This is the 3rd part of our 4 part Sentimental Objects series! Here are parts 1 and 2 ! As we’ve described in the first two parts, we have a ceramic mushroom that we dub our memory mushroom, in which we place various memorabilia from the school year!

He has yet to successfully hold ALL of the objects we collect throughout the year, but he tries his best. We organized and arranged all these things into a hopefully aesthetic square-ish shape, and will now describe all of them as we reminisce.

1) Freshman Arts Program trinkets: a puppet we made for our fiber arts group’s weeklong puppet show project, random T passes, Museum of Fine Arts passes, wholesome sticky notes given to us by freshman in the program at the final FAP dinner, and our counselor portraits folded up

2) Rubber ducks from an arcade that we went to the last time we hung out with our high school friends before junior year started!

3) Presents from our friend Karen C. ‘20 <3<3

4) Business Cards from Jonathon Corbiere and Tyler Sammy, co-founder and Technical director of Thought Café! We met Jonathon and Tyler from an event the Animation Group hosted. At the end of the event there was a dinner that spaces opened up for, and we volunteered to fill in! So we had dinner with two of the people who make the Crash Course animations! It was really cool! We got to talk with them about Borderline and AR and animation and hear about their incredible work!

5) Birthday Cards from our wing in Next House, 3E! The drawings were done by Karen.

6) Pie Tin Awards from our wing’s end of year study break! Allan’s says “Least likely to wear the ring he designed” (guilty as charged ) and Danny’s says “Most likely or be drawing, Blogging or Both” (also true )

7) Tickets from the Apple Picking trip at the beginning of the year!

8) Little orange paintbrush charms that the former president of Borderline, Jierui F. ‘20, gave us and the rest of exec at the end of her last semester being prez! <3

9) Movie tickets from when we watched Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse with our high school friend over our winter break

10) The program from when we went to see our friends Katherine C. ‘19 and Karen perform at DT at the end of spring semester!

11) The program from Measure for Measure! Danny couldn’t make it because of his night class, so Allan went for both of us to support our friend in it!

12) A Thanksgiving note from Katherine <3

13) Danny’s name tag from the Reality Virtually hackathon he participated in over IAP!

14) Chroma’s third volume which we both made art for!

15) Our friend invited us to see Tuft’s production of GHOST QUARTET at the beginning of the year!!!!! WE WERE SO EXCITED BECAUSE WE ARE OBSESSED WITH THE SOUNDTRACK! SEEING IT LIVE WAS  A M A Z I N G (though admittedly no less confusing then just listening to the soundtrack lol)

16) The program from when we went to see an Opera on this year’s New York Art Scholar’s Trip! This was our first opera, and we realized, well, we’re not really opera people haha. Musicals are more of our thing (re: number 15 on this list) Regardless the trip was really fun!

17) A Totoro mug Danny got for our floor’s Secret Senpai Gift Exchange!

18) A mug Allan won in a raffle at an Animatic Boston panel we went to earlier this year!

19) The pamphlet for Borderline’s end of fall semester showcase!

20) The program from Next Act’s performance of Beauty and the Beast! IT WAS SO GOOD OMG

21) The program from a slightly confusing but overall really well put together play, Arcadia, that Danny went to see and his friend was props manager for.

22) The program from Shakespeare Ensemble’s performance of Richard the third! The lead was amazing, along with everyone else! We just wish we understood shakespearean English more

23) The end of fall semester ADT showcase, where we saw Katherine kill it!

24) The end of fall semester DT showcase, where we also saw Katherine kill it!

25) Random Trinkets from Allan’s IAP in California! A hand drawn map of the area I was staying, made by the program coordinator, and two prizes I won from a vintage arcade I went to!

26) A snowman plushy our grandparents brought us when they visited us around the Holidays!

27) The program from when we saw the musical Fun Home with our friend! IT WAS SO GOOD! Like omg all three Alison’s were AMAZING! And seeing Telephone Wire performed live gave us c h i l l s

28) The program from the Sakata end of year Performance! We saw Nia M. ‘20 slayyyyy!

29) The program from MTG’s production of Legally Blonde! IT WAS SO GOOD! The lead was amazing and was a FRESHMAN (along with many of the other cast members, who were also also insanely talented)!

30) An “I voted” sticker from when we voted in the Massachusetts Midterm elections!

31) A business card of an eccentric lady we met at Judy Jetson Hair Salon, when we went along with our friend getting a haircut!

32) Copies of Rune’s 39th edition, which we both have art in and which the cover art is made by  Danny!

33) Wrapping from Secret Santa presents from our high school friends!

34) Our friend Rukia H. ‘21 went to see Hamilton and brought us back playbills!!! She gave them to us when we watched the Wicked 30th Anniversary concert livestream together!

35) A Steven Universe comic Allan got for our floors Secret Senpai!

36) The old Borderline signage that Borderline Exec was gonna throw away, but we, being the hoarders we are, decided to keep instead

37) A No Face plushy that came with the mug from 17!!

Well, that’s it. Paralleling how we ended part 2 of this series, Are We Seniors Now? Ö

Here at MIT, because we’re edgy and unconventional, our equivalent to a regular college’s majors are called ‘courses’. We have a whole bunch of courses, a comprehensive list of which you can find here.

Almost every course at MIT has their own course lounge – a designated space for majors in each course to hang out, do their psets, and meet other people in their course. A few months ago, I had the idea for doing this post, but didn’t actually know how many course lounges there were, or if all the courses even had a lounge. I also didn’t know if people even liked their lounges or not. As a Course 6, I can firmly attest to the fact that our lounge sucks, and as a double major in CMS…well, CMS doesn’t even have a lounge. 01 Neither does the entirety of Course 21, including all of its subcourses.

Many months later, I present to you the results of my research 02 this literally took forever and it's still missing some pictures rip . I obtained this data by polling ec-discuss via Google Form 03 the East Campus and friends mailing list , not getting enough responses on the Google Form and asking Abby to dormspam it because I was too scared of fucking it up, and getting an MIT Confession (the first, and only to date) made about me.

One cool thing that came out of this was that a few CMS majors and I put the idea of having our own course lounge into the CMS department’s head, so maybe that’ll be something that happens in the next few years. The idea for this map came out of me being sad that I don’t have a lounge to go to and meet other CMS majors 04 There aren't very many of us so it would be cool to know all of them , so I’m glad that it might happen!

And to all the incoming prefrosh – I wish I didn’t need to say this, but please don’t choose your course based on how nice the course lounge is :P

The semester is over and I’m back at home, spread out on my much too familiar living room sofa. At this point, I should be familiar with how quickly 13 weeks go by. And just how little time there seems to be to process thing as they happen. But all of a sudden I’m at home again, with no impending deadlines and no where to be in particular. With nothing but all the time in the world for me to sit, staring at the ceiling, letting my thoughts carry me away.

The morning before I left campus, a group of friends and I made our way down to the Revere Beach (a short 15-20 minute drive from campus). In the midst of observing Ramadan and searching for a good farewell moment, we took along our pre-dawn meals with us. We spent the moments before dawn eating and hydrating to the compelling roar of the ocean. The wind had a refreshing coolness to it, and as we sat together watching the sky burst with color second by second, I found myself in awe. That the sky burst with this kind of color most days. And the wind carried a coolness with it often. But in the past few weeks, I had been so overwhelmed with final projects and exams that the only color I saw was the painted walls of Stud 5. And the only breeze I felt came from the AC in Barker library.

I woke up the next day to something equally grounding, but a million times more painful. A dear friend of mine had been hit by a drunk driver. She didn’t survive. In Islam, we have a saying. One that has continuously been said since. “Inna lilalhi wa inna ilayhi rajioon.” We belong to God and to God we shall return. I have all of the time in the world now. To process and to think. But sometimes having time isn’t enough.

Rather I’ve found myself making a mental list of reminders. Of things I believe strongly in and hold near and dear to my heart, but often will forget about when things get crazy:

• Routinely call family (all of them! second cousins! aunts and uncles! grandparents!)
• Schedule more dinners with friends, don’t just expect to run into people in the dining hall
• When hanging out with people, give them your undivided attention
• Let go of grudges. Don’t let bad-feelings build up.
• Begin your day with a shower (and some food)
• Learn from those around you
• Put yourself in other people’s shoes. People generally don’t walk around with bad intentions.
• Don’t intentionally talk ill of someone
• Tell people what they mean to you whenever you can
• Check up on people you haven’t heard from in a while
• Don’t hold off what you can do today for tomorrow
• Go out more, embrace the beauty of the world around you
• Remind yourself of the fragility of life
• Remember others fondly

It was 8:00pm on a Thursday night when I received a text message from a buddy who wanted to hang out. Since I was a college admissions officer in the month of April, naturally, I was at still at work. I was helping coordinate the opening show for our Campus Preview Weekend – a super fun and exciting event where all admitted students who come to campus get together for the first time. The Logarhythms were preparing for soundcheck and Mocha Moves, one of our amazing hip hop dance groups, were practicing their choreography on-stage when I responded to my friend:

• Me: Hey! I’m just organizing this big event at work right now.
• Him: Ohhh. A big rejection party?
• Me: We’re actually celebrating the students who were accepted and trying to help them build community!
• Him: Lol. Hmmmm. Acceptance for some. Rejection for most. How could you work there?

It’s definitely wasn’t the first (or, unfortunately, the last) time that I would have such a reaction when I informed people about what I do for a living. And yes, turning down applications is a huge part of the job. However, when I think of the colleagues I work with on a daily basis, none of us particularly enjoy the rejection part of our job. And none of us are the evil, cynical monsters I think we’re sometimes thought of as. So, I thought it’d be helpful to tell you all a bit about how I got to MIT and answer “how I could possibly work here.”

