April 2005 Archives

Which means once I get past the AP exams, write my last term paper, & present my culminating project, I'm pretty much done. Well, I have to write a stupid speech, but eh.

Tom. is a German field trip to New York for art & lunch. & also Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Stayed after tod. for the third AP Amst. review sesion. I mostly only go because of KT, who seems to know all the information we review already, anyway, but I suppose it's useful. I probably wouldn't study this much otherwise.

Calculus review set for this Sunday afternoon. And I still cannot find my motherfucking graphing calculator. I am dependent on that thing! It integrates for me. <3 We are BFF. And I have no idea where the fuck it is. Somewhere in my chaotic mess of a room, but I swear I really looked [=dug frustratedly through the huge piles of clothes on the floor], and it is nowhere to be found.

Because I have afinity things due tom, I thought I would be extremely clevar and stay home tod. to complete them, so I wouldn't have to cut tom. and have to make up a gajillion tests.

So I spent like five hours on 38 physics problems [two chapters worth of homework], which works out to about 7.89 minutes a problem, if you must know.

And then I wrote a stupid essay about existentialism and No Exit, even though I left the assignment with the actual prompt at school, so I had to completely guess what I was supposed to discuss [other than existentialism].

And I still need to read a chapter of our gov textbook, finish writing an analysis of a stupid Klimt painting [Lebensbaum, if you must know], complete an AP physics E&M multiple choice packet, review the Eisenhower era for a DBQ tom, and not kill myself.

Purple Collar. Smelly Butt. Furry Pig. Greyling. Starvycat.

He began to lose a lot of weight a while ago, so the vet cut a growth off his ear and then decided he had diabetes. And he grew more and more miserable and emaciated, always hungry, but never gaining weight.

We had him put down last night. They thought it might have been cancer.

But I'll remember him for pooping on my bed the first night we brought the cats home from the Women's Humane Society, when they were little kittens you could hold in one hand.

And constantly getting stuck on the roof above our backdoor and meowing incessantly until we brought out the "kitten elevator" [any chair that hapless humans would have to lift above their heads while the cat jumped off the roof onto the chair, to be slowly lowered to the ground].

And trotting up the driveway as the car pulls in, stopping to look behind him every few steps to make sure the car is still coming.

And though not the brightest, being the sweetest, most malleable, best-tempered cat.

<3

You'd think as a fourth marking period senior, I would be the opposite of overextended and stressed out.

Lies.

All lies.

On Thursday I have a DBQ for American studies, a gov test, and a physics test, which means I'm going to need to spend all of the night before doing a gajillion physics homework assignments. *stabs self in forehead*

Plus, according to lettergrade, an essay I thought was due Friday is due Wednesday? Um, no thanks? [i <3 high-rise terminals.]

And for tom. I need to do some stupid German project, which will suck the big one. And perhaps assorted little ones as well.

But ne'er fear, I already finished my physics lab write-up. Easy-peasy, fortunately. Which just leaves an AP problem to prepare for math & a gov article to read plus questions to answer.

Plus Weather Underground paper, senior culminating project, & 24-hour relay in the long term. Oh, yeah, and my cat's dying.

Sixth grade talk went well. Not entirely crappy, at any rate. I had more material prepared than I had time to talk about, so that was better than vice versa. At times I got a little flustered, but whatevz. They are sixth graders. I am a high school senior. I have pink hair. I was famous for my Harry Potter website. I am the coolest of the cool.

Went to Amst. AP review with Miriam & KT. AP exams make me want to stab myself in the face.

And school mostly sucks.

But I'll survive.

[/end whinge-o-post]

Yest. went on mad shopping spree. KT = bad influence. Bought adorable shoes, two Gap tees [on sale, don't worry], a Forever 21 long-sleeve tee, assorted socks, & a three-in-one package of headphones [buds, ear clips, & old school].

Balanced it out by tidying my room ever-so-slightly. & watched Alfie. Mmm, Jude Law. So delicious. So charming. So well-dressed. <3 AAF.

Tod. prepared to talk to two sixth grade classes tom. about my Harry Potter website experience & the basics of HTML [for my senior service project, due May 19. x.x]. I'm kind of nervous, but perhaps not as nervous as I ought to be, considering I haven't practiced what I'm going to say. But I made an outline & some notes to use, so it shouldn't be a problem. They're just sixth graders, anyway. I guess I don't want to disappoint my old teacher mostly.

So I made photocopies of a handout I created & while I was at Staples, solved my permanently low battery cell phone state [I'll finish the CPW story at some point, I promise] by purchasing an AC/DC converter, so I can use my car charger to charge my phone in the house. Praise Jesus.

& I borrowed two AP study books [English Lit. & US History] from the library. Maybe will look at them at some point? Didn't see a calc book. Urgh, I hate exams. Not that they really matter. But I am spending $246, so hopefully I will not sux0r at all of them.

