a nice means of procrastination.⁠04 darn it  

Not to count all the times it’s helped me stay up to date with information and deadlines.

I know Discord, along with other platforms, could never be a true substitute or replacement for a campus, dorms, and irl friends. They simply aren’t meant to be. At times, these platforms are overwhelming for many people with so many channels and options. So wanting them to be picture-perfect copies of an in-person experience only lets expectations fall short, and I’ve fallen into that hole a lot. But given our current situation, I’ve gotten to see how our online communities have been so instrumental to my freshman experience so far.

Coming to terms with the reality that our Fall isn’t gonna be anything like “normal”  or amazing, I thought of how many things will be suboptimal and foreign. Yet things like this have left me looking forward to the future, where hopefully my 2019 blog post is true. At the moment, I might only know some of my classmates by screen names and their profile pictures. But I can’t wait to meet them and turn discord convos into times where “we go to a nice part of campus and just eat some food and joke around.”

For now, I have no idea where my year will take me academically, socially, and physically. But, I got to say, it does feel awfully nice to be a part of a group of people like the 24s no matter what.⁠05 Shoutout to all the boomers and bloggers too, you've made our groups even better

I like to think that people are defined by two things — the values that they hold and the choices that they make. So I figured that a half-decent way of introducing myself to the world (and give a decent overview of the bajillion things I’m busy with these days) is to share some decisions I’ve made over the past few weeks across all sorts of areas in my life. In alphabetical order:⁠01 <span class="md-plain">i don’t wanna order this by order of importance because you might just pay attention to the little things and get bored when you hit the big ones. or you might just scroll to the big decisions and </span><span class="md-meta-i-c md-link"><a href="https://youtu.be/YcqauC49Xmc?t=37"><span class="md-plain">let the little things in life pass you by</span></a></span><span class="md-plain md-expand">. how would one even decide whether some decision is more or less important? another option was ordering chronologically, but that feels too linear, and let me tell y’all my brain does not exactly work in straight lines. this post was drafted very non-linearly and every one of my blog posts will probably be written in a similar way.

• Bed: Amazon three blankets on the floor. A few weeks ago, I had to choose whether to order a bed from Amazon, IKEA, or Wayfair; I ended up deciding to get an Amazon mattress delivered on 9/3, and I’d just sleep on an air mattress that I brought from home until it came. However, Southwest ended up leaving behind my checked luggage (thanks Southwest), so when I flew into Boston on 9/1, I didn’t anything to sleep on. A combination of friends’ belongings and my stuff in storage (which got delivered to me 2 days early?) meant that I ended up sleeping on as many blankets as I could find. This was not a comfortable sleep. Luckily for me, my Amazon bed got delivered the next day (early!), and laying on that felt like literal heaven.
  

  i got 4 hours of sleep on this "bed"

  look it's a bed! and a lot of mess oof

  oh yeah it's all coming together

  does making my bed make me look functional

  Previous Next

• Classes: 14.04 (Microeconomic Theory), 14.THU (Economics Thesis), 18.112 (Complex Analysis), 18.404 (Theory of Computation), 8.225/STS.042 (Physics in the 20th Century). I am a 14-2 (Mathematical Economics), which means that I am an exceptionally rare unicorn⁠02 per the <span class="md-meta-i-c md-link"><a href="https://registrar.mit.edu/statistics-reports/enrollment-statistics-year">registrar</a></span><span class="md-plain md-expand">, the class of 2021 has 9 14-2 majors and 10 14-1 majors, out of ~1100 people in their senior year. i added the numbers for primary and secondary 14 majors, so the numbers aren’t the numbers in that link. pretty sure i’ve interacted with / been in a class with every 14-1 and 14-2 in my year. at MIT. These classes are all somewhere in the intersection of “in my major”, “interested in the subject”, and “things that’d be nice to leave MIT vaguely knowing”. The quick rationales for classes that were on my Firehose⁠03 <span class="md-def-content"><span class="md-meta-i-c md-link md-expand"><a href="http://firehose.guide">firehose.guide</a></span>, a tool developed by a student in their spare time to help people plan out their schedules</span>  but didn’t end up making it on my class schedule are:

  • 14.121 (Microeconomic Theory I): Grad-level microeconomics, perhaps a bit too rigorous for me this semester compared to 14.04. And too many hours that I don’t have time for. I’ve also gotten advice that taking grad micro as an undergrad isn’t the best idea since I’ll just have to retake a very similar class if I go on to grad school.

  • 14.661 (Labor Economics I): A different grad class that’s about wages, human capital, job searching, and more. This field is super cool, but I just don’t think I have time for it this semester. Pretty bummed about this one, since I enjoyed a different class (14.19, Market Design) I took with one of the professors. Might take a spring version with a different professor.

  • 6.036 (Introduction to mAcHiNe LeArNiNg)⁠04 <span class="md-def-content">i also was taking this in part to fulfill a requirement for a course 6 (cs) minor. i’m a firm believer in taking classes and just letting the minors pop out so whoops. looks like no course 6 minor for me. : I keep hearing about this thing called ML but never have taken any time to figure out what it’s supposed to be. Maybe it’s good to learn at some point. But like too many other things, this semester is too busy for it now.

  • 3.091 / 5.111 (Chemistry): I am bad and am punting my Chemistry GIR to senior spring. This is bad procedure. It’s just that too many of the classes I want to take happen to be fall-only classes :( Better hope I pass it next spring, or I’m not graduating⁠05 <span class="md-def-content"><span class="md-plain md-expand">aaaAAAAaaAaAAAaaa when did i become a senior i remember being a wee frosh and finding everything so new and exciting and now i am an old and alkjdsnflkjsaf someone please i am </span><span class="md-meta-i-c md-link"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdOIHNF2vJc">not ready to be old</a></span>. …

  • 8.05 (Quantum Physics II): I’ve always wanted to learn more about quantum and just spend time doing the math of it rather than just the “pop culture science” things I see of “ooooo Schrödinger’s cat” and “quAnTUm cOmPUtInG”. I’ll probably never have the motivation to self-study it ever on OCW, so maybe this is a thing I try to take next semester. (And probably on listener, TBH.)

  • 11.011 (The Art and Science of Negotiation): Everyone who takes this class recommends it to everyone they know — they even wrote an MIT News article about it. I’ve kept telling myself that I would take it next semester, but now it’s senior year and I don’t think I can make it fit. Another one bites the dust :(

  • All the random HASS classes in the world: This section is already going on long enough, but there are literally dozens of HASS classes in the course catalog that I wish I could be taking this semester that I will never get a chance to :(

• Introduction post: you’re reading it! Finding the best way to say “hello” is hard. I’d thrown around a few ideas, from “never thought this would happen / akjdsnfksjdf i’m a blogger?!?!?!”⁠06 confession: i was trying to think of a blogging schtick and my initial thought was “i want to rickroll the blogs. i’ll start my first blog title with ‘never’. and then ‘gonna’. and then…” <span class="md-plain md-expand">as you can tell by the title of this post, this is no longer the case. i got </span><span class="md-pair-s "><em>really</em></span><span class="md-plain md-expand"> stuck on what “gonna” was gonna be; depending on how far i got, “desert” is also pretty tough. this is my personal challenge to future bloggers to find <span class="md-pair-s "><em>some</em></span> way to rickroll everyone that is more involved than a well-placed link. or maybe just meme in general. post made entirely of memes when?</span> to “the story of this summer” to “[screaming into the void about my senior year being not what i wanted]”. My goal with this introduction post was to show as many different things about me as possible while also talking about things I think about a lot, and those two things led me right here to this blog post’s premise.

• Lecture attendance / moving-in day: trying to go to most, but “skipping” the first day to move. I’m a person that tends to go to most of my classes, mostly because I like being in a set schedule. I’m still planning on trying to do this even with my classes with asynchronous options, but there is one large exception to this: the first day of classes. I had a few options for when to move to Boston: the weekend before school started (8/30), the first day of classes (9/1), or the first weekend of the school year (9/5). The Massachusetts quarantine order made the first option infeasible. The 5th would let me move in on a weekend when there weren’t any classes, but delaying my move-in meant that I wouldn’t be around to move furniture, clean up our apartment, and settle in earlier. So I took the L and decided that I could skip one day of classes, which I think is small enough in the grand scheme of things. My class schedule actually worked out incredibly nicely with my flight schedule, and I had a 4 hour layover exactly when my 3 hours of classes⁠07 two of my lectures actually overlap (18.404 and 14.04), and so i have 4.5 hours of classes in a 3 hour block of time. thanks to the magic of ~recorded lectures~, i can pretend i am hermione and take two simultaneous classes without <em>that </em>much worry. the only problem is if there are tests on the same day but i'll figure that out if i have to. on Tuesday were.

• My blogging style: still in the works. I’m relatively new to blogging; I’ve been blogging semi-regularly this summer (after at least three⁠08 both numbers in this sentence are three; blog readers it is important for you to all know that i can only count to three. i am aware of the existence of numbers beyond three but their ordering is a mystery that i will never know. there are many phrases that i repeatedly tell other people; “i cannot count past three” is one of them. today i was doing 20 squats with a friend and i lost count between 18 and 20. counting is absurdly difficult sometimes. these footnotes were numbered automatically, in case you were wondering previous failed attempts and one attempt in group blogging where I posted like, three times).

  In terms of the way that I write, while I generally like the aesthetic of typing in all lowercase and very stream-of-conscious-y, sometimes that doesn’t always feel right (like for most of this post). The current idea is that that tone is going to be more in my footnotes (and occasionally in the bodies of my blogs). In terms of content, I have no idea what I’ll talk about. These both will definitely evolve over time, so I don’t think it’s worth stressing too much and trying to over-plan it. I’ll probably just keep doing whatever feels right in the moment and it’ll lead to something decent.

