PiPER

APO, my co-ed service fraternity, was featured in the news yesterday.

Yay!

… my camera, on the other hand, not so much ^.^

Tonight, I was in my room, window open, when the wind started kicking up.  I love the wind - I love the sound it makes through the trees in the East Campus courtyard, and I loved the sight it created when I walked up to my window.  Leaves dancing in the air, billowing in the darkness, converging into a sphere before unraveling to wisp away.

I love Halloween.  It ranks pretty high on my list of favorite holidays - maybe it’s even my favorite.  There’s no presents-buying stress like at Christmas.  It’s more exciting than Thanksgiving, which is pretty unexciting besides the abundance of delicious food.  Halloween - it’s about the ghost marathons on every channel, it’s about The Nightmare Before Christmas (the only stop motion film I can watch without becoming totally irritated - I’m a strange one, I know), it’s candy and costumes and a little adrenaline and the feeling of October.  And with the leaves changing to a glorious orange, Halloween is more Halloween-y here than in southern California.

How am I celebrating? Surely, I’m partying - there’s one right upstairs, after all!  Or maybe I went trick-or-treating in Harvard Square.  With a kickass costume!

Fact is, I do have a kickass costume.  I’m an MIT student this Halloween!  I’m doing a really awesome job, from the sitting-at-a-desk thing right down to the open textbook, a pen, and an open notebook with almost-legible scribbles!

… guys, I’m tooling on Halloween.

You see, it’s midterm, and I am conducting a dash.  I imagine a lot of MIT students will start doing this soon.  But for tonight, most of them will be blowing off steam.  Midterm, after all, means all the stress and hosage of term culminating, but being too far away to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Pretty soon, the drop forms will be in and people will be overhauling for the remainder of their classes.  Crunch time is upon us.

Unfortunately for me, my classes made it such that I couldn’t wait until next weekend to do this overall - and thus went my Halloween.  I am not overly miserable, though.  For some reason, along with the stress of a midterm dash, I feel renewed in my love of learning.  And tonight, flipping the calendar over will mean the start of November.  Where noms will be had for Thanksgiving (I’ll be going to New York to a friend’s house because California is too far), where in another week I’ll have a day off, where break and IAP will loom ever closer.

I’m missing my maybe-favoritist holiday tonight.  “Sacrifices.”  But somehow, I’m in a good mood.

That said, I am going all out next year.

God, we are so nerdy.

Where The WildTypes Are from Joshua Meisel on Vimeo.

You should be on a boat before you watch this video.

MIT students are silly what?

It is the curse of a blogger’s life - a life’s exhilaration is indirectly proportional to potential blogging time. As you can see, I haven’t been as prolific lately. I think my blogging activity will see a spike in the near future, however, as I have a million-and-one things I’m excited to tell you about (and otherwise chronicle forever). These include:

• Discover Literature FPOP (Day 3)
• Discover Literature FPOP (Day 4)
• Provincetown (My weekend trip to the tip of Cape Cod, the town just before you fall into the water.)
• Two smaller blogs I’ve been collecting pictures for in a while.  Lame, I assure you, but I am nonetheless excited ^.^
• East Campus: Apple Picking!

But this entry, this entry is about my day.

I woke up at 8:30am after a rather tumultuous night.  The night before I went to bed at 6am and woke up around 3pm (two psets due Friday), but I nonetheless felt exhausted but midnight, when I crashed.  I was almost literally a rock for the first four hours, but tossed and turned for the rest.  In my sleep, I kept thinking about a song and tried to remember to look it up - but alas, I have forgotten the lyrics.

I woke up and went apple picking.  And it was spectacular.  But as stated above, that blog will be for a different time.

We arrived back on campus just before 2pm.  I bounded away to my 7.03 Genetics review session.  It is the first review session I have ever attended - and boy, have I been missing out.  These things are amazing.  In two hours, we went over all of the material to be covered on Monday’s exam, including practice problems.  Incredibly glad that I didn’t lazy out on this, as now I am moderately hopeful of passing this exam!

Then there was EMS.