And I need to find my graphing calculator. [The school's graphing calculator, really.] It's probably lost in my room somewhere.

And instead of doing all the things I'm supposed to be doing, I'm wearing The Devil Wears Prada.

PS: while looking at old layouts to show sixth graders, I found this. And this. Oh, dreadlocks. & too bad my family hates me too much to take my digital camera to be fixed. & too bad I'm too busy to nag persistently to make sure it gets done.

Pretty much the worst possible weather for physics day.

And now I get to babysit the sibs on a Friday night. Cha-ching!

So nerdy. So good.

I love competition.

Tom. is physics day. I went to Sienna's house last night for Lost [another rerun! *stabs self in eye*] & looked at her photos of physics day 2k4. It was cute. I still had nasty dirty dreads. No, they were pretty much hardcore adorable. Esp. with the little threads I wrapped around them. Oh, golly.

But yeah, I wasn't wearing pink [okay, except for the shoes]. & I was like oh, yeah. I used to be [slightly] normal. And in one picture I look like I'm high. \m/ I would scan them, but I suck at life too much.

School is crap.

Will Bruce said he'd make me a shirt that said that.

Yeah, so tod. our beloved principal spoke to us about prom, commencement, senior pranks, senior exams & the like. He also announced valedictorian & salutatorian, and we voted for two other seniors to speak at graduation.

Did you know a salutatory is an opening or welcoming statement or address and a valedictory is a closing or farewell statement or address? I suppose I ought to have, thanks to Latin, but I guess I never really thought about it.

So, yeah, I get to make a speech. I was thinking along the lines of "peace out, homes." But that might not be sufficient.

I'm open to suggestions. If anyone would like to submit a speech, I will carefully peruse it & if they don't all suck, I will read the winning one & pretend it's mine. We could even pretend it's a competition. You love being competitive!

In other news, my "yes, I would like to attend yr fine institute of technology, Massachusetts" letter was mailed tod. I wanted to mail it on a significant day, because it feels important, but I couldn't think of any holidays before May 1 except this one. So I don't know what that says about my future at college.

Oh, yeah. Earth Day. April 22. OH WELL.

Peace out, homes.

What AP tests should I take? I'm thinking BC Calc [because I just need a 4] and English [because it shouldn't be too hard to get a 5; there's not really anything to study, right?] plus another humanities [either US History or Government & Politics] to increase my chance of getting a 5.

Too bad I don't want to pay $492 to take them all.

PS: Our pink highlighter-decorated motor-powered car made the required circle tod. [after a couple practice runs when it only went halfway around, but don't worry. we are teh r0x.] Oh, physics. Only one more test & then freedom! Except she's going to force us to do practice AP problems for Points [!] even though I refuse to take the AP test. Erlack-a-gogo x sideways 8.

Peas^2: Third marking period grades. Who says senioritis isn't a viable option?

1) ENG IV H/AP-0140-31 94.72
2) AMST II AP-0240-21 92.62
3) AP AMER GOVT/POLTICS-0250-41 101.58
4) CALC AP BC-0360-11 90.98
5) PHYSICS AP-0440-61 93.94
6) PE-0515-71 100.00
7) HEALTH ED-0560-51 100.60
8) GER V H/AP-0630-81 95.70

All I have to do is post every weekday this week & every single day next week. Sounds like a challenge!

Fri. -> ran errands w. Mutter. Bought white-out from Target for decorating my Chucks. Which seemed kind of urgent, but I haven't really got around to it yet. I mostly just wanted to add stars on the side. Looked in Radio Shack for cell phone charger. No one loves Sony Ericsson. ;.; Bought some cheap hair colour at Sally's. "Racy wine."

Went to Sea-isa's house for trampolining, pizza, & Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, old school. [Is it July 15 yet?]

Sat. -> helped aunty move. Won store credit at H&M, a mini!teevee & ironing board/iron for college, & some chick lit books. Aww, yeah. Pizza afterwards.

Mutti wasn't feeling well, so went with Vati to annual Abington-Rockledge Democratic Committee dinner. Rah.

Sun. -> went w. Sea-isa to Tsunami Stroll for service hours, baked goods, losing raffle tickets, free bowling coupons, & the greater good.

Here is me w. a catsup bottle as prop, courtesy L Gyi.

Mon. -> I woke up this morning, got dressed, put my contacts in, was ready to go, ate some breakfast, started to get stomach crampy things, thought they would go away, was putting moisturizer on & then got pre-blackout feelings. So I sat down & put my head between my knees & my mom was like, oh, yeah, yr dad and I had a virus this weekend. Why don't you stay home today?

So, still clothed, I went back to bed & slept a little, then read, worked outside [in the sense that I was outside working with my laptop, not weeding or hoeing or things of that nature; at one point, the wind blew all these petals from the neighbour's tree past me & it felt like an anime], listened to music, opened college mail [dear colleges: stop sending me mail & making me feel guilty about not planning to attend yr school, kthxbai], watched Gravitation [the first three episodes arrived tod. from Netflix, cha-ching!], & blogged this.