• Returning: off-campus in Central Square. I’d signed a lease with some friends back in January, back when I could still give hugs to my friends and COVID was a news headline in very small font. The end of last semester was hard for me class-wise; it’s just so much easier to be productive when you are surrounded by other people who are also drinking from the firehose. When MIT’s re-opening plan⁠09 <span class="md-def-content">some useful context about mit’s reopening plan: seniors can come back in the fall and freshman + sophomores + juniors can come back in the spring. all classes that can be online will be online. you cannot take in-person classes unless you are on-campus and abide by mit’s guidelines of social distancing, twice-a-week testing, etc. it’s definitely one of the most conservative plans for bringing students back to campus (i think only paralleled by harvard’s “only freshman, no in-person classes at all”)</span><span class="md-def-content">  released in July, I had the option of either honoring my lease and living with my friends or returning to campus, where I could have access to libraries/gyms, but all classes that could be online would be online. Econ majors are effectively the lowest priority on the “get to return” scale, and so even if I were on campus, I’d have exactly 0 classes to take in-person. So I kept my lease, turned down MIT housing, and because of MIT safety policies, I guess that means that I’ve taken my last in-person class at MIT. Maybe even taken my last step inside MIT before I graduate.

• Science bowl: an invitational! I loved science bowl so much before college; my 8th-grade teacher introduced me to it, and then I started a team at my high school in my junior year. Through an incredible series of coincidences (involving uniquely colored t-shirts, living in the same wing as someone else, and being an over-eager frosh) I’ve ended up as the coordinator of MIT Science Bowl. We run the Northeast Regional Middle School Science Bowl, and last fall we ran our first Invitational competition. MIT isn’t allowing in-person events through the end of this year, so we’re figuring out how to adapt to an online format. We’re still working on figuring out the logistics for it all but it’s going to be happening and I am so excited :D :D 

• Thesis: oh NO. As mentioned above in my classes section above, I’m doing a thesis this year. For now. Doing a thesis sounds very hard — it’s independent research that I have to develop into a single well-put-together paper. But real research and Ph.D. programs are all about churning out high-quality research, so I figure that I should probably try dedicating a decent chunk of my time to that. I’ve got a few ideas, from thinking about how ESP⁠10 educational studies program, we run splash and spark and hssp and cascade and many programs. cj is also a part of this hi cj assigns students into classes, whether competition between schools (especially charters) improves student performance (which I wrote about in a paper for a different class, 14.33), and a few other thoughts that aren’t fully fleshed out yet. I still have absolutely no clue what I’ll be doing, so we’ll see how it goes.

That was a lot of words, and I still feel like there are still parts of me that you aren’t getting. Sure, I haven’t told you about everything that I’ve been busy with (many decisions about furniture, friendships, and more), and there’s the other half of what I say makes up a person — values. But I don’t think I’d solve the issue by rattling off more decisions and a list of values to you (and pretending that my values are just something that I innately know and can rattle off). Even if I do share all of that, I feel like it’d still be an incomplete introduction to me. So what’s missing?

During my sophomore spring, I spent many lunches getting to know Janice Y. ’22, now a good friend of mine. We’d grab food together about once a week in Maseeh and talk about all sorts of things, from what was keeping us busy to the things that were important to us to problems in our life. One week, she said to me something along the lines of: “I’m telling you my problems in retrospect after they’re already solved; you’re not getting the parts of my decisions where I’m struggling with everything and still figuring it out”.

I feel the same way with the decisions that I’m writing about above; it feels off to say that I use neat and tidy frameworks to make decisions because those frameworks don’t exist and that’s also not how decisions are actually made. Decisions are messy, you go down wrong paths, you have bad ways of thinking about problems that (hopefully) get better over time. Showing you these choices in hindsight is not the same as if we did it by hanging out in my room while I lay down on my floor and ask you to help me figure out both the small and big things in life. But when writing about all of this, it’s just easier to tell the story in a way that makes it all seem (relatively) neat and tidy and put-together. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about this idea of “storytelling”, and how it’s natural for us to tell people things in a way that makes it seem like it’s all nice, neat, and orderly, while the reality is just that life is complicated.

But this is a blog; almost by definition, I’m naturally inclined to write things in a way that makes it all seem orderly. I am scared that I’m going to default into showing the put-together parts of me on these blogs; naturally, sharing the worries and stressy and everything messy with thousands of strangers is not exactly easy. It’s not much easier in person, either; I find myself constantly worrying about whether I’m posing and putting on a mask and not actually showing people who I really am. This last summer, I’ve grown increasingly worried about the idea that I’ll head out into post-MIT life and people will only know the put-together parts — in essence, the “resume” version of me — and that the things that I feel define myself in the present will simply go away because I forget how to be that person.

“Authentic” and “vulnerable” are words that get thrown around a lot — for current applicants, I’m betting a decent chunk of you have heard them many times over in the context of writing your essays. In the ultimate Senior Year 2: Electric Boogaloo, I’ll be trying my best to be authentic too, because sharing my MIT experience would be incomplete without sometimes showing you the not-so-put-together parts of my existence at this college. The musings, the worries, the crises. Because looking at things in hindsight and only seeing the outcomes of decisions could never actually show you all of the life that happens in the in-between.

I fell in love with these blogs back when I was applying and read through the blog archives religiously; I still cannot believe that I’m here and that the words I am writing are on this website. I don’t really know what I want my blogging to be, what my goals are, what I want to share with y’all. But I do know I’ve only got one year⁠11 does this year even count as a year? personally i think not. what will 2020 throw at us next oof  of saying words here, so I really hope that whatever I share, it is a real slice of my experiences, my life, and my MIT.

So I guess this is hello c:

Partitioning the Boston-Cambridge line, the Charles River passes alongside many of Boston’s universities and colleges: MIT, Harvard, and Boston University, to name a few. To get from Cambridge to Boston proper,⁠01 an important distinction is between the greater boston area and boston the city itself. the greater boston area includes cambridge, lowell, quincy, and even worcester and providence in rhode island. colloquially, this is sometimes referred to as boston. the city itself is often called boston proper you have to walk across one of the city’s many bridges.

Because I’m a stubborn pedestrian, and because Boston⁠02 i’m including cambridge here but not the other cities, because i can. i love to be confusing is a relatively small city, I have spent a lot of time walking along its streets and pathways. Whether it was a walk to Fenway’s House of Blues to catch a concert, a return home after major delays on the Red Line, or a stroll to Jamaica Plain on a summer day, I have had to cross the Charles at some point. Each of them are so different, both in length⁠03 the width of the charles varies wildly and usage,⁠04 who is it used by, and where does it take you? and they all have different memories associated with them because of this. As such, I have developed some Opinions and Feelings regarding these many bridges, and decided that the best way to show that is through writing flowery little paragraphs about them and the memories I’ve made on or crossing them, then assigning them a score based on nothing but my own feelings.

Before I begin, I think I have to provide some context: I’m currently studying to become a civil engineer, and my specific interest lies in structural engineering. I’ve taken many classes where we’ve pondered over the engineering behind bridges, through PSets or through small, scaled bridges and trusses made from Balsa wood. I’ve learned about types of bridges, had to design theoretical bridges, and will continue to do so for the rest of my MIT career, and maybe even further beyond. I even wrote about wanting to design bridges for my application to MIT:

Designing massive structures built to last, such as buildings and bridges, is something that really sparks my interest when I think about the future. The civil engineering department interests me, because I love thinking about how modern science interacts with our current environment and I also enjoy using math and science to construct new things.

It is safe to say that bridges represent a central tenet of my life, at least my education-related life. However, my opinion surrounding these bridges in Boston is much less analytical and much more emotional, so I will not be focusing on the technical aspect of these structures, outside of pointing out the length and what kind of bridge it is to flex my civil engineering⁠05 read: googling chops.

Romanticizing the large, concrete and steel structures is farther up my alley than telling you what’s in them. I’m sure that somewhere in me is the power to analyze these bridges and tell you the approximate load capacity or the type of supports it has, but I find that far less interesting than telling you about the times I cried while watching a sunset walking across one. So, if you’re looking for that kind of in-depth look at Boston’s bridges, I’m sorry, but you’re in the wrong place.

One last note is that there are dozens and dozens of crossings that dot the Charles’ 80 mile span. I’m only going to focus on eight of these bridges, which are the ones I have the most experience with. Maybe one day, if I ever start to drive out here, or I spontaneously move to Newton or Watertown or Waltham, I’ll get to experience more of them. Alas, I don’t think that day will be coming soon, so here are my ratings so far, sorted from East to West:

Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge

The easternmost bridge on this list, this crossing is the only one on my list that does not cross into Cambridge, but rather, into Charlestown. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever actually been on this bridge, and if I have, it must not have been very memorable.

just look at how far she is

However, this 442.2 meter cable-stayed bridge⁠06 a bridge that has one or more towers and is supported by cables jutting out from these towers paints the city skyline from MIT and is ever present when you face the river (Cambridge-side) and turn left. It’s pretty hard to miss, with its large, concrete towers and the rows of cables that fan out and cut the sky with sharp, white lines. Its distinctive silhouette has even earned it a place on every Brass Rat I’ve seen, and a place on my list.

it’s there on the very left of my ring

Rating: 5/10

Charles River Dam Bridge

Serving as a gateway between East Cambridge’s Lechmere Station⁠07 this is currently the last stop for most green line trains, though it currently being expanded into Somerville and the Museum of Science, this bascule bridge⁠08 fancy word for drawbridge is 25 meters long. On the exterior, this bridge is fairly unassuming and frankly doesn’t even look like much of a bridge outside of the fact that it crosses the river. The museum (which MIT students get free admission to!) is actually located on the dam part of dam bridge, and a highway runs through it.

