Spring 2000
So, what have I been up to for the past two years? OK, so maybe you
didn't ask...
This spring I basically rowed. I also played in Magic Flute at Harvard, and in the G&S shows for both Harvard and MIT--Ruddigore a second time. Amazingly I actually didn't drop any classes. Funny how that happens the term you want to graduate... I took Arabic at Harvard. Great class. The teacher was a grad student from Iraq. His mother is American and he was raised Christian but he's now an atheist. He's also blonde. He says that in the US, people assume he's American until he opens his mouth, and in Iraq, people assume he's foreign until he opens his mouth...
So, basically, that's about it. Started winning races in crew. Finished up school. But you can read about that later.
December 1999 and January 2000
After finals were over, my whole family on my mom's side went to
Hawaii as a big Christmas gift from my grandmother. We spent several
days in Honolulu in Waikiki and then went to the Kona Coast on the Big
Island. It was a lot of fun.
Matt spent a week in Columbus around New Years. We actually dressed up and went out to a nice dinner and a show for New Years Eve. And then we were on the Statehouse lawn at midnight. Seeing Civil War reenacters doing "YMCA" was worth every bit of cheesiness there...
Florida this year went really well for me. Got an insane erg score on a 500m relay... Darlene and I went to Epcot for the break. I'm going to miss not going anymore.
Fall 1999
Last fall I continued the tradition of starting a class that takes a
lot of work and then dropping it. This time it was a course 9 lab
class. I also took two music classes, and a Language Acquisition. I
decided to not continue with MITSO, and with my having more time for
crew again, suddenly I was in the first boat for the Head of the
Charles. It also didn't hurt that I was at the boathouse all summer.
Summer 1999
Last summer, I went sculling a lot. Went to San Francisco for the
first time ever. My dad went to Korea. My mom and I decided not to.
My dad had a wonderful time. My mom and I regretted not going. Went
with Matt's family to their cabin in Maine. That was very relaxing.
Sure, it rained, but I rather like rainy woods.
Spring 1999
This spring, still clinging to the math major idea, I started out
taking 6 classes. I was also in Matt's musical and playing in an
opera at Harvard and playing in MITSO and rowing...
After a few weeks, I decided to drop the two math classes. This left me with a linguistics class, a psych class, and two music classes.
And then, Matt and I sorta kinda started going out.
Winter 98-99
Right after finals, I went with my parents to Disney World. Then, in
January, I hung around MIT for a couple weeks during IAP for the first
time. I went to Rocky Horror for the first time since high school.
Afterwords, the group I was with went to Denny's in Saugus at 4am, and
then I ended up crashing at Random Hall and watching MTV for several
hours... I think I got back to my room, which I had cleaned the day
before and had actually remained clean for over 24 hours, sometime
around 5pm...
On the crew trip to Florida, I roomed with Darlene and Sarah Farrar. Since I had been to Disney just in December, we went to Cape Canaveral on the day off. This was also the year that we had three practices and then an afternoon off. I got quite a bit of knitting done and also managed to finish reading Les Miserables unabridged.
Fall 1998
A few weeks after getting back from Finland, the term started. At
crew, we also discovered that Mayrene, the varsity coach for many
years, had suddenly decided to retire, so we had Susan, who had been
our novice coach, as head coach.
Accademically, I was on a kick to do a double major in math, so I took 18.100A, which is analysis. I found it really interesting, but I was really struggling, and the class had three problem sets a week, so I dropped it. That term I also took syntax and psycholinguistics, and my UROP for credit. Syntax was not orriginally planned, but a friend of mine was taking it, and I decided that I'd find that more interesting than taking care of my Phase I writing requirement, so I dropped the writing class I had planned on taking.
I was also in MIT Symphony. Plus, I played in Mikado for the second time, and then, via MITSO, got roped into also playing for Fiddler on the Roof. Interestingly, Matt had also been roped into playing this show, and we met at the first rehearsal that we both attended. He had brought both his trumpet and trombone, because he wasn't sure what he'd be playing. He ended up playing piano. He needed a CD of Fiddler to listen to, so I offered to lend him mine. Unlike the CD's I've lent him since then, he returned that one promptly within a week or two. He then roped me into playing for the musical he was musical director for. That was fun.
Late July, 1998
Some of you may have been wondering why this page so abruptly ended
after July 20th. The reason is simple. I left Boston for a month and
right after I got back school started again. For those of you who are
dying of curiosity, after finishing my mural, I packed up to leave.
Friday of that week, the day before I was flying home before going to
Europe with my parents, my uncle down in Providence called and invited
me to come down for dinner and go to the beach, so I went. I ate
dinner, played with my cousin, and got up the next day to pancakes and
then went to the beach and forgot to wear sunscrean... Wonderful
day... very red. Had a couple days to recover before leaving for Finland.
July 20, 1998
Today was the first day in a long time where it was actually somewhat
cool outside. Of course, it only did that by being rainy in the
morning. There were some downpours, though, and I got caught in one,
so it was kind of neat. I did get caught carrying groceries, but
that's what plastic bags are for. It got sunny later in the day, and
warmed up, getting somewhat muggy. I got the music I'm going to play
for my audition for the symphony at the music library. I played
through the first movement and a little of the second. I'm going to
need practice, that's for sure. I finished my mural. I'm quite happy
with it.