Our physics lab [in the form of a motored car that drives in circles] is due tom., so I should prolly call my lab partner and see if there's any last minute work to be done. & I should probably call M'isa to ask her if she wants to watch Gravitation sometime [like tom. night], because I promised I'd let her watch it, but I want to send it back ASAP & get more episodes. =9

Friday

7:30 Wake up as other people are getting up. Look at time. Go back to sleep.
9:00 Get up fo' real, get dressed, &c. Head out to catch shuttle to main campus. [After making sure everything I might need for the day is in my purse.]
9:15 Call other people to see what we're doing for breakfast. Meara had wanted to meet at 10. Unable to contact Meara.
9:30 Katharine calls me back during the shuttle ride. We decide to meet at 77 Mass Ave.
9:45 Meet Katharine, go to Delta Kappa Epsilon for custom-made breakfast by 4-star chef. Wait in line. Get cheese omelette. [Was going to get cheese & tomato omelette, but then I was like . . . or I could just put ketchup on it. And I did.]
9:55 Lauren txts me, saying the boy next door was hogging the shower.
10:00 Katharine & I eat our breakfasts, with leftover frat brownies for dessert. Mmm, brownies. We make new friends.
10:30 With a couple new friends, we decide to go to an 11 o'clock Brain & Cognitive Sciences class: Sensation & Perception.
10:45 We wander over to E25-117, getting slightly lost on the way.
10:55 Arrive way too early to class; only other prefrosh are there. Txt Lauren about our plans.
11:00 Actual students enter class. Feel bad about hogging seats.
11:05 Sit through v. interesting class on sight & recognition. Would def. want to take that class fo' realz.
12:00 Class ends. Of course, the one I actually enjoyed was only an hour long.
12:05 Katharine, Lauren, New Friend 1 [sorry, I really don't remember her name. I think she had strawberry-blonde hair and was kind of sporty.] decide to visit the Garment District. We wander quite a while down Mass. Ave before realising we're not going the right way. So we turn in what we think is the general direction and eventually, miraculously, arrive at the GD.
12:35 I enjoy browsing the merch at my dear old friend the Garment District. See a really cute belt, but resist the urge to acquire. Also some really cute skirts. <3333
1:00 When shopping loses its novelty, we walk back to the Z Center for the Arts & Academic Fairs. Eat candy from art tables. Receive free pan pipes from the music department, plus assorted free pens. See some familiar faces, like Teal, my nerd camp tutor. Talk to her about taking AP exams. x.x Also talk to comparative media studies people, mostly because they have laptops with game demos, like Katamari Damacy. Might be an interesting field to consider. Also spoke to women's studies people because I felt bad. And I realised women's studies could be combined with another concentration, so you don't just go to college and major in women's studies. Who'd have thought? Okay, besides everybody.
3:00 Head over to Random Hall w. Katharine & Funk Masta Bizz for some boffing action.
3:17 Climb up to the roof. On the way there, pass resident with fuchsia hair & blue goatee. Love.
3:20 Observe people, including Nick, whacking each other with foam weapons. Lauren & I take up the offer of foam weapons and retreat to a corner of the roofdeck to boff each other. Except we mostly end up laughing hysterically from the joy of it and reenacting scenes from Pirates of the Caribbean, mostly involving Orlando Bloom & J. Depp. Apparently, we were not serious enough for the hardcore boffers, who chided us with cries of "cheesy Hollywood fighting!" and "attack the person, not the weapon." Yeah, thanks. If I ever decide to become a professional samurai, I will be sure to keep those criticisms in mind. Oh, wait. I don't want to be a professional samurai. I just wanted to have fun! & you completely ruined it! THANKS!
3:35 After we tire of having all the fun completely sucked out of what should have been a fun activity, we stood in a circle and talked. We WTFers were joined by Nick, Sally [from ... North Carolina? Or Virginia?], Danbee [means "sweet rain" in Korean], Matt [our Festival night friend], Sharife [from Egypt... the only reason I can spell his name is that he's always the first name to come up in the '09 guestbook], & maybe a couple of random Random Hall residents. So we chatted. I received a hug from Nick, though I don't remember why. <3 [Just to kill the suspense: if this were a literary work of a romantic nature, the weekend would climax with me hooking up with Nick in the upstairs of a frathouse, but that ne'er happened. My weekend crush was unrequited.] Sally and Katharine/Lauren decide someday I will find a boy with blue hair who dresses in all blue and he will be my One True Love. There was a boy dressed in all blue, but his hair was brown, so we were not One True Love, but I did wave to him whenever I saw him afterward.
4:05 Anticipating truffles, we start to head downstairs. Because a resident on the roof had tipped us off that Joia [nerd camp tutor] was around somewhere, Katharine had the bright idea to descend the stairs shouting "JOIA! JOIIIA!" Nick: "Are you sure it isn't Spanish for jewel? HOYA! HOYYYYA!" Miraculously, we suddenly hear Joia shriek & come running to find us. Hugs all around. Happy reunion, etc.