So, the experience of crossing it is as follows: starting from Cambridge, you walk along the sidewalk. To your right lies the Museum of Science in red brick, not a huge set of buildings, but large enough that they obscure the view of water from that side. To your left is Route 28, and cars are constantly buzzing by you. Just beyond the highway is another sidewalk, and then the bridge ends and another begins—the Lechmere Viaduct, a concrete arch bridge that towers above the dam and carries the Green Line. 

there’s the viaduct, currently under construction

I think I’ve crossed this bridge less than five times in my life (excluding the one or two times I took the Green Line to the end, because that’s technically a separate bridge), with most of those occurrences taking place on a single day. On this day, my six coworkers and I were supposed to go to the Museum of Science.

I rode the MBTA’s 69 bus from my home to Lechmere Station, not realizing just how quickly it would drive down Cambridge Street. I crossed the bridge once from Lechmere and stepped foot in front of the museum, only to realize that I’d arrived way too early and no one else had shown up yet. To kill time, I walked across the dam once again and stumbled into the Cambridgeside Galleria Mall, grabbed an iced chai from Starbucks, and at this my mental map of Cambridge began to come together.

You see, I’ve been to this mall before, usually via the shuttle bus that picks up from Kendall Square or by walking from MIT’s east campus,⁠09 the actual eastern campus, not the dorm but I had never really conceptualized it as part of the greater Cambridge picture. I mapped the path from my apartment, from Hampshire Street to Cambridge Street, all the way down until you reach where the highway joins the street, the mall to your right and the station to your left, the bridge across the road. In that moment, as I sipped my obscenely sugary drink that I’m certain doesn’t even have real tea, the in-betweens began to fill out, and I felt the satisfaction I felt when clearing out a section of a map in a video game.

Rating: 5/10

Longfellow Bridge

If you’ve ever ridden on the Red Line train downtown from Kendall Square, you have seen the beauty that is this bridge. This 650.7 meter long steel arch bridge⁠10 kind of self explanatory. there’s an arch below that supports the structure, made of steel is also a triple whammy, rail-road bridge, which means that it is simultaneously a bridge for pedestrians, cars, and the Boston T. For my first two years at MIT, this bridge had been partially closed to construction, and for a long time all you could see as you rode the Red Line were stretches of unfinished roads, hastily put up chain link fences, and construction workers. It was gloomy, but nothing I hadn’t come to expect, what with Kendall Square’s near constant state of construction and reconstruction in all my years here.

The construction finished in 2018, but even in a state of disarray the Longfellow had wormed its way into my heart. It wasn’t until I moved off campus, started working, and had a reason to go into Boston every day, when I began to fully appreciate this crossing—its ornate metal railings painted black, the four stone towers that fill me with a curiosity to go inside, the sound of the train rushing by and the clear view of all the standing passengers inside. Because of the river’s bend, the bridge is angled just right to capture the view of Boston’s skyline, Citgo sign and Prudential Center and Hancock tower and all. At night, all of the city’s lights, its vibrant blues and reds, illuminate the surface of the water. And it takes all of my might to continue holding onto the guardrail and not plunge in as I peer over the edge, taking in the city, taking in the colors, taking in the feeling of wonder for this place I’ve called home for so long.

I spent a lot of time crossing this bridge in my life, mostly on the train. I’ve spent collective hours, maybe even days, riding from Harvard Square down to MGH, from Kendall Square to Downtown Crossing or South Station, from Central all the way down to Mattapan, and all the same in reverse. In my seat, I crane my neck back as we cross, watching the water or the sky, whether it’s day or night. When it’s rush hour, I work my gaze between the spaces of other people’s bodies and watch as I grip on the pole and hope I don’t fall. There are faces absorbed in their phones, people talking to their friends, commuters engaged in a book, and even though I’ve seen it a thousand times already, I never tire of that view. It reminds me of home, my old home, of being a child and wanting to look out the windows of the Bronx’s elevated subways to watch the buildings rush by me, but being too afraid that pressing my body against the glass would tip the train over. I don’t think I’m afraid anymore, and the Red Line runs adjacent to a road rather than above it like the 4 train, but I still keep my watching from a distance.

check out those crossing red line trains

This bridge captures both excitement and comfort, and wraps it into a structure made of steel and concrete. Watching the buildings rise up before me and the Charles below fills me with fresh giddiness that I still can’t shake off. At the same time, in many ways, it is the sign I am looking for when I feel like I need to return home, to my new home. So many times I have looked at Boston from the inside of a train car, suitcase in hand as I returned to Cambridge from break.

One moment that stands out to me happened back in 2017, in the middle of my first internship after leaving MIT. I remember waiting at the MGH station around 5:00 PM, waiting for the train to come in so I could go home along with hundreds of other people. After ages of waiting and hearing about delays on the loudspeaker, I’d decided just to walk home, forgetting about the $2.40 I’d spent. As I walked across the Longfellow, breeze gently swaying though my hair (which had grown out far beyond my comfort), the sun began to set over Boston. I’d been having a rough couple of weeks, of months, really, and something inside me seemed to crack open as the pink and orange hues washed over the water. I stopped for a second, taking in the sight, music still blasting in my ears, and for the first time in ages I felt grateful to be alive, even if just for those ten minutes. I’ve seen a dozen other sunsets from this bridge, and I still maintain that it has the best view of them.

Rating: 10/10

Harvard Bridge

This 659.9 meter girder bridge⁠11 a simple bridge supported blow by a series of girders, a type of beam is the longest bridge across the entire Charles River. In my opinion, it is poorly named, since it is technically miles away from Harvard and steps away from MIT. This is explained by the fact that it’s actually named after Harvard’s namesake, John Harvard, rather than the university itself, but that doesn’t make it any less confusing for Boston newcomers. Most of the time, I refer to it simply as the Mass. Ave Bridge, named for the busy street that both bisects MIT’s campus, and runs directly through the bridge into Boston. 

The most memorable thing about the Harvard Bridge is the smoot, the measurement that lines the sidewalks in vibrant red, yellow, and purple paint and cartoonish lettering. The story behind the smoot is as follows: in 1958, Oliver Smoot, a fledgeling fraternity pledge, lied down along the length of the entire bridge and let his future brothers mark the spot, thus dividing the bridge into Oliver Smoot sized segments.⁠12 plus or minus an ear For context, his height is roughly 5’-7”. To this day, the marks are still there, repainted yearly by members of his fraternity.

As the closest bridge to MIT’s campus, this is also naturally the one I have the most experience with. I have hundreds of stories that formed while walking across it, from gripping my baseball cap to my head on a really windy day on my way to the Esplanade, to whizzing by pedestrians on the SafeRide shuttle bus on my way back from a frat party, to running across on a bitter cold night after a long walk because all I can think of are MIT’s open bathrooms waiting on the other side. The first time I ever walked along it was during my CPW, one night at 3am after a series of wacky MIT-like hijinks. One of the other prefrosh I had met was being hosted in a fraternity, while the rest of our temporary friend group and I were situated nicely along Dorm Row, and we thought it best to walk him across the bridge so he wouldn’t have to do it alone. I remember the chill as we walked, the excitement of new connections, the curiosity as I eyed the markings on the ground. Halfway to hell, it said, with an arrow pointing back to campus. At the time, the idea of MIT being Hell seemed far away, and all I could see was joy and thrill and a new beginning for myself. It still made me chuckle, though.

Thinking of it now, this bridge is pretty emblematic of my MIT experience. Every time I need to cross from this point, I find myself staring at the end and wondering just when I can even reach it. I count the smoots as I walk, always forgetting just how many there are total and scaring myself into thinking that I haven’t made it very far at all, regardless of what the numbers say. For some reason, it feels so much longer than it is, especially on cold or dark days, the water below endless and murky and dark. Sometimes the wind blows too hard and the guard rail feels too short, and I feel an irrational sort of fear that I’ll be thrown over the edge and have nothing but the cold, dirty water to help. It’s times like this when I’ll bite my lip, zip up my jacket, clutch the straps of my backpack close to my chest, and stray away from the edge. To my luck, I haven’t fallen in yet.

Rating: 7/10

Boston University Bridge (+ Grand Junction Railroad Bridge)

More aptly named than the last bridge, the Boston University Bridge (commonly called the B.U. Bridge) actually is actually next to the aforementioned university. When I was staying with my girlfriend in her Cambridgeport apartment at the end of the summer, this 280.1 meter long, through arch bridge⁠13 similar to an arch bridge, except the arch begins below the deck and the top ends above, effectively, going <em>through</em> it was the closest to me. Since I’ve been back in Cambridge, I’ve walked this twice, on long, leisurely strolls around when I have nothing better to do.

This bridge always reminds me of fried chicken and live music. When I was still a young sophomore, full of free time and spontaneity, my suitemates and I would occasionally walk to Raising Cane’s, a chain fried chicken restaurant located near B.U, and stuff our faces. Now, as a born-and-raised Northeastern yankee, I’m no fried chicken expert, but I think Raising Cane’s has some banging chicken. We’d walk down the river from our dorm, passing by the Mass Ave. Bridge, and cross here because we were convinced that it made the walk shorter. I’d eat chicken and rave about their signature sauce, which I’d convinced myself was the best, even though my suitemate would tell us that it was just a spin on thousand island dressing. Pillowy, buttery Texas toast and greasy fries would accompany the meals, and maybe it was just our youth, but I was always able to get it all down without feeling sick. And then we’d walk back, lethargic from the massive amounts of bready and/or breaded food, and the painted grey steel truss of the bridge would be there to wave us off.

