Two days ago, I woke in a room much like this one: about the same size about the same shape, but 600 miles away and substantially less sparsely decorated. I got up, showered, got dressed, and ate breakfast. Then I left behind pretty much everything I’ve ever know for the last 16 years. Though I’d consider the things I took relatively few in number.. I suppose it depends a bit on context:

Packing: because what use are rearview mirrors really?

In any case, with everything packed, it was onto the road…   …for eleven hours. It was a VERY long and not particularly eventful drive. I spent most of it listening to my iPod and reading a lot of The Audacity of Hope by a certain Senator Barack Obama. I must say, it is very well written and while I disagree with some of what he says, I definitely get the feeling that his opinions are, in general, pretty good and that he is altogether a pretty decent guy. He definitely has my support (and about $150 of my money in campaign donations). Anyway, enough of politics. The only break in my car ride was a stop at a NJ rest stop. I must say it is certainly an interesting experience. Both the length of this line and the sheer variety of humanity in it are worth note:

Anyway, to wrap up the less interesting day, I eventually got to Camridge, checked into the Hampton Inn with my parents, accosted and kidnapped Karen from her temp at W410, and went with her and my family to the Asgard for some delicious faux-Irish food and decor. I then randomly went to Fred Desk and got my hall and room keys and was arbitrarily recognized by the person working desk (from CPW I suppose?). Then we headed back (after getting semi-lost and driving around the Memorial->Mass Ave->Main->Vassar loop an absurd four times before going back to Ames where we started.. *sigh*) and crashed.

Now to the exciting day. This morning I got up, ate the free Hampton Inn breakfast and was whisked off to campus. I checked in at the student center to find that my carefully selected ID picture had been rejected for no good reason (nor one that was explained). I imagine it is either the hat or the resolution. In any case, it still opened the door to EC and after much heaving and sweating I got all my stuff up to my room. Karen was also awesome and helped carry and put together my fan to keep me mildly cool in the un-air conditioned halls of EC. My roommate, Santiago, was absent when I arrived (though his stuff is in evidence) and, at this writing, I have not actually yet met him :-/ (I will let you all know how he and I get on when he eventually returns.. ).

After this I played run around campus with my family, deposited some money to my student account (it will later become TechCash), got a new picture for my ID, joined the COOP, picked up some info about employment with IS&T (which I am considering), then wished my family goodbye.. it was odd seeing them go, but I am not altogether homesick just yet. Anyway, after this I decided to go see Karen’s awesome room-mural in person.. but she wasn’t home. So I walked down 41W, and was going down the staircase at the other end of the west parallel when out of the PUTZ (2W) door popped.. Karen.. who dragged me in where I heard her and some junior reminisce about Chicago. I also heard snippets of plans for potential EC craziness in REX proper. It was altogether pretty fun. Then I finally made it back to her room, saw her supposedly sexy computer and mural. Then we hung out at her room. While crossing the courtyard we got a glance of things to come:

At this point over Karen’s objection on principle, I decided to go take the swim test. After finishing the swim test, I also took the boating test because I could (10 minutes of water treading just doesn’t seem that hard). It was actually a little harder than I thought, I passed but I was pretty tired afterward. Anyway, because of the fact that I came directly from the swim test, I didn’t have my camera and therefore have no pictures of the awesome stuff that followed. Its hard to crsytalize effectively, so I won’t really try too hard. FAP
unofficially started with a gathering around W20. I tried to learn other peoples’ names cause of the fact that I usually fail. I also actually met Jess Kim for the first time in real life. After this we all went square dancing. This doesn’t sound that awesome, but I must say it was a whole lot more fun than I really expected. We did some pretty interesting calls especially the interleaved grand squares and the little experiment in hexagon dancing. Anyway, its hard to explain, but suffice it to say that afterward I was tired, thirsty, hungry, and in a pretty good mood. Luckily, next was food. We had a catered dinner of cheeseburgers or BBQ chicken, then rounded it out with a trip to JP Licks. Besides being a delicious ice cream-y affair, it also constituted my first trip across the river into Boston proper. (If I had had my camera, you would assuredly be presented with pictures of smoot marks).