4:17 Truffles! Except I am too lazy to actually dip my own truffles, so I mostly live vicariously & watch other people eat them.
4:30 The WTP cr00 heads out to go to Baker, the dorm where Katharine's temped, so she can do something dormy there. Oh, right. Change her shoes. Because we were warned to wear shoes on the Tangerine Tour & flip-flops are apparently not shoes.
5:00 From Baker, we decide we want to go to dinner and a movie with the Society of Women Engineers, so we head out and run into Nick, Matt, Danbee, & Sally, who were headed toward the Baker BBQ. They decide to join us, lured by Bertucci's food & Ocean's Twelve. When we finally get to 4-154, however, it is packed with people and there is a massive line for food. F this s, we said. We're hungry, f00. So we decided to go back to the Baker barbecue. Which slightly irritated the people who had been on their way there when we sidetracked them. But whatevz, they lived.
5:30 There are chips & assorted yummies at the barbecue, but sadly, they were cooking no veggie burgers. ;.; But it's cool, I just ate way over the recommended serving size of Doritos & socialized. Met some more nice people, including a prefrosh named Angel. A male prefrosh named Angel. I wondered if he could sing & dance like in Rent, but didn't ask, out of politeness. There was also an MIT student named Kyle chatting with a group of prefrosh. Kyle with a smile. He was really friendly and had a bit of a Bahston accent. It was cute.
6:30 Barbecue gets boring, so Katharine & I peace out in favour of heading to Senior Haus for the 6,000 bouncy ball drop. We hang around in various cold places [the courtyard, the lobby] & txt Lauren to inform her of our whereabouts. When Lauren arrives, we venture up to the balcony of Senior Haus, where there are slightly intimidating people smoking. But we put on our best friendly prefrosh smiles & introduce ourselves, then chill there, admiring the psychedelic wall murals. Definitely the dorm for arty stoners.
7:30 Eventually it is time for the bouncy ball drop. We go out to the balcony to watch. Christine calls and we tell her to come join us, and she gets to the balcony just as the balls are dropped. Oh, bouncy balls. Good stuff.
7:45 It's time for the Mr and Miss MIT contest, so we teleport to the student center. [Okay, maybe just walk, but I'm running out of interesting verbs for changes of location.] Meara meets us there & we load up on snackfood.
8:00 The contest is pretty cute. The first guy to perform, an Asian freshman, sings some mushy song that I'd recognise if I heard it, but which I can't remember. And he was wearing white gloves [style points x 8] & had a red rose which he presented to an audience member while on one knee. Guess who that audience member was. [=me] Aww, yeah. The coolest part was this guy whose talent was collecting junk that MIT labs throw out & combining it to give a really awesome lightshow. The three judges were MIT professors, & they were all really adorable. One judge reviewed all the performances in rhyme. Hilarious.
9:30 The contest ends and Meara needs to go to East Campus [where she's temped] to get her coat & stuff [See? Prefrosh staying in normal dorms and nor independent living groups across the river can stop back at their dorms for errands & warmer clothing!]. We pass the lobby of East Campus, where all these shady characters dressed in black and often wearing berets/sunglasses are congregating. It is not conspicuous at ALL.
10:00 We loiter in the lobby of building 7 where there are lots of prefrosh gathered [~300]. Eventually we're broken into packets. [Yes, that's what they called them.] And taken off secret separate ways by our packet leaders. Packet 5, represent. We were mostly amused by the top secret spy act, so we joked around, asking, "can our packet have a theme song?" and humming the James Bond theme.
10:15 After being thoroughly disoriented, we arrived in a large lecture hall, where the black-clad "Jacks" were gathered at the front. Katharine, Meara, Christine, Matt, Nick, & I sat together. We waited a long time & it bordered on boring, so I first tried throwing my rose into the aisle to see if anyone would find it and have it touch their heart in an oh-so-special way. But no one did, so when Nick picked it up and gave it back to me, I started plucking off the petals and distributing them among my friends as tokens of my love. Yes, subtly tossing rose petals onto unsuspecting innocents seated in front of me was also a token of my love. Matt & I contemplated an alternate universe where one gives others flower petals instead of entire flowers, and Matt came up with the theory that you would give people you only liked a little lettuce leaves. Which was an amusing thought.
10:45 Eventually all the lagging packets show up & Jack Florey, the leader of this Tangerine-flavoured [-coloured? -scented?] Tour, gives us the DL on how to be sneaky, including how to walk up stairs and the two reasons the edges of roofs are dangerous. There's a pretty good article that sums up the basic experience here, and I'm too lazy to rehash everything she wrote, but I'll try to give you a general idea of what it was like.