The live music association comes from the Paradise Rock Club, which is a fairly small concert venue right next to the Raising Cane’s. I went to see  The Internet⁠14 an r&b group, not the collective world wide web there just days after my 21st birthday in 2018. I remember the line stretching across the block, but one hidden secret of this venue is that you can usually enter a show early if you’re 21 and enter through the bar. And that I did, filled with a thrill of being older and part of some exclusive club, proudly showing off my newly minted Adult ID. Inside, I bought myself a vodka soda with a splash of cranberry, and learned bar-tipping etiquette as I did. The concert was great, even though the excitement of legal drinking faded away as I realized I’d have to spend $9 for each drink. My friends and I walked back to Cambridge when the show was over, crossing over the B.U. Bridge as we went, and I felt simultaneously tipsy from the drinks, and anxious about surviving the hour-long bathroom-less walk. With a cool night breeze and good company, I did survive.

There is also another bridge located almost directly under the B.U. Bridge, but it’s only a rail bridge, so pedestrians or cars can’t get on it. Given all the graffiti that coats almost the entire surface of its structure, clearly some people more daring than I have traversed this. However, I’m a very cautious person generally, so I just stick to looking at it when I’m nearby.

Rating: 8/10

River Street Bridge

The River Street Bridge, named for Cambridge’s River Street which runs through it, is a 64 meter long concrete arch bridge.⁠15 same as the longfellow, but made of concrete It leads to Allston, the land of college students and recent grads, and weirdly, some of Harvard’s campus. The bridge is fine by design, looks nice if a bit basic from a distance, but it is a nightmare to traverse, especially as a pedestrian. I think I may have a bit of an unfair vendetta against this bridge, because most of my experience walking across it has been in miserable conditions, either in the sweltering heat of summers past or in stormy weather.

I hate this bridge, I really do. It’s a glorified road with none of the luster that a bridge typically gives, all cars and exhaust. Getting onto it from the Boston side is like playing a game of Russian Roulette where the bullets loaded are will I wait 20 minutes to cross the road? or will I risk my life to cross now? I once spent ages waiting, watching the street lights turn green and red and green and red, no rhyme or reason for why my light wasn’t coming on. I’ve almost been hit by a car here, the closest I’ve ever gotten to death or certain injury. There’s an absurd amount of lanes of traffic that join with it, and it’s just plain awful to look at from the bridge deck.

My fondest memory of it is probably the time I walked across it in the pouring rain, soaking all of my clothes and the soles of my shoes, so that I could spontaneously get Korean hot tofu soup with my girlfriend. The soup was great, warm and spicy and filling, and as always we made sure to finish all of the little side dishes along with our meal. But, pressing my yellow rain jacket to my chest and trying to not become part of a hit and run was definitely the worst part of that whole memory.

Rating: 1/10

Western Avenue Bridge

I think I’ve walked on this bridge twice in my life, and crossed via bus or car far more often. I don’t pay enough attention to the outside when I’m in vehicles, though, so it’s hard to count that. Crossing from the Cambridge-side, this 85.3 meter concrete arch bridge also leads into Allston, and to the Harvard Business School.

Most importantly, though, if you follow the road just a bit farther, you will reach Allston’s very own Trader Joe’s, which is both larger than the Cambridge location and has its own liquor store.⁠16 and trader joe’s branded alcohol is both good and cheap Also, in pre-COVID times, this location, because of its coveted liquor license, would give out free wine samples, usually with an accompanied cheese and cracker. A true delight for a Saturday afternoon shop. The Trader Joe’s is not on the bridge, but I feel positively about it because of their association, because I’ve only ever walked on this bridge to get to this Trader Joe’s. Otherwise, this bridge is mostly irrelevant to me.

Rating: 4/10

John W. Weeks Bridge

The third concrete arch bridge on this list, the John W. Weeks Bridge is unique from the others because it is only a footbridge. Unfortunately, I can’t find the exact length of this bridge online, but I believe it’s around 80 meters. To be completely honest, I didn’t even realize it had a name, and I’ve been calling it the Harvard Footbridge for years. Everyone usually knows what I’m talking about.

so photogenic

I love footbridges. Sure, I can manage sharing a road with cars, but I find myself a lot more at peace surrounded by like-minded pedestrians, and maybe the occasional new biker or skateboarder. It is such a classic footbridge, with waist-high stone railings you can sit on, and the subtle arch on the deck that makes you feel as if you’re crossing into a new fantasyland in the woods. It is long enough that you feel like you’re still going somewhere, but short enough that you don’t tire or hope for the end when you’ve just started.

I’ve experienced what I believe is the full range of human emotions on this bridge—sadness and despair, hopelessness, anger, euphoria, hope, regret, and many more. I looked upon the Charles with tears in my eyes and wanted to jump in, to feel the cold water rush up against my body, and drift away. I’ve looked up at the sky and felt wonder and awe at the brilliant shade of blue I found.

One Fourth of July, when I was still living in Harvard Square, I went to this bridge with my roommates to catch the fireworks. It was crowded, especially at the center, and we all honed our eyes to the bend of the river as lights went off. I couldn’t see a single firework that night, all of them obscured by the tall buildings between us and the Mass Ave Bridge, which is by where the fireworks are usually shot. We heard the booms and crashes, and the night sky still illuminated in bright colors, but without the bright streaks, the sky looked like a room flickering due to a faulty lamp. After about half an hour, my roommates and I went home, and for the first time in my life, I went to bed as the fireworks continued without me watching.

Rating: 9/10

And there you have it, my (not so) comprehensive ratings. If my writing didn’t make it clear, I feel pretty strongly about the local bridges, though maybe not in the way that would be most beneficial for my major or career. One could argue that the opinions of the user matter a lot more than the calculations of the engineer, and if that is true, then I think that I’ll make a great bridge designer one day. For now, I’ll just keep to the storytelling.

Last week, I blogged about 7.00: COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2 and the Pandemic, a biology lecture series on the coronavirus that anyone in the world can freely attend.

One of my colleagues sent me a notice about another new class called 21H.000 History of Now: Plagues and Pandemics. It meets every Friday from 2-3PM ET, where lecturers and science writers from universities across the country (and the world) will speak on various aspects of the historical challenge. Anyone from around the world can join to listen.

The description is below:

This class exposes students to the study of history for its own sake and also for a deeper understanding of the present and the future. We explore current events in a historical perspective from the vantage point of a series of MIT and guest speakers discussing their research in the context of current national and global events.

For Fall 2020, the course will focus on the history of infectious disease. We will look transnationally and across discipline at how plagues and pandemics have made an impact on human and non-human history. The course will have a roundtable format, meeting for one- hour sessions each week with brief presentations by the invited speakers followed by Q&A with enrolled students. The course will also be broadcast live as a webinar each week for the benefit of interested members of the larger MIT community and the public. A list of short, optional readings related to each week’s sessions is available upon request.

I’ve embedded a copy of the syllabus (PDF link) below with the schedule of speakers and topics. You can sign up for the course over Zoom here.

The theme of my (very short) MIT experience so far has been that everything is so cool. SO COOL. And interesting, and exciting, and !!! (unintelligible excited noises). Imagine this scene: young me (aka me from three weeks ago) is sitting at her computer, trying to choose classes, looking at course listings, and suddenly. She realizes. That everything is interesting. EVERYTHING. I’m exaggerating, of course, but only a little. There are genuinely so many different areas that I had never even thought about before this summer, and all of a sudden, they all seem like the most interesting things in the world, and I’m feeling lost and confused in the best possible way.

List-making is one of my top-ten⁠04 haha get it... top-ten... like a list... personality traits; so, to best convey my point, I present to you the not-at-all-exhaustive and not-at-all-definite list of things that I want to explore during my time at MIT, arranged vaguely in order of decreasing personal importance:

• Physics. I’m taking 8.022⁠05 the mathier version of physics ii - electricity and magnetism right now, and it’s really reinforcing the fact that I just really enjoy learning physics, doing problems, etc. Physics speaks to my curiosity about the fundamental working of the universe, and I love the feeling of seeing something real emerge from a sea of math. I’m not sure that I would want to pursue pure physics research as a career, but I’m pretty sure that I want to major in it.
• Computer science / programming. My relationship with CS is funky. I’ve never actually taken a formal CS class, and yet I have spent the past four years working on one computational research project after the other. Which is to say, I know how to program, but I don’t always feel like it⁠06 and my code is lowk ugly . All that being said, I’ve really enjoyed usefulness of programming and its problem-solving aspect, so I want to explore it further. Plus, all the CS classes seem so cool. And a major in CS is the sort of thing you could do anything with, and seeing as I don’t know what I want to do…
• Foreign languages. Learning languages is a big hobby of mine. I love the process itself; just the feeling of getting better and noticing yourself getting better and being able to express more and more… *chef’s kiss* nothing compares. German is my current project, but if I had infinite time I would totally also learn Korean⁠07 i actually learned hangul last summer during my blackpink/k-pop phase but have since forgotten it all rip and/or Chinese and/or something else. I’m considering a minor in German, but we’ll have to see if I can make that work.
• Earth science. Atmospheric science and climate science, to be specific. I’ve done a lot of research in atmospheric science in high school, and it’s a field I feel rather invested in. I love just thinking about the atmosphere – it’s so big and beautiful and fluid and wowww. Actually, fluid dynamics are so cool in general ughh. I could easily see myself pursuing a career as a researcher in some earth sci-related field, using my skillz in physics and CS. If MIT still allowed triple majors, this would totally be it. Alas.
• International relations / foreign policy. Now we’re getting to the area of unexpected whims. I took an international relations class during my senior year of high school because I really liked the teacher, and it ended up being my favorite class that year. I particularly enjoy the more analytical and theoretical bits of the field: I’d never really considered how formal and rigorous the humanities can be, but I’m so glad I discovered that. I would love to take some foreign policy classes at MIT, or maybe a UROP⁠08 research project , if only I could fit it into my schedule…
• Aerospace engineering. I’m not much of an engineer⁠09 funny, considering this is basically engineering school and i think my cs degree would have the word engineering in it. and yet. , at all. I’m not particularly passionate about doing things hands-on or building things. But I also think rockets are super cool. And I’m a sci-fi geek. And I kinda wish I lived in the Star Trek universe. So, you get the picture. Plus, there’s room in aerospace for less hands-on things: a lot of modeling and CS, some data analysis, etc. There’s also the intersection with fluid dynamics, which is gorgeousss. Lots to explore here.
• Writing. Continuing the series of ‘classes I took in high school,’ I was really moved by a short story creative writing class I took last fall. For the first time, I really enjoyed the process of writing creatively, and I’ve been meaning to continue since then, but… who am I kidding. I really haven’t been able to make the time, and I’m not sure that I will any time soon. (taking a class would be an easy fix, though…:)
• Architecture and design. This is a funky one, too. At some point last spring I was like. Hey. You like art and you like STEM… isn’t architecture in the middle⁠10 spoiler alert: it is ? And so I ended up doing an architecture FPOP, and now an architecture seminar (Art and Architecture of the MIT Campus!!), and an architecture discovery class. In general, I want to use college to reawaken my passion for art and related fields: I used to be really into it, and then high school came around and I had no time and I was doing science but now I can maybe finally rediscover that bit of myself. Crossing my fingers.
• Urban studies. I went through a phase in March of being really really interested in urbanism after listening to Sidewalk Labs’ “City of the Future” podcast (highly recommend!) and discovering that there’s so much research and thought that goes into how we build cities. I’m a city girl through and through and I’m finding that I’m really enjoying thinking about cities in a formal way and exploring how technology can shape and change them⁠11 i'm actually taking a really cool discovery class rn about transportation and sustainable urbanization that touches upon these themes!! . MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning just seems like a really cool place, and I’d love to take a class, or do a UROP, or get involved otherwise.
• Linguistics. Fun fact: I helped start a linguistics club at my high school, though it kinda withered and died by the end of my time there. I think linguistics is really interesting because it lets me formalize what I know about languages from my experience learning them. At the same time, this is something I could totally just read about on my own, unlike the other fields, where I wouldn’t even know where to start.
• Civil engineering. This is barely legit lmao (as in, it’s not a pursuit for me at all), but I just like the types of big-picture problems civil eng addresses (bridges! sustainability! sustainable bridges!), and I would totally take a seminar or something to learn more. But also I’m not an engineer, I swear.

As you can see, this list is getting away from me a little. And I’m letting it, because ~college is a time to explore~ and the closer I get to my future the less I actually know what I want that future to look like, and that’s okay because I have time and I have the opportunity to learn anything and everything and aaaaa. I’m excited. If you couldn’t tell. It’d be cool to see how much of this I actually get to touch on/experience in the next four years; so… who knows, I might post an update in the spring of 2024:)

I wasn’t actually planning on writing a start of semester post this time around, mostly because I feel like there are metaphysically bigger things to blog about. But, since it’s my last semester as an undergrad, and I’ve consistently done this type of post for almost⁠01 going through the archives, it looks like I missed sophomore fall, which is fine, cause sophomore fall fucking sucked. good riddance to sophomore fall every semester till now, I figured that I’d do it for old times sake.

Classes:

yes, my friday is completely empty. please clap

CMS.701 (Current Debates in Media): This is the capstone class for the CMS major, which I’ve somehow managed to put off until my very last semester. We read and debate about various things happening in the media at the immediate moment, like a lot of the shit Trump is constantly trying to pull, whether photoshopping women’s bodies should be made illegal, and various other happenings in the world. I didn’t know that we actually had to debate each other, and I’m still traumatized from the very short period of time in which I tried out high school debate, so we’ll see how this goes.

6.805 (Foundations of Internet Policy): This is the first law class I have ever taken, and is probably the only one that I will ever take. It’s a long running class⁠02 ~25 years according to the instructors that has been around since before people even used the Internet on a regular basis. We go over the interaction between law, policy, and technology that relate to all the rapidly evolving controversies over control of the Internet. The goal of the class is to learn to analyze the various precedents to different Internet legal cases, and write up our own policy recommendation by the end of the class. We go over famous cases and learn to be pseudo-law students by writing case briefs. A good friend of mine and I are taking this class together, and we’re super psyched to write a really great paper. We’re hoping to get it published somewhere if possible.

6.837 (Computer Graphics): I’m hesitant to even put this class on here because the likelihood of me dropping it is SO HIGH, even though I’ve been waiting to take it forever. It turns out that I don’t remember any math, and that taking 18.02 junior year of high school seemed really hardcore but actually was a bad idea, because four years later, I don’t remember a single bit of it. It took my brain a hot second to remember how to take a derivative, and hopefully I will not have to take an integral, because I don’t remember how to take any of the fancier ones. Also, I hate C++. I’ve worked with it twice in internships before, but maintain that it is an irredeemable language and nobody should be subjected to programming in it. At least I have it on PE/NE, so hopefully I won’t actually fail it.

6.UAT (…Oral Communication??)⁠03 </strong>genuinely have no idea what this class's actual name is<strong> : This is the last Course 6 requirement I need to graduate. I originally was never planning on taking this, because I was going to do SuperUROP instead, but since I’m graduating early and SuperUROP is a full year program, I jebaited myself and have to take UAT instead. It’s sort of painful for me, because I really REALLY hate public speaking – as do most people – but honestly, I could afford to get better at it, and I know this class will be good for me. It just hurts me so much to have to give presentations and do improv exercises. I’m not good at them.

CMS.307 (Critical Worldbuilding): This is Junot Díaz’s class! He’s an amazing writer, and also an amazing professor. This class is quickly shaping up to be my favorite ever; the readings and movies are all amazing and are a great break from the pset slog, and also we get to build our own storyworlds and creatively write! It’s been so long since I creatively wrote; coming to college and not being able to write fanfiction literally every single day was definitely a change in pace for me, and it’s nice to go back to my roots, although I am super rusty and the first assignment – write a five page story – almost killed me. Thinking critically about works of fiction and picking them apart is something that I’ve always enjoyed, and I’m excited to do it under the guidance of a real professional^tm.

Other:

• UROP: I’ve talked about my UROP so much on the blogs that honestly it doesn’t bear repeating. Suffice to say, I am continuing to put in way more hours into it than I should, and lowkey worked on the DL for the entire summer, so…
• Running: I’m trying to get into shape for the socially distanced half marathon I’m doing with Petey, in which we drive separately to the middle of nowhere New Hampshire, run by ourselves on what would normally be an actual half marathon course, then drive back to Boston hopefully feeling proud of ourselves. Also, since sports got CANCELLED for the semester, I’ll have to wait to pick up my fencing gear until I’m out of college I guess
• Deciding my future???: As has been foreshadowed on the blogs for a while, I’ve been feeling burned out lately and sort of want to…take a break. I don’t know if I could emotionally handle going to grad school at this current moment in my life, and am currently rethinking whether I actually want to apply to the Media Lab this year. I think that over the past few months, I’ve developed the confidence that I would have a chance of getting into grad schools that aren’t the Media Lab either, because I’ve been working on a lot of publications and will probably be on around half a dozen by the end of the year. For an undergrad, that’s pretty good, and I think that those will reflect better than my actual grades whenever I do decide to apply. Also, I really, REALLY want to go back to Seattle, and committing myself to many more years of grad school somewhere isn’t really doing it for me right now. So, we’ll see. I also totally might get pulled into my friend’s startup for a bit, so I really don’t know where the months after graduation will take me.
• Being an adult(ish): I’m a resident peer mentor for East Campus this year, which means that I get to mentor the four very lovely freshmen who live here in person. After a summer of being mentored myself, it feels weird to finally be on the other side.

I’m really excited for this semester. I definitely think that the amount I’ve enjoyed each semester has definitely been on an upward trend ever since a literally garbage freshman spring/sophomore fall, and I’m hoping that I can finish strong. It would really be nice if, for my last semester, I could finally finish strong.

last year, things were so different. i was an ordinary freshman who lived in a dorm, participated in lots of student activites, and went to physical classes. now, i’m living in a house with some friends, taking classes virtually and doing pretty much nothing else. it’s weird.

