Calm Places

            This is going to be something of a filler post, since I haven’t really done anything exciting in the past week, and I’m tired.  Excellent excuses, I know.  But I’ve been planning various filler posts for a while, so this is possibly the first of many, depending on how exciting my weeks are. :P

            So anyway, this week I’m going to discuss a couple of my favorite locations at MIT.  These are places that I spend a great deal of time in that aren’t my dorm or my lab or classrooms.  They’re places that I go when I need a break, largely because of the sense of calm that I get when I’m there.  You’ve probably felt something similar- I won’t presume to know where your calm places are, but I know that in Seattle one of my favorite calm places is the West Seattle Library.  It’s quiet, and peaceful, and filled with books, which is always a plus.  Maybe your calm places have similar characteristics, or maybe they don’t, but the salient point is that although I sound like something of an idiot saying “my calm places” in every other sentence, I think they’re something that everyone has, whether you’re aware of it or not.  And now that I’ve sufficiently belabored that point, here are a few of my calm places at MIT.

1. Hayden Humanities Library

            Perhaps unsurprisingly, the first of my calm places at MIT is another library. I discovered Hayden in my freshman year, and haven’t found another library that I prefer, despite having visited all of them at one point or another.  I think the thing that drew me to Hayden is that it’s fairly unique on MIT’s campus- it has non-science, non-engineering books.  Technically, it’s the ‘Science and Humanities’ library, but I prefer the humanities section.  There’s a whole floor devoted to remembering the fact that there are things other than science and engineering that go on at MIT, and it’s pretty wonderful.  It’s one of the only places on campus that I can find actual pleasure-reading type books, which is great.  Granted, there’s not a whole ton of time for pleasure reading, but it’s nice to know that the books exist for when I do have a spare moment.  Additionally, since it’s the humanities library, there are generally less people there.  It’s also the second floor of Hayden, which is kind of daunting, I guess.  Whatever the reason though, I find that it’s generally quieter and with more space available than the other libraries, which is nice when you’re trying to find an outlet to plug your computer into so that you can continue studying.

2. “The Room With the Colorful Floors”

            If I’ve ever taken you on a tour of MIT, I’ve taken you here.  It’s actually called “Bars of Color Within Squares”, and it’s an art piece by Sol LeWitt.  As you can see in the picture below (which I’m stealing from our school newspaper, The Tech, because I kept forgetting to bring my camera with me to take a picture) the floors are colorful, and arranged in such a way that the floor becomes the art piece.  What you can’t necessarily see from the picture is how that part of the building is laid out.  It was originally an exterior portion of main campus, but they enclosed the space between two buildings with a glass roof, and the floor was installed.  The glass roof means that the sun can come in and warm the floor, which is one of my major reasons for spending time between classes there.  Additionally, like with Hayden, it’s quiet, and a reminder that there’s more to MIT, and to life in general, than just science and engineering.  When you’re in the middle of a semester full of psets and lab work and exams, this is a good thing to remind yourself of every now and again.

3. The Cranes for Collier installation in Stata

            This calm place is one that’s sort of evolved in the past month.  Before, it was just a room in the Stata Center (the crazy looking building) that had a huge mirror, and that I ate lunch in on days when I couldn’t find a table anywhere in Stata to eat at (which, to be fair, was almost every day that I ate lunch in Stata).  But last month, in a tribute to Officer Collier, various people affiliated with MIT folded white origami cranes, which a group of students then strung together and hung from the ceiling. It’s kind of hard to describe, so I’ll include a picture below (this one I’m not stealing from anyone... but that means it’s a picture taken by my computer camera, so the quality probably isn’t great. There are better pictures at the website they made).  The installation is, in my opinion, gorgeous.  I’ve always loved paper cranes, and the composition of the piece is really wonderful.  It’s definitely made my calm place in Stata even better.

I’m going to continue reading papers and studying for finals now... maybe next week I’ll have done something exciting that I can share with you (unlikely... but you never know :P)

Life Things

            Hi, it’s me again, Alycia.  Who?  Oh, right that girl who occasionally writes blog posts about her life and then disappears off the face of the earth for a while. That one.  I like her, she’s funny sometimes.  (Aw, thanks me, I think you’re funny too!)

            And now that that’s out of my system- hello again everyone! I’m sorry it’s been so long since my last post... life didn’t get busy so much as the busy-ness caught up with me and there were a large number of things going on that I needed to deal with. And now there’s only two weeks until finals, and I’m freaking out a tiny bit.  Only a tiny bit because I’m very much in denial about how quickly time passes... talk to me again on Thursday evening, and I’ll probably be freaking out a good deal more (one of my final projects is due on Thursday... more on that to come).

            Before I give you the highlights of the last three weeks and the lowlights of the next two though, I have a couple of exciting things/big life events/stuff to share.  In all likelihood, anyone reading this already knows from one avenue or another, but next year, there’ll be not one but TWO Gardner girls on the East Coast! My favorite younger sister will be joining me over here in the lovely state of Massachusetts. She won’t be in Boston, sadly, but she’ll be attending Brandeis, which is only about a 45 minute bus ride away (don’t worry, I’m already planning weekend trips to harass her/see the lovely city of Waltham. (Be excited Kerri!)). 

The other news is more me-centric.  As of last week, I’ve officially changed my major from Course 20 (Biological Engineering) to Course 7 (Biology).  It was a tough decision, but after several tearful hours of talking it over with people who made similar switches, as well as with my PI (Principal Investigator- she’s the professor who runs the lab I UROP in), my grad student, and my Course 20 advisor, I decided it was the best decision in the long run.  Math and I just aren’t friends, and I’m more interested in the biology-based reasoning behind things anyway.  Plus, from what I’ve seen, even straight biology classes at MIT tend to incorporate some elements of engineering... so it’s not like I’m totally getting out of it. :P  

And probably least excitingly, I’ve signed up to take the GRE this summer.