If we rewind to when I was in high school (a much simpler time when Tyra Banks was the only host of America’s Next Top Model and RuPaul hadn’t purchased HD cameras yet so her entire show was filmed with a vaseline-like filter), I was quite confused during my own college application process. Although my parents were incredibly supportive of my dreams and aspirations, neither had attended college themselves and couldn’t be as helpful as they wanted to be when it came to making a college list or completing an application. I had a guidance counselor at school, but with over 300 students on her caseload and no one specializing in college applications, I was pretty much on my own. I only went on two college tours and thought I had to apply Early Decision to the second school I toured; that’s where I ended up, even though the financial aid package offered was unaffordable for my family.

During my time in undergrad, the Admissions Office became a second home for me on-campus. My supervisors, amazing women of color who came from similar backgrounds as myself, helped me when I struggled with the racial climate of my school or family pressures. When my dad lost his job halfway through my undergrad experience, these mentors helped me figure out a way to graduate a year early because I couldn’t afford to attend school any longer.

When I started looking for jobs, I ended up working as a College Access Counselor at a community-based organization called Bottom Line because I wanted to continue to help first-generation students through the college application process and think about financial planning. After counseling two cohorts of students (yes, that means I completed over 120 FAFSAs over 2 years – I feel your pain), I became increasingly interested in the college process. Why were some of the students I loved not being admitted to their favorite schools, and why were other students being admitted when I didn’t think those schools would give them a chance? There would be only one way to find out – so I threw my application into the running and here I am at MIT.

Yes, selection is a huge part of our jobs and takes over our entire lives for many months out of the year. However, my goal when reading an application is never to just find a reason to deny. My goal is to hear your stories, learn about your dreams and aspirations, and read the amazing things your teachers and counselors have to say about you.  When we move through the committee process, our goal is to look at all components of your application and try to holistically understand the world you come from and how you navigate that world. We get emotionally attached to applications, even though we know we shouldn’t, and lose sleep over students whose stories impact us (and sometimes, because of our committee-based process, those students don’t get in).

Additionally, there is so much more to my job than selection. We get to present information sessions both here in Cambridge and on the road to share accurate information about applying to our institution, we give your counselors and teachers advice about their recommendations for you, and some of us even write blog posts to inform you about what we’re thinking! I also love supervising our student employees because I hope to be a resource to them as someone who has navigated college as a first-gen, Black and Puerto Rican, queer student.

I don’t view my job as denying people – I view my job as advocating for students in our admissions process. I relay information to prospective students to alleviate their stress and guide them on a successful path to admission. I sweat, bleed (paper cuts are REAL!), and cry at work not because I love being mean and denying people, but because I don’t want any of you to make the same mistakes I did going through my college application process and I want to make sure we are making ethical decisions as we select our incoming class.

Does any of this make getting rejected from MIT any easier? Probably not. But when you meet us on-campus, on the road (over the next several months, I’ll be in Philadelphia, NYC, St. Louis, and many places in between), or over the phone, know that we are here to help you. In fact, that’s why I got into this line of work! Many of us were once just as confused about college as you might be now, and most of us just want to make the process less daunting for you (at least, as much as we can). And know that we are not hired to be dream destroyers – we’re hired to make MIT’s application more accessible, to find new and innovative ways to communicate our mission, and to support students once they’re on our campus.

I wake up a minute before my alarm goes off, at 8.59 am. This has been happening for the last two weeks, and I don’t know why. I bitterly get up, say good morning to my roommate, and head for the bathrooms, mourning that minute of sleep that I’ll never get back. I reward myself with a twenty-minute shower, and go back to my room, pick out my clothes- khaki shorts and a lion-face-print top, since it’s a warm spring day and I’m in high spirits. It’s my first post-finals day- my semester officially ended yesterday. My roommate leaves, and I ask her if she has any finals today- no, she says. She has two on Thursday, Economics and Math. I wish her all the best and I really do mean it. She was taking some tough classes this semester, and I’ve seen her put in lots of time and effort into them. I know she’ll do great.

I walk to my hall’s kitchen and immediately thank the gods for finals week. My GRT, bless his soul, cooked up an amazing breakfast spread for us. I gobble down some food and bounce out of my dorm. I have a doctor’s appointment at 10.20, so I cross the street to Medical and check in at the desk. I’m preparing to travel to India for my MISTI (watch this space for deets on this!) and I’m there to get my travel shots. There was a slight mix-up with my appointment, and I end up waiting for twenty minutes to see the doctor- I don’t mind. I flick through my Instagram feed, appreciating the fact that I can now engage in my social media ritual without the guilt I usually would have if I had psets to do and exams to study for. My doctor is really nice, and takes me through health precautions I should have while traveling and while abroad- I should take malaria pills every day while there and seven days after I leave, I should spray insect repellant on all exposed skin if I’m outside for long periods of time, and I absolutely must keep myself hydrated at all times.

I have to get three shots. At this point, I’m not even shaken by needles anymore. I had to get eight shots before I travelled to school, and three follow-up shots four months after that. At the nurse’s office, I eye the three gigantic needles laid out on the table and my nonchalant demeanor cracks just a little. They’re massive. I’m scared, but I would never admit it. The nurse makes small talk as she circles round me, and I barely notice her jab the first needle into my right arm. This isn’t so bad. The second one goes in my left arm, and I wince. The third one wasn’t as bad at the second, and we’re done! She tells me I’ve been very brave, and I get three band-aids to show off. Nice. She asks if I need a few minutes to lie down, but I’m already picking up my stuff. I’m ready to go.

Back at my dorm, I write out three cards for my professors, teaching assistants and Seminar XL staff. They have been imperative to my progress in my classes this semester, and I need to appreciate them. I pack a few clothes, since I’ve rather spontaneously decided to ride out to Providence to visit my friend tonight, and a library book that I need to return, and leave to deliver my cards. One of my TAs isn’t in his office, and I decide to leave his card at the department office. I rummage through my bag but I can’t find it. Oh, yes. I forgot to carry the actual cards. This is why I live in a dorm that’s close to school. I run to EC, get the cards, run back, leave the cards at their respective offices, return my library book and chat with my friend who’s working desk at the library. He has a final the next day but can’t seem to stop himself from watching YouTube music videos. I relate so hard.

I walk to Kendall, get on the red line, smile at a cute dog on the train, enjoy the priceless view we get of Boston and the Charles River at the Longfellow bridge, and get off at South Station. The next train to Providence leaves in half an hour, so I’m in good time. I dilly-dally at the station, watch the crowds of people coming and going, till I finally I hear the boarding call for my train. As we queue to get on, I notice the people ahead of me getting their tickets checked- we had to buy tickets? I’d taken this train before, and usually I just get on and pay on the way. I have five minutes to get a ticket before the train leaves. I sprint to the ticket offices, and there’s an actual queue. I’m impatient, but in reality, this is my fault, so I try not to glare at the attendants as I wait my turn. In a few minutes, I have my ticket, and I sprint back to the train. I’m one of the last passengers to get on. Phew.

Since I have leeway to be as Unproductive as I want to be, I watch Netflix on the way, occasionally glancing outside to enjoy the view. My arm suddenly develops a painful ache. I’d all but forgotten I had received three jabs earlier. It seems that now my body is out of its initial shock and ready to process the pain. Wonderful. In a few minutes, I can barely move both my arms without grunting in pain. I gulp down a couple of Tylenols which I always keep in my bag for emergencies like these. After a forty-minute train ride, we pull up at Providence Station. Maps lets me know it’s a fifteen-minute walk to my friend’s dorm, and since the weather is wonderful, I don’t mind a little stroll through the beautiful town of Providence. There’s much less traffic than Boston, and it’s much windier, I notice. We buy a substantial amount of Mexican food and chat about our respective semesters, and our first year at college. How much we’ve changed, and how different we are from the wide-eyed, euphoric, rather clueless people we were a year ago when we first arrived. It’s incredible, to say the least. Right before we go to bed, I remember to turn my morning alarms off- the official sign that summer is upon us, and so is sleep, sunshine and spontaneous adventures.

three days ago, after i finished squeezing all my summer clothes and important possessions into a suitcase weighing a little over 50 pounds, a stuffed backpack, and a very stuffed guitar case, i hopped on a 6 hour flight to los angeles to start my internship at PlayStation’s Santa Monica Studio on the God of War team.⁠01 dope, right??? i get so many discounts woooo after dropping all of my stuff at my (nicer than expected) Airbnb, i spent an afternoon and the next day wandering around LA
completing various errands ⁠02 groceries, getting a bus card, etc. . i’ve never been to LA, so i formed a lot of first impressions, both good and bad. here they are:

• this city was not made for walking >:( i’m used to walking almost everywhere in boston, but in the past few day i’ve missed an uber because i couldn’t find a crosswalk to go over to where it was waiting, and had to backtrack to cross the street because the sidewalk ended on the side i had been on initially. this doesn’t mean that the city was made for driving either – the bus system is pretty good from what i’ve seen. there are very few pedestrians as well, so walking on the streets is kind of lonely.
• the roads are so wide. wish the sidewalks were wider :P
• people drive so fast?? i’m actually too afraid to jaywalk, which sucks, because there are only crosswalks at the traffic lights, which are all very far apart
• there are no trees and the sky is so big. i’ve lived in new england for the vast majority of my life, and i’m used to seeing real trees blocking out most of the skyline, not some scraggly palm trees on the side of the road. seeing so much sky makes me uncomfortable in unquantifiable ways – i feel exposed, and sort of like a giant eagle could drop out of the sky and grab me at any moment
• there are so many pink houses!! they’re so cute. some of the spanish style architecture here is really aesthetic.
• the weather is so lovely. i wish everywhere was like this. it’s not too hot yet and there always seems to be a nice breeze coming from somewhere.
• i love being so close to the beach!! i never go to the beach and barely ever put on a swimsuit. but now, the beach is 2 miles from my work and i’m planning to go with other interns this week :)

i started work yesterday and i think i’m going to have a great summer :) PlayStation is spoiling us and has lots of fun things planned for us, and i’m also super pumped to be working with the
God of War team ⁠03 even though i only started playing the game yesterday, whoops because they’re
among the best in the industry ⁠04 lowkey the best in the industry at the moment and i’m excited to learn from them :)

i haven’t explored downtown LA at all yet, but i’m particularly excited for Little Tokyo because of course i am. i’m also going to this year’s LA pride parade with other MIT friends and
will be attending E3 2019 with the God of War team ⁠05 !!! we get an entire day off for it too , which is super exciting since i’ve wanted to go to E3 for about 5 years now :)

in short, lots of fun things planned for the summer! i’ll try to keep blogging about it.

here’s a photodump of the very few pictures i’ve taken near where i work and live, and a couple of pictures of the few things i’m allowed to take pictures of at Santa Monica Studios :P

I wake up a minute before my alarm goes off, at 8.59 am. This has been happening for the last two weeks, and I don’t know why. I bitterly get up, say good morning to my roommate, and head for the bathrooms, mourning that minute of sleep that I’ll never get back. I reward myself with a twenty-minute shower, and go back to my room, pick out my clothes- khaki shorts and a lion-face-print top, since it’s a warm spring day and I’m in high spirits. It’s my first post-finals day- my semester officially ended yesterday. My roommate leaves, and I ask her if she has any finals today- no, she says. She has two on Thursday, Economics and Math. I wish her all the best and I really do mean it. She was taking some tough classes this semester, and I’ve seen her put in lots of time and effort into them. I know she’ll do great.

I walk to my hall’s kitchen and immediately thank the gods for finals week. My GRT, bless his soul, cooked up an amazing breakfast spread for us. I gobble down some food and bounce out of my dorm. I have a doctor’s appointment at 10.20, so I cross the street to Medical and check in at the desk. I’m preparing to travel to India for my MISTI (watch this space for deets on this!) and I’m there to get my travel shots. There was a slight mix-up with my appointment, and I end up waiting for twenty minutes to see the doctor- I don’t mind. I flick through my Instagram feed, appreciating the fact that I can now engage in my social media ritual without the guilt I usually would have if I had psets to do and exams to study for. My doctor is really nice, and takes me through health precautions I should have while traveling and while abroad- I should take malaria pills every day while there and seven days after I leave, I should spray insect repellant on all exposed skin if I’m outside for long periods of time, and I absolutely must keep myself hydrated at all times.

I have to get three shots. At this point, I’m not even shaken by needles anymore. I had to get eight shots before I travelled to school, and three follow-up shots four months after that. At the nurse’s office, I eye the three gigantic needles laid out on the table and my nonchalant demeanor cracks just a little. They’re massive. I’m scared, but I would never admit it. The nurse makes small talk as she circles round me, and I barely notice her jab the first needle into my right arm. This isn’t so bad. The second one goes in my left arm, and I wince. The third one wasn’t as bad at the second, and we’re done! She tells me I’ve been very brave, and I get three band-aids to show off. Nice. She asks if I need a few minutes to lie down, but I’m already picking up my stuff. I’m ready to go.

Back at my dorm, I write out three cards for my professors, teaching assistants and Seminar XL staff. They have been imperative to my progress in my classes this semester, and I need to appreciate them. I pack a few clothes, since I’ve rather spontaneously decided to ride out to Providence to visit my friend tonight, and a library book that I need to return, and leave to deliver my cards. One of my TAs isn’t in his office, and I decide to leave his card at the department office. I rummage through my bag but I can’t find it. Oh, yes. I forgot to carry the actual cards. This is why I live in a dorm that’s close to school. I run to EC, get the cards, run back, leave the cards at their respective offices, return my library book and chat with my friend who’s working desk at the library. He has a final the next day but can’t seem to stop himself from watching YouTube music videos. I relate so hard.

I walk to Kendall, get on the red line, smile at a cute dog on the train, enjoy the priceless view we get of Boston and the Charles River at the Longfellow bridge, and get off at South Station. The next train to Providence leaves in half an hour, so I’m in good time. I dilly-dally at the station, watch the crowds of people coming and going, till I finally I hear the boarding call for my train. As we queue to get on, I notice the people ahead of me getting their tickets checked- we had to buy tickets? I’d taken this train before, and usually I just get on and pay on the way. I have five minutes to get a ticket before the train leaves. I sprint to the ticket offices, and there’s an actual queue. I’m impatient, but in reality, this is my fault, so I try not to glare at the attendants as I wait my turn. In a few minutes, I have my ticket, and I sprint back to the train. I’m one of the last passengers to get on. Phew.

Since I have leeway to be as Unproductive as I want to be, I watch Netflix on the way, occasionally glancing outside to enjoy the view. My arm suddenly develops a painful ache. I’d all but forgotten I had received three jabs earlier. It seems that now my body is out of its initial shock and ready to process the pain. Wonderful. In a few minutes, I can barely move both my arms without grunting in pain. I gulp down a couple of Tylenols which I always keep in my bag for emergencies like these. After a forty-minute train ride, we pull up at Providence Station. Maps lets me know it’s a fifteen-minute walk to my friend’s dorm, and since the weather is wonderful, I don’t mind a little stroll through the beautiful town of Providence. There’s much less traffic than Boston, and it’s much windier, I notice. We buy a substantial amount of Mexican food and chat about our respective semesters, and our first year at college. How much we’ve changed, and how different we are from the wide-eyed, euphoric, rather clueless people we were a year ago when we first arrived. It’s incredible, to say the least. Right before we go to bed, I remember to turn my morning alarms off- the official sign that summer is upon us, and so is sleep, sunshine and spontaneous adventures.

seattle felt foriegn to me as i walked its avenues, but i wasn’t comparing how foriegn it felt from my hometown in long island, new york, but to boston, and to cambridge, and to MIT. they have successfully replaced the definition of ‘home’ in my subconcious.

i’m in a completely different mindset compared to three weeks ago. then, i was still in MIT mode, thinking about final assignments and projects for the semester, thinking about 6.033, being with a community of friends i lived with and saw daily. i turned 21. the semester finally ended, and people started to slowly move out. by friday, when i left, 2 east was a ghost town, stripped and boxed and stored away for three months. i moved back home⁠01 real home for a week, where i was mostly alone, besides the two days i met some of my high school friends⁠02 playing smash, and also, letterkenny problems: when post-10pm half-off-apps-dollar-rita applebee's is the standard for meetups. and the two days i spent with joanna.⁠03 going to the city, and to round one, probably one of the best arcade/game center chains imho the other days were alonely spent consuming media⁠04 watching anime, playing league, playing overwatch, playing osu… , brushing up on javascript and python⁠05 i'll most likely be working with node.js this summer , reading books⁠06 some manga, and also i want to start pachinko by min jin lee , and being bored. i’d been surrounded with people for an entire semester, and now i had to entertain myself with no psets, no meetings, and nothing due. i wanted to spend a day in nyc from sheer boredom, but it rained consistently throughout the week, which was enough of a deterrent.

now, i’m in a simple but generous apartment in kirkland, washington, about to start my first day as a software engineering intern at godaddy in 9ish hours. here, and in seattle, there are hills – so many hills. the people act different. the HOV lane is often on the right. streets are more rigid, unlike the loopiness of boston. it feels so much larger. the east coast is three hours behind.

i always entertained the idea of living and working for an extended period of time on the west coast almost like a romanticized dream, even while aware of its cons. as someone who was born and grew up on the east coast, the west coast is so far away that it might as well be another country. 07 a significant portion of non-americans would balk at the fact that it took me 5 hours on a plane to get from one point in the country to another. the west coast had an allure to it that was due to not having experienced it. now that i’m about to start that experience, i’m not sure how i feel.

i feel contradictory emotions that are somehow able to coexist: the happiness and contentment of where i am right here and right now – and the lingering doubt, the sinking feeling of you didn’t deserve this. although the happiness wins over this doubt by a longshot, if i dig deep, it’s there. it’s a very human reminder that i still subconciously have a little impostor syndrome, and that’s okay.

fun fact: my first iPod ever was the first-generation iPod shuffle, the one that looked like a late-00s 256MB USB stick. the first album i downloaded to it was Ocean Eyes by Owl City.

♫ hello seattle, i am a mountaineer… ♫

all that being said, i’m really excited. :) i should probably go to sleep, so here’s a some photos. 08 being a tourist here is really fun. but i also want to be more than a tourist eventually!

It is summer, and I have zero⁠01 virtually, i.e. I'm still blogging and stuff but there are not currently any urgent MIT-related items that require action on my part responsibilities at MIT for the first time ever in my 3+ years here. The early-mid-late-semester Stress that normally sits on my shoulders⁠02 I really need to work on my posture is locked in a storage unit in Charlestown, waiting for me to unpack it again in August. One of the many things Stress made difficult was responding promptly to important emails. As anyone who knows Stress can attest, not responding to emails makes Stress get heavier.

