Squid vs. Whale
Sam and I were thinking about the new Indiana Jones movie. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the series or not, but it’s quite popular with the youth today. It involves the escapades of a professor of archeology who has a penchant for mischief, Nazis, and biblical artifacts.
Brouhaha Rhythm
You’d think it would be redundant to write an article for MIT students about the effects of stress, yet here I am. I suppose I just can’t help inflicting my thoughts on all of you — sorry about that. As it happens, stress is much like physical illness, in that it can manifest itself in physiological symptoms like muscular tics and discomfort, which is why over the next few weeks, you’ll be seeing MIT undergraduates all over campus twitching and jerking like they were inventing a new dance style. In my particular case, my abdominal muscles keep contracting involuntarily, so on the bright side, my core should be a good bit stronger by the time finals are over. As a point of additional irony, other symptoms of stress include memory problems and insomnia, which cause our already stressed bodies to put on quite a dance. The obvious solution to stress is to relax, but when there are only so many hours between now and crunch time, that solution becomes less and less of a viable option.
Summer Style
Summer is fast approaching, and with warm weather and no classes comes a new focus on fashion. Indeed, this is the perfect time to experiment with your own fashion sense, and get a better understanding of what trends, fits, and colors suit you. Although we’re excited to get started with this time of year, we wanted to warn you all to avoid some of the pitfalls that can keep you from feeling the full warmth of summer.
Special Thanks to the MIT Flying Club
The MIT Flying Club is a student-run organization. The MITFC is free to join and offers opportunities for free or subsidized hands-on flying experiences in General Aviation aircraft, lectures, free use of a fully-certified FAA-instrument simulator, carpools to airports, and FAA seminars. The club also sponsors two students per semester to train and fly with the Hawk Flying Club in Lawrence, brings helicopters to Briggs field every September (and offers free rides around campus and Boston to MIT students) and is working on obtaining funds to offer flying scholarships to offset the cost of training for ratings.
Brouhaha Rhythm
Those of you who know me particularly well know that I was born and raised in suburbs just about all of my life. Consequently, my time here at MIT is my first time living in a major metropolitan area for any extended period of time. Bearing that in mind, I have to say, it’s been an interesting experience. Boston and Cambridge may not be quite so urban as Los Angeles or Coruscant (we can see the Boston sky), but I’m working my way up to the full-fledged city experience.
It’s A Big, Big World
I firmly believe that knowing a city requires exploring it by foot. Fortunately for me, one of my class’ first activities in Buenos Aires, Argentina was a downtown walking tour. This tour completely altered my first impression of a city with a European look and feel, which was formed by a bus ride. Walking on sidewalks and approaching buildings and graffiti up close uncovered a characteristic that was truer of the city: one of political charge and change.
Happy Feet
There is one piece of attire that is so indispensable to our lives that we felt it was necessary to dedicate an entire week’s column to it: our shoes. Certainly, we aren’t encouraging everyone to buy the 400 pairs of shoes that would rival Carrie Bradshaw’s collection. However, after extensive investigation (meaning delirious hours spent in all sorts of shoe stores), we are sure that shoes contribute the most to style, posture, and unique self expression.
A Good Move
Looking for a mate? Want to construct a mating net? Larry Christiansen can teach you how. No, he is not an online relationship expert, but rather a chess grandmaster and three-time national champion. In honor of CPW, the MIT chess club hosted Larry last Friday to lecture, regale and battle a field of prefrosh and undergrads in the game of chess.
Brouhaha Rhythm
Forget all that nonsense about the Ringling Bros. — Campus Preview Weekend is officially the ‘Greatest Show on Earth,’ and I mean that in a very good way. I walked out of the Infinite Corridor (which I overheard referred to as “the Really Long Corridor”) onto Massachusetts Avenue Thursday afternoon and received something of a shock — MIT campus central looking like the college brochures I received in the mail oh so long ago. The benches in front of the Student Center were filled in spite of the singular aroma of fresh mulch, and Kresge Oval was alive with flying Frisbees. It’s virtually never like this during the semester — the people frolicking about couldn’t all be admitted pre-freshmen. What is it about CPW that gets us out of our rooms and into the sunlight?
WMBR Top Ten Albums of 1990*
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Brouhaha Rhythm
It’s hard having a significant other at a distant school. Maybe not as hard as, say, upgrading your computer to dual-boot BSD, but challenging all the same. Being an ickle freshman with no independent cash flow and a consistent homework load sort of precludes the possibility of regular travel for the time being, and our vacations don’t seem to line up properly, rather like Red Leader’s proton torpedoes. (Case in point: her spring break was three weeks before ours. Curse you, Massachusetts weather that’s only hovering above freezing, even after the vernal equinox!) I continue to be thankful that MIT is so well and fully wired that staying in contact in the electronic age is especially simple here. After all, that’s what the Internet is for, right? Sending enough Facebook music dedications to fill dozens of mix tapes? I’ve actually been several blocks up Mass. Ave. and wondered where the nearest Athena station was, but that’s for another article to address. My comedy well is only so deep, and I need to keep a good tab on what few funny subjects I can manage to conjure.
It’s a Big, Big World
After I arrived in the United States from studying abroad in Argentina, India, and China last semester, one frequent question I received was, “What was your most memorable experience?” Many amazing events occurred — I rode an elephant bareback in Indian, bicycled to Beijing’s Olympic construction, visited a soccer stadium in Buenos Aires, and experienced locals’ hospitality in every city. However, one particular event stood out above all.