Foot of the Charles

The last race of head race season in Boston is The Foot of the Charles regatta. The course runs from MIT's boathouse to Harvard's, a slightly shorter distance than most head races. In terms of participation, it's much smaller than the Head of the Charles, with only college teams showing up to race in it.

MIT's lightweight men put out four boats: three freshman eights and a varsity four. I was in the second eight. We raced against Brown, Harvard, and Boston University, among others, all of which also put out several boats.

Because our boathouse was the starting line, all our boats had to be on the water before any of the races started. We wouldn't be able to launch once people started rowing past without interrupting the other races.

Typically, eights are the last event of any regatta and the Foot was no exception. So we dutifully showed up three hours before race time, clad in only racing spandex and a hat, got in our boats, and went out onto the water. Now, it's cold in Boston in November but it's even colder on the water, in the wind, wearing next to nothing, paddling around for hours on end.

Once the race started we warmed up quickly and were at full steam in no time. Despite the boat being composed half of walk on rowers - who's only experience in a boat had been at MIT - we focused and had the best row that line up had ever seen.

I'm second from the bow

After the dust settled and the results were out, we had done really well. Our first eight was the fastest light weight boat overall, beating Harvard's first squad. My boat, the second eight, came in third, beating Harvard's second, third, and fourth eights.

That was the last time on the water for the Fall season. Everything until March will be indoors: lifting, erging, and running.

Barker Stacks

I had mentioned previously that I was working at Barker library in my spare time to help pay for tuition. That is still true. However, I also mentioned that it was low key and I had a lot of downtime for studying or playing around on the internet. While I thought that was the case at the time, it is apparently no longer true.

After using some of what I thought was down time to study for some upcoming tests, I received an email from my boss regarding his "expectations" and how I was not fulfilling them. Needless to say, I was pretty scared. I had been slacking off and did not want to lose my position.

I spent some time thinking about the job and decided that it wasn't any different from rowing or classes. When I get in a boat or settle into a test, I want to do the best, be the best. That shouldn't be any different for heading up to the library. Just because I don't enjoy it doesn't mean I shouldn't bring the same level of discipline and dedication that I do with everything else.

Since receiving that email, I am proud to say that I have not used my time at the library to study or surf the web. I shelve the books, work on the inventory project, and generally tidy up around the library. Recently, I was asked if a new student could shadow me as I closed one night because I was "the best closer at Barker," and given a small bonus for letting her. While it might not mean much in the long run, I feel better about a job well done. Even if it means I have to sacrifice my down time to make up for the time I spend working at the library.

UA Dinner

Undergraduate students are encouraged, once a semester, to take a professor out to dinner. The idea is that they'll get to to him or her and form lasting relationships with someone who would be otherwise inaccessible. The Undergraduate Association (UA) happily foots the bill as long as you keep it under $20/person and fill out the required paperwork.

As a freshman, I didn't really know any of my professors. Three of my four classes were huge lecture situations where several hundred students shared one lecturer. Naturally, the good ones were overwhelmed with student requests for dinners and could probably go several weeks on end without paying for a dinner if they indulged all the students who inquired. The fourth class, Writing about Literature, was much smaller. Twelve students small. And it was taught by a relatively young and hip professor, Noel Jackson.

Class was scheduled for 3:30-5 on Mondays and Wednesdays, and as diligent  young students, we were roughly on time each day. Noel, on the other hand, was not. He strolled in regularly around 3:45 each day, which gave us plenty of time to talk amongst ourselves twice a week. After the first round of "UA dinner" emails went out advertising the idea, it was quickly brought up in this free time and organized.

Five students (the max is six) agreed to enjoy an early Friday night with Noel and cash in on a free meal from Bertucci's, a local Italian eatery. Conversation was interesting, starting with parents' occupations and going from there, hitting everything from academia and industry, robotics and AI, to Jay-Z and Kanye West. When it came time to order, we finally hit a pause. No one really knew what they wanted - would some people like to split a pizza, or order separate meals and share? Ordering food for a group of MIT engineers - myself included - had tacitly turned into a large, complicated optimization problem. And we had no paper to figure on!

Thankfully, one of the other students solved it easily with one simple fact. "Well, the UA will pay up to $20 a person. I say we take them for all we can!" Obviously, that settled it quickly. We each happily ordered an entire pizza with different toppings and promised to share with whomever was interested. That's right. Six people stroll up, sit down, and order six eighteen inch pizzas. The order goes in, conversation resumes, and is promptly interrupted again by the waiter preemptively bringing out six stands and setting them up around the table. When the pizza arrives, we are literally trapped in it. Surrounded by food, the only way to escape is to eat out way out!

Pizza embargo

With bulging stomachs and smiling faces, we waddle out of the restaurant carrying three leftover pizzas, enough to feed another six hungry customers. Noel thanks us for a great evening and hops on his bike to go home, and we saunter back towards campus.

