Down the Street

Today we decided to walk down two miles down Mass Ave. to check out Harvard Square since I've been curious about it for a month now. We took a detour to check out the campus, complete with red brick buildings and ivy. They also had a huge Catholic church and some nice courtyards too. But the whole campus was eerily quiet.





Harvard Square was pretty interesting. It had a college feel to it with the odd shops and performers and such. We ate at Mr. Bartley's, which is supposed to be a fixture in the square. There was a line out the door, which made sense after we walked into the tiny restaurant. All their burgers were named after politicians, so I ordered the Ted Kennedy which had mushrooms. It was a nice change from the McCormick dining.

The Old Man and the Sea

I woke up late from my nap today at 4:10, ran down to the sailing pavilion and was twenty minutes late. The last person left the dock as I walked in, so I had to go it alone sailing solo. It was a faceoff between me and the ocean. It wasn't twice as hard as sailing with a partner, but it was trickier and required some multitasking. I didn't drown, so it all turned out well.

Midnight

The Dark Knight was amazing. Two thumbs up. We ended up getting back at the dorm at 4am, but it was worth the loss of sleep. Some people had rigged a spotlight to project the bat signal onto the Green building, which we saw as we were walking back across the Harvard Bridge.


Tonight was a full moon as well, which means the sailing pavilion was open until midnight as opposed to sundown. So we sailed with some more experienced people in a bigger boat that fit eight as opposed to two. It was nice to sail on the Charles with the skyline lit up for about an hour.

This is the result of our busy week

Less than 24 Hours!

That is the amount of time until I will be sitting watching the midnight premiere of The Dark Knight! I even brought my batman shirt over here so I'm set. All of the TA's are going to go watch it as well. I bought my tickets two weeks in advance when we ventured into Boston Commons, which is directly in the middle of the city from what I could tell. I just hadn't gotten a chance to post about it. It's a big park in the middle of the city. Like a scaled down Boston version of Central Park? I haven't been to New York (But I'm making a point to go this year) so I don't know how valid that comparison is.


The part I liked about Boston Commons was how it had the feel of a New England town combined with a big city. That could just be me though. Even though you were in the greenery of the park you could still see the skyscrapers looming in the background. Even the 7-Elevens had class.


The area used to be used as a common field for the people of Boston back in colonial times, for animals to graze and stuff like that. They would also hold hangings there. We walked down St. Charles Street to soak in the city. We crossed by a huge church as we were wandering down the streets.

There were also tons of interesting smalls shops along the way. The Black Ink was my personal favorite. It sold weird knick-knacks and things like erasers in the shape of a peanut, which is cooler than it sounds. There were just odd items that you wouldn't find at Target or anywhere like that.


I will be back tomorrow!

Coming up for Air

Like I mentioned before, Interphase purposely scheduled a crunch week for us. Thursday was the chemistry test, Saturday was taken away with Martha's Vineyard leaving Sunday to study for the physics test on Monday, then turn in our humanitites essay by 12:01am Tuesday morning, and take the Caculus test today. Now I've finished my chemistry problem set, and I think I'm good for a couple of days. There was one point where I had to attend a 2 hour calculus review session across campus at eight then write my essay due by midnight, which was intense. Time was not abundant this week.

It was also a small miracle that I got the highest score on the physics test in the physics B class. Yes! I was an underdog, and that score came out of left field, but I'll take it. It was an eight-two out of one hundred, but the class average was fifty something with a standard deviation of thirteen. It was a lot better than the 1/10 I recieved on the quiz.

Martha's Vineyard

Martha's Vineyard was the destination of our Saturday trip this week. Apparently it isn't a vineyard at all. It's an island, and a big tourist attraction in Massachusetts because of its summer weather and beaches. Sea captains and traders used to create estates on the island with their profits, but today its a summering locale visited by the Clintons, David Letterman, Tom Hanks, and other people. I think John F. Kennedy Jr. died there in a plane crash too.

We all headed out like zombies at 6:00 am in the morning for a two hour bus ride. After that we waited for awhile to get onto the ferry to the island.


After fourty-five minutes the island came into sight.


At first it wasn't too impressive. It was like a second rate beach town with too many cars squeezed onto the island. California beats out Massachusetts in the area of beach towns. People rode a lot of bikes around as well, and we saw the first carousel built in America. There were also tons of big funky houses that belonged to rich people. Some of the houses went for a couple million.



We went to go eat in the town. Bowl 2 of clam chowder down. Maybe I'll make a goal of 100. Nick and Matjaz came with us. Nick is my six foot six multi-variable calc teacher from Australia I mentioned once before. It was interesting to talk to Matjaz who is from Slovenia and now a post-doc in some fancy name for mathematics. We headed off the the beach after that.


Contact made with the Atlantic!

