Give blood to the tree
You can buy the Sport Death shirt, and the Roast shirt, and even the Lambda Sigma Delta jersey (complete with purity score!). But there is a special rite of passage for those who want to be a true Senior Haus resident. I am speaking, of course, of learning how to tire swing.
Making MIT a model of sustainability
The MIT Office of Sustainability sits in a temporary space in the basement of Building 12, a far cry from the stereotypical green and airy spaces that are associated with “eco-friendliness.” Despite these humble surroundings, Dr. Julie Newman, Director of Sustainability since August 2013, is propelling the Office to influence the decision-making of MIT.
T is for terrible
Boston T, you’ve got a lot to learn from the New York subway system.
Don’t get caught in a web of time sinks
The well-rounded students use IAP for vacation, avoiding the winter weather in California, or embracing the winter weather in Maine. The inquisitive use IAP to take classes in interesting subjects, such as Medieval cooking, or Japanese flower arranging. And the masochistic decide to spend IAP slaving away on 6.470, MIT’s web programming competition.
Man on the street
What do your classmates think about food? We asked around in the Student Center to find out!
Stand up against back pain
It’s not easy being MIT students. In addition to carpal tunnel, eye strain, and weight gain from too much free food, we must deal with back pain from sitting hunched over a desk for long hours. Fortunately, there’s a solution for that last problem: a standing desk.
A charming romp through the troubles of adult life
The beloved theme song of the Internet, “The Internet is for Porn,” comes to MIT in the Musical Theater Guild’s production of Avenue Q. With a story about a group of friends with real-life problems, such as closeted homosexuality, porn addiction, and graduating with a liberal arts degree, the show mixes puppets, actors, and even a shadow theater in a hilarious pastiche of Sesame Street for adults.
Dorm security will see enhancements
Residents of Baker, Masseh, McCormick, Next House, Simmons and the graduate dorms Tang Hall and Westgate will see changes to security this fall. As part of phase one of security updates, MIT Residental Life and Dining has hired professional desk attendants from security company AlliedBarton, instituted a visual verification for entering students and guests, and will install perimeter security cameras for the seven dorms.
Missed beats
My history with music reads like an I Saw You MIT post. “I heard you, ten second music video clip of ‘Feel Good, Inc.’ on a TV commercial.” “I heard you, midi version of ‘Diary of a Madman’ on a web 1.0 Johnny the Homicidal Maniac fansite.” Yet it was only recently that I started explicitly looking for new and classic bands to listen to, and educating myself in good music.
Extended Klink Interview
The Tech: Could you tell us a little bit [about] how you first got involved in fandom?
Fandoms, the Internet, and Harry Potter
Flourish M. Klink, a lecturer in MIT’s Comparative Media Studies (CMS) program, has built a life around fandoms. After running her own Harry Potter fansite and being on staff at Fanfiction.net, at age 13, Klink co-founded the Harry Potter fanfiction website FictionAlley with nine others. FictionAlley was “incorporated as an educational non-profit with the mission of helping people learn to write through fanfiction,” said Klink, and it was one of the first fanfiction forums on the Internet that made writing improvement a site-wide mission.
The right way to write
The hardest thing about taking the SAT was writing the honor code in cursive. Well, that’s kind of an exaggeration, but after having drilled the essays and math, the cursive was the only thing that took me by surprise. I spent agonizing minutes, trying to remember how to form capital letters. When that was over with, I thought that I would never touch cursive ever again.
Relieving stress
MIT is a stressful place, as we all know and our survey shows. However, despite all the the p-sets, tests, essays, and weather, 85 percent of students still manage to graduate in four years. In order to keep your stress levels in check, try these tips:
DARE to get high?
A time for experimentation, college life is rife with pleasures — legal or otherwise. Those proud graduates of DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) have already been introduced to the evils of drugs. Those who haven’t heard the stern warnings and strict admonitions can still be saved from the stroll down sin lane. Now, both can find a refresher course on the most pernicious gateway drug of them all.
Hell is other people
I was a freshman once. Escaping my hometown of Tampa, Florida, I went to MIT, leaving my family and high school friends behind. I was an unattached soul, with no group to call my own. Faced with the fear of being alone and unsupported, I was easily tempted by the promises of Sorority Recruitment.
MIT protips
Well, it’s that time again. All you hordes of freshman are pouring onto campus, bright and unsullied. Some of you fancy yourselves engineers, scientists, the bright minds of the future. All so innocent, easy prey for the dangers lurking behind the institute’s marble columns. Right now, you probably think “p-set” is a dirty word.
A “grate” salad and the sweet turned savory
I was staring at the wall of energy bars at LaVerdes, looking for a quick snack between work and exercising. Bright and colorful, they tempted the eye with bold statements like “10 grams of protein!” and “Chocolate-Caramel flavoring.” Yet even the “healthy” bars often contained more sugar than protein, and I wanted something more … meaty. Unfortunately, I don’t have the technology to produce a slab of pure dried animal flesh, so I did the next best thing: I made a batch of savory granola.
Heavenly voices
Gospel Choir is one of MIT’s Christianity-based music singing groups. Founded over 35 years ago, their 30-some members come from a a variety of Christian backgrounds. The group provides an opportunity to practice while they preach, with prayer and scripture readings during rehearsals.
Urine good hands?
Corporate profits soar. A corrupt politician is bribed into raising fees for a necessary service, at the expense of the people. The people’s protest is brutally suppressed by the police.
Fine dining by the sea
When was the last time you ate at a restaurant alone? For that matter, when was the last time you went out alone, took a walk alone, or amused yourself alone? It seems to me that when people have fun, they go in duos, trios, quartets, a whole crowd. Those that dine solo are branded “forever alone” by society and self. However, recent failures in my love life have made the thought of dining company intolerable, so I recently decided to eat lunch alone at Strega Waterfront.
Hackers on stage
Anyone who