here’s what has changed, besides the things that are glaringly obvious…

• i’m more organized — i’ve been taking notes on my beautiful new iPad and using Notion to track all my class assignments. i feel very on top of things. last year, i’d forget about nearly every prepset for 8.01,⁠01 physics 1 so i feel much better now
• i’m more independent — i have my own personal space, both emotionally and physically, as opposed to last year. i look forward to cooking for myself every day instead of stressing out about it like i did last year. i’m happy doing things both on my own and with others, and don’t have anxieties about not making the best use of my time anymore.
• time management comes easier — i was worried about what my work ethic would be like after, erm, PNR for two semesters, but i’m doing great; i work hard for long stretches of time and put things down when i’ve had enough. this tuesday, every person in my house started partying at 10 pm for some reason, and i stopped working on my pset to join them even though it seemed like a pretty bad idea. but i don’t regret it since i’d gotten a lot done during the day and had worked the entire long weekend. last year, i felt guilty every time i made decisions like this, so i’m glad i can be more present now
• i have more time — i’m not running from activity to class to activity anymore—i’m just in my room all the time, so it’s easy to get things done as soon as a class/meeting ends instead of having to find food and then walk across campus for a place to work. i both miss and don’t miss having to walk places.
• i’m more willing to collaborate on work — last year, i mostly psetted alone; i was too used to working alone in high school and felt that i wouldn’t learn anything if i had to rely on others. that was dumb. if you can do something in 15 hours on your own and in 10 with a friend, and you get the same amount of learning out of both options, it’s so much more efficient to work with a friend…
• my classes are much harder — but also much more fun! i’m loving them so far. i missed taking math classes, and my coding class is super enjoyable. each assignment is like a puzzle and solving it is the highlight of my week.
• i’m a soPhoMOre — now, i’m on the other side of recruitment. I’M the one holding interviews and auditions for clubs, I’M the one planning community placement and seeing it through…it’s unfamiliar. i was always the youngest person in my high school classes since i was a #tryhardoverachiever who took as many AP classes as i could, and i also was the youngest person in my group whenever i traveled abroad. being qualified to be a friendly upperclassman who bestows guidance upon the froshlings is very strange indeed.
• i don’t have roommates — i miss them. one of them is living next door (i haven’t been able to see her yet because my house is quarantining) but the other one is at home and i miss her a lot. having a single is nice, really nice, but i loved being able to come home to two of my closest friends, to collapse on the massive beanbag in the middle of our triple with them and rant about our classes and various responsibilities…
• i have more responsibilities — SO many more. it’s nice, though. i like keeping busy, and being in meetings from 9 am to ~6 pm every day is only exhausting sometimes. (actually, no, that’s a lie)

am i happier? not sure. i can’t see as many people or do as many things as i’d like to, given current circumstances, but i’m definitely vibing. i miss being able to dance on my team and exist in a campus space with hundreds of cool people, but living in a house with six of my closest friends is pretty freaking dope as well.

things are good. different, but good. i reject any notion of me being a sophomore, but i’m embracing the opportunities it brings me.

it’s going to be a good semester, i think

A few weeks ago, I called three friends, AudreyRose ‘21, Nikayah ‘19, and Kenneth ‘19, to talk about their experiences as members of historically Black Greek letter organizations. My goal is to illustrate that there is a D9 presence at MIT and show the many benefits of joining one.

Learning About D9s

D9 is a shorthand for “Divine Nine”, a casual label that refers to nine historically African American Greek-lettered fraternities and sororities. Officially, the nine organizations constitute the National Pan-Hellenic Council. The first Black intercollegiate Greek fraternity is Alpha Phi Alpha, founded in 1906 at Cornell University. In the next sixty years, eight other organizations would form at different universities, namely Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority (AKA), Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity (KAΨ), Delta Sigma Theta Sorority (ΔΣΘ), Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc. (ΩΨΦ), Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity (ΦΒΣ), Zeta Phi Beta Sorority (ZΦB), Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority (ΣΓΡ), and Iota Phi Theta Fraternity (ΙΦΘ). Each organization has a rich and unique history, culture, and traditions, and its members can span several generations. 

Kenneth is one member like that. He has grandmas, grandpas, aunts, uncles, cousins, and parents who are part of a D9 organization. He grew up surrounded by paraphernalia ⁠01 Black Greek apparel and other Black Greek decorations. He recalls noticing that his dad would have an immediate connection with people he had just met after a brief conversation. As Kenneth grew older, he understood where this instant camaraderie came from–a shared fraternity. On the other hand, Nikayah had not heard about D9 organizations until she came to college. It was actually Kenneth who told her about them after she expressed her desire to join a sorority but was hesitant to join MIT sororities since most are majority white and Asian. In the middle is AudreyRose, who didn’t come from a Greek-affiliated family but knew people at her church who were. She started to learn more about D9s in middle school when she began to think about college, specifically HBCUs. On top of her own research, her pastor and bishop shared their experiences with their fraternities and connected her with other Greek-affiliated individuals. 

During her senior year of high school, AudreyRose, who lives in Massachusetts, would leave her hometown and explore the Boston area, especially because she was considering attending MIT. Having a strong Black community was one of her deciding factors, and she was unsure whether MIT would have that compared to the other HBCUs and universities she was considering. In addition, she didn’t think D9 organizations would be available at MIT and was starting to accept that joining one wouldn’t be a reality for her at least during her undergraduate career. But, when she attended CPW, she not only saw the Black community at MIT but also noticed a few people wearing their paraphernalia, which assured her decision to commit to MIT. 

Since Kenneth grew up surrounded by Black Greek culture, he just assumed D9 organizations would be at any university he went to. However, during rush week,⁠02 Rush is 'a chance for new freshmen guys to get a chance to meet as many fraternity members as possible and decide whether or not they’d like to live in a fraternity. It’s also a wonderful excuse to go paintballing, F1 racing, eat the obligatory steak and lobster, and throw golf balls attached to some string at a horizontal piece of PVC' This was taken straight from Snively's post titled The Other Side of Fraternities because I would not have described it any better. Kenneth went to most of MIT’s fraternities and asked people if they’d heard of different D9 organizations and was confused when hardly anyone knew about it. He says there was one person from everyone he spoke to who knew specifically of D9 organizations. While this was saddening, it provided a great opportunity to witness these organizations’ connections spanning across state lines. His dad, a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, contacted alumni members in Boston and found that there was a chapter in the area. Additionally, when visiting MIT, his parents attended an OME event and met faculty affiliated with D9 organizations. One of those faculty was a Kappa and connected with Kenneth’s dad and later Kenneth himself. This connection helped Kenneth when he was trying to understand what the Greek scene was like in Boston.  

After Kenneth told Nikayah about D9 organizations, she took it upon herself to do more research. She knew there was an AKA on campus, so she reached out to her asking for her perspective. Nikayah learned that MIT used to have a history of having a lot of Greek on campus, but in recent years it has gotten smaller. She also gained some insight on how these organizations work in Boston. Nikayah also spoke to faculty such as Dean DiOnetta Crayton, Director of the Office of Minority Education, who outlined the advantages from a professional standpoint. She also went to events and talked to other members.  

Chartered on October 8, 1977, the Lambda Upsilon Chapter of AKA was the first sorority on MIT’s campus of any type. Lambda Upsilon’s membership consists of students from MIT, Harvard University, and Wellesley College.

One of these events was a probate⁠03 A probate is a new member presentation and is oftentimes a show of the organization's history, mission, steps, strolls, and more. on the weekend of AudreyRose’s CPW. Attending this probate provided Nikayah with a chance to connect with members of Delta Sigma Theta. While Nikayah would go on to later join this sorority, at the time, the Cambridge chapter had become inactive, and the people she had met had graduated from this chapter. Still, this was where the dialogue started for her. For AudreyRose, this event provided her with the additional reassurance that taking part in Black Greek life was a possibility. 

Values and Decisions

All three of them had at some point considered joining one of the MIT-affiliated sororities and fraternities. AudreyRose says that she didn’t consider them as heavily as she could have. Several people she’d met during Interphase or CPW were considering going through recruitment, so she’d thought about joining them. But learning about the recruitment differences between IFC and Panhel⁠04 IFC stands for Interfraternity Council and Panhel is the sorority version of IFC dissuaded her. From the information she was given prior to signing up for recruitment, she found that the recruitment events for sororities began early in the morning and lasted most of the day for several days as people had conversations with current sisters to try and understand the culture. While she believes this is incredibly valuable, AudreyRose wanted to take part in the more fun events fraternities were hosting for recruits such as eating steak and lobster, going jet-skiing, or taking them to the beach, trampoline parks, etc. She felt that not only was the timing inconvenient but also the sororities weren’t engaging with her in the way she would have wanted to. Nikayah’s story mirrors AudreyRose’s, and they ultimately both didn’t go through with recruitment (consider reading these two blog posts about MIT Panhel and fitting in for other perspectives).     

As mentioned earlier, Kenneth had always thought he’d be able to join a D9 organization in college. However, when he asked around and only one person barely knew about it, he didn’t believe that joining a D9 organization would be a possibility. So he fully participated in rush activities and even got six bids. ⁠05 </span>Bids are invitations to join a fraternity. Later Kenneth saw an opportunity when his father told him that there was actually a city-wide Boston chapter and an event happening at BU. In the end, he turned down all his bids and returned to his original intention.

The three all focused on finding an organization that aligned with their values in their search for the D9 organization they wanted to join. Nikayah learned early on in her research that these organizations would be a part of her life beyond her years at college, so she looked for organizations that matched her personality and goals. Each of the D9 organizations has different national initiatives, and the one she related to most was Delta’s. Nikayah has always wanted to serve underrepresented children, especially in ways to make STEM and college more accessible. Delta has three programs related to educational development that are common amongst many collegiate and alumni chapters,⁠06 Chapters for people who have graduated from college but want to remain active in the organization which really stuck out to Nikayah.   

Kenneth’s decision came down to the objectives and fundamental purpose of the organizations. Though he does admit his father’s and grandfather’s association with Kappa played a factor, he did his own research and found that Kappa’s mission resonated with him the most. Kenneth explains that above all else Kappa treasures achievement in every field of human endeavor. He liked that this was expressed explicitly as their fundamental purpose and objective, and the different services and initiatives to achieve this goal stood out to him compared to other organizations. 

AudreyRose wanted to align herself with an organization and people that fit her passions and values. AudreyRose has always been interested in education and political action, serving in her youth group at church and as the Political Action Chair for the BSU this past year. So, Delta’s initiative on political awareness and involvement as well as educational development addressed her interests. AudreyRose is also an incredibly talented and creative writer (buy her chapbook on More Than Ghetto, a platform she founded to provide young creatives of color a place to share and publish their first works). Many Delta chapters have an Arts and Letters committee whose goal is to promote awareness, encourage development, and showcase various fields of artistic endeavors. For these reasons, joining Delta was the right decision for her. 