I went to a one-hour orientation for MIT’s fully-functional student-run ambulance.  Apparently, this is the only such thing in Boston.  Or the country.  Or something.  Barring bike ambulance systems.  In any case, the session was incredibly interesting and got me more excited for the opportunity I’m taking this fall - being a third rider.  Basically, this means I will grab a shift and ride along with the EMTs on call.  This’ll help me decide if I want to give up this IAP to train as an EMT-B.  Frankly, given that my last good break was in August 2007, I’m itching for a break - but this might be worth giving up that break.  (For those interested in third riding in the future, you need CPR training - which I luckily already had through Medlinks - but they will provide it for you beforehand.)

After the session, I waited on the steps of 77 Mass Ave to meet up with some Randomites.  Our destination?

This place is famous for its delicious burgers and its half-off-burger-prices on Saturdays.  I remembered visiting once two years ago, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember what I thought of it - so when a Randomite friend induced a foodmob, I thought, what the hay?  Foodmobs are fun!

So we trekked and arrived and waited (Saturday nights are incredibly busy) and even got a table after a while.  Company was fun, and I loved the rootbeer floats.  The fries were good.  The burger, however - and I know I’m going to get some flak for this - was not to my standards.  Squished, greasy, and a little on the tasteless side, it didn’t appeal to me.  It wasn’t horrible, mind you, but… I’ll stick to O’Sullivans.

Afterwards, the group decided to head back across the bridge, but I decided to take the T to Kendall, so we split off.  On the way to my station, I noticed a Starbucks.  “Mmm, a white hot chocolate sounds good right now.”  So I went in.

“Piper, that’s not a common name!”  Yay friendly baristas.

It turns out that at this Starbucks, you had to pay for internet (not entirely shocking given that it was Newbury Street, but I wonder if it’s more widespread).  So I set out again - but with a warm drink in my hands, I felt that a walk was actually exactly what I wanted.  I headed back.

The city is interesting in the evening.  People, cars, sights.  I looked up at the Pru and saw that the top story was covered in fog.  The walk across the river was beautiful, as always, and such a nice way to contemplate.  My life is just going so well right now.  Sure, I have two exams next week as well as two essays to write as well as some music to prepare and a listening quiz, but why stress?  I also have a bunch of shiny activities and spectacular people to be around.  And I’m even getting enough sleep each night!

And that… pretty much brings us full circle.  After 3.5ish miles of walking, I’m feeling both pretty tired and pretty good.  (It’s kind of hilarious after I walk a lot - I move extremely slowly.  And I just don’t want to move once I’m in the shower.)  Tomorrow’s going to be a day of toolage, working on my 21A.100 essay, studying for my 7.03 test, writing up a 21M.223 short paper (and hopefully starting the longer one?), working on a 21M.223 song presentation with my partner… I’ll also be going to see a jug band as part of that class, though, so I can’t be too bitter.  This class is spectacular!

But right now… right now, sleep calls to me.  Good night, blogosphere.

Class started a week ago.

A week? How did that happen? My two HASS-D’s have got me reading up the yinyang and I kinda need to do my 5.111 pset due Friday and I just got my 7.03 pset today due Tuesday AND WHY AM I TALKING TO YOU WHEN I SHOULD BE TOOLING?!

I’m sitting in the APO office, finishing my Subway dinner and getting ready to start tooling again. And I’m musing. It seems my reading speed has dropped to incredibly low rates - probably because I haven’t been a serious reader since sophomore year of high school (five years ago!). Perhaps taking two HASSes (both HASS-D’s, one a CI-H) will be harder than I thought. It will be nice, though, to have a bootcamp for my reading and writing skills. When I applied for my UROP, my proposal came back to me with a thousand red marks to edit before making a final submission. Hopefully I’ll be all prepared for next summer.

I’ve decided to try something a friend of mine succeeded at last term - tooling only on the weekdays. This weekend I’ll have tons to do, but I can organize other weeks such that I get all my reading and tooling done Mon-Fri. This’ll probably change once I start making time for my essays (I have to write five this term! Five! Not counting a revision and 4 “response papers”! That’s like 10…). Nonetheless, I’ll make the attempt.

And now that this brief interlude is over…. tool time.

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

Ugh, 8am.  It is not a time I like to see.  It is especially not a time I like to see after attempting 5.5 hours of sleep to succeed in getting approximately 2 or 3 of them.  Curse my occasional insomnia!