1. cold
2. boring - long periods of waiting for them to scout safe routes, etc., whilst we listened to the same old hacking stories
3. way too long - we had planned to go to some frat parties afterward, but it didn't end until 3 or 4 in the morning & we were mostly exhausted
4. absolutely worth it

Picture me, shimmying up and down the dome in a pink skirt [=mistake x.x] & my pink stockings from Hannah [yes, Hannah, yr stockings came into contact with the dome at MIT. Feel special.] in the dark of the night, mostly fearing for my life, but also fearing I would inadvertently flash one of the hapless Jacks. It was pretty much awesome. And don't worry, I was wearing fairly sensible shoes, in the form of my Chucks. <3 Yes, those very same items of footwear that tread the mundane hallways of ASHS most days of the week, have perched on a well-known architectural structure of a prestigious center of higher education.

Word to your mother. The third and final installment coming soon to a theatre near you.

Because I haven't time to recount part deux of le grande CPW adventure, you'll just receive a brief update on Mon. & tod. [Tues. wasn't imp.]

Monday
Film festival day w. Marisa! We went into the city of brotherly love for some shopping & some movies.

I: independent bookstore. Bought "I'm not gay, but my boyfriend is" button for sheer comic value. The range of implications is endless. Mostly, though, I feel it represents my adoration for teh ghey menz.

II: Blondie boutique. 2 pairs of shoes for $15. Can never resist shoes/deals. Mmm. Shoes. So I bought these fuchsia & black fetishy high heels decorated with bits of fishnet PLUS these weird hot pink sneakers with see-through plastic sides. They are the most ridiculous shoes I've evar owned. J'adore them.

III: Jewelry store, anime store, random stores.

IV: Realize we have no idea where the Bridge is, walk to Ritz at the Bourse to learn that it's at 40th and Walnut. Take bus.

V: Get there just in time. See The Edukators. V.g. German language + radical politics + crime + sex + indie kids = good times. Also v. humorous. And I loved being able to understand teh Deustch.

VI: Take bus east ~37 blocks. Eat dinner at Cosi. <3 tomato basil mozzarella.

VII: Escuela de seducción. Battle of sexes tiring at times. Some amusing moments nonetheless.

VIII: Home.

Wednesday

Okay, and now for tod.'s adventures in suppression of freedom of expression. I present this in the form of a commonplace book.

1a. A large aquatic rodent of the genus Castor, having thick brown fur, webbed hind feet, a broad flat tail, and sharp incisors adapted for gnawing bark, felling trees, and constructing dams and underwater lodges. b. The fur of this rodent. c. A top hat originally made of the underfur of this rodent. 2. A napped wool fabric, similar to felt, used for outer garments. 3a. Vulgar Slang. The female genitals. b. Offensive & Vulgar Slang. A woman or girl. 4. A piece of armor attached to a helmet or breastplate to protect the mouth and chin. 5. The visor on a helmet.
[dictionary.com definition of beaver]

Elected in 1914 to represent a school of ambitious engineers, the beaver mascot has been embraced by every subsequent generation of MIT students. One of the secrets of its success is its enduring appropriateness as a symbol of the community. Originally chosen for its engineering skills, industriousness, and nocturnal habits, the North American beaver has not changed much over the century, but its likeness on campus morphs from generation to generation.
[MIT Graphic Identity: Symbols: Mascot]

web.mit.edu/savetfp/beaver.pdf
[SaveTFP's "celebrate deviance: love your beaver" poster.]

In general, students are expected to wear appropriate clothing conducive to learning and study. (Students who wear clothing considered to be disruptive, bare midriffs, muscle shirts, clothing with obscene language or pictures, or other attire depicting the use of drugs or alcohol, will be asked by school personnel to change their clothing.)
[Abington High School Student Handbook, emphasis added]

1. Offensive to accepted standards of decency or modesty. 2. Inciting lustful feelings; lewd. 3. Repulsive; disgusting. 4. So large in amount as to be objectionable or outrageous.
[dictionary.com definition of obscene]

For something to be "obscene" it must be shown that the average person, applying contemporary community standards and viewing the material as a whole, would find (1) that the work appeals predominantly to "prurient" interest; (2) that it depicts or describes sexual conduct in a patently offensive way; and (3) that it lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
[legal definition of obscenity]

Yeah, so if you couldn't tell, I wore my spankin' new MIT souvenir tee & was told to turn it inside out. Mostly I was too bewildered to argue. Of all the ridiculous things students wear that might be perceived as offensive, I considered "love your beaver" relatively harmless. But apparently the administration decided otherwise.

Damn the man.

WARNING: Prolly not interesting to anyone but me & possible other prefrosh who attended CPW. Only read if v. bored.