The GRE (or, as I’ve just now decided to pseudo-affectionately call it, the SAT on steroids) is the standardized entrance exam for grad schools.  It sounds long and horrible and scary, but it’ll hopefully be in an air conditioned room, which will be nice, since I’m taking it in Boston in August.  Ahhh time moves so quickly!  Okay, now I’m freaking out a little more... it’s really weird thinking that I’m going to be a senior soon, and then I’ll have to do real person things.  So, in the spirit of denial, I’m going to ignore that fact for a bit, and tell you about what I’ve been up to in the three weeks I managed to not write a blog post.

            First, I know I said in my last post that I was going to go cheer at the Marathon on Marathon Monday... that didn’t actually happen.  My friends and I did go out to lunch that day though, which was nice.  It was a gorgeous day- perfect marathon weather (or so I’m told... having never actually run a marathon, I can’t really say that I’m in a position to comment).  I’m not totally sure why I decided not to go... it probably had something to do with the fact that I didn’t want to walk all the way to Boston.  I like to say that I’m efficient with my energy usage (that’s Alycia code for lazy).  I’ll have to go watch next year though, since it’s one of the things on my 101 Things to Do Before You Graduate list.

            Speaking of that list, I crossed something else off of it this week.  On Friday, some friends and I went out to dinner with our Cell Biology professor.  I was expecting it to be awkward at best and terrifying at worst, but it was actually a lot of fun!  We didn’t get quizzed on our cell bio knowledge- instead we had legitimate conversations about life and school and pretty much everything.  It was really nice to have a professor take so much interest in what we had to say. He was really intrigued by the general undergrad culture at MIT... apparently that’s not something professors get much exposure to.  It was also a good chance to try a new restaurant at no cost to myself- MIT reimburses one meal with a professor per semester for undergrads.  While the restaurant we went to probably isn’t my new go-to spot, it was a nice change of pace from the pasta with various sauces and vegetables/meats mixed in that I’ve been making for myself.

            And while we’re on the topic of dinners with professors, I should probably mention that I went to a party at my PI’s house a couple of weekends ago.  She invited the lab over to her house for dinner to celebrate one of our grad students getting his Ph.D.  My PI’s house is a gorgeous old house out in the middle of the suburbs (it took me over an hour on the T to get there).  It was a really fun party, and I actually managed to not just sit and play with her dogs the whole time (that’s kind of what I was expecting to do haha).  I did technically follow various members of our lab around and just add things to conversations at random points throughout the night... but it was slightly more sociable than just hanging out with the dogs... and since I was the only undergrad there, I’m going to count it as a win.

            Continuing on the subject of food, we had a Dim Sum IFAF (inter-floor activity) with some of the other floors in Burton Conner.  As with all of my dim sum experiences up to this point, I kind of just sat back and let other people at my table order... grabbing food at various points throughout the meal.  It was a lot of fun to get to interact with people from other floors, many of whom I’d seen, but not spoken to.  The food was delicious as well, which is always a plus.

            Another thing I’ve done in the past few weeks has been playing copious amounts of volleyball and kickball. (Copious amounts here means one to two games a week... but compared to the amount of exercise I’ve been getting, it’s a lot of stuff). Kickball is weird in that it works the most random muscles... I’m pretty sure I’ve never felt most of the muscles that are in pain right now. It’s been fun though- kind of a throwback to elementary school, which is the last time that I played either kickball or volleyball.  I’m not good at either game, by any means, but it’s been fun to go out an play games and run around for a bit.

            That’s a general overview of the exciting things I’ve done in the past few weeks.  There have been other things that were fun, that I’m sure I’m missing, but I’m going to leave it at that for the moment in favor of complaining about life.  As I mentioned, it’s only two weeks before finals, which means that ALL of the things are due. Including Monday (which is technically yesterday for me) I have three projects due in a week’s span that are worth 10% or more of my grade in various classes. On the bright side, after next Monday I’ll be totally free to study for finals.  On the other hand, that means there’s only a week until finals... as you can see, I’m on track to begin the freaking out about finals process :P.

            This week specifically, I turned in the first version of my final project for my HASS (humanities) class yesterday.  On Thursday, I’ll be turning in a term paper and giving a presentation in my remaining course 20 class (Molecular, Cell, and Tissue Biomechanics).  Although it’s a group presentation, so I’ll only be speaking for about 2 minutes, I’m still a bit nervous.  The paper and presentation together are worth 20% of my grade in that class... so it’s kind of a make it or break it type of situation.  The last thing I’ll have due is the final version of my HASS project.  As it currently stands, I’m planning to implement a version of Mad Libs that uses Children’s Songs as the base text.  The ‘artistic’ goal of the piece, as I’m envisioning it, is to examine how our perception of well-known texts is altered by changing key words.  My plan might change before Monday though, so we’ll see what happens there.

            After that, it’s time for finals, and then I’ll be flying home to see my sister graduate, and spend some time at home before coming back to Boston for the summer to work in lab.  Hopefully I’ll figure out what I’m doing in lab by then... it’s been a bit of a strugglefest for the past couple of weeks. None of my experiments have been working as planned.  We’re working on optimizing the protocols though, so hopefully it will start working soon-ish.  Preferably before I head home for the summer so that I can start with the next stage of our project over the summer.

            And now that it’s sufficiently past Monday over here, I’m going to sign off. Maybe I’ll post next week... given my track record it’s unlikely, but we’ll work on that. :P