Oddly enough, now that Stress and I are on separate coasts, I have begun to crave emails.⁠03 I have also begun to crave metaphor. Just when I got the time to respond to them, they stopped showing up. I’m sitting here in a corporate coffee shop chain, typing on my laptop, Cynthia A Harris – Outlook Web App open in the background.

It’s gotten bad enough that I have begun to send unprompted emails. The first one was to a Herff Jones representative.⁠04 I lost my silver brass rat in January and haven't started the process to get it replaced yet :/ The second one was a soft complaint to SFS⁠05 some concern about award adjustment for the uninsured as well as jobs at MIT being counted as part of the award; basically stuff I've been disgruntled about since before I even got to campus about what is included in a financial aid award. The latter made me reflect on other emails I’ve sent as an adult and thus supplied the impetus for this post. (Editor’s note: After finishing this post, I decided to check if this has been written about before. Of course, as with many of my (non-admissions blog) post ideas, Vice already did it. The Vice article arrived at a different conclusion that I don’t disagree with, but I think since my post is sort of personal and not necessarily intended to be generalized, everything should be fine.)

After some reflection, I’ve come up with three reasons why it is hard for me to compose, revise, and send emails.

1. I do not want to come across as bitchy in my emails.
2. I do not know how not to Feel, Think, or have things Seem To Me.
3. I am self-conscious about the number of “I”s in my writing.

According to my own personal psychoanalysis,⁠06 p a t h o l o g y these issues stem from an inability to be assertive the correct amount at the correct times in the correct ways. As I dug down to Frasier Crane levels of depth,⁠07 tfw your boyfriend had Cheers playing in the background for the entire month of April I came to the conclusion that this may be a symptom of my battle with being a woman in society.⁠08 Important caveat: This is regarding my personal experience, as I'm sure it's not just Women who have these feelings, nor do even Women necessarily feel this way as a result of their Womanhood. In fact, I expressed these thoughts to a Man friend who related to a lot of these points, which makes me think this may just be a broader human experience thing. Gender roles are tattooed in the folds of my pretty little dainty little baby pink brain, and I think that everyone, however subconsciously, is judging my actions as compared to the archetypal Woman. It’s usually Women who are labelled “bitchy.” Women are stereotypically people of pathos who naturally communicate with I Feel statements. Self-confident Women are only a few “I”s away from being vain or narcissistic Women. I never felt this fear in high school, but back then I sent way fewer emails⁠09 Incoming students: prepare your Delete finger for the onslaught that is dormspam and knew the recipients understood that they were corresponding with a Child, not an Adult Woman.

I like being a woman! I think the stereotypical womanly empathy is an attribute mankind should strive for. But I want to be a woman whose opinions and comments aren’t disregarded due to implicit biases. From birth we are forced to compete. I can’t fix⁠10 we live in a society, man any of this myself, but here are some things I’m trying out.

Postscripts to Clarify Intent

I am the new desk captain at MacGregor, meaning I get to send a lot of passive aggressive emails about people doing things incorrectly. I just got the job, and fear that a combination of dry, slightly irritated emails and my down-turned mouth corners will contribute to my bitchy reputation. I don’t want that. In light of this, I have embarked on a new pilot campaign: just add a “not intended to be bitchy” clause at the end of the email!

The only real issue I’ve had with this is I don’t know how to do this for emails to adults who would be offended at me using the word “bitchy.” Drop your suggestions in the comments! For now I’ll just painstakingly read over those emails extra closely to make sure they’re nice.

Just Go Through and Delete Pheel-y Phrases

I feel like starting sentences with opinion qualifier phrases is an empathetic and understanding way to communicate. However, I think it dampens the forcefulness of your statements a bit. It seems to me that people take your thoughts more seriously when you declare rather than suggest.

Starting sentences with opinion qualifier phrases is an empathetic and understanding way to communicate. However, it dampens the forcefulness of your statements a bit. People take your thoughts more seriously when you declare rather than suggest.

Honestly, I don’t know if that’s necessarily true. I think and I feel do not need to be removed from standard usage; they’re useful. But when I’m writing something that is supposed to be a sort of call to action,⁠11 or much more commonly when I'm reading someone/something for filth I go through and cut anything that might suggest I’m expressing an opinion not a fact. I do not know when I became an expert on rhetoric, but this approach works for me when I occasionally have to ASSERT.

Unless You Start Every Sentence with “I”, No One Is Going to Notice It

This one is more of a mind thing than a writing thing. Snipping out the I feels can cut down on your I usage, but honestly who really notices this? Especially if the email is about I? And often it is?

This brings us to the end of the tour. If you have any strong reactions to this or more tips on how to improve my email writery,⁠12 or my writery in general... like many writers I am of the opinion that I suck at this please leave those in the comments.

Seriously. I don’t have any emails to respond to anymore and I am starving for new prompts. Please.

Before I started working at MIT, I had never driven on the highway.⁠01 Or freeway or expressway or interstate or autobahn or whatever regional term you use for a major road that you drive relatively fast on I grew up in Nashville, TN, a driving city, but I somehow avoided driving on the highway while I was in high school. Living in the Boston area for the past 10+ years, I have had no need for a car and have instead happily relied on public transportation to get around.

But as you can imagine, recruiting for MIT has required venturing far beyond where the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) can take me. So 9 months into the job, I had to learn how to drive on the highway. I took a couple driving lessons for adults. Former Director of Admissions Matt forced me to practice driving as we visited high schools together in the suburbs of Boston and very kindly tolerated my expletives.

“Maybe I’ll have a six-pack by the end of this,” I thought to myself as I clenched everything.

—–

After 5+ years at MIT Admissions, I’ve accumulated quite a lot of mileage. I’ve been fortunate to travel to over 35 cities and 20 states on behalf of MIT. I’ve driven through deserts, onto ferries, in downpours, over bridges, above swamps, past mesas, across time zones, under rainbows, and yes, on many highways. My favorite part of traveling is visiting high schools and community-based organizations. I love meeting students⁠02 I should note that we don't track demonstrated interest, so whether or not you are able to meet an MIT admissions officer at your high school, in your hometown, or even on our campus has zero impact on your admissions decision. and seeing a slice of the worlds you walk in, even if only for an hour or so.

My least favorite part of traveling is eating alone. Somehow, food doesn’t taste as good when I’m dining by myself. I think maybe the talking or affirming I do when feasting with company aerates my food such that the flavors are fuller and more vibrant. I don’t know – I’m not a scientist!

I have, however, taken to traveling with a buddy: our mascot, Flat Tim. He’s not great company for those lonely dinners (he’s not very chatty), but sometimes, when I am about to take a break from the constant movement of recruitment travel and sit in silence in my car or hotel room, I think to myself, “Would Flat Tim do it for the ‘Gram? Yes, he would.” Then I muster up the energy to go to see the local sights.

So here is a sample of my adventures with Flat Tim. You might notice that he’s undergone a couple makeovers⁠03 Flat Tim 1.0 I made myself. He's reinforced with a file folder and covered in packaging tape to protect him from the elements. Flat Tim 2.0 was distributed to all admissions officers. He was printed on card stock and laminated. I still use both Flat Tims, and I have sometimes used a Tim sticker, when I have forgotten to pack a Flat Tim. over the years, but I hope you enjoy!

Sightseeing

High Schools & Community-Based Organizations⁠04 I don't usually take pictures during my visits to high schools and community-based organizations, but I swear I'm doing work and meeting with lots of students and families on these trips!

Other Universities⁠05 <em>Students sometimes ask me if we talk to admissions officers from other schools about their applications, and rest assured, we don’t! However, we do often collaborate with other universities to broaden our reach and provide opportunities to more students than we would be able to by ourselves.</em>

But of course, there is no place like home!

(webcast embedded from commencement website. I’ll return to this blog post throughout the day to add pictures and videos). 

Today, Friday, June 7th, the Class of 2019 graduates from MIT. They were admitted, auspiciously, on Super Pi Day (3/14/15 at 9:26AM) to begin their MIT education; now, a few years later, we have taught them what they can, and they belong to the world. 

The commencement address will be given today by Michael Bloomberg, with other remarks by class leaders and President Reif. You can watch these remarks, and the distribution of the diplomas (yes, we hand all the real ones out, and read all the names of everyone graduating), in the embedded webcast above. 

On Wednesday night, I had the honor of giving the Senior Class Toast, an annual celebration of the graduating class. After some introductory remarks (and light roasting) about their origins as a class, here is what I told them: 

Then, that August, you arrived; suddenly, four years later, you are here, about to depart. For me, and for you too, that time has both seemed too long and too short. If you’re like me, when I was about to graduate from grad school at MIT, you may currently be full of several different, and seemingly incompatible, emotions, a few of which I want to name and honor:

– Sadness that MIT is over, and relief that MIT is over

– An incredible sense of excitement about all the opportunities you have before you, and an incredible sense of anxiety over which of them will be yours

– A sense of accomplishment at having completed one of the most difficult and rewarding challenges of your life so far, and a sense of numb, “is that it?” malaise that its completion has not, of itself, brought you happiness or meaning or fulfillment

If you are feeling any or all of these emotions — or others that I have not yet named — then I want you to know that it is okay, and that it is normal. It is also okay, and it is normal, to feel a sense of destabilization, of an inevitable shift in your identity, of a sense of who, what, and why you are. Personally, it took me a full year after commencement before I started feeling ‘like myself’ again, meaning before I had decompressed and processed my grad school experience enough that I could really synthesize who I had been and what the Institute had made me into a unified person I could recognize in the mirror. If that is true for some of you now, or later in life, just know that it is a process, and it takes time.