I thought I was done at this point, and came back here and started blogging, planning to go to bed soon after. Suddenly, however, Rachel Fong and posse and then Karen (in pursuit of misplaced sunglasses) appeared. This was followed by gathering of other EC residents (frosh and otherwise), discussions thereamongst, an impromptu tour of ECs various halls (which are now partially inhabited), and a substantial time hanging out in Chris Varenhorst’s 5W room marveling at his hydraulic door and discussing various peaces of MIT lore, apocrypha, projects, etc. It is now 12:30am .. and there is still no sign of my roommate, which is a little odd. In any case, I have some pictures of the EC constructions in progress, but I shall save them for a later entry as I am getting a little tired.

Anyway, despite the lack of work thus far, its still pretty odd being all collegiate (and perhaps a little more pleasent). Anyway, I have to get up for 8:30am breakfast ..so… night all ^_^

From MIT,

~Donald Guy

Much more affective is the other end of the spectrum—the people that are essentially my favorite in the world, my friends and family. I realize this sort of post becomes redundant at a point, but its still crazy.. The parties also are coming to an end. Seeing my friends at all is coming to an end. Granted, I already have new friends who I am looking forward to seeing more. Its a weird trade off though. My new friends will be neither better nor worse than my current friends, and yet they will, in a manner, usurp their position (Machiavelli would appreciate this). I truly hope to and plan to keep in touch with a lot of people here, some specific people especially .. and yet, it shall inevitably change.

At the same time, as I said, there is a meaning in all these ends, it means that I am really, truly headed off to college, headed off to MIT. And as I should be, I am excited. In 3 days, probably about 67 hours, I will be in Cambridge, MA. Things are falling into place for a new beginning in the midst of the ends. And I know that before long the number of beginnings will GREATLY overshadow the number and scope of the ends and ultimately I shall be fine. And yet, all the other lives shall go on without me.. shall progress, develop, hopefully prosper. It’s very strange.. I can’t focus on just my own progress.. I’m just not Maciavellian enough.

So, to all my friends that I am leaving here in Virginia Beach, to all of those off to Blacksburg, Baltimore, Fairfax, Charlottesville, or wherever, I wish truly wish you all the best. Lets us do our best to keep in touch!

~Donald

P.S. In other news: I saw my Freshman Advising Seminar assignement today: FASAP. ^_^.

Now, before you go running away screaming AHH PHYSICS, NO!! I promise I am interpreting the theme in a way free of equations or word problems (at least ones you have to solve). In fact, its probably a way that will make actual physicists angry. Basically, I’m thinking of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. While the literal statment is about the fact that its ” physically impossible to measure [both] the position and momentum of a particle,” and I am clearly not a particle, I also feel like while my position is relatively clear, my “momentum” is immeasurable at this point.

I haven’t actually yet observed my role, my wavefunction has not collapsed; I am Schrödinger’s prefrosh.

To dispense with the abstraction and nerdiness, I am basically saying what I said before: I still feel like my possibilities at MIT are limitless. Therefore I have no idea where I am heading and what my role will end up being.

Let us consider some specific examples. One point that has been confusing me is what I shall do for a math class. I have a 5 on AP Calc BC, so 18.01 is right out. I feel fairly competent with it, so 18.01/02A is also eliminated. This leaves “only”: 18.014, 18.02, 18.022, and 18.023. (To my non-MIT friends who are now lost, here is the catalog of math classes with normal titles/descriptions: http://student.mit.edu/catalog/m18a.html ). This would be a complicated enough decision (the main conflict being between taking 18.02 on the strength of Aroux’s reputation and 18.022, since I already have a good familiarity with Multivariable Calc from a class last year), but it is further complicated by the fact that, out of boredom I have been reading a calc book I won from a competition and, as a result, feel that I might actually be able to pass the 18.02 ASE. This would leave me deciding between 18.03 or 18.06 then .03 or .034 in the spring. If I wanted to go really crazy, I could try to go straight for 18.100B.. but thats highly unlikely.

Anyway, I have whined about math class choice long and hard elsewhere, and while I still appreciate advice if you have it, this is not really the point of this post, I simply mean it to be illustrative of my class choice uncertainty. I have similar conflicts between 8.02/8.022 and 3.091/5.111/5.112, anyway.

