CPW 2K5

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.