Like MIT, this process of building your new identity is something you will have to endure. And it turns out the etymology of the word ‘endure’ traces to a 1382 English translation of Acts 19:9: “Summe weren endurid, or maad hard.” But the original word has two distinct meanings: to be made callous and indifferent, or to become sturdy, durable,, capable. One of the most important lessons of doing anything difficult, or having anything difficult done to you, is trying, as hard as you can, to tend toward the latter. It turns out that this is a lesson you will have to live and learn for the rest of your life.

Here is a small piece of advice I want to give you on how to do that: I don’t sleep with my brass rat on. One reason is so that, when i get up every morning, and get ready to go out into the world, the small daily ritual of slipping it on reminds me to be my best person: the most intelligent, rigorous, enduring, yes, but also the most humane, the most empathetic, the person most worthy of the privileges and obligations that a place like MIT confers and also a place like the world needs. Because, in case you haven’t noticed, the rest of the world is in desperate need of people who are all of those things: intelligent and kind, hardworking and humane, capable and compassionate, and so on.

Four years ago, you were given a spot in the Class of 2019 because we saw something in you: a resourcefulness, an initiative, a potential, a dedication; something that could improve MIT, and the world after. And, as anthropology teaches us, gifts are given in order to create a sense of obligation that brings both the giver and recipient closer together. Your obligations — to always be conscious of your power and privilege, to remember that there but for the grace of god (and an admissions committee that believed in you) go you, to a world that we must collectively rebuild if we are going to have a common future — are in this sense not a result of attending MIT, but the reason for it.

I graduated from college 10 years ago, into the Great Recession, which in retrospect is when in my life it first seemed like everything solid was dissolving into air. Now, you are graduating into a world where our entire shared political, economic, and ecological future is uncertain and very much at stake. I want you to know that I have never been more discouraged by the world as I find it, but also and simultaneously never more hopeful about the prospects of a better one, and that the biggest reason for that is everyone younger and smarter than me, and that includes everyone in this room, who have the unique abilities, aptitudes, and moral clarity to actually create it. There is immense power and potential in this room, more than even we realized on Super Pi Day in 2015; it turns out that the illuminati is real after all, and that’s because it is all of you.

So please, raise a toast with me to the Class of 2019, in honor of what you have done to get you here, and in the hope of realizing the better world that you can build together if you remain as dedicated, creative, and considerate as you have had to become to get into, and out of this place. To see the alternative futures that are still possible and work towards the right one as you worked at MIT: together.

To you, to the past that got you here, and to this vision of your future — cheers.

Disclaimer: This post was supposed to be written a whole 6 months ago. Pictures were taken, trips were made, food was scrutinized. But as happens a bit too often, writing this actual post got pushed further and further down my to-do list. But here it finally is!

Hey everybody! I’m Lady Afeefah and we’re rolling out looking for MIT’s greatest Diners, Dig-Ins and Dives! This trip, we’re trekking to all corners of campus, trying the all-you-can-eat dinners that each of the five dining halls have to offer. Which dining hall is the best? Campus might have a general consensus. But tbh there’s only one way to know. (Huge shoutout to the many friends who joined me on this adventure. Food is a million times better with good company!)

Monday Dec 10, 2018 : Maseeh Hall

Maseeh’s dining hall is by the far the biggest one on campus. With an ample amount of seating and multiple stations, including pizza, a salad bar, the grille, comfort foods, daily specials and kosher foods, the hall is open for business for most hours of the day. Maseeh serves breakfast, lunch, dinner and late night meals. While this all sounds great, one could argue that Maseeh does quantity better than quality.

What I ate: After scoping the many different stations set up in Maseeh, I decided on the safest option there is: a freshly-grilled bean burger with a side of a self-made salad. And while the burger was nice and warm and the salad was refreshing, personally it’s always a little disappointing when I come back to the same old burger given the variety of food Maseeh offers. As someone who observes a halal-diet, my options are cut in half and what little vegetarian options do exist just don’t seem appetizing or filling.

Overall rank: 5

Tuesday Dec 11, 2018: McCormick Hall

I really really wish I had a photo of this meal. But I guess I was just too excited to start eating that I completely forgot to snap a picture. But just imagine a beautiful, incredibly colorful plate of cashew pilao, topped with a spicy chicken tikka masala. On the side, aloo palak and warm pieces of naan.

McCormick’s dining hall is the smallest on campus, but it’s the one that I eat at most often. Partially, because it’s the closest to me, but mainly because it ALWAYS has a halal-option. McCormick has the reputation of serving comfort food that is as close as you’ll get to a home-cooked meal. On a weekly basis, food rotates between Monday-night quesadillas to Tuesday-night Indian food to Thursday-night Sushi. Once a month, it serves specials including African food, Southern Soul Food, Courtyard BBQs and many other student-requested meals. All in all McCormick is comfy, familiar and reliable.

Overall Rank: 2

Wednesday Dec 12, 2018: Baker Hall

To be completely honest, this was my first time eating at Baker. Even after being on campus for a whole year and a half, I hadn’t heard much about Baker’s dining hall. Baker is the one dining hall that is open through many of the mid-semester breaks, ensuring that students staying on campus still have access to food.

What I ate: It looked like I had waken in on an asian-inspired dinner menu, complete with vegetable spring rolls, chow-mein and a vegetable fried rice. While Baker also does not offer halal meat, I was fairly content with the vegetarian options. As expected the food was not authentic, but it wasn’t bad either.

Overall Rank: 4

Thursday Dec 13, 2018: Next House

Although eating at Next House involves a 15 min march to the end of dorm row, the food here makes the travel worth it. Although at a smaller scale, Next also includes a grille, salad bar and daily specials. While Next doesn’t offer halal meat, it does offer salmon burgers at the grill which makes most pescatarians happy. The dining hall also offers really cozy seating, like really really cozy. Restaurant cozy. *Biaser alert* General consensus is that this is in fact the best dining hall on campus.

What I ate: Artichoke and broccoli mac and cheese with a side of baby spinach salad, butter and toast and beautifully cut strawberries and pineapple. Overall, I really enjoyed my meal. It had just the write amount of tastefulness, comfort, variety and healthy. Complaints? I have none.

Overall rank: 1

Friday Dec 14, 2018: Simmons Hall

I ALWAYS eat at Simmons on my cheat day. I don’t think there’s been a single time that I’ve at Simmons and chose to eat healthy. That’s not to say that Simmons doesn’t have healthy options, it just that it does the treat-yourself items so well. Simmons also has multiple stations, including a grill that can make a mean portobello burger.

What I ate: Pizza, pasta with marinara sauce, a side of tortilla chips and fries. Eating at Simmons makes me ridiculously happy. As a college student that rarely eats out, I really don’t get to eat freshly fried, extra crunchy, warm on the-inside french fries often. While the food here is actually amazing, it’s safe to say the distance is a good thing.

Overall Rank: 3

And that’s all for now folks! Next time, we might just venture off campus to explore nearby grab and-gos and diners. But one things for sure, you can travel as far as you want, the food might get slightly better, but the ambience of eating in a loud dining hall, reliably bumping into people you know, and being a hands distance away from a never-ending stock of chocolate chip cookies, is something that can’t be found elsewhere.

*to set the mood*

The floor of my room is a bit of a scattered mess at this point. Some of the boxes are full, but hell if I know what’s actually in any of them.

While I finish packing the last of my clothes and move onto the items in my desk, the same questions that have been floating in my head for the last few weeks resound once more.

What are you taking with you? What are you leaving behind?

So I gingerly begin packing my last box. Some pictures. A couple of 3D-printed trinkets. Cards and letters. A gift from a friend. It fills up, but not completely. There’s enough space to leave me trying to figure out the things that might fit.

But all I can think about is the things that don’t, and the voice echoes.

What are you taking with you? What are you leaving behind?

And so I begin to list things out:

I’m taking all the knowledge and experience I’ve gained through the last four years. I’m taking countless memories – happy and sad – and all the growth I’ve gone through because of them. I’m taking friendships and connections, and my half of all the different bonds that I’ve built. I’m taking new viewpoints of the world, attitudes and perspectives that I was blind to before.

The list continues to grow, until I switch gears and try to list what I’m leaving behind.

And… all I can really think of is the places. The infinite. Killian Court. Pappalardo. Maseeh. Lobby 7. 5th floor of the stud.

I’ve spent a decent amount of time wandering around campus in the last few weeks. Most of my friends have left by now, and as I walk through the hallways that ought to feel so familiar, there’s a feeling I can’t really describe. As if I’m out of place. It’s hard to believe that it could all feel so different just a few night later, but it does.

The campus may not have changed at all, but MIT will never be the same.

Because MIT is about the people. It’s a community. It’s my friends and classmates and professors and all the other people who contributed to the most pivotal years of my life so far.

I guess that’s my long winded way of hypothesizing that sometimes, we don’t either leave things or take them with us. We do both.

The foundation is left behind, for the next generation of the MIT community to make their own. But for those who are moving on to our next chapter, the spirit of the place goes with us, a place that we’ve never known without each other in it.