Afterwards, the dialog in class felt much more relaxed and familiar. After all, half the class saw Noel as an entire human being, instead of just a teacher. An another (unintended) benefit from this experience was that last two essays were graded higher, perhaps I had become a better writer over the course of the class, but perhaps having dinner with him helped him grade a bit more leniently. I guess I'll never know. 

I'm definitely looking forward to doing this again in the Spring semester. I again don't know any of my professors but I am certainly happy for the opportunity to get to meet them!

Family weekend, Head of the Charles, Classes, oh my

Family weekend was two weeks ago - my mom came up from Florida for about thirty six hours. We hung out in Boston, campus, and Harvard Square. Saturday night we went to Harvard Square for dinner and couldn't find anywhere to eat - it was Harvard's family weekend too - and wound up wandering around until we hit a restaurant with empty tables. It was Upstairs on the Square, a posh eatery. We went up four flights of stairs before seeing a dining room or table. I got a delicious steak and my mom ordered the duck. After dinner, we caught the last three acts of an MIT a cappella concert. Everyone was amazing but the best part was the last song: "Up B," a parody of C-Lo's "Fuck You," written about Super Smash Bros. The video is not of the MIT a cappella group but the song is the same.

 

This was absolutely hysterical because the two parts of the joke - the original song and the content from Super Smash Bros - were both completely foreign to her. So not only was I laughing at the song, but I got to see her completely stunned reaction. Totally funny.

The next weekend was the Head of the Charles Regatta, the biggest regatta in the country if not the world. It wasn't that big of an event on campus; unless they were a rower or knew rowers, no one was particularly interested. Although I didn't get to row in it this year, I went and cheered on the team and hung out with the other guys who weren't in the boat.

This last weekend was Halloween - Friday night and all day on Monday I was dressed as a ninja.

There were surprisingly few other students dressed up for the holiday, but I did walk to my writing class with Wonderwomen. Otherwise, I saw the pink panther, several video game characters, and a viking or two. Saturday night I was a frat guy

Pictured here with Minnie Mouse and a zombie

and walked around Boston with some friends trying to get into the Halloween parties. It was the first real snow of the year, it was very cold in Sperrys and khaki shorts!

Unfortunately life at MIT isn't all weekends and rowing, I've been busy with schoolwork and the second round of midterms. We literally did rocket science last week in physics and I understood it on the pset. Either some things are actually harder than rocket science or I've got a very nice seven semesters lined up. I survived my bio midterm and am happy to report that I'm passing all my first semester classes.

Long week but a long weekend

Last Saturday was the thirty third annual Anything But Clothes party on Burton third. I didn't really know what to wear to this event, but after looking through last years pictures, found that most guys usually wore boxes around their waist and girls somehow constructed dresses from trash bags and duct tape. There weren't any empty boxes laying around in MacGregor and I really didn't want to go out and purchase one for a one time use outfit. I just kept putting it off, after all, psets and classes are more important than clothes to one party. I told myself I would figure it out Saturday afternoon; luckily as I walked to class Friday morning, I saw a handful of people unloading and breaking down boxes of glass pumpkins for display. I simply asked for one, and easily enough the Saturday night problem was solved.

Fabrication was very straight forward. I created some roughly suspender shaped pieces out of duct tape and put them over my shoulders, positioning the box so that it covered the important parts. The biggest problem of the night was something that didn't occur to me until we got there: other guys would also be wearing boxes of various sizes. And when you're in a box, you take up a lot more room - you're literally bigger and have funny dimensions - than you're used to. So when two guys in boxes try to maneuver in a crowded space, it gets complicated and funny pretty fast.

Someone costumes that really stood out included a guy wearing a kilt composed entirely of Christmas lights. He stood near an outlet for the better part of the night before he finally gave up and unplugged it. There was a couple wearing inflated balloons, and a handful of people wearing food. Skittles and fruit roll ups were the popular choices. 

All in all, it was a fun night. I think the last few weeks had worn down my immune system, because I woke up Sunday morning with gallons of mucous in my lungs. I got some extra sleep and drank plenty of water, but it wouldn't go away. I was coughing it up every day and finally on Friday I gave in and went to Medical. It turns out it was some sort of bacterial infection; they got me started on an antibiotic routine and it's working pretty well.

After a pretty successful trip to Medical I headed back towards west campus and the boat house. On my way, I ran into a pair of Korean tourists looking for the dome. I happily led them to it - it was on my way anyway - and they snapped a few pictures. It amazes me that this school is such a destination; there are huge tour groups every day. Last week, someone took a picture of me going to class, just because I was a student here. It's unreal. 

