Bread at Desk

It is 5:16am.

At about 4:45, I walked into Senior House. I had been at East Campus working on a 5.111 (chemistry) pset with a friend. I actually enjoyed doing it, despite the very obvious fact that I spent all night doing it because it's due tomorrow. Although I have to admit, I think I've drawn enough Lewis structures to satisfy me for awhile. When I walked in, there was tons of bread at desk. Even baguettes, and I love baguettes. Usually when there's food at desk, it's free for the taking, but I thought since it is almost 5 in the morning, maybe it actually belonged to someone and they were going to come get it.

At 4:58am, an email was sent to the Senior House mailing list. It said "please help yourself to the many loaves of bread at desk."

I was excited - free bread! - but I didn't go downstairs right away, I was in the middle of something important. Probably checking facebook.

About ten minutes later, there were only two loaves of bread left at desk. An email gets sent out at four forty freaking five in the morning, and the stuff is nearly all gone ten minutes later. Things really do move fast at MIT.

It's like the Reuse mailing list, which is the only mailing list I ever took myself off of, because I stopped reading the emails after about a day of constant ads. People just send out emails like "pink lamp in 2-232" or "one and three quarters of a gallon of seagreen paint next to the X office" or "cute cat, call xxxx for more information" or "box of packing peanuts need good home." I know a lot of people who scan reuse for computer parts to build random cool things.

For real.

It's all free, too.

But the thing is, you have to move fast. Running is best. If it's on the other side of campus, though, you're probably out of luck. Anyway. That's how fast all this bread went.

But it's okay, I still got some.

I'm not sure what the point of this entry is. When we blog things, we get a drop-down list of categories to choose from. If this isn't "miscellaneous," I don't know what is. Except for like eighteen of Snively's entries. They seem to be the very definition of miscellaneous.

Hmm. In two and a half hours, I will be attending the "Petit Dejeuner Francophone et "Reseautage" Science et Technologie." Mmmm, free French breakfast, sponsored by the Club Francophone. But I must finish some things before I go. Like my Arabic homework. And this blog, I guess.

I would almost consider not posting this because it's so random, but I haven't posted in awhile, and hey, I don't think I was hired because I'm the most efficient writer in the world. Or was I? Hmmmm.

So today is pi day. It's 5:30 am and already there are two entries up.

pi day.

It's a good excuse to eat pie. Which I did today. At midnight. It was delicious.

But as for memorizing the digits. Well. I mean. Personally, I think there are better uses of brainspace. Like memorizing the periodic table, if you're really feeling compelled to memorize something. Now that's useful. At least for chemistry. At least, more useful than knowing 67 digits of pi is for math. But if that's what you want to spend the time until decisions come out doing, I'm not going to stop you.

Oh yeah, decisions. Those are tomorrow. It's pretty exciting. No, really. In fact, the last time I slept (I'm too disoriented to figure out when that was), I dreamt about a certain prefrosh I know getting waitlisted. Wow. What does it mean when you start dreaming about other people's decisions?

I also dreamt that those robots from Battlestar Galactica (cylons?) were taking over the world while I tried to finish my 5.111 pset, and then I "woke up" and thought I woke up too late for class, then I woke up for real and was relieved. Until I remembered I had to go to class. Then I tried to block out the noise from my alarm by covering my head with my pillow.

Sometimes my suitemates can hear my alarm, but I don't wake up.

The other day, the fire alarm went off at 1am at Senior House. Minor cooking fiasco or something. I woke up, but I wasn't entirely asleep, so I'm still not sure if I'd wake up for a fire alarm in the middle of a deep sleep.

Right. Back to what I was going to say about decisions. MIT is a just place - a set of buildings.

"But Karen, it's more than that, it's a community."

Well, gee, you're right. But communities are made of people. They're made of you! There are tens of thousands of people who have regretfully been rejected from MIT in the past simply because we have a small, small undergraduate population. Which means that, in all of those other colleges you applied to, there is the potential to create a community and find a sense of belonging, if you really feel that this place is your calling.

I'm not articulating myself very well. Sorry, it's really early. What I'm trying to say is that YOU make the place. So you want to be a hacker?

Hey, guys, there are buildings at just about every college in any country that can be explored. You want to do research? It takes initiative. Even here at MIT, UROPs don't fall from the sky and land in your lap. You have to look into what's available, contact professors. Professors love it when students take initiative, I suggest trying it anywhere you go. Don't let red tape that isn't even there get in your way. You want to be challenged more than you've ever been challenged before? Well, you can do that for yourself, too. Set goals. Work towards them.

Yeah, MIT is a cool place. But what makes it cool is people like you, and I want you to know- no matter what happens tomorrow, that you have SO much potential. Don't let other people keep you down.

[My alarm just went off - at 5:45. That's what time I was supposed to wake up...24 hours ago]

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