Alas, my indecision does not end with classes; extracirriculars are also a source of uncertainty. I really want to audition for an a capella group, as I love them, but I’m not even sure if I’d rather be a member of the Logs or Resonance (I may even audition for others, but I’m pretty sure these are my top 2). On top of this, I know what kind of comitment these groups are. Meanwhile, my mind wants to hatch plans about Roadkill Buffet, Musical Theater Guild, and even UA. All of these plans are of very time consuming things and all together are not possible. At some point, I WILL have to make a decision, and the wavefunction WILL collapse. And I am really curious about what I will pick and how I will make these decisions.

But of course, a huge part of the aforementioned uncertainty principle is the so-called “observer effect,” the fact that to observe somthing is to change it. Even in writing this blog entry, I may be changing my future (perhaps even by becoming an admissions blogger ^_^). Certainly when I have to make these decisions final, it will change what other decisions I can make.

Still, its so odd to think that at this point my college life is essentially a (metaphoric) wavefunction, all of the possibilities coexist in some sense. Even things that I am relatively certain of (my inteded major: VI, my intended dorm: EC) could easily be different. If I have a great time at some Senior Haus event during REX, I could live there and end up being significantly different than in relatively similar EC. In more extreme variation, I could even end up living in Baker :-O!! With all this talk of Physics, I could switch from VI to 8.. anything could happen!

And then of course there are even more remote possibilities. For example, a timely allusion is the activation of the Large Hadron Collider 21 hours, 4 minutes, and odd seconds from the time of this writing. As has been well-established by press and lawsuits, there is an incalcuably small chance that the LHC could produce micro-black holes or a “strangelet” that could devour the Earth or even the entire universe. While I personally expect neither, I can concede that until they don’t occour, they are still technically possible.

Perhaps my college career is of less importance than the LHC activation, perhaps it is more. Point of fact, both are possible. And in both, there are so many possibilities.

As with the LHC’s physicists, however, my plan is to accept the minor catastrophic potential, swallow the facts of the unlimited possibilities, and forge forword. I doubt it’ll be the Higgs Boson, but I am certainly excited to see what the reality of my college experience shall bring… ^_^

Until Next Time (assuming the LHC doesn’t kill us all),

~Donald Guy

P.S. Monday’s Penny-Arcade is totally relevant, and totally hillarious, but I felt it wouldn’t fit in the mostly serious entry above. Still .. check it out: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/8/4/

Anyway, while you might think that I would be too tired to function, I have actually been surprisingly productive thus far. Firstly, I actually read all of my Friday webcomics, Slashdot, and Digg in like a half hour. Then I ate breakfast. Next, I finally finished my thank you notes for graduation money, and now I am blogging! Okay… so perhaps I should have written “productive.”

In any case, they are interesting subject to consider: our conceptions of early and late. Just as I earlier mentioned the subjectivity of interesting and routine, I think it is also illustrative to consider the different way we perceive this. There are the very real differences of time zones, for example—a fact we sometimes forget. For example, my friend Karen had told me that, bored at work, she might see fit to text me from her (ZOMG) new phone. Kind of bored and remembering that she had work at 4, I texted her around 4:50 wondering where these promised messages were. To which, of course, she replied “Chill out! I just got to work and I’m early!.” That’s when I was like “right … time zones”.

Of course, even time zones aren’t truly definitive. It has been said, for example, that while, by all reports MIT lies in the Eastern time zone, many of its students actually function on Hawaiin time (of course, it could be worse). Of course, some MIT students have given up on normal timezones completely. I speak, of course, of Random Standard Time; to quote a now removed edit from Wikipedia:

“Random Standard Time,” [is] a special timezone in effect only within Random Hall, used to avoid the inconvenience of dealing with day changes at midnight when most residents are awake. Random Standard Time uses 24 hour notation with a 6 hour offset, such that midnight becomes 2400h and 1 am of the following day becomes 2500h of the same day, which continues until 2959h when it rolls over to 0600h the following day.

See.. you (might have) learned something!

Anyway, its an interesting concept. What defines time? I don’t know, according to Einstein, it’s something that changes with velocity; according to RENT, it is best measured not in daylights, nor sunsets, nor midnights, nor cups of coffe, but, in fact, in love; according to others it is actually a cube! Maybe someone taking the “Time of Your Life” seminar can fill me in, but in the meantime, it is a fascinating thing to contemplate.

Its all about perception, I suppose. There are those with very odd perceptions, like Clive Wearing or the fictional Leonard of Memento, or Merlin in White’s Once and Future King, but in genereal we accept the concept that some people may experience things oddly. Truly, though, we have no assurance that the rest of us “normal” people are actually experiencing it the same.