Otherwise, we just had Columbus day weekend, we had Monday and Tuesday off. I used it to catch up on sleep. I have a feeling I'm going to be getting less and less as the semester progresses, so I get it while I can. We have a three day week this week and then the next weekend is Family weekend. My mom's coming up Friday night, I'm excited to see her again and take her around Boston and Cambridge.

The week

I don't think math professors particularly enjoy teaching 18.01 or 18.02 (single and multivariable calculus). They're graduation requirements and essentially boring fundamentals for the rest of a math career. Our current professor for Multivariable, McKernan, is uninterested at best. After the first week of lectures, the freshmen of D Entry at MacGregor decided we would rather watch the videos they posted on youtube of previous years lectures, taught by Auroux. It's the same material, but delivered more relevantly and concisely. He has an awesome french accent and is much  more focused. And it's open to the public, if you have some free time, check it out.

We've had two tests so far, one in each physics and math. I got an 87 on physics and 95 on multi, it feels awesome to say that I got an A on a math test at MIT. I think the OCW lectures are working. 

Classes are really different here than in highschool. Everything is the student's responsibility. The psets are distributed over the internet and are turned in outside of class. It's your job to make sure you get everything done, to show up to classes, tests, recitations. There's no punishment for missing a lecture except that you missed the lecture. You missed the material covered and should make it up if you want to do well in the class. Of course, it's completely up to you. Taking advantage of this, I had a paper due at 3.30 and a calc recitation at two. I chose to spend the first half hour of my recitation proofing my paper and fixing mistakes. I think it was worth it, but I don't want to make it a habit. I'm lucky that I've already seen the MVC material already.


Overall I'm finally finding a rhythm in my weeks. Monday through Wednesday is rough, but I have free time on Thursdays and Fridays and even find time for naps! Mondays and Wednesdays start at 10 with biology and go until seven. I have class until five and practice until seven. On Mondays I head over to the library to work from nine to midnight. Tuesdays wouldn't be that rough - I have only two hours of class instead of five and half - except I have morning lifts at 7:30 after a late night at the library. Thursdays, like Tuesdays, only have two hours of class, and one of them is OCW 18.02, so it's whenever I want. My weekends alternate fun and work. I go out Friday nights, work all day Saturday and go out again after dinner. After my second night out, I pset hard again all day Sunday. So far, it's working.

People and Practice

There are serveral stereotypes about MIT that seem to be permanent and universal: work would be voluminous, time management would be a struggle, all my classmate would be geniuses, et cetera et cetera. For the most part, they need to be true for the school to maintain it's reputation and prestige, and so far our professors are doing a very good job of living up to those expectations.

There is one preconceived notion that couldn't be farther from the truth. The undergraduates here are not math robots, human calculators, or physics prodigies; I have yet to see a single pocket protector. They are real people with desires, feelings, opinions, and the capacity to have fun. At least, the majority of us are. Every now and then I run into someone who actually is the stereotypical MIT student. I'm trying to have a conversation with this guy on the way back to MacGregor and he's just resisting every step of the way. I managed to wrestle from him that he's a senior majoring in mechanical engineering, but other than that, he kept it to monosyllables and little to no eye contact. Those people are surprisingly rare; I'd estimate it at maybe one for every ten social students. Of course, that's probably the most biased sample ever, but I don't think I can easily correct for it.

But more than being real people, they accept everyone else as real people as well. The atmosphere created here is unbelievable. You can do anything weird or obscure, pursue any whim - and chances are someone else will be there too. Want to skateboard through the underground tunnels in the middle of the nights? That's one of the less weird things the maintenance staff will see this year. Go for a jog in full business attire? I've both seen it happen and been involved.

Crew is wildly different than it was at Cape Coral, but I still love it. Getting to go on the Charles every day is incredible. In the canals at Cape Harbor, all the other traffic was motor boats and people that had never seen a racing shell before gawking at us or taking pictures. Here, it's the complete opposite - all the other boats on the water are either collegiate sail boats or other rowers. It's really cool rowing past Northeastern, Harvard, or especially Wellesley crews. And it's totally expected. The Bostonian pedestrians see people rowing on a daily basis, after all The Head of the Charles is one of the biggest regattas in the world.

The actual practices are different too. Instead of taking out only one boat, we take out three eight man shells every day and do mostly race pieces. There is a technical warm up period but the majority of the practice is full pressure - pulling hard the whole way. This week in particular we have three two a days, practice at 7:30 am and then again at 5 pm. Although it's tons of time and effort I love every second of it.

Other than that, I've started picking up shifts at the libraries and MacGregor desk. Both are pretty easy, and very low key. The library job just entails shelving books and cataloging . Working the desk at my dorm is actually pretty fun, I just talk to everyone as they come in, handle packages, and get to work on whatever I want. This entire post was actually typed while working the desk.