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November 16th, 2008
06:17 pm - Thoughts on returning from Iceland
I went on vacation in Iceland with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) rhean, gigglefest, dscott, shaina_j, and Vicka last week. There might be a real post later, but in the meantime, some random thoughts after returning:
At South Station:
You know you're back in Boston when you encounter a delayed T train. (The red line train was stopped at South Station with its doors open for a few minutes.)
After leaving the Central Square T stop:
It feels weird to no longer be with the people I was with for four days. It's also rather warm (60s F, rather than 30s F).
Leaving my apartment to go get food and hearing someone yell down the street:
Central Square is very different than downtown Reykjavik.
After (not fully) waking up in the middle of the night:
Wondered what bed I was in. I knew I wasn't in the hotel bed, but I was sort of confused as to where I was.
I think I should take a longer vacation next time. It was nice spending time with friends, but felt a bit short.
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July 5th, 2008
01:34 am - Walking down Storrow Drive
As usual, I went to the July 3 Pops concert at the Hatch Shell. Afterward, melithiel, mitchb, and I walked back toward MIT on Storrow Drive, to avoid all the crowds taking the more normal paths, and since the road was closed to traffic. As we were moving away from the Hatch Shell, we walked down the center lane to avoid all the other people.
After a while, a car passed us on the left. We figured it was some sort of vehicle used for the event, although it wasn't a police vehicle or any other clearly marked vehicle. There were a few bicyclists as well, and a few other small groups of people. Mitch commented that it would be neat to lie down in the middle of the road and take a picture, since there's no other time one would be able to do so, and there weren't even many people around.
After a bit more of a walk, more light traffic passed us, and we became to wonder if we were actually supposed to be walking on the street. We moved to the right side of the road, and then onto the grass once that became an option. After I got home, I checked the road closures. Oops -- although the initial part of Storrow Drive we were walking on was closed, most of the portion we walked on was not.
Amanda had commented that she liked Keith Lockhart, since he isn't serious, and she expected that conductors had to be serious. I like him for the same reason, and he's fun to watch. Today, on the esplanade, I was talking to someone else, and she dislikes him for exactly the same reason, saying he's more of a performer than a conductor. It seems to be the kind of thing you can do with a Pops orchestra, instead of a normal orchestra, though.
I liked "I'm Shipping Up to Boston" the first time I heard it (when the Boston Pops played it at the Tech Night at the Pops), and they also played it these past two days. There are apparently lyrics that go with the song, which I've heard in Youtube videos, but the song seems so much nicer without them. I wonder if it'd do well as a contra dance, and if it's possible to get a version without lyrics. There was a group of Irish dancers dancing to the song as part of the July 3/4 performance.
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April 28th, 2008
11:27 pm - Split Counter Rotate -> Right and Left Grand!
Huh... it's been 11 months since I last posted.
I've been doing a lot of dancing over the last year or so. After Lake Shore, I started dancing A1, later followed by A2, and then C1. We learned C1 in time for this year's Tech Squares Weekend, also a lot of fun.
In August, I picked up contra dancing, going to a combination of the Concord Thursday Contras and the First Friday Challenging Contras. I think I still like squares a bit more, but both are nice, and contras is a lot more physical exercise, probably a good thing.
By October this year, I'll have gone to four dance weekends this year -- the Tech Squares Weekend (at East Hill Farm this year), the New England Square and Round Dance convention, an alternative-music contra dance weekend, and then a challenge square dance weekend.
( Square dance geeking (perhaps the main point of this post) )
There were two class members at this year's convention. The first Plus tip they danced was actually the Fast Track (that is, faster than normal) session. It was neat that we could drag them through it even though they don't know about 4 weeks of Plus, and it was Fast Track :)
Oh, some of us also provided examples at gave a square dance talk to the MIT Math department's "Women in Math" conference. The talk was sort of interesting, but filled with plenty of stuff I didn't understand. Perhaps I'll link to it if it gets posted at some point.