The beach was the best part. I didn't pass up the chance to double the count of oceans I've swam in. The sand wasn't as fine as California and had a lot of seashells and those smooth, colored type of rocks you find at Yosemite. The water was also twice as salty. Before we left we made Nick take a picture with us with his hat and sunglasses, which I think he regretted because he looked ridiculous. I knocked out on the ferry & bus ride back.

I'm Still Alive btw

This week is the first real crunch period with these tests and essay revision due. A lot of people are a little bummed about mandatory fun at Martha's Vineyard tomorrow. It's an all day trip, which knocks out Saturday for getting work done. They say it teaches us time management. There were rumors that they were going to search bags to make sure we aren't sneaking study materials onto to trip which is funny. The only part I'm skeptical about is getting up at 5:30 in the morning to leave.

So I'm pretty much busy nonstop from nine in the morning to six or seven each day. I got a B on my chem test because of a couple mistakes and a lack of studying. I probably should have put mbre time into that. My goals this summer is to adjust my study habits, sleeping schedule, and time managment. I'm not too concerned about the grades yet. Calculus is challenging, humanities is a pain, chemistry is basic, and physics is malicious. The only reason I would like to do well in Interphase is to come back and TA for it next year. You get paid $4,000, free room and board, and time to have a second job doing a UROP (Undergraduate Research Opportunity).

Busy

"Midterms" are coming up since the program is only 7 weeks long. So this next week is dedicated to getting a grasp on the physics and calculus that has been over my head.

Explosions in the Sky

Boston celebrates the Fourth of July bigger than anything I've seen before. The main event is a performance by the Boston Symphony amplified all along the Charles River followed by fireworks at 10:30. They also had some jets fly over head and fired off some cannons. Massachusetts Avenue and the Harvard Bridge was closed down as people lined up along the river and bridge to watch the fireworks, which were floating on a barge in the middle of the river. We watched from the MIT sailing pavilion, which was directly across from the barge.


The fireworks lasted pretty long, I tried taking the video of it but my camera started to lose battery and ran out of memory after 7 minutes of video since I've never deleted anything off it. I put of the short fireworks they did after the symphony finished Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. You can hear the sound thunder past us after they finish. It was pretty impressive to be right under the fireworks. The Boston skyline didn't hurt either. The head of the sailing pavilion told us beforehand the fireworks would shake your organs. The finale was a constant pounding on your chest as they shot off the rest of the fireworks. It was definitely an impressive show.

College Insanity!!!

We all put on our interphase shirts to take the group photo today. We laid out in Killian Court and relaxed for awhile. Then I played my first game of collegiate ultimate frisbee. The heat plus the humidity made for me sweating a ridiculous amount.



Latter that night, being students of this fine scientific institution and future leaders of tomorrow, we decided to make a fort out of all the chairs and tables in the lobby.


And we also dared Lesley to eat a 72x stuffed Oreo.

It's 5am now and the sky is beginning to brighten. Kwami is knocked out on the couch outside in the lounge. I think I'll go to bed.

Full Swing

I'll probably post my blog up on my myspace and facebook and send it out in a couple emails now. I finally got the cord to connect my camera to my laptop and upload pictures. I had to wait a little more than a week for it to ship across the country, but its all good. I went through and added pictures to the earlier posts even though it's past my bedtime. If you haven't read anything yet and am wondering how I am doing at MIT, you can start with 'Day One' under the June category on the sidebar. It's a way I can update people on how I'm doing over here so that you can check whenever you want. You can choose how much of a stalker you want to be. Plus I like the narrative + picture balance. Leave me a comment every once in awhile!

I'll probably add random shots of places around campus when I don't have anything else to write about. Here's two. I get a peak of Boston across the Charles outside my window whenever I sit at my desk, but the view from the lounge is even better.

Freebies

I actually understood most of calculus as I finished it up thirty minutes ago. It came with a feeling of accomplishment. We had a mini Resource Fair today. That means free give aways, so I put my game face on being the poor college student I am. The haul:

• water bottle
• 2 pens
• mousepad
• brownie
• set of earplugs
• sleeping mask thing
  
• beach ball
• mini first aid kit
• sports bag
• key clip

I live for these! It's the thrill of the hunt. I also had lunch with my Calculus teacher today. He's a tall, lanky Australian grad student doing research in abstract geometry. And a cool guy.

First sailing class was today as well, which was awesome even though we didn't go in the water. The people at the sailing pavilion are laid back say the least. With my boating certificate I can take out a sailing boat any time I want, and it lasts for life. They have everybody's sailing card since the 1930's. I just walk in, grab a life vest, sail, and boat. I can bring guests too, so if you ever visit me we can go sailing on the Charles. We learned how to rig a boat and tie a couple knots.