July 19, 1998
This morning I had a hard time getting up because my computer wasn't
working right and I couldn't check my email. I read a bit of child
psychology, and fell back asleep for an hour. After breakfast, I
played a little apeiron, and then I finally started my mural. It's
nearly half done now. I'll probably have it finished by the end of
the week.
July 18, 1998
Saturdays come as a surprise when you don't go through a real
workweek. This morning Noelle and I went down to the music room and
played stuff on the piano, including the music from the new books of
musicals and folk music she has. I also played my bass a bit. After
this, we were sitting around the lounge a bit reading the paper, and I
saw there was a matinee of Gone with the Wind showing up at Harvard
Square in about twenty minutes. So, we grabbed our stuff and went.
That is a long movie! Four hours! We were finally out at 5 (it had
started at 1), and stopped at Kendall Square for some food at the food
court. She had to go to work at six. Later that evening, I lifted
weights for the first time in over a month. It felt good. Then, I
contemplated the humanist ethics of Melanie Wilkes.
July 17, 1998
I walked over to Boston today, intending just to get some music. I
walked over the Havard bridge, up past Tower Records, and over to the
Berklee School of Music bookstore, where I looked for a concerto I
needed. It wasn't there, so after a while, I left and wandered
through the nearby neighborhood, eventually finding my way to the
middle of Northeastern's campus. Once I'd found Huntington Ave, I
knew where I was, so I headed towards downtown, passing by they
symphony. I reached the reflecting pool at the Christian Science
motherchurch and walked along it. It was pretty, and they had nice
flowers. I miss flowers, there aren't that many around here. After
that, I went across the street and went through the mall at the
prudential, stopping at one of those science toy stores. I then went
down Boylston till I got to FAO Schwartz, and visited their world of
toys. After that, I walked past the parks, and went all the way to
Park St. station, where I decided just to take the T the rest of the
way back, even though I could've walked.
July 16, 1998
Every so often, I like to actually go into Boston. Afterall,
thousands of tourists come here every year, and I'm just accross the
river, so why don't I take advantage of it and actually see the city?
Last night I went to downtown crossing, where I hadn't been in a
while. I wandered around a bit, and before I left stopped at the
Wendy's there, which happens to be just about the only Wendy's in all
of Boston! This is just a little odd to me, coming from Columbus,
Ohio, home of the very first Wendy's, where you can find them
practically on every block--literally so downtown.
So, I sat around in Boston Common eating my food, except I'd forgotten
to get a straw and a spoon so I could only have the hamburger and
fries, but those were good. I'd forgotten what a good hamburger was
like. I had one at Burger King last week and that was like eating
styrofoam. No wonder people get in the habit of putting so much crap
on their burgers! I normally get mine plain--just meat and bun for
me, thank you, and the Wendy's stuff has enough flavor that this is
actually a good idea.
When I got back to the dorm, Robbie had just started playing Apeiron so I watched a bit while having my
frosty and drink from Wendy's. His game took over an hour and he
ended up getting way over a million, which is by far the highest
score. He now claims to have retired from Apeiron.
Some people on the hall were watching a movie from Hong Kong with a
lot of fighting in it. I started watching. There was the usual
martial arts, and there were also some guns. The translations got
worse and worse as the movie progressed (or digressed). Then, in the
last scene, there was lots of fighting, and when two of the guys ran
out of ammo, they both pulled out knives, stuck them on their guns,
and had a bayonette fight. After the bad guy got his throat slit in
this, there was another guy with a chainsaw. The good guy also picked
up a chain saw, and they had a chainsaw duel. Now there's something
you don't see every day. The bad guy had a hard time dying, though,
and finally someone had to fill him with holes from a machine gun.
There's my fill of violent films for the day.
July 15, 1998
Way back when, at summer camp the summer after 7th grade, I wrote a
haiku that went:
I thought of this today when I was coming back from Central Square. As I was walking by Sam's Luncheonette, I saw a squirrel running from the base of a tree. He ran under a car and I forgot about him. As I walked past the gas station and accross the street, I saw the squirrel there on the sidewalk next to the Necco factory. He was running along, and stopped under a mailbox. I stopped a moment to watch him. He stayed there a little while, and then started into the street. He'd wait for a break in traffic, run out a little, and then run back, several times again and again. I started walking again, but kept watching him. He spent a long time deciding which side of Mass. Ave he'd be safer on. Finally, he made it accross. He ran around the corner. I don't know where he was going. Maybe the architecture building there. I'd assume it would involve a tree. I don't know.
The reason I was up at Central today was to buy paints. I'm painting
a mural on my hall this summer, so I went up to Pearle after work today,
and picked out some nice and innexpensive colors of acrylic paint, and
tossed in some gratuitous markers.
I was orriginally going to finally get the photo ID for my new
checking account, but it had closed by the time I was out of Pearle. I
still needed groceries, though, and unlike banks, Star doesn't close
early. I have milk and orange juice already, but I didn't have any
fresh fruit on hand, so I got some plums and some bananas and some
peaches that were on special, I think because they're not quite ripe
yet. So, peaches and paint in hand, I walked home by Sam's
Luncheonette.
I also turned in my UROP paperwork today. They're due tomorrow. On my way to do that, I stopped at the Building 4 coffee shop. The person working the register happened to be someone I knew from high school who doesn't go to MIT. It was rather odd. At first I felt bad because she recognized me first, but then I realized I had paid with my meal card, which has my name on it.