But the reason for rising at such an ungodly hour (how my sense of time has changed since August 2007) was a good one.  It was not class or work that drove my alarm to cause me alarm - it was my FPOP!

So I got dressed and ran to Lobby 7, where all us Discover Literature folks were meeting up.  One by one, they arrived, and soon we were taking a bus from 77 Mass Ave to Harvard Square.  And what was our first stop on this brilliant, shining morning full of life and happiness?

As morbid as you’d think a cemetery visit would be, this was lots of fun!  We walked around, taking small paths with interesting names (Cowslip, really?) to find graves on famous writers.  In the time between, we enjoyed the sunshine and relatively cool air, appreciating the rolling green hills decorated with trees and ponds.  In the times before we became paranoid about death and wanted to hide it away, cemeteries served not only as beds for the dead but parks for the living - and at that moment, I could see why.

In any case, gravefinding was fun.  We found quite a few writers, but I figure I’ll mention this guy as 1) you’ve probably heard of him, and 2) we’re going to his house next.

And then there was “The Tower”.  It lived up to its name.

Aww group photo.

As you might be able to tell from those photos, we’re on a hill.  A hill with exactly one way down.  With sprinklers.

We were ambling along, me near the rear of the group, when suddenly I heard, “RUUUUN!”  I looked up to see the people in front of me taking off - and water in the distance.  So we ran through, some of us getting tragically soaked, the rest of us getting moderately sprinkled.  It was kind of hilarious, though you probably had to be there - but these blogs are just as much for me as anyone who might be reading, so I want to write it down to remember :).

And so, slightly soaked, we made our way to our second stop - one that I so cleverly and clandestinely alluded to a few paragraphs above.

The house was gorgeous - and, as it turned out, never actually purchased by anyone named Longfellow.  Longfellow’s father-in-law bought the house so that daughter and husband could start a new life together.  Even if Longfellow was a dirt-poor professor, he would never have to pay rent.

The house’s history was interesting, and it was full of original artifacts.  The Longfellows were apparently fans of Greek mythology, as when walking through you can spot everyone from Zeus to Hermes to Athena to Narcissus.  The house itself was beautiful inside out, including the small garden and surrounding area.  We learned about Washington’s visits and Longfellow’s three daughters and two sons - and of the tragic death of his wife.

While we could not touch most of the stuff in the house (understandably), they did let us touch this key. It's the real key, oldschool and everything.

As short as that was written, these two events took up a large part of our day.  We ate at a place in Harvard Square called Grendel’s Den, explored the area’s shops and even visited the Harvard Museum of Natural History.  There are a lot of shiny things in there and I highly suggest it :).

And so 6pm rolled around, and our FPOP day drew to a close as we took the bus back.  It had been tons of walking - but so, so worth it.  And now with one last fun image:

I saw a Pixar short of people playing chess in the park.  I didn’t actually realize it happened.

I’m a counselor this year on one of the Freshman Pre-Orientation Programs - Discover Literature.

It was the same FPOP I did two years ago. And I realized a lot has changed since I did it. One of them being that I was excited to meet with other people and really talkative, where in the past I was far too shy. Another one is more obvious - I’m answering the questions instead of asking them. It’s also served as a reminder to how stiff my literature and public speaking muscles are. The second will get taken care of assuming I am successful in adding a class I really want. The first will have to wait a bit longer. Maybe I’ll join a reading group. There’s a great one that runs through IAP for an hour a day.  Ah, the joys and woes of being interested in so many subjects!

Discover Literature is lucky - we got an amazing batch of frosh.  We ate pizza, introduced ourselves, and launched into what must’ve been over an hour of discussion about all sorts of things (remember Hey Arnold and Cow & Chicken?).  The actual literary discussion went well, too.  It served as a reminder of what MIT students really are - not just limited to science and engineering but explorers of everything.  These incoming freshmen are brilliant thinkers and great speakers.  And I can judge adequacy in humanities.  I went to Catholic school.

All-in-all, a good night.  The next three days will no doubt be exciting.  Tomorrow we explore the city of Cambridge.  Thursday we hit up Boston.  And Friday, we set out to Concord.

Life is good.

I had passed it all my life since fifth grade, but now I had to be on top of it.