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February 25th, 2007
01:37 pm - Zelda-like dream, #2
(For Zelda-like dream, #1, see http://sneswhiz.livejournal.com/12422.html, July 31, 2004)
I had a Zelda-like dream last night. Unfortunately, there's lots of it that I don't remember, and what's left doesn't actually seem all that Zelda-like. (There are some things that are very vaguely pseudo-spoilers in here, but they're not really spoilers, so I'm not cutting this.)
I started off in some kind of race in an office building, going to the end of one floor, collecting random items along the way, taking the elevator up a floor, and then racing down the next floor. Instead of collecting golden bugs, as in Twilight Princess, I was collecting golden items. I came across a golden NES, and picked that up.
On a later floor, there were a large number of suitcases, and apparently we were all supposed to grab one. Nobody ever told us that we needed to do so, but everybody seemed to just naturally understand. At the end of the hallway, I went into the bathroom and changed into the gi that was inside. At this point, I was one of the leaders of the race, having zoomed down many of the hallways. I looked up, and saw someone staring maniacally at me. He too, was in the front of the race, and wanted to get rid of me -- he lifted up his shirt to reveal some sort of seemingly-poisonous bug. I smashed something against him to press the bug to his skin (real life note: I have no idea why it wouldn't have bitten him already) and he collapsed to the ground screaming in anguish.
I exited the bathroom, and found that the rest of the people in the race had caught up. For some reason, though, everyone had transformed into other people, possibly so anyone who wanted to hurt anyone else couldn't hurt the right person. In fact, before I exited the bathroom, I had too. I looked around for an adult who was running the race so that I could report the incident, but couldn't find any; part of the problem was I wouldn't be able to trust anyone who said that they were the adult either, because anyone could have transformed into someone that looked like one.
Not knowing what to do, I ran into a wooded area. There were two buttons for trains, one for each of two destinations, so I pressed both of them. Two trains with flatbed attachments came, and I jumped on to one of them. After looping for a while, I ended up at Porter Square. This wasn't quite where I wanted to go, so I had the train finish its route and take me back to the wooded area. I pressed the buttons again, this time, taking the other train. It seemed to take me where I actually wanted to go, and then, that's all I remember of the dream.
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July 16th, 2006
07:31 pm
Last weekend, ultranos and I attempted to find housing starting August 1. We already sort of knew that August 1 has a difficult date to get housing for, but it turned out to be a bit more interesting than we had expected.
( Housing search details... )
Around 4:15, the scavenger hunt ends, and we go to a place in Quincy Market for dinner. I get a phone call from Maven Realty telling me that the place on Cherry St fell through -- the person who had put down a deposit didn't realize it didn't have parking, and so took a different place. This is great news for us, as we liked this place better than the ARE place. In the middle of this discussion, someone (I think Ash) calls me, and I hear call waiting beeps. Unfortunately, I don't get to it in time. About 15-30 seconds later, I get more call waiting beeps -- it turns out to be ARE. The ARE agent informs me that the place we were going to rent that night had _just_ rented. After returning to the Maven Realty call, we agreed to meet at 7 PM to deal with paperwork.
All this time, I was hoping that the Cherry St place wouldn't be rented in the next few hours. A few hours later, Ash and I make our way to Maven, and after 1.5 hours, we complete the paperwork, and now have a place to live! It was a very exciting Monday, especially with my getting all the calls at the same time.
I had heard before that there's really no time to shop around for apartments, and that if you find one that might even be ok, you should just take it. It was an interesting experience to find this to be so true, especially with our planning to rent one place, and having it rented before we could get over to the office to complete the paperwork. In the end, we did get a better place than the one we would have gotten, so it at least all works out :)
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February 20th, 2006
03:59 am - Old and crufty?
It's like I'm a frosh again -- I have a bunch of cruft in my room. OK, so I already did have a lot of cruft in my room, I just have more now.
The 6.001 lab was getting rid of some computers and monitors, so I figured "I've wanted to remove the NFS dependency that my web server has," so since these have 9.1 GB hard drives, they fit what I need. I figured that I could also take the RAM (128 MB) from one machine and stick it in my machine too, so I took 2 computers on my first trip. Since there were reasonable 17" CRTs, I also took one on my second trip.