I must say, my mind has certainly been in a bit of a strange place. As my time here dwindles to just 16 days or so, I find myself hanging out much more with my friends than there was time to in the school year and probably more than I have in former summers. I am becoming much closer friends with some of these people at the most inconvenient of times, and I fear this is because, in some sense, I don’t fully recognize the fact that I will actually be gone soon. Maybe it is simply a gut reaction, digging in as I find myself pulled by circumstance in another direction (albeit a direction I have wanted for a long time), but is certainly causing more than its share of confusion in me and others.

With the people whom I could hardly get closer, my family, things seem buisness as usual, but I suppose it is a bit of a facade. I know that it certainly is confusing to me that I won’t live here, that for 4 months this will not be where I return, and in a way, it will never truly be my home again. And its scary .. but also invigorating.

At this point possibilities at MIT and beyond seem endless, but at the same time the possibilities here are quickly coming to an end. And I’m in the middle. :-/

Anyway, if you made it this far, thanks for reading. ^_^

~Donald

Granted I know now that it probably had a lot more to do with being a convenient frame for story telling. It has been used in television and film many times since (e.g. As Told By Ginger, examples that are less lame because they aren’t children’s shows -_-). Regardless, I think that truthfully Doug is the origin.

My attempts at journal writing have been many and varied. The most successful was probably a compulsory one I wrote in a composition book, every day in 4th grade. In 5th grade I acquired a white book with a hot air balloon on it, and in middle school I bought a gold book with the Chinese for “Imagination” on the cover. Both of these were intended to be used as daily journals. I believe each garnered about 3 entries.

With the advent of the “web log” craze .. (we don’t use the w, e, or space anymore), I saw the fusion of my desire to keep a journal and my love for/proficiency with computers. Since then I have made several valiant attempts at getting a blog off the ground. Usually only to see them grind to a halt not long after.

You now stare at the current incarnation of these attempts, created unashamedly in hopes of providing a suitable “portfolio” for the great people over at http://www.mitadmissions.org. Like my other attempts it has also gotten off to a rough start for various reasons (varying from sheer laziness to indecision between Wordpress and Movable Type). But now it has existed for awhile and yet still it sits, largely bare of content.

Why?! I suppose it has a bit to do with laziness, a bit to do with overthinking and oververbosity in my expression, and a bit to do with not being sure anyone will care. Maybe, its just the fact then other times I’ve started a journal or blog, I’ve never ended up meeting the Beets at Honkerburger or become Quailman -_-!

But its reached the point where no more excuses shall do. It is time to try to blog legitimately, if I can. The blogger app on MIT Admissions, and I really do quite want to be one. I know that I have many, many talented competitors and frankly I expect their success over mine, but I’ve decided that I do want to do it, so I really ought to at least try.

So .. here goes, consider my lame attempts below part of the old blog. This was supposed to be the first entry in my blog, and I never got around to writing it in full form. The real attempt starts now, this is when we have that “Better Blog To Follow…”

Wish Me Luck,
~Donald Guy

Well, we all heard the Chorollaries’ beautiful renditions of the Engineers Drinking Song, but there is another traditional MIT song (this one in the Logs standard repertoire) that (at least in bits) more accurately expresses a lot of prefrosh’s current feelings.

This is quite seriously how I am feeling at the moment. Like a lot of prefrosh, I am dealing with a lot of senioritis (yes, there is a wikipedia article on it) and I’m ready to head back to the ‘tvte. Though I have some great friends here at home (many whom I will miss dearly), I feel like I have friend’s at (and soon to be at) MIT who I already miss.

Since this is ostensibly a CPW entry, I guess I should talk about my CPW. Overall, my CPW was pretty tame. Keep in mind this is saying tame for CPW - this is a lot like saying west campus people are normal (they are, for MIT).

In any case, for a trip to my new favorite place, the beginning was less than glorious. It can be summed up well in one picture

yea -_- Due to nice fog, my plane to Boston never touched down, so I went to Boston from Virgina Beach… by way of Atlanta. While displacment is a vector, time is a scalar, so I caught the shuttle

and arrived on campus a lot latter than intended (noonish rather than nineish).