So I’ll be carrying my piece. Treasuring it on my own. But one day – maybe out in the street, at a conference, or perhaps on campus for a reunion – I’ll run into someone else with theirs. And even if only for a moment, the pieces will come together again, reminding me that all the things worth taking were with me all along.

if you like video games at all, then you’re probably familiar with e3 (THE gaming convention of the year). you might also know that e3 is in los angeles, and i too am in los angeles, and i am working for a game studio…connecting the dots yet?

i actually had a wild ride with e3 because i realized in may that i could actually attend this year, and immediately rushed to the website to buy a pass. i then realized that the registration for industry passes – tickets for those in the game industry – was closed, and i would have to purchase a gamer pass, which is a whopping $350 a day. i was too broke at the time to even think of purchasing that (and even with money, i don’t think i would have), so i resigned myself to the disappointing realization that since sony (the corporation that playstation is part of) wasn’t attending e3 this year, i probably wouldn’t be able to attend either.

but a few weeks later, a few days before i started work, i woke up to an email in my inbox saying that my e3 registration had been confirmed! i had no idea how i had received such a fortuitous email, and after some consultation with the intern group, we determined that santa monica studio (the place i work) had bought all of its interns e3 tickets, making all the other interns at other playstation locations very sad and jealous, lol.

so yeah – i went to e3! this has been a dream of mine since e3 2015⁠01 the e3 that the final fantasy vii remake was announced , before e3 was even open to the public. and of course, for those of you who keep up with gaming news – the final fantasy vii remake was available to demo this year because they just announced that it’s coming out next year⁠02 i cried tears of joy for like an hour , making this literally the best year that i could have attended!

when i found out that the final fantasy vii demo was gonna be at e3 for sure, i pretty much had one goal for my entire e3 experience: demo the damn game. here is a recounting of my day at e3 (spoiler alert: i achieved my goal).

GAME START: i woke up at 6 am⁠03 if this isn't an indication of how determined i was to play the demo, then i don't know what is on wednesday to catch my 6:25 bus. the bus stop is approximately 13 minutes away. this was a poor decision in retrospect, but i had slept in the clothes that i wanted to wear⁠04 i was proudly sporting the god of war dev team shirt , so all i had to do was brush my teeth, grab the sandwich i had made the night before, and head out the door. i had a minor panic attack because my public transit app told me that the next bus was at 6:45 and i had promised to meet some interns at the office at 7 to uber to the convention. i then realized that the public transit app was merely boosted, and there was still a bus at 6:25, but i had wasted about 3 minutes panicking and seeing if i should call an uber, so by the time i actually left to the bus stop, it was about 6:14. i pretty much ran/speed walked the whole way to the bus stop, and actually made it there pretty fast – 6:22, with 2 minutes to spare before the bus actually got there. quest: completed.

LOADING LEVEL: i made it to the office by 6:45⁠05 turns out that when it's too early for there to be traffic, there is actually no traffic, a rarity in LA , so i took the extra time to hang out in the kitchen and inhale some coffee. we called our uber at 7:15, and since LA traffic was in full swing by then, we got there by 8:15, fraying a few of my nerves because i had wanted to be in line by 8⁠06 i actually picked up my badge early so i could beat some of the line, because i am extra . i also lost a bit of my advantage by standing in line in the wrong place, but we still had a solid place in the queue – about halfway in.

doors opened to industry people at 9⁠07 the public can only enter at 12 , and as a part of sony playstation, we were included in that special access! but when 9 rolled around, it was still going to be a total free for all, so i prepared myself to book it to the final fantasy vii exhibit, which i could see through the closed doors while i was waiting in line.

this was the first thing i saw when i walked into the convention center, and i was so happy – it’s cloud’s (the protagonist of final fantasy 7) motorcycle against a backdrop of midgar at night

cloud, my son, looking more beautiful than ever in the good year of 2019

a selfie of me and the other interns waiting in line to get in

hypeee

FIGHT!: the gates opened at 9, and to my great surprise, literally everybody turned out to have the same goal as me and EVERYBODY booked it to the final fantasy vii demo. luckily, i am small and speedy, and i managed to make it into the middle of the line to get a ticket for the 10-11 demo. apparently, if you weren’t in line in the first three minutes of the mad rush, you didn’t get a ticket to one of the three demos they had that day. i got super lucky.

one of the precious demo tickets, which were super aesthetic and well themed!

i hung around the exhibit for another half an hour because i wanted to be the first in line for the 10-11 demo, and chatted with some of the staff. they had shinra company themed shirts⁠08 the shinra company is the huge megalomaniac corporation that basically rules the world in final fantasy vii , and there were even two staff members dressed up as turks⁠09 the shinra company's elite assassination squad, basically , which made me really happy. they were in character too!

a train table from final fantasy vii’s main city of midgar

i finally got into the demo around 10:15, and unfortunately i couldn’t take any pictures inside the demo room, but it was amazing! first, there was a little explanation given by one of the characters⁠10 jessie, for those of you who have played - she 'hacked' the shinra feed to tell us how to defeat the reactor on how the battle mechanics worked and then we actually got to play the first twenty minutes of the game, up to the first boss fight! the new battle mechanics are really fun, and the graphics are beautiful, and the music is amazing. i literally couldn’t have asked for more. i was over the moon for the entirety of the demo, and i’m lowkey still over the moon because it was just that good. march 3rd 2020 here we come!

a coworker and i snapped a selfie in front of the super dope final fantasy vii exhibit after finishing playing the demo :)

OPEN WORLD: after finishing the demo, i had pretty much exhausted everything that i had wanted to actually do at e3, so i spent the rest of the day wandering around. here are some of the cool pictures i took and cool things i saw.

final fantasy 7 concept art!

these logos are so dumb but i’m here for them

the EXTREMELY LARGE borderlands 3 exhibit

capcom brought a whole ass dragon to e3 i guess

so many pretty lights!

a cool logo for…something

the other interns and i + pokemon starters!

interns being scared with luigi outside the luigi’s mansion exhibit

lol

all in all, i had a great time, and i’m really glad that MIT has given me the opportunities to get hired at places like playstation, which leads to worlds of new opportunities on its own! :)

what are y’all most excited about from this year’s e3? let me know in the comments!

my first day goes roughly how i imagined it would go: all the new interns wait for someone to pick us up and take us to a welcome and orientation meeting in a conference room somewhere. we watch a prerecorded video clip of godaddy’s CEO sincerely welcoming us. then a real person goes through the company’s core values, the company mission, the several offices established around the world, the sales increases over the years, office policies, and other fun topics.

our ‘managers’ eventually pick us up, which in my case is my mentor, since my team’s manager works in cambridge. my mentor, steven, shows me to my desk and helps me set up my computer. setting up a dev environment for software development can be tricky: it seems like i have to install or clone⁠01 in the git sense something new every day. steven introduces me to the rest of the team, which includes alex, an intern starting together with me who goes to MIT and took 6.UAT with me last semester. we⁠02 around six of us go out for lunch, and we the interns get treated to ramen and boba⁠03 steven tells me that almost all boba places use powdered milk and not real milk, which broke my heart a little . then it’s back to the office, and i have a 1-on-1 with steven and he gives me my first small task. steven explains one of the services that our team owns and controls, but it’s too complex and i can’t really understand it the first time, so i ask steven to explain it again and he slows down and explains it a lot better and i understand the high-level overview this time. steven babysits me for an hour, but i finally make my first pull request⁠04 a request to make a code contribution to the main codebase before the end of the day.

getting a pr out day one felt pretty good, and i thanked last summer’s internship for that. it’s been two weeks now, and i’ve been contributing pretty consistently. i did a demo of a feature i added for the first time ever, something i never thought i would do in week one. i still ask steven at least 20 questions a day but i can feel myself being more competent than last year and having improved and that feels good. i have a defined set of goals i made with steven. the work building is by the lake, and every day after lunch i walk out to the docks and look around and it’s beautiful.

everything seems to be great: i’m learning a lot from the internship, there’s good pay, the lake is wonderful, seattle is great, the commute is an easy 15 minute walk, there’s free lunch, drinks, and snacks. i should be happy most of the time.

but.

the routine is monotony: there’s little time to explore during the weekdays, and life seems to just be get up, go to work, come home, eat, sleep, repeat.

joanna and i video called last wednesday, and we talked about our future and long distance and it was so unfair and what if it would always be this way. what if i graduate and end up somewhere else? the future was unclear. she cried. i cried. we both loved each other, but we knew long distance was too much. for us to be happier long-term, paradoxically, we needed to be friends. and so we broke up.

it’s been a sad week.

i think of what it must feel like when garnet unfuses to ruby and sapphire in steven universe, how they were a complete, fully connected whole and now they were separated, lost, having forgotten the feeling of being without the other. it’s kind of how i feel. it’s a slow process to feel okay again. 05 i need to rewatch the ruby rider episode.

this weekend, i went hiking with a group, climbing on rocks and taking pictures of waterfalls. i went to pike place with other interns and we had good chowder, ice cream, coffee, and burgers in pike place and first avenue and capitol hill. we went to amazon go⁠06 which is insanely cool and you should go , and i bought some mike’s hard. we went to cal andersen park and sat down together on the grass on the hill and shared the mike’s and someone brought out the speaker and i queued AJR and we looked at cute dogs chase tennis balls and talked till sundown. it was a good weekend. i felt happy being comfortable around new people who grew up in different places on earth, walking from memory to memory, making new friends. maybe things will be okay.

Sometimes I went to recruiting events just to remember why I avoided recruiting events. The latest one, held in early May of this year, was at Abide, a bubble tea shop on the outskirts of campus. The recruiters had tried, they really did—wheeled in old-school arcade games, paid for limitless boba, etched the space in muted gold light.

A woman in a crisp suit handed me a stack of poker chips. “Use these to place bets.” She gestured at a whiteboard that proclaimed two hundred dollars’ worth of chips could be exchanged for a backpack; a thousand dollars’ worth meant AirPods. I wondered at this approximation of Maslow’s. Who needed self-actualization when one could listen to podcasts wirelessly?