Thursday

4:30 - Woke up. x.x Finished packing. Went to train station to catch train. M. purchased choc. milk & cherry scone. Mostly slept on train ride to airport.
6:15 - Arrive at airport. Purchase pink orbit gum [best. evar!] & Jane magazine. Go through security, etc. Read Jane whilst waiting to board plane.
7:30 - Board plane.
9:10 - Arrive in Boston. Wander around airport until see MIT sign. Follow group of students onto bus. Introduce self.
9:20 - Get off bus to wait for shuttle to MIT. Get on shuttle. Sit across from cute guy from San Diego rocking the hipster look. Idle chatter. Too tired to be overly friendly, opt for benevolent aloofness.
10:00 - Arrive at MIT. Wander over to Student Center to check in. Pass Amanda Maguire upon entering the building. Gushing reunion. Check in, find out there's no one to take me to my 'independent living group,' wander around campus with Amanda for an hour. Shoulder starts to ache because was too stupid to notice the luggage check-in room at the Student Center. Fortunately packed uncharacteristically light [= smushed three days worth of clothes into smallish duffel bag/biggest messenger bag].
11:00 - Call host, Sandra: says she'll meet me in an hour.
11:05 - Run into Rebecca from WTP [or, as one new friend referred to it, WTF], chat for a little bit.
11:45 - Go down to the lobby to wait for host. Talk to policewoman, eat cookie from her table, so don't look like lonely tool with no friends waiting in the lobby.
12:00 - See various people I recognize in the lobby, greet. Score LBizzle's digits, awwyeah.
12:10 - Am collected by Sandra. Friendly girl. Also meet fellow prefrosh who staying at Student House [= completely inconvenient ILG on the wrong side of the river]. Take shuttle to Student House. Make friendly talk with host & fellow prefrosh. Run into some more familiar faces whilst waiting for the shuttle.
12:30 - Drop off stuff at Student House, get tour from host. Hang out on the roof with other Student House resident [a senior, like Sandra]. Really sweet guy, in a nervous, dorky sort of way.
1:30 - Decide to take shuttle back to campus with other prefrosh [Tia] so we can attend classes [oh, how naïve we were that Thursday afternoon.] I wanted to go to a women studies class: Technology and Gender in American History. Yes, I know it's MIT & I should have done a nuclear engineering class or something, but I'm can't help that I'm a flaming feminazi. :P
2:00 - Get to building 56 way too early, so purchase bottle of Dr. Pepper from soda machine w. techcard [MIT gave us $30, cha-ching!], wander around & call Lauren, who doesn't answer.
2:20 - Lauren calls back. "Plz come to Soviet Politics and Society with me." "..." "Plzzzz." "I hate you." So we go to a PoliSci class instead.
2:30 - We sit in the back of the class & giggle. Then quiet when the prof. enters & grow incredibly bored when she starts talking in detail about Kruschev & his secret speech. Bleh. & it was a really small class, too, so it would be rude if we just got up and left, like one random student did [but he was sitting by the door, so he could make a fast getaway.]
3:30 - Class drags on. Fortunately stereotype about MIT XYs shattered by stunning Matthew McConaughey lookalike. Mmmm, lookalike.
4:00 - Free at last. We flee to the MIT Abroad Panel, to learn about Cambridge. Unfortunately it is also fairly boring, once audience members begin to repeatedly ask questions that any proficient listener could tell had already been answered.
5:00 - Walk to Simmons for dinner. Boca burger & vegan fries, awwyeah. Except I wasn't that hungry. & we got way too much ketchup because we couldn't find those little cups, so we used a soup cup. But it wasn't our fault, really.
5:30 - Go up to the dorm room of someone sitting at our table. Is rather large. Lots of windows. Meet new friend: prefrosh staying with dormroom resident. Add her to our little group [now numbering a grand 3] & head to the student center. I forget what we did at the student center, but it was obviously highly important.
6:30 - Start to head over to Campus MovieNite to see five minute shorts by MIT students. Run into gaggle of WTP alums. Am attacked by Meara, in hugging sort of way. Happy to see everyone.
7:00 - Find seats in 10-250 for Campus MovieNite. Are slightly late, due to one of our number wanting to purchase a frappucino or some crap, but it's cool.
7:10 - Watch MIT movies. Are, as a whole, very entertaining. Favourite: Go Vagina.
8:30 - Leave early for CPW Student Welcome & Pre-frosh Icebreaker. Meet more WTP people, shriek!fest. <3 Katharine. Pre-frosh with birthdays get called onstage & receive gifts. A capella group sings. More v. cute boys proving prejudices incorrect. Plus, I hrt boys who sing.
9:15 - Broken up into icebreaker groups. Our group [led by Sam who was darling in a Napoleon Dynamite way] is mostly nerd camp alums. We do stupid icebreaking things, names, locations, Olympic events to be won. "Most awesomest person evar" = mine. Sam asked if we had any questions, if we were nervous about anything, if we had any preconceptions about MIT, whether they were proved false. I shared my "all MIT boys are ugly" fear when everyone else chose just that time to practice their Tibetan monk under vow of silence impersonations. We were nearly forced to play human bingo, but we were saved just in time by the icebreaking session ending to give way to the "Festival."
9:30 - Festival. Free t-shirts [love your beaver], free food, all sorts of good stuff. Ended up standing in a circle with WTP people when fearless leader Sam walked by [again, pretty adorable, in his own special way] and advised us to use our super powers for good and pull other people into our circle. So I said, "on yr mark, get set, go," & we ran off to collect other people. I forget what I told the three people I found, but it was prolly along the lines of the truth, and surprisingly enough, they agreed to come back to the group with me. So we all returned to the circle with our catches and made new friends.