It was December 2008.  I had been home since May, taking classes at Calstate LA during my time away from MIT - during which time I had grown obsessed with the hill with the Lion-King-esque tree at its crown.  I don’t know why that was.  Perhaps it was an outlet for some of the frustration I felt in being away from MIT - though my time off was incredibly valuable in a myriad of ways, being away from a place I loved so much was not without its sadness.  Moreover, I didn’t know if I’d be allowed back.  When one leaves MIT for any reason, one is subject to a readmissions procedure coming back.

In any case, my frustration was guided by my slightly obsessive nature to this hill.  I had attempted to climb it once before but could not find its foot.  The most obvious thing to do was to walk straight towards it, but there was a gated community that wrapped around the front from the slight west side to the south side.  After that 3hr walk of nonaccomplishment,  I drove around (cheater cheater pumpkin eater is me, but this is California) and found no trails going up even from the south side (which would be a really long walk).  Finally, I weaved my way through the houses on the slight west side - and spotted a trail.

For those of you who don’t know me, I am not an anthlete.  But everyone once in a while, I get the inexplicable urge to just walk somewhere, to discover what’s out there - and spur-of-the-moment, I will go.  This has resulted in a November bike ride around Boston at 8am after an all-nighter in the glorious 17°F weather without gloves (but I did find a delicious breakfast place!).  It’s also resulted in late evening walks to the heart of the city, midnight walks getting lost in Harvard Square (a strange adventure because I was with someone rather than alone) - and all the random drives I take at home in California.

So after I found this potential trail, I was incredibly twitchy.  And the second finals were over, I made another attempt to climb the hill.

The hill in the distance. See the tree? It's the Lion King!

The mile-ish walk to the foot of the hill was relatively uneventful.

Off to the left were houses. I had just seen the hint of this trail from the streets. I hadn't realized how big it was.

I started the climb.  The first bit - the part shown here - was very relaxing.  It was a winter day in California, cool enough to not break into a sweat but certainly nowhere near cold.  The trail wrapped around the hill, heading towards the main bump.  And finally, I was at the foot of the Real Hill.

I wish I had taken a picture of it.  You can see hints of it in the first picture.  There’s a face on the left side that looks deceptively un-steep when you look at it from far away.  From the bottom, however, its steepness is apparent.  I started worrying about falling, rolling down the hill into someone’s backyard.

I took it slow, walking up, kind of crawling because of its steepness.  I have an ironic fear for a pilot - a very healthy fear of heights.  I thought several times about turning back and was glad that I didn’t make it up here the last time I attempted to - it had just rained then.  I thought about this as I sat and slid up the hill, wondering how this short stretch could seem so long and if I’d ever reach the top.

I did.  And what I saw astounded me.

I could see my favorite lake hidden in the hills - I found this lake on a spontaneous drive three years before.

To the north, many small houses, one of them my own.

To the east, Brackett Airport, the first one I ever flew cross-country to. It hardly counts, though, as it's a stone's throw away from El Monte Airport by plane. I could just see myself in that little Cessna 152.

I’ll admit it, and I’ll admit it proudly - I cried on top of that hill.  I wasn’t gushing tears, but I definitely teared up.  I didn’t realize how many memories I had of this city.  I could see my elementary school, my riding school, the lake, my house, the small airport - this was everything to me for so long.  And here I was, trying to leave all that again, wondering if I could be there instead of enjoying here.  Ah, living in the moment and being glad that you didn’t tumble down a hill into someone’s backyard and get eaten by their dog.

I had climbed it.  And damn, was the view gorgeous - I don’t know what you readers think of that picture, but the cool breeze and smell of earth in the otherwise utter quiet are so much more than what you can get out of a couple of pixels.  I laughed to myself when I had reached the top - it wasn’t one Lion-King-esque tree.  It was a circle of trees that just looked like one tree at the bottom.  But whatever, I’ll still think of it in line with my favorite Disney movie of all time.

I haven’t climbed the hill since.  Despite only climbing it once, it remains my favorite place in California.  I hope to go up it again soon - but, alas, I have so many people to visit in a mere two week’s time.  Perhaps I’ll do it next December, when it’s cool again and I’ll be here for three weeks.

Somehow, it’d be fitting.