While going back to get the monitor, I realized that one of these machines could replace sodalord.mit.edu (which can't update given it's lack of space), so I got another one. I figured that I might as well take a fourth machine for more RAM, but the cart I had started bending, so I only brought a third back.
I had circulated the existence of these cruftable machines, and so I met up with some people this evening, at which point I decided to take a fourth machine for its RAM (up to 384 MB -- there are 4 slots total, so it can go up to 512 MB). I might go back a fifth time to grab another machine again just for its RAM. My machine that I've been putting these parts into also now has 36 GB of hard drive space -- 2 hard drives from these crufted machines, and 2 hard drives from elsewhere before.
I actually took myself off reuse a few days ago after realizing that a) I pretty much automatically just delete the mails nowadays, and b) I last posted to claim something in December 2004. This is much nicer since I pretty much know these machines work, they have reasonable components, and there's little competition for them.
By the way, if you're interested in 17" CRTs, let me (or bluelarker, who informed me of this) know.
Of course, now I have some machines without RAM that I'll need to get rid of, but that's not hard.
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February 4th, 2006
03:25 pm - Ballroom?
I seem to be unexpectedly becoming involved in the MIT Ballroom Dance Team. (Well, unexpectedly in that it's now rather than later.)
Back in fall term, I was involved in Tech Squares, of course, but also felt like I should get involved in other kinds of dance. It being the middle of fall term, though, I was busy, and also didn't really know how to join. During IAP, the MIT Ballroom Dance Team and MIT Ballroom Dance Club held some joint classes for beginners on Tuesdays and Thursday evenings. Tuesday evenings conflicted with Squares, though, and Thursday evenings conflicted with the SIPB Lecture Series (though I only ended up going to one of them anyway).
Yesterday, at Charm School, anbaricspider and gnibbles went to the ballroom dancing session, and as a result of some zephyr discussion, invited me to come along to the beginner's session happening in 34-3. Conveniently, there was no Guild game going on at the time :)
We learned some Foxtrot and Swing, which was fun. Practicing the "triple step" for swing was a bit tiring, but I sort of got the hang of it. Today, there was another 3 hour session in Walker, where we learned waltz and rumba. The waltz was nice, and I got the basics, but I kept getting confused as to which direction we were going in when we put everything together.
I was already developing some calluses on my big toes from squares -- this is going to contribute even more to that. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up with both of these during term -- I certainly haven't gotten that much work done during IAP.
In other news, the Tech Squares class starts on February 14. If you need PE credit, it's a fun way to get it -- 2 points for half the term, 4 points for the entire term, for Tuesdays 8:15-10:15 PM. Let me know if you're interested and I can give you more details, but since most of the people who read this aren't frosh or anything, I'm not sure that any of you need more PE points. Even if you don't need them, feel free to come and try it out :)
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December 9th, 2005
03:04 am
As usual, I suck at updating. But hey... I have some time now, having finished writing some stuff for my 6.829 project report.
This term's mainly been a mix of two things: 6.829 (Computer Networks), and 6.004. All I did this term was TA 6.004, take 6.829, and work on my thesis. Conveniently, my thesis was also my 6.829 final project, so not only did I satisfy two requirements with one project, but I essentially had two other people working on parts of my thesis. It probably helps that my thesis supervisor is also the professor for 6.829.
TAing's been fun. It's nice teaching recitations and being able to explain things to people. The one problem I had with recitations was spending too much time preparing them. Well, actually, that was the initial problem. I then later got better at preparing and took less time, but whenever I started to prepare, I felt like I didn't know what I wanted to do, so then I would read lecture slides for a long time, or just not do anything, so even though the actual preparation didn't take that long, the fact that I needed to prepare caused me to spend lots of time.
Staffing lab was also time-consuming, and there were students who would ask questions repeatedly without trying to understand the material themselves, but helping students who asked questions when they got stuck was cool, and also somewhat getting to know students who showed up in lab frequently.
I've definitely learned a lot more in the class than I did the first time around. The other TAs are pretty cool, and grading sessions with them are fun.