A few minutes later, I was assessing the boba selection—passionfruit green tea, matcha milk tea, something reddish that involved guava—when a recruiter sidled up. Her greeting floated towards me. “Hi there!”

“Hi,” I said, pivoting away from the counter. I wasn’t sure what the company did. Hedge fund? What did hedge funds do? To amuse myself, I briefly pictured manicured shrubs made from dollar bills.

“How’s school going?”

Her voice formed the shape of possibility. Opportunity. Another future opened itself to me, sparkly and inviting. Wall Street, maybe, or a consulting firm, something synonymous with prestige, six-figure salaries, very reasonable health insurance. I could walk into a restaurant and order without looking at menu prices.

Behind us, a rinse of noise: groans and a burst of bright, asynchronous beeps. Somebody had just lost a game of Pac-Man. For a fleeting second, it was all I could hear of the room.

“Um, school is good,” I said.

After a few more lines of scripted dialogue, the recruiter moved on to other students. I turned back to the boba. At the bottom of each cup, tapioca pearls clotted into indistinguishable blurs of black.

More beeping. Somebody was cueing up a new game. I imagined Pac-Man, endlessly swerving about his maze, collecting point after point after point. Devouring through level upon level towards some inevitable death. Game over.

I handed my poker chips to a friend, grabbed two cups sloshing to the brim with milk tea, and left.

The summer after my freshman year at MIT, I wrote the following on Tumblr:

“We would commiserate with each other about how high school felt like a farce, like a four-year-long audition, and then we would go on to attend Ivies and top state universities and small liberal arts colleges and we would eventually switch our majors to something safe, like economics or computer science. And we would rebel, sure; we would dance on tabletops and kiss the wrong person and backpack through Europe, but inevitably, the intoxicating allure of the corporate world and all of its comforts would yank us back to the paths drawn for us before we were born. And by age thirty, we would make six-figures annually; we would have a mortgage, two-point-one kids, and a nice house in a nice neighborhood, and we would have grown into the boring-ass adults we swore we’d never be.”

Perhaps a tad melodramatic, but I felt more lost than ever. It was the same summer I read former Yale professor William Deresiewicz’s sharp rebuke of elite higher education. In The New Republic, he wrote, “I taught many wonderful young people during my years in the Ivy League—bright, thoughtful, creative kids whom it was a pleasure to talk with and learn from. But most of them seemed content to color within the lines that their education had marked out for them. Very few were passionate about ideas. Very few saw college as part of a larger project of intellectual discovery and development. Everyone dressed as if they were ready to be interviewed at a moment’s notice.”

In retrospect, it’s a cynical take—in college, I’ve had the honor of meeting so many vibrant, curious souls—but to eighteen-year-old me, Deresiewicz offered a terrifying prospect. I didn’t want to be a Wall Street sellout. I wanted to be a writer. But I knew writing poetry was about as useful to greater society as shifting vast, moneyed sums from point A to point B, and at least the latter came with a dental plan.

I didn’t know what to do, so I chose to do nothing: stumbled into a job offer in Auckland and took a year off to work instead of coming back to MIT for my sophomore year.  The week before I flew off to the Southern Hemisphere, I read Mihir Desai’s op-ed in the Harvard Crimson, in which he dissuades students from pursuing careers in consulting or finance: “The shortest distance between two points is reliably a straight line. If your dreams are apparent to you, pursue them. Creating optionality and buying lottery tickets are not way stations on the road to pursuing your dreamy outcomes. They are dangerous diversions that will change you.”

I envisioned myself as a corporate cog, devoid of fantastical hopes, and didn’t entirely hate the idea, because at least that person knew where she was going.

After New Zealand, I’m irrevocably different in some senses—more prone to fretting about the costs of mundane items like toilet paper, for example. But, for better or worse, I did not change into the sellout Desai warned of.

I’m nearly twenty-one now, yet I find myself craving the same things I’ve coveted my entire life: jasmine tea, Impressionist art, white chocolate, intense friendship. I suspect I will spend the rest of my life searching for the words to approximate the secret, untranslatable language of my mind, because it is the only way I might reach across impossible distances, the galaxies between people.

I thought I wanted to be a writer, so I signed with a literary agent and published a book. But I found no joy in self-promotion, in networking, in everything surrounding the craft itself. While I still love writing more than pretty much anything else, I don’t want to make it into a career.

I thought I wanted to go into finance, because I enjoyed math; it was what had drawn me to MIT. I found it similar to poetry: both abstracted the world into something more elegant. Both transcended their own language. But I found no fulfillment in exploiting economic loopholes, no matter how beautiful the numbers were.

I’m nearly twenty-one now, yet I’m still confused. All I have is an amalgamation of curiosities and dreams, but I don’t know what to do with that. I want to learn every secret of the universe, and there simply isn’t enough time to do so.

A few weeks ago, I went back to Abide with a graduating senior destined for Big Tech in the fall. We talked about majors. She’d opted for computer science, the most popular department at MIT. After coming back to school, I declared comparative media studies; nobody understood what it was or why it was useful.

“I took classes in both math and comparative media studies this past semester,” I said. “I know exactly what I learned in my math class—how to compute a probability density function, for example. What I learned in my comparative media studies classes…that’s much more amorphous. I think it’ll take me years to understand what I truly learned. But it’s important to me to be a mindful citizen of the world, to do things with purpose, and I’ll never learn that from doing a math pset.”

“The real world is a thing,” she pointed out. Vocational skill sets translated into financial stability; excessive, indulgent consumption of literature and sociology papers did not.

Later, I asked her why she’d decided to work at her Silicon Valley company.

“I think at MIT, I gained so many skills but didn’t have the time to figure out what I wanted, so I think I’ll spend a few years gaining exposure,” she said. “I don’t think I’ll stay there forever.”

I slurped at my boba and gazed outside, the glass blotted by raindrops. Massachusetts Avenue was nothing but windows: storefront after glinting storefront, a limitless throat of possibility. Often, I would walk along the same street, music tucked in my ears, footsteps meandering as if I had somewhere to go, but somehow never ending up anywhere at all.

We spent our last three summers at home. That’s not super common for MIT students, and probably college students in general. Many do internships, travel, stay on campus or any combination of the above.

So since our experience doesn’t seem to be as common, and this is technically our last undergraduate summer, we wanted to outline what we’ve done in each summer!

Freshman Summer

We took the summer off!

We pretty much knew throughout our freshman year that we would just take the summer off. We had anticipated feeling burnt out, and really wanted to give ourselves a break. Plus, we were still focusing on adjusting to and getting used to college life, so applying to internships or looking for summer UROPs just wasn’t really on either of our minds. And we were lucky enough to be in a position where taking the summer off and living at home was an option (we realize that is not the case for everyone), so we didn’t feel any pressure to search for summer opportunities. That summer we traveled to Israel for our cousin’s Bar Mitzvah, traveled to Moscow with our family, drew a lot, worked together to make an animated short, and worked a lot on our blogger application! Overall, we really enjoyed this summer and were very happy with our decision to take a break. We took the time to decompress from the rush of MIT, and also got the chance to build upon and learn new skills!

Sophomore Summer

We did a remote UROP and Frolicked in a VR lab

Starting in sophomore year, part of our MIT atmosphere included a rush to look for summer opportunities. Hearing about so many people’s really cool and prestigious summer plans put this kind of “pressure-desire” ⁠01 both an external pressure (“aaa this person is doing xyz, I should also be doing xyz”) and an internal desire (“omg this person is doing xyz, wouldn’t it be so cool if I could also do xyz!”)  for us to look for jobs and to hopefully (crossing our fingers and toes) get them too. 

So throughout sophomore year, we very actively applied to Internships and UROPs…. And then got rejected from most of them. This was really our first foray into the world of resumes and cover letters. Looking back, our main mistake was applying to jobs that we were under-qualified for. This made writing cover letters difficult and, reading them back now, they were not great.

So, we were left jobless in the middle of the sophomore spring semester with only a few weeks left to find something to do before the summer, and around that time, because of said “pressure-desire,” that felt like a Bad Thing. Luckily, we got an email about UROP openings in the MIT Teaching Systems Lab. They were looking for people with visual art or animation or game-related experience, so we were immediately drawn. We both applied, both got interviews soon after, and then got the positions! This was a huge relief.

But after telling our parents about this opportunity that we had to stay on campus the whole summer working at TSL, they told us they really wanted us to be home for the summer⁠02 Our parents, not having grown up in the US nor gone to college, don’t fully understand the college “culture” of doing summer internships or jobs. They also miss us during the school year a lot. So they didn’t see the value in us staying on campus to UROP that summer, and really didn't like the idea of us not being home. , and to ask if we can work remotely at TSL instead. At first we were reluctant to even ask TSL if working remotely was an option. Again, we felt this “pressure-desire” to be on campus during one of our summers because it felt like such a quintessential part of the MIT experience. But after being grumpy about it for a bit, we ended up compromising with our parents, and found out from TSL that working remotely was in fact an option!

That summer we made character designs, logos, and animations for various projects with the on-campus UROPs . We communicated with our supervisor and the other on-campus UROPs via skype and email, and shared our work via google drive. It all worked smoothly and we felt that we got a lot out of the experience!

Since, we did have a lot of free time on top of TSL (we were putting in about 5-10 hours per week), we also decided to reach out to professors in local universities to see if there were any projects we could potentially help out with in person. We got a positive response from one professor in Florida International University who was the head of a new VR lab there, telling us that we could “frolic” in her lab (which we found really amusing XD). We spent a lot of time troubleshooting and trying to get the HTC Vive they had in the lab to actually work. After an absurdly long time of trouble shooting, we discovered that the USB port it was plugged into was just broken. Aside from that we played around with Unity and tried to make a few scenes to view in the headset, which we were able to do after we got the headset working.