A quick lesson in mindless "getting to know you" talk.
1. Exchange names, locations.
2. Inquire whether MIT is his/her first choice.
a. If so, ask about possible majors.
b. If not, ask about other schools being considered.
3. If conversation slows, ask where s/he is being temped.
4. Ask if s/he has done anything especially exciting thusfar in CPW. Conversation does not always survive to this point.

While most people we caught & dragged back to our group gradually drifted off, we did manage to make one an honorary member of our WTF posse. Matt, from Arizona, went on to hang out with us for a good number of activities later that wknd.
10:00 After the free stuff & minigolf got boring, we went out to the entrance for liquid nitrogen ice cream. Chocolate mint. Mmm. After Katharine, Matt, & I had finished our ice cream, with Katharine in third, we ambled over to mill around near a disc jockey spinning some hip records, as it were. There were also some long-haired freaks doing some freaky-deaky dancing. Okay, they weren't that freaky. But I don't think I could dance like that even I tried really hard.
10:15 The hipster boy from the bus this morning [Nick from San Diego, whose father's a disabled veteran and thus can go to UC Berkeley for v. little cash— see? tired as I was, I still managed to retain crucial details, and he barely remembered my name— "Katie." No offense, KT, but god, how I loathe that name.] joined our circle and I introduced him to the posse. We chatted a little bit and I idly wandered what the very serious guy at the turntables would say if I requested the Spice Girls. Nick, of course, said he would & scurried off to follow through. He came back, not suprisingly, with a neg. response as well as no to the Chemical Bros. [whose name I was proud to recognise, thx to Hannah's ultimate k8 mix], & some other west coast shite that he likes. No, I'm sure it's good. Prolz.
10:30 - As we watched the techno!kids get down with their bad selves, I masterminded a takeover. So we shadily started inching toward the dance floor & then broke into dance like wild dancing maniacs. Mostly because I hide not being able to dance at all by doing hardcore exaggerated clichéd dance moves. Works like a charm, let me tell you. & makes ppl think yr outgoing. & Nick taught us the crab, which is hilarious, and people stopped to point and laugh in a jealous sort of way, and Katharine refused to participate.
10:45 - More nerd campers join the party, but most also refuse to dance due to some retained shreds of dignity. We eventually decide the scene is beat, & peace out to play soccer with a block of ice outside, where there is ice sculpture being blowtorched into existence.
10:50 - We decide to go to a frat party at Delta Upsilon, so head over to catch a shuttle. Except I am one person too many & the shuttle driver, in his formidable, undying respect for teh Rules, refused to let me sit on anyone's lap. So I grudgingly vacated the bus, & of course, like the darlings they are, my entire WTP posse + Nick + friend [Amy] followed me off. It tugged at the heartstrings, let me tell you. So we were like, okay, let's walk. Except Nick & Amy were like, "hey, do you mind if we come with? okay, we're going to jog" & ran off ahead of us.
11:15 - We arrive at teh party & are forced to sign in, so that in case we get raped &c, the popo will know which frat to blame. We go upstairs and it is uncomfortably warm & there is a band doing a loud cover of The Police & Nick and Amy are drinking Slice. So we stand around for a little while, not being able to hear each other talk, observing the purloined Harvard sign hanging behind the bar. Eventually we realise the frat does not know how to have a party without alcohol, and because they are not allowed to serve alcohol, it mostly sucks. So we left and sat outside to make plans.
11:30 - Our choices are sports, poker, or movies, so we decide on movies at Senior Haus. Amy calls her host who still hasn't contacted her yet, to no avail. I try to help Nick find Senior Haus on our campus map, which involves him scooting closer to me & me leaning over to point at his lap. Okay, so yes, I mostly developed a tiny crush on him this wknd. But not too long after [or was it before?], he made a call on his cell to a Lauren, whom he left a message which would imply they were either dating or very close friends. Or maybe he has a sister he's close to? Okay, yeah, I know. But whatevz. Even if he has a girlfriend, it just proves that he's dateable.
11:45 - We begin the trek to Senior Haus as the weather begins to turn moist. As we cross the bridge, Katharine & I learn Nick is a fan of Coupling, so we pretty much relive the entire history of the show, episode by episode, laughing hysterically, while everyone else is kind of like... oh. PS: Matt [Arizona] is also a Coupling fan, as we later learn. MIT prefrosh = such good taste.
11:50 - Eventually the conversation turns to Johnny Depp, as all good conversations eventually will. "So if Johnny Depp came up to you and said, 'Hey, nice shoes, wanna fuck?', it would work?" "Pretty much." "No fair."
12:00 - We arrive at Senior Haus, slightly damp, & are led into the basement for Six String Samurai. Oh, Buddy Holly.
12:15 - We are tired & we missed the beginning, so we collectively decide to peace out, even though I was kind of enjoying myself. For the greater good.
12:20 - We all scurry back to our respective dorms, except for me, who must wait at the bus stop for the Boston West shuttle. Fortunately there is a friendly [cute!] MIT student [who I of course ask if he is a prefrosh] sitting next to me with his powerbook & we strike up a conversation, touching on a Weezer concert, the tangerine tour, & his frat party tom. night. All in all, a darling boy.
12:45 - Shuttle comes, board shuttle, get off a couple stops too early, walk q. far in intense rainfall through Boston at night. But I survived. Maybe muggers/rapists/serial killers/drunken frat boys don't like the rain either. I felt kind of bad getting back to Student House so late, but there was a friendly foreigner there to open the door for me. "Hi, I'm a prefrosh staying here. . ." "You're welcome."
1:15 - I went up to the library, where there were a bunch of mattresses for us to sleep on [plus sheets + pillows, fortunately, because I had neglected to bring either & I got really nervous when the other prefrosh, Tia, had a sleeping bag with her].
1:20 - Bedtime activities, teeth brushing, face washing, retainer putting in [blech], contact lens removing, cell phone charger plugging in [more on this later], small talk with another prefrosh sleeping in the library.
1:45 - Sleep.