Early on in the term, I felt like I didn't know what I was doing with my thesis, and that I wasn't spending enough time on it, but I guess having overcome the initial setup time and having other people antToMakeYouRich.com/help out, things got a lot better.
Next term I won't be TAing anything, though, and I'll just be a research assistant (translation: working on my thesis). I'll be back to taking two classes, in fact, two undergrad classes, the last two I need for my bachelor's degree.
Projected spring classes: 6.111 (or 6.163, but 6.111's looking more likely) and 9.00.
I felt like I had more (perhaps more interesting things) to say, but I don't remember now.
Oh (not related to the more interesting things)... I attended a personal finance talk that the class of 2006 sponsored. It was actually pretty interesting and useful (the class council was useful!). The guy's web site is at http://www.IWillTeachYouToBeRich.com/. The course syllabus at http://seminars.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/ pretty much gives the overview of what he talks about, but if I had just seen the sheet without his presentation, I don't think I would have thought much of it.
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August 5th, 2005
07:13 pm
It's been a while since I've updated here. Lots has happened since the last time I updated... I guess here are the highlights:
Completed 6.170! melithiel, spikeyhedgehog, staticentropy and I created our version of Gizmoball, and won the "Best Game Play" award. My room turned into the 6.170 loons headquarters, and we all spent lots of time here.
Found a thesis advisor! During the spring term, I contacted a few different professors about theses in two areas I'm interested in, and after a bit of delayed e-mail exchanges (because of 6.170 keeping me busy), Hari Balakrishnan of the Network and Mobile Systems group at CSAIL agreed to take me on. I also asked him about an RAship, and he said to be optimistic about getting one one of the two terms I work with him.
But then we have... getting into VI-A. VI-A is a course 6 program allowing students to do their M.Eng theses at outside companies after having worked there for a summer or two beforehand. I was chosen by MIT Lincoln Laboratory. I'm finishing up work there this summer in Group 65, the Advanced Networks and Applications group, using two software tools, STK and OPNET Modeler to determine whether it's feasbile to establish airborne ad-hoc networks between aircraft in various military scenarios. Unfortunately, it's a bit frustrating at times because the tools for integrating the two software aren't fully developed, so I've run into lots of errors.
After getting accepted to VI-A, I then also got offered a TAship for 6.004 in the fall. Now this is where things get interesting. Since I hadn't gotten into VI-A last year, I started looking for a thesis advisor for an on-campus thesis. Then I got into VI-A, and these two obviously conflict. The TAship offer then also horribly confused the Lincoln HR person, the VI-A office, and in turn, Anne Hunter after news of it made its way through the various relevant people. After I cleared it up and talked with various people, I decided to see how Lincoln was this summer and then decide where to do my thesis. While this isn't definitive yet, I think I'm likely to take the position on campus in the fall. Regardless, though, I did also accept the TA position. (If I do my thesis at Lincoln, it would be starting in the spring and not the fall.)
So my schedule for the fall is now looking like:
12 units of 6.829 (Computer Networks)
6 units of 6.UAP (Undergraduate Advanced Project, aka my thesis proposal)
24 units of 6.981 (Teaching Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, aka TAing 6.004)
I was considering taking 6.831 (User Interface Design and Implementation), but the HKN review tells me that it's more time consuming than I'd like it to be, so sadly I'll have to put it off to Fall 2006.
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December 7th, 2004
11:16 pm - triangles? circles? hexagons?
Whee! I graduated from Tech Squares. So next term, I'll be in four student groups... or at least, trying to...
We started off reviewing, and then learning the last three calls of Plus. Then, came the hack tips. Other members of the class decided to have the club first dance such that two people acted as one person, while reversing the number of turns of some calls. That got pretty complicated. The much more amusing one was where some dancers were replaced by stuffed animals, and the club had to pass them around since the animals couldn't move themselves.
Next, it was the club's turn to tell us what to do. We balanced beanie babies on our heads while doing the calls, and it worked pretty well, even while swinging. Then, we too had two people act as one dancer. It was fun.
Then, the graduation march. There was sort of a traditional march on two sides and coming together, then some crisscrossing, and then a spiral, before ending with a tunnel-thing. And now we're members of the club!