And on the side, we did art things, cooked, went on a lot of walks/power walks around our neighborhood, read some books/graphic novels, caught up on shows/movies, started going to Pilates with our mom, and saw a sea turtle!

Despite sophomore year’s job hunt stress, we actually, to our surprise, ended up with a great summer at home!

On campus, in the blur and rush of the semester, we got really caught up in the *idea* of a Summer Job. And with that, on some level, we equated being at home with failure — that the only reason we’d be at home was if we failed at finding a job.

But when that summer finally started, and we were away from the MIT bubble, we remembered why we loved our freshman summer so much. We remembered that we just really like being at home. We remembered that there is nothing wrong with *choosing* to be home. We remembered that we can still be productive, and creative, and artistic at home. We remembered that we needed to relax and recover from the year. We remembered that we just have a few summers left before graduating, before real adulthood, and it’s okay to take advantage of that.

Junior Summer

We are doing Computer Graphics Research at University of Miami

Learning from Sophomore year, this year we approached the job hunt more reasonably. Yes, we were still stressed, and yes, we still felt the “pressure-desire”, and yes, we were still really hoping to get accepted to internships because that would be really cool. But, we were not nearly as hung up on the idea that we needed an internship.

So we went through the whole process again: cover letter, resume, submit. We applied to a lot of things, but in the end didn’t get accepted to any again. However, we did make it further into the process than the previous year, and that made us happy! We learned from our unsuccessful sophomore search and applied to things that were more suited to our skills. We both got to the interview stage of a few companies, and even though we didn’t make it past that, we were still happy with our progress!

Another thing we did better this year than last was finding a back-up plan before we knew we needed one. After thoroughly enjoying two summers at home, we knew that an optimal back-up plan would be one that would let us do the same thing again. So we emailed two professors from University of Miami, and got a positive response back from one of them. We set up a meeting with him over spring break, where he explained the projects he was working on, and they all seemed really interesting to us. After this meeting we became super happy with this backup plan and really calmed down about our summer plans.

Honestly, even though this was a “back-up plan” we kind of became more excited about the work we’d be doing there, plus the prospect of being home again, than the work we would be doing in some of the internships we applied/interviewed for.

So far, this summer has been great! Our project is to add features to/refactor the code of/fix CPU and GPU implementations of a visualization tool for complicated 3D surfaces. We’ve been having bi-weekly meetings with our supervisor where we check in on our progress/get help on things we are stuck on.

On a side note, UM’s campus is really pretty and green and alive!

They also have these really comfy swingy booths!

The other days of the week, we work from home, which is awesome! Our project lets us learn by doing, which has felt rewarding when we get things right, and we feel like we’re getting prepared to hopefully take Computer Graphics next fall! Other work-unrelated activities were similar to last summer – reading, watching tv shows/anime, making art, going to pilates, walking, and cooking/baking!

So yup, those are our summers :A :D

I’m approaching the end of the first month of my internship at a big ol’ biotech company,⁠01 wish I could blog about it but public disclosure lawsuit blah blah blah and I’ve somewhat adjusted to the lack of actionable emails. My new thing is going to work and reading about topics in philosophy when I have downtime. I don’t know if it’s the deep dive into terror management theory⁠02 I feel like a South Park goth kid when I discuss this with people or the mechanical routine of a 9-to-5⁠03 closer to a 9:45ish-to-5:15ish or latent anxiety about applying to grad school,⁠04 Kim Kardashian voice: I'm Dropping Hints That I'm Going to Apply To Grad School but I’ve been feeling distinctly uneasy for the past few weeks. Not bad, just weird. I’ve prepared for you a selection of images from the past month that have a similar vibe of not-quite-a-glitch-in-the-simulation-but-unnerving-enough-that-I-had-to-take-a-picture, or more simply, pictures that feel a little… Off.

Snow vs. Fence

MIT tennis courts, Cambridge, MA, February 18, 2019, 2:47 PM

The sheer power, the pure force exerted by the fresh snow, which is usually so soft and shapeable. Fence cannot stop her; Fence can only extrude her.

My Cat Binky’s Lol

WMBR, A-control, Cambridge, MA, March 6, 2019, 1:26 AM

WMBR, where anyone can directly text the current DJ. Cats shouldn’t binky, but maybe it’s okay for them to popcorn.

When You Turn On Your Ad Blocker IRL

Building 46 atrium, Cambridge, MA, March 6, 2019, 1:01 PM

This one really freaked me out at first. Usually there are chairs there, but sometimes there are conferences happening in this space. There were no people in the atrium at that moment. Only bipedal black screens, continuing into infinity.⁠05 into finity but continuing for a while in the direction of the vanishing point Spooky.

A Car Supported By A Few Inches Of Snow

Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA, March 6, 2019, 9:08 PM

I tried several times to get a better picture of this, but I couldn’t get low enough to the ground.⁠06 I have failed as a 5 foot tall person Look how strong that snow is (see first image).

Utility Graffiti… On The Snow

Between McCormick and Baker, Cambridge, MA, March 8, 2019, 4:18 PM

In case you couldn’t tell, there’s a lot of snow at MIT sometimes. In this case, some utility workers decided to mark an underground cable or pipe or line of some sort directly onto the snow. What happens when the snow melts? Why does it need to be marked right now if you can’t even access what’s below because of the snow? What is under the snow?

PIG ICE

Piggly Wiggly, Mountain Brook, AL, March 24, 2019, 5:28 PM

It’s pig ice.

Gnarly Skin Condition

MacGregor desk, Cambridge, MA, April 19, 2019, 9:36 PM

While moving boxes of paper around, I discovered I have developed something called Dermatographia urticaria, which is pretty dope because now I can gently scratch things⁠07 I'll admit to some number of phalluses onto my arms and let my immune system make the art. Unfortunately, I am itchy and covered in scary wheals all the time now, unless I take antihistamines, in which case I am sleepy all the time now. I promise this is a real thing.

Hypocrisy

Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA, April 29, 2019, 2:26 PM

Is this corruption?

A Rebrand In Progress

LaVerde’s, Cambridge, MA, May 3, 2019, 2:47 PM

If you stare at the shelves in LaVerde’s long enough, you’ll notice that no one actually stocks the shelves, they just refresh from time to time. Here I captured a brand in transition from Big Corporate Capital Letters User to soft gentle lowercase millennial/gen z/gen alpha cracker peddler. I like to think they took inspiration from us.

One (1) Inch

???, Cambridge, MA, May 10, 2019, 11:55 AM

If you zoom in, this little guy is beautiful.⁠08 when I went home the most recent time, my sister showed me a cute little worm that she thought was a baby inchworm, but my other sister confirmed that it was in fact a mosquito larva and that sure did gross us out But I was walking along a street with no trees or plants when he appeared. Where did he come from? I had to walk several minutes to find a green place for him to disembark.

Ants Eating A Porkchop⁠09 somehow this has more of a Dave Matthews Band Vibe than Ants Marching?

MIT tennis courts, Cambridge, MA, May 16, 2019, 4:26 PM

Who cooked a porkchop and then just left it on the ground? What transgression did the porkchop commit to be abandoned like this? Why did the ants want to eat it? There are plenty of healthy dining options on campus!

Tall Roses

My backyard, Irondale, AL, May 26, 2019, 7:31 PM

I am not a plant biologist. I have no idea why a rose would want/would be able to grow that tall. It’s not competing with other plants for sun. I feel like it would take so much more effort⁠10 not actually sure if transpiration is meaningfully affected by gravity to keep water and stuff flowing up to the top of the plant, but that’s where all the flowers are. For size reference, this thing is over 6 feet tall. Great posture, too.

Pinoy Comic Jokes: UR FAVORITE PINOY JOKES IN GRAPHIC FORMAT

Public library, South San Francisco, CA, June 3, 2019, 3:25 PM

The South San Francisco Library has an astounding collection of Tagalog literature, but this one looks like something someone brought from home and left on the shelf. The comic on the cover, which should theoretically be one of the funniest comics in the book, features a kid who was poisoned after he got caught eating cockroaches. The graphic design checks out, though.

DNA Crosswalk

Genentech, South San Francisco, CA, June 7, 2019, 5:18 PM

Cute, but why?

Cricket Food

Pet store, Daly City, CA, June 8, 2019, 5:50 PM

Apparently crickets can be fed as pets, not just to pets. And there’s nothing crickets crave more than the sweet taste of orange cube.⁠11 it's got electrolytes

Outta My Way! I’m Late For Bocce

Somewhere, South San Francisco, CA, June 8, 2019, 7:28 PM

There’s no way this is a real license plate frame that a real person bought. Bocce isn’t even that fun. It’s like being into golf but it doesn’t even come with an established aesthetic.

VCRs Rotated 90 Degrees Clockwise

Thrift store, South San Francisco, CA, June 15, 2019, 2:57 PM

There is no reason for this store to stock so many VCRs. They ran out of room for horizontal VCRs so they had to shelve them like books. There weren’t even that many VHS tapes for sale to go with the VCRs. At this point, I am not sure if the rising seniors in high school are familiar with this technology, but really the only reason to keep these around would be to watch old home movies. I’d like to meet anyone who ends up buying one of these.

By posting these images, I’ve unloaded my Off feeling onto the audience, so now YOU will feel perpetually Off instead of me! Enjoy!