This ends part I of III. Please turn over the tape to continue listening to CPW 2K5.

I know I've quoted Sylvia Plath's fig tree metaphor before, but it's just so good.

I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story.

From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out.

I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.

In a depressing sort of way, that is. So, um, Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson sent me a letter.

I am pleased to inform you that you are the recipient of the Rensselaer President's Award. This award means that you will receive a state-of-the-art IBM laptop computer as part of your acceptance into the Rensselaer Class of 2009. ...The laptop will be my gift to you to celebrate your arrival at Rensselaer and to assist you in accomplishing your academic goals.

Oh, Shirley Ann. Thx.

And my Harvard interviewer called me to see if I had any questions and encourage me to visit the school. And she's just such a sweet lady, that I pretended I wanted to go to Harvard & pretended I had questions for her. Which prolly makes me a bad person, but I'm not good at rejecting people.

And I was looking through Penn's dorm pamphlet, and this one girl had my computer & my water bottle. & I was like OMG BFF.

But don't worry, even though Harvard & Penn both offered me a pretty sweet sum of money [though not quite as much as MIT, funnily enough], I'm fairly certain I want to go to MIT.

& I'm going up tomorrow for Campus Preview Weekend.

And can I just say:

PrincessMandi416: hey kate...its amanda maguire...do u remember me, we were friends back in the day at glenside weldon?
PrincessMandi416: i just saw on mit's website that u got in there, hey me too...is that not weird?

Except I wasn't online, so the messages were sent to my phone. And I was like HOLY FUCK. AMANDA!!!!!!!!11one

Oh, third grade. Those were the days.

I'm sorry I suck at blogging so much. It's mostly because my teachers think it's hilarious to give me lots of stupid stuff to do, like physics homework, AP review committee presentations, calc take-home tests, physics projects, &c.

So last Friday I went to Ambler with some kids. We ate some weird Irish food at the Shanachie Irish Pub & Restaurant. & I bought a Care Bears t-shirt with DREAM in rainbow letters on it at my favourite little shop evar. & then we saw Melinda and Melinda, which was sometimes boring, sometimes LOL.

On Saturday I convinced my daddy to take me to a thrift shop, where I purchased a reversible belt [where reversible = has a pink and blue hawaiian flower pattern on one side and is solid pink on the other] & a tea cup & saucer hand painted in Japan. Then I went to a tea party chez KT. It was fun times. Tea, arts & crafts, charades. Balderdash.

Her Sister's Secret: This indie horror flick is the story of two sisters from Louisiana, one of whom has tentacles instead of limbs.

Sunday: fun times building a car for physics. Didn't do any of the other thousands of things I should have done. Instead played Commander Keen [4]: oh, yeah, oh, yeah. & read How I Paid For College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship and Musical Theater, which R. should read because there is PENIS talk, KT should read because it ends happily, M. should read because it's kind of like The Basic Eight, & everyone else should read it because it's pretty much awesome.