We had a club tip, and redgerly and I danced. The club tips go a lot faster, but hey, that makes it fun. We messed up a bit, but still did reasonably well, and we'll get better over time :).
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/growf/dwaggins/bouncy.gif) bouncy
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October 28th, 2004
05:56 am - Promote Firefox and get your name in the New York Times!
Hey... lots of you like Firefox, right? Want to show your support for Firefox in the first New York Times ad for the browser?
If you're a student, you can get your name in the ad for just $10. For non-students, it's $30. You can find the FAQ at http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=node/view/3749.
To donate, use the following link so I get credit for referring you: https://www.mozillastore.com/donations/?campaign=newspaper&user=28926
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October 10th, 2004
03:31 am - Jobs, rush, and term... a boring update
I haven't updated in such a long time. But now I am!
The UROP this summer had its ups and its downs. Lots of times, I felt I didn't really know what I was doing, but part of that is expected. The overall concept is interesting, but it involved lots of drudgery through math and C code. I've decided to continue it this term, though, because it is a cool idea, and it gives me more experience. IS&T pays me more, but this is better in the long term. (32 is also closer than N42, now that OLC's moved, but that wasn't part of my decision process. It is a plus, though :))
I wasn't really involved with rush this year. During hall rush, I often wandered back and forth from my room, and talked to some of the frosh. I wasn't completely sure what to do, but we ended up with some cool frosh.
This term, I'm taking 6.823, 6.857, 14.02, and 14.12. 14.02 is rather boring, but the other classes are interesting. Despite my advisor telling me that both this term and next term will be difficult, I think this term is actually pretty easy. I only have 13 hours of class a week, and there's not too much work. My first and only class on Tuesdays and Thursdays is at 2:30 as well.
erm... not a very exciting update. I suppose if I update more, it will be more interesting. We'll see how things go.
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July 31st, 2004
12:02 pm - Fairies, Pendants, Rings, and Volcanoes
This morning I had a dream that was a combination of a SIK game, Zelda, and Lord of the Rings, all of which took place at something that looked like my high school
There were two other people with me, and I had the ring with me. We were retreating a bit. Then, all of us used a technique that replicated ourselves so that we would appear to be in places we weren't. Someone called out shots on us, which confused me, because I knew I didn't get hit. Then, I realized that that person was calling out shots on one of the not-me images.
The other team, which consisted of J and someone else came after us. They managed to kill the other two members of my team, who then turned into fairies. After they revived me, the fairies then both turned into pendants.
At this point, the other team came after me. Actually, I don't know what happened to J. The other person came after me. On his way over to where I was, he picked up a 12-pack of the new kind of Coke (C2, I think). I knew he was after the ring, and ran. While running after me, he proposed a trade: the Coke for the ring. I said sure, and that we would exchange by throwing them in the air and catching them. He threw the Coke in the air. I threw the ring to the side, hoping that he wouldn't notice.
Now this ring was pretty loud, so it was obvious where it had gone. We both ran after it, but I managed to catch it. Off we ran again. I tried to get him off my tail, so when we passed a locked hallway, I rolled the ring under the door. He seemed to know the layout of the school very well, though, and he ran to a side hallway, where he expected the ring to appear. (Even I didn't know that!) Indeed, the ring appeared, and I grabbed him to prevent him from getting it. I was successful, and while he kept lurching forward, the ring kept rolling and was about 1 foot out of his reach.
Then, I quickly went forward, left him on the ground, grabbed the ring, and made my way to the volcano sitting in the lobby next to the cafeteria. I jumped on and over the lunch tables, to the astonishment of everyone else. The people wading in the lava inside the volcano were scared as I approached. They wanted the ring protected. I threw the ring into the volcano, and they all made efforts to save it. None of them were close enough, and the ring hit the lava. It caused a burst of flame, and everyone in the volcano died.
My mission, however, was successful.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/growf/dwaggins/hyper.gif) awake
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June 17th, 2004
01:53 am - What are you doing here?
Well, I've been back at MIT for about two weeks. Definitely glad to be back.