A strong support system was important for all three of them in their decision to join a D9 organization. Kenneth was looking for something similar to what his dad experienced after his dad’s college years. Though he didn’t realize it at the time, there were many moments when Kenneth was younger where he saw his dad fall back on his fraternal bond. Kenneth also witnessed how when his dad found out that someone was a brother, the dynamic would change from being strangers to a deeper connection within a blink of an eye. All of his family preached on this, so having this type of support system was incredibly important to Kenneth. 

AudreyRose deeply desired sisterhood. As a Black woman who grew up in a predominantly white town with no sisters and two older brothers, sisterhood was something she didn’t experience. She valued that these organizations were lifetime commitments. Even though there were people she grew up with or became close to, people grow and live apart. Having an organization of women with similar values but are also their own people amazed AudreyRose. As a Queer Black woman, AudreyRose especially looked for spaces for Black women and organizations with people who would support and care for each other. She would find this in her chapter. AudreyRose says that she found people who she could relate to, saw her for who she really was, and always supported her. 

AudreyRose (third person from the right) and her line sisters (people in the same new members class) cutting a cake after their probate

Nikayah grew up with three major women supporters in her life: her mom and two aunts. They made sure that she was supported at all times and provided for her. Nevertheless, Nikayah grew up in a different environment compared to her family’s as they are all immigrants, and there were some limits in their support when it came to topics such as professional or educational development. So, she really valued long-lasting friendships with Black women who could guide and support her in these areas and more.     

Benefits 

When Nikayah graduated, she moved to Texas for her job where she didn’t know anybody. Here she joined her local alumni chapter and was immediately overwhelmed with a sense of togetherness and belonging. She says that she felt like she gained 20 moms when she joined the alumni chapter. She knows that she can rely on her sorors⁠07 shorthand for sorority sisters if she ever needed help or guidance. During this pandemic, many sorority members’ family members passed away, and there was an outpour of love and support through sending messages in group chats, calling members, and sending cards. Nikayah even got a call from the chapter president which warmed her heart to have someone remember her during this turbulent time. It’s a special bond that she had never really experienced before.

Her network expands beyond her own sorority. When Nikayah told a friend, who happened to be an AKA, about her move to Dallas, this friend reached out to a Delta she knew in Dallas and connected her with Nikayah. She finds it beautiful that not only is her sorority well-connected and especially willing to help each other but so are D9 organizations as a whole. People are quick to introduce and connect with each other, so not only do you get to know one person but potentially have access to their network as well. In another instance, Nikayah was being screened for her chapter’s youth programs when her interviewer learned that Nikayah had just moved to Dallas for work and didn’t really know people at her company. Her interviewer called a soror she knew that worked at Nikayah’s company during the interview and introduced her right there and then. The following Monday, Nikayah sent her an email and was immediately put into the soror’s mentoring group. These two moments stand out to Nikayah as times when her sorority and D9 organizations helped her in ways she didn’t expect, and she’s immensely grateful.

As a traveler, the idea of connection deeply resonated with AudreyRose. Additionally, her church, the AME church, focuses on the fact that no matter where you go, there’s a church or a member of the church that will help you out and take you in. When she thinks of D9s, she’s reminded of these values of her church. Anecdotally, last summer her internship placed her on the West Coast for the first time in her life. Her entire family lives in the Northeast, so this was a new area for her. But friends she had made through different D9 organizations in Boston were able to either visit her and invite her to different cities on the coast or connect her to people who could. She appreciated that friends who weren’t even in her specific organization leveraged their network for her wellbeing and safety. AudreyRose has many stories like these, where she asked for help and people answered or found others could help instead. 

Kenneth experienced the professional benefit of D9 organizations before he had even joined one. As he was initially getting to know different Kappa brothers, there was an alum that reached out to Kenneth and asked if he would be interested in a position working with GE. Kenneth sent his resume and other information needed and applied for the internship. He ended up receiving an offer. 

Joining D9 organizations also provided many leadership opportunities. Nikayah served as the second Vice President for her chapter as soon as she pledged Delta. There are many ways to build leadership qualities both in collegiate and alumnae chapters through executive roles and committee membership. People trust that you will do a great job and put your best foot forward for the initiative. Kenneth not only held leadership in his chapter but also a position on the regional board, which he found fulfilling to serve his organization at this level. He gained a lot of skills and received a regional award for his commitment. 

Finally, the social and educational events are fun and helpful. There are fun parties at the collegiate and even alumni chapters. Nikayah says she was surprised because she didn’t think adults would try to throw parties and she was shocked to find that she actually enjoyed them. There are also different social events such as paint nights, talent shows, karaoke nights, etc. and educational events or lectures on finances, healthcare, business, etc. Most of these events are open to the general public or college students.  

Kenneth and Nikayah repping their organizations’ letters and stances

Pros and Cons of City-wide chapter

An obvious disadvantage to having a city-wide chapter is the lack of housing options. It’s difficult to find a place where members from different schools can all live without having to travel for hours just to go to class. When it comes to hosting events, chapters don’t have a set place that they can use without paying and instead have to either rent or use existing college facilities. Though this is a financial cost, all three enjoy being in a city-wide chapter because they’ve made connections with people across multiple schools. The Boston Metropolitan area has over 100 colleges, but it’s really easy to let four years go by without visiting another college or university. 

One of Nikayah’s line sisters⁠08 </span>line sisters or brothers refer to the people in the same new members class goes to Babson, a school she had never been to until she had crossed⁠09 This is the term used when a person joins a D9 organization. The person has 'crossed' over from a pledge to a member . She would never have gone to Babson if it weren’t for her line sister, and she’s grateful that she has been there now because it’s a fun and nice place. All three agree that it’s easy to get stuck in the MIT bubble because everything is on campus, but you don’t realize how refreshing it is to leave until you actually do. And it’s great to have people you can turn to hang out with or have a sleepover with.

Nikayah (second person from the left) and her line sisters the night of their probate

Having multiple colleges under the same chapter can have other advantages with regard to access to resources. Some colleges provide money to the organization while others open up their facilities. The organization can host tailored events at different campuses and reach a wider audience. With this, however, comes the disadvantage of distance. Nikayah admits that the commute from MIT to Babson or Tufts can be long, and it can be especially difficult for people who live further out. People who live further out can feel excluded when members that live closer together can easily meet up. In order to be more accommodating, the chapter makes sure to plan events in advance and host them across different colleges, so that the burden of travel doesn’t fall on the same people and everyone can have equal access to programming. 

Nikayah also enjoys the diversity in perspectives and studies. Members of her chapter are studying political science, education, biology, and so much more. One of AudreyRose’s line sisters goes to Wellesley and told her about a really cool class that AudreyRose could cross-register for and wouldn’t have heard about otherwise. 

Impact and Growth

Joining a D9 organization provided the three with an atmosphere where they felt safe enough to develop into the person that they wanted to become. AudreyRose says that managing the distance made her really intentional about her relationships and time. She’s more aware of her time and makes sure that what, who, and where she dedicates her time fulfills her or her goals. She’d tried to implement this before, but having a support system that holds her accountable has propelled her to do so.

Kenneth and Nikayah have developed their passion and drive for service through their respective organizations. Service has become something Kenneth deeply associates with himself whether he’s doing it with his fraternity or in another place. Kenneth participates in programs mentoring young black men in Boston and has also mentored students at Cambridge Rindge and Latin. Having some type of impact on the community he comes from is a value that became increasingly important to him during his two years at his collegiate chapter. Now, the idea of paying it forward is ingrained in him. Nikayah has always wanted to help the community but didn’t know how to start. Joining these organizations provided a strong and clear foundation and strengthened her drive to serve.  

On a personal level, Nikayah has been able to open up more since joining her sorority. She grew up with a culture that encouraged people to keep everything to themselves and power through things. Joining Greek life showed her that it’s okay to be honest and lean in for support during trying times and that it’s not a sign of weakness. She wasn’t used to openly talking and admitting her moments of struggle. She’s learned to allow people to hold her up as well as hold people up when they need it.  

Friendships and Other Favorite aspects

They all agree that the friendships they’ve made and the people they’ve met are their favorite and even most powerful aspect of their D9 organizations. Some of the first people Nikayah has met while pursuing Delta have become her closest friends. Those friendships started as connections based on the shared interest in Delta and have now evolved to deeper friendships where she calls every two weeks just to catch up and check in. Nikayah and AudreyRose were friends before joining Delta, but since joining their friendship has blossomed even more, and they talk almost every day. These Greek organizations really emphasize togetherness and connection. This is important in times where people might not be getting along; everyone knows that they are still sisters, so the issue at hand will be fixed because everyone cares about each other anyways. Nikayah says this type of friendship is something she had never experienced before. In Nikayah’s alumni chapter, many of her sorors refer to her as their daughter, and she appreciates that the values of the organization have ingrained themselves into a lot of people and encouraged them to hold others close to their hearts. 

Since graduating, Kenneth’s friendships with his chapter and brothers have evolved in that they are more intentional. Now that members are spread across the country, it’s even more important to actively reach out to people and check-in, and his chapter has had periodic zoom calls every two weeks or so. He says that it’s really refreshing to see everybody on the same call, and even with the distance, he feels more connected and closer to his brothers as he and other members take the initiative to reach out more. Nikayah echoes the same sentiment

AudreyRose adds that people from other D9 organizations are some of her closest friends. Even though they are not in the same organization, there is still the same shared experience that brings people together. There are so many different levels of relationships she has built; some people have become really good friends and others have become family. 

