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)