This summer, I'm working in the Computation Structures Group at CSAIL on a secure processor. It's interesting, and so far, I feel like I'm working on something more productive than I did last year. Sometimes, though, it seems that I'm making only slow progress, because of having to do lots of reading, and not ending getting much done. It's a good job, though.
Sunday was the SIPB 35th reunion. It was interesting, but I'm glad it's over now, so I can stop running around and taking care of things. Of course, rhean did an impressive job of organizing everything, and did a lot more than I did.
Part of the reunion setup was to have a banner that said "SIPB 35th Reunion." Our original plans to plant PVC pipes in the ground failed, so we tried tying them to a fence instead. This worked... except the sign was unreadable as it blew in the wind. It turned into an alum toy, though, and they eventually made it work :)
This summer, I'm planning to try to cook more, and avoid buying dinner when not in mobs. This is made somewhat more difficult by the fact that food truck meal lasts me more than one meal. Generally, this means I have food truck food for lunch, and leftovers for dinner, supplemented with a few small things. I think I want to break this trend, though, so I made some dinner tonight, added some of it to the food truck leftovers, and I'll take that into work tomorrow.
Food recently purchased at Star includes things that I normally don't get, including cinnamon raisin bread, white peaches, apple juice, orange juice, chicken helper, hamburger helper, tater tots, and probably a few more things that I can't think of. Of course, part of the problem with cooking is that often the portions are too big for one person. Perhaps a bunch of us should get together to make food at some point. I'm finally getting rid of the months-old chicken in the freezer, and making the Chicken Helper tomorrow.
I've been spending a lot of time at Random recently. Last week, I had only visited on Tuesday. This week, though, I felt the desire to visit more often, though other things also took me over there. On Sunday, I decided to fulfill an RCC request, since none of the Random RCCs had responded (though later I realized that only 1 was around for the summer), and I figured that I'd just drop by and see if the person who needed help was around. I sort of wonder whether the non-Random RCC who had responded (and not offered to immediately drop by) and the RCC supervisors were confused by the e-mail I wrote. It said, "I'll likely be around tomorrow if/when Tuesday happens." I knew exactly what it meant, and so did the other person, but to most people, that makes no sense.
Amusingly, back in February, melithiel was surprised when I showed up at Random one day, and asked me, "What are you doing here? Not that I object to your being here... but you're usually not here." (In fact, you can find the Livejournal entry here.) When I went to look for the person who needed RCC help, I went to the wrong side of BMF, where annag also asked me "What are you doing here?"
Yesterday was Tuesday! I was a bit late, but made in time to grab one. Hung out on Black Hole for a while, though people disappeared, so I wandered up to BMF. I walked by the lounge, initially planning to walk past it, before deciding to join in, especially when bluefaith called to me. Random's really a quite welcoming place. (More on this later.) I hung out there for quite a while, before heading home.
Today, went to Random yet again, after hearing Rebecca might have been there. It turns out she decided to go to Random tomorrow instead. But I spent some more time there, including lying on rivenwanderer's floor, despite her claiming that the floor is a bad place to sleep. This was followed by a trip to CVS and Star.
Anyway, about Random being a more welcoming place... sometime during Spring term, annag came by Tetazoo a few times to visit. One time, she ended up on top the pipes in the Goodale lounge, complete with tooling, food, and drink. Some people wondered who she was, though she answered in that indirect annag way :). The next night, we had a budget meeting, and someone mentioned annag in passing. One person said, "Yeah, who the hell was that person?" That was a bit disappointing, especially since I found her visiting Tetazoo to be nice.
annag's visiting Tetazoo that day is somewhat comparable to my hanging out in BMF lounge. Sure, there were a few people I knew, like bluefaith, tabbott, and Alya, but I don't know any of them really well, and there were a few people I didn't know. I felt welcome, though, like I fit in. (I've also gotten to the point where the desk workers consistently let me in Random.)
Tetazoo and Random's default settings seem to be quite different. I suppose this isn't surprising, though I see Random as being a good influence on Tetazoo... or at least, some of Tetazoo. I realize that one of the few things keeping me on Tetazoo now is the people who I brought (or played a role in bringing) over to Tetazoo from elsewhere. This past year, we had some frosh I liked too, but of the four that I felt most comfortable with, three moved to ILGs.
Of course, Random has its downsides too, such as location from campus and single-gendered floors. It seems to be a better fit overall, though. If I wanted to move, though, obviously I wouldn't be guaranteed to be able to, nor would I be guaranteed a non-small half. For now, though, I'm staying here... no idea what will happen in the future.
I've also realized that I haven't visited ET much. Part of this is because it's inconvnient to get to and come back from. I should visit people there too, though. I suppose there is time during the summer. And we should do things :)
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/growf/dwaggins/think.gif) contemplative
Current Music: Smashing Pumpkins -- Soot and Stars
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May 23rd, 2004
09:02 pm - Not a bad idea... pastime of groping rush chairs... weird lights
At the APO meeting on last Friday, we voted to give rhean the POO name "Wet ferret in a bathtub POO ... not a bad idea." She kept asking what her POO name was, though, so I suggested that we demonstrate this to her with a bathtub. sirlightblade then suggested that we do it at ET's Ice Cream Social. The two of us, along with lokiect, ilai, and Carolyn proceeded to carry out this plan.
Unfortunately, we didn't get around to it during the actual Ice Cream Social, so study conditions had resumed. We tried to get Jen to come downstairs on her own to avoid carrying her down the stairs, but she was understandably paranoid. Since that failed, after some consideration, we decided we would go up and drag her down, despite the study conditions.
While doing so, she kept saying "It's study conditions!" while the rest of us would return a "Shh!" at her. Eventually, we got her down the stairs, and plopped her into the bathtub, and the operation was successful :)
Finals happened. The two on Monday went well, I think. 6.003, on the hand, didn't. I got a 79/200, which ended up being in the 12th percentile. Interestingly, in my time at MIT, I've gotten a C in all EE classes, an A in all non-EE course 6 classes, and (usually) a B in all HASS classes. But I was glad to be done on Tuesday, and spent the rest of the week hanging out with people.
Monday night, I was at Random studying for 6.003. Around 11 PM or midnight, the fire alarm went off. Fire truck after fire truck gradually arrived, with the final vehicle count at around 6 fire trucks, 4 police cars, and 1 or 2 ambulances. Hoses were connected, a ladder was raised to the roof, Mass Ave. was blocked, and people waited. Some people went to the MIT Museum to wait, others headed to W20, and I went back to EC after waiting for a bit. It turns out that smoke filled the 282 basement because of a shorted wire under the manhole cover outside.
Friday night was nice. Everybody was done with finals, and lots of people were around. I headed over to Random, and visited rivenwanderer and melithiel. In Amanda's room, Tucker and Amali joined us, and we headed over to explore Amanda's fall room, complete with pistachio green paint job. Amanda's favorite pastime of groping rush chairs happened, and was also quite amusing. After a bit, Amanda and I headed over to Chicago Pizza for late night food and interesting conversation. After heading back to Random, she decided to go to sleep, and I headed to 242, where eventually, lakmiseiru, badoingdoing, timeslayer, Alex, Alya, Robert, and John showed up too. It was good to see everyone before leaving, and quite fun.
I headed back to EC and quickly packed, then got 3.5 hours of sleep before waking up again to help Amanda move. Around 12:30, I left for the airport, where I found Dan Kane, nobody_nowhere, and calling_to_deep, who were also heading to Detroit. When we arrived there, we met up with spikeyhedgehog, whose earlier flight was delayed, and we visited a really huge indoor fountain, and the tunnel connecting two terminals with the "weird lights" and matching music. Certainly not things you expect to see in an airport. We then split up, and I caught my flight to Virginia, in which I found that exit row seats have a lot of legroom.
Once getting home, I made use of the wireless router I conveniently found for $10 after rebate at Staples. It seems to work well, and provides wireless for the entire house, so I can go anywhere with this laptop. It seems that the 2.4Ghz phone in my room interferes, so I moved it to the family room instead. It's quite useful though.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/growf/dwaggins/blah.gif) bored
Current Music: Delerium - Daylight
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