A laundry list
This is more for my sake, but I really want to list most things I've done outside of class/work since I've been here. Sorry if this looks boring, but I don't want to forget all the cool stuff that went on this past month, especially if I want to help with orientation next year. It's just too much to write in detail about:
Italian Festival in the North End
Cambridge Caribbean Festival
Free Jesse McCartney concert, and he was surprisingly good
Jillian's near Fenway for pool
Wine and Cheese reception under the MIT dome
Pub Crawl in Boston with the Mechanical Engineers
Learned to sail and have been out a number of times on the Charles
Freedom Trail Tour, where our guide dressed up like someone from the 1770s - it was awesome
Boston Harbor Cruise at night, with drinking, dancing, and one guy's trip to the hospital
St. George's Island for sports and exploring the fort there
Aero/Astro BBQ
Lots of karaoke, and a new tradition of Wine Wednesday
Salsa dancing at Sydney & Pacific, and learning rueda through the MIT group
Free Cake concert
Maggiano's family style with Edgerton. Mmmm apple crostada
Museum of Science College Night
Red Sox Game (sorry Pop!)
Taste of Boston, with a free concert by the Gin Blossoms
Lots of other trips to bars, a trip to Avalon, Hong Kong bar, etc.
Space Systems Lab girls night!
and finally, Rockport, MA for climbing on boulders, exploring the quarry, and eating clam chowder (well, the rest of the group)
No wonder my parents say they're tired reading my away messages. :-) It's seriously been a blast, and I hope to keep up at least a small fraction of this as time goes on here.
Smiling
Have you ever noticed that when you smile and walk down the street, people stare at you because of your smile? They're confused by this constant joy expressed on your face. And I'm not talking the smile that you have when you pass by someone you know, which goes away after just a few steps. No, I'm talking about how on your 10-minute walk home, you just don't stop smiling. Since I was thinking about the funny comments people probably had in their heads, it just made the smiling continue, carrying on the whole situation. And now I'm smiling and typing, and my officemates are probably confused too. But I'll go on smiling, thinking about this normal behavior that is so odd in this context, and thinking about the one who made me smile. :-)
MIT v. GT
I almost feel that my blog is sometimes a laundry list of events and no longer the things in life that I think about yet don't get to talk about. But I do want to tell you all about the wonderful people that I am meeting here and the tremendous city that is Boston. And sometimes it hits me; I'm at MIT. I thought everything about MIT - the students, the buildings, the staff, the faculty (ok, maybe the faculty still do) - would have this aura around it, but it's really not true. Everyone's normal. At least normal to me. And at least the people that come out of their rooms. Everyone loves a nerdy joke or prank, and we're not afraid to talk about it. Everyone asks questions and is mostly excited about their work. Maybe if we were to pit MIT against GT in some sort of competition, MIT would still have the edge. However, much to my surprise, it's not all that different than GT (just a little more extreme, and no football), and I like it here. I really do.
Orientation Pictures
Here are some pictures from orientation:
This is Copley Square and the new John Hancock Building. I liked the juxtaposition of the old church with the new glass building.
Sunday we went on a Boston Harbor Cruise at night, and this is the sunset from the boat. It was more or less a "booze cruise" with lots of dancing.
Yesterday we went to St. George's Island with the Graduate Association of Mechanical Engineers, and this is Alan, me, and Ryan. It was a gorgeous day to be there, and we played lots of games and explored the island for the day.
Orientation
This past week has been just orientation and a few other meetings. There are 1000 new graduate students, and about 2/3 of them have been attending the functions, which have been surprisingly fun. There are, of course, information sessions, but many of the activities have been mostly social.
During one session the administrators showed statistics about the perception MIT students have of themselves. The majority of the students believe that they are below average MIT intelligence but above average on social skills and physical fitness. They also talked about a common syndrome where many students here feel they aren't smart and enough and don't belong. It was reassuring to know that not all MIT students think they are super smart, and it's funny how many of us really do feel the way the survey suggested.
With all the social activities, I have been very busy without any work to do because of all the activities - pub crawls, karaoke, BBQs, wine and cheese socials, a boat tours, an island tour, etc. There isn't too much free alcohol, but every once in a while they bust out the free wine. mmmm... There are a few of us aerospace girls that have found fun hanging out with the Mechanical Engineers (they have had a lot more social activities than Aero/Astro this week), and we are now proud semi-members of the Graduate Association of Mechanical Engineers (GAME). And yes, they do joke about how they have GAME.
Many of the people I've met here are a lot like the people at Georgia Tech - fun to hang with, a little nerdy, and hard workers. There are a lot more people that we haven't hung out with that are probably the stereotypical MIT student, but it's been a great week with the friends we've been making.
I have some pictures from the trips we've been taking, but now I'm off to watch someone drop a large block of sodium in a fountain because apparently it makes fireworks. Oh, and one more difference between GT and MIT. While at GT we knew we were nerds, we didn't share the fact too often. Here, it's openly talked about and appreciated. :-)