Over the weekend, the rest of my schedule has been covered by a lot of the other entrants:

• I was, at times, in the chat group with Omar (in the picture of the cameras, mine is the orange camera phone)
• I was there for Chris’s head injury
• I went to the CSAIL presentation, 6.02 class, and EECS open house, Ball Drop and many other things where Karen could be found. (In general, her longer blog here closely follows my CPW experience (especially thursday, friday), though somehow I never actually met her)
• I went to see Roadkill Buffet like Joey C.
• Like lots of people, I was there for the Icebreakers, festival, Meet the Bloggers etc.
• Though I didn’t play Underground CTF, I did play BC’s CTF on Thursday night

So, I won’t bore you with too much redundant recounting. Quickly here are some pictures/videos I have to add (in roughly chronological order):

the housing/dining info session

The real beauty of CPW

4th East (Slugfest)’s Iron Curtain music visulization project

The poor orientation hosts who were in charge of running “ice breakers” on the chat group (and the one poor guy in the group who wasn’t a chat person)

The obligatory picture from the roof of Baker (before the party)

A nearly empty infinite corridor at 2am on Thursday (Random Standard Time)

Our hard-hatted tour group at the new grad dorm where the so-called Phoenix/W1 Incubator group will live for two years. Will U, Kimberly S ‘12 and I were the only prefrosh to go on the tour of the dorm. It was a really nice (albeit under construction) facility and really will afford the people who go for it great opportunities to jump-start the culture of the former-Ashdown house. That said, I’m not sure if I can handle living one place 2 years (WAAY off campus) and another 2 years some place else, both new. For those of you who are adventurous, its definitely worth looking into.

6.02 Lecture on Variable Length Encoding. Very interesting and I actually understood it and learned a lot.

Some (anti-)VI propaganda handed out at the EECS open house. (Note: free shirts that Omar didn’t get!)

The sounds (and almost sights) of the Ball Drop

Snively + Me + Colbert’s “my ______ friend” pose = AMAZING PICTURE! (if only camera didn’t ruin it)

Random Hall’s flying cow. You can hear part of a Random Hall tour in the background

As even these few meager pictures show, I had an awesome time at CPW. Keep in mind also that during some of the most awesome times, I was too busy (or forbidden hint) to be taking pictures.

For example, during the GBIS A cappella concert, I was literally too awed by the awesome groups (several of which I’d love to be a part of), to snap a picture. During the Roadkill Buffet performance (which I forewent Battle of the Bands for), I was much too busy laughing. By far the funniest moment to me, although it may not translate well to text, was during a game in which they had to interject phrases the audience wrote before the show into a scene,

Actor 1: *pulls phrase from pocket* GERANIUM URANIUM!
Actor 2: Yea, I remember man. Thats what we called you in high school. Everyone was afraid of the Geranium Uranium. I remember they called me *pulls phrase* Lions and Tigers and Bears Oh My!
Actor 1: yep, we used to call you LTBOM for short

.. I laughed to the point of tears (I think you had to be there).

Overall, however, I find myself wanting more. Not more from CPW, but more from MIT - I need more of MIT… soon.

This is partially my fault. I enrolled before CPW, so I wasn’t running to make sure it was all for me and I feel like I left some things undone. I never saw Simmons nor Senior Haus; I hung out with the chat group a lot and, in doing so, didn’t meet that many completely new people (though I actually probably am now best friends with some of the chat people I knew least before the weekend), and I feel like I probably slept too late.

The larger cause of this yearning, however, lies squarely in the nature of CPW. CPW was MIT in super-condensed form and, as much as we tried, one simply couldn’t experience it all. This isn’t really a problem, but it does have a serious side effect: MIT Addiction. I want to go back ASAP. I realize that real MIT life involves a lot of tooling, but I’m ready to face that for the rest of it (plus I actually love learning, so maybe psets won’t always be torture) (one can hope).

I feel ready to learn, ready to tool, ready to punt, ready to hack (if the occasion arises).

And yet orientation is 4 months and 3 days away.

Being the smart one I am (I got into MIT!), I know that there is still a LOT of fun to enjoy here in my senior year. I will continue to keep that in mind, but like a lot of prefrosh, I find myself singing “Take Me Back to Tech”.

So hoorah for technology, ‘ology, ‘ology oh.

^__^

Until August,

~Donald Guy ‘12