Current students and alumni at BSU’s first-ever Black Homecoming BBQ

Another aspect held dear to all of them are the many traditions of their organizations. While most of these traditions aren’t disclosed to the public, the few that are center on celebration. One of Kenneth’s favorite traditions of D9 Greek life in general are probate presentations. There are choreographed steps and routines, and a beautiful show detailing the organization’s history and mission is put on. Kenneth says these events feel like a family reunion because friends, family, older members of the chapter, and other chapters from around the country will come to see people being initiated. It’s a powerful moment for people to come together and bond over the addition of a few more people into the family. People support each other across chapters and organizations by proudly wearing their letters and attending these presentations. 

Nikayah shares a story where one of her line sisters was moved by one Delta tradition. When a Delta member graduates, gets married, or goes through a similar major event, other sorors will serenade her with the sweetheart song, a song that pays tribute to their love and commitment to one another. Nikayah’s line sister saw this at a wedding, where the bride, also a Delta, was serenaded with this song. This moment touched her so much that it solidified her decision to become a Delta. AudreyRose also treasures this tradition because she cherishes these beautiful and powerful moments to celebrate people, organizations, achievements, and heritage both in private and in public. 

Traditions like these and other private ones are special because it’s a way to connect everyone. Many of the traditions were established by either founding members or the earliest members of the organization, and participating in these traditions is like celebrating a legacy and connecting to older brothers or sisters that came before them. Kenneth admires how ceremonies can tie everyone in the room all back to this central place at a specific point in time in celebration and recognition of the struggles early members went through for current members to gather in a room today. AudreyRose emphasizes the importance of history especially because these traditions would not exist if these organizations did not have the long and rich history that they do. She says that if you don’t know where you’re coming from, you can’t have an idea of where you’re going. Going through traditions and ceremonies also reinforces the mission as an organization that were created specifically to serve Black communities. 

Next Steps

There’s a common misconception that everything is exclusive and secretive, which intimidates people and discourages them from asking questions. Nikayah says that it’s not true at all. She encourages anyone who is interested to reach out to people from different organizations and ask them questions. Find people from the chapter’s website or other social media platforms and initiate conversations! The best way to learn about an organization is by asking members about their experiences. Ask about the culture, programs, values, morals, people, and more. The worst that someone can say is that they can’t share specific information. In addition, Nikayah encourages people not to be afraid to explore multiple organizations to determine which will be the best fit. 

AudreyRose notes that even if you find an organization that you like, it’s paramount to actually reach out to the chapter near you or the one that you’d join and see if that is also a good fit. Ask questions and note the ways your questions are being answered because that might be telling of how the chapter operates. Pay attention to the interactions you have with people which should provide insight on what your experience would be like. Outside of reaching out, going to events hosted by different organizations is also really valuable. Moreover, it’s important to get to know members on a personal level. In the end, the people who know the chapter best are the members themselves, and members can help you determine if your values and goals are aligned with their chapter’s. Finally, if you don’t find a fit but love the organization, there are alumni chapters. What matters most is finding a place and support system that aligns with who you are and who you want to be.

No one marks you five minutes late⁠01 in MIT time, classes start five minutes past the hour. anymore, and I know it’s a college thing but part of me feels like I’ve gotten away with mischief every time I jump on at 9:05 am. Fix my home-cut bangs in the video cam while the chat room explodes with questions. I’m scribbling notes in colored pen, looking out the window at a Cambridge street below. Ambulances scream past, sometimes five in a week, and my computer, hearing the noise, alerts me that my microphone is off. This is the MIT I’ve come to.

When I went on a gap year, MIT seemed like a glass castle, so very far. Now I’m in Cambridge, reeling with a move cross-country and the start of the semester. In some ways, MIT is close. In other ways it feels distant, like a thought you once had that you can no longer grasp.

I will never have REX, the freshman orientation I’ve heard so much about. Instead I had the whirlwind of finding an apartment in Boston. No free-food events, but plenty of beds dropped on the side of the road, cheap furniture selling fast on Craigslist. No roller coasters have been built, but my roommate and I carried home a table and ladder from over a mile away.

That was a week ago, and I’m more settled in now. I’m still getting the feel of my classes, how to manage the ridiculously hard one so that I don’t skimp on the easy-but-fun ones. My roommates are MIT freshmen too, and some of them know how to cook, and day by day we’re finding a schedule. I’ve turned in my first pset, gone to my first office hours (and then second, and third). I’ve talked with my roommates about politics and race and philosophy until two am. I think these are MIT things.

I know that I am missing little things — I can’t borrow pens from the person next to me, smile when someone makes a joke, grimace at a new friend when scary long equations fill the board. I’m missing big things, too.

I am worried that I will not absorb MIT culture, since I am only interacting with freshmen who know just as much as me. I’m actually worried that the entire freshman class will not absorb MIT culture as previous classes have, and that therefore the culture, rather than shifting gradually from year to year, will alter abruptly. But I don’t have much evidence to substantiate this, and besides, there are so many Zoom gatherings for frosh and upperclassmen to mingle. In this world, anyway, it seems like a minor worry. 

As of now, I do get aspects of the MIT experience: an enthusiasm from students that shows even though zoom calls. I have classes that will keep me up into the small hours and knot my stomach with stress. I have classes that excite me. I feel like I’ve slogged through so much high school just to get to study what I care about. I have roommates who love coding, and maybe by the end of this they’ll have worn away my aversion to all things comp sci. I will spout facts from Greek history seminar until my roommates tell me to shut up. I’ll learn many things: chemistry, physics, and Greek history, with a supplemental education in how to pay bills, how to split chores and finances with roommates and negotiate without arguing. Adult stuff. Wild.

I don’t really want to be an adult yet — I’m happy to still be growing. I love this sense of wonder.

Every morning that I wake up on time, I run from my apartment to the Charles river. I cross the Smoot bridge and turn right, run along dorm row, knowing that some day, in four months or maybe twelve, I will call this place home.

For now, I am not on campus but isn’t Cambridge beautiful, with its trees and tiny shops, shingle houses and cars that stop for you when you walk into the road. Isn’t it spectacular that I can run past the Charles, where, unlike Arizona rivers, there is actual water. In Cambridge the heat doesn’t trap you inside after eight am. 

I am excited and a little scared, wide-eyed, sleep-deprived. I know that MIT will swallow me as a river does a stone: tumble me against the rocks, splinter and shape me. 

I think that I’m ready. Let’s see how it goes.

So.

I had a COVID false alarm this week, which is why I’m currently back at home instead of my new place in Cambridge. I think it’s ironic that my summer was so stress-free but that my life was so disrupted literally THREE weeks into the semester.

Anyways…

Last Friday, I woke up with a sore throat. I didn’t think much of it—I get colds quite often, it happens. My boyfriend told me that he’d had a sore throat two days ago, so I figured that I’d inevitably gotten it from him.

That night, I danced for four hours straight with my friends to 2010s bangers, which was the most fun I’ve had in a while. But it also was the first time I’d moved for more than like two (2) minutes at once in literal months, so my body wasn’t ready for it. Sure enough, I woke up on Saturday morning with awful muscle aches. My legs were so sore that I didn’t get out of bed for the rest of the day—I felt like a sandbag…

On Sunday, the fevers kicked in (alongside my fight or flight reflex). I grew convinced that I had COVID and spent the entire day locked in my room, venturing into the kitchen occasionally for a rare cup of tea or ~singular~ cherry tomato…my roommates weren’t really concerned about it since they’d disinfected the house and ventilated everything, but I felt pretty damn awful to be potentially putting them at risk.

Later that day, I found out that my boyfriend had just tested negative for COVID, but this did little to assuage my concerns. During my third nap of the day, at 6 pm, I was jerked out of half-consciousness by an…panic attack…? regarding why I’d have COVID and my boyfriend wouldn’t. It was terrifying and super weird—my barely-awake brain had one nonsensical thought that triggered a weird panic involving tunnel vision⁠21 when your vision is encircled by hundreds of tiny pinpricks until you can't see anymore that started happening to me earlier this summer. They’re rare, but I require full mental facilities to calm myself down, which is why I am BEWILDERED about doing it while half asleep. Damn.

On Sunday night, I stress-emailed S Cubed⁠22 student support services about getting extensions for two assignments: my lab for 6.009,⁠23 fundamentals of programming which sucks a full 3-4 days out of my week on average, and my 18.03⁠24 differential equations pset, which I simply did not have the mental energy to complete within the next few days. I pushed both deadlines from Friday to Tuesday and Monday, respectively, but given that I’d already lost three days I’d dedicate to both assignments…yikes. 18.03 and 6.009 are my hardest classes so far, given that 18.600⁠25 probability and random variables has had only a SINGLE pset that I finished within twenty minutes the day it was posted…

My other professors were super understanding, though; my Chinese professor excused me from quizzes and attendance scores for all the days I was gone, and my CI-H professor, who is dope as hell, told me to chill on his assignments until I was feeling better.

When I woke up on Monday, my muscle aches were gone, which clued me into the potential of them having stemmed from dancing way too much last Friday. I still felt like death, though, so I left Cambridge and went home to recover. With just two days of rest, I was completely back to normal.

The issue is that I’m behind in my classes. Like, really behind. Getting extensions made it easier for me to relax about assignments this week, but it means next week will be utter hell. I’m going to have to work the entire weekend so I don’t go into next week with four big assignments to deal with instead of just two.

So…sophomore year is going great, y’all!

I: Exposition.

II: Development.

III. Recapitulation.

IV. nREXt.

"the geography that I stands compares you superior"

nothing like a good old hitchhiker's guide reference

legend has it that they are still watching cursed videos at that zoom link to this day

bonus points if you can identify the source I found the "game of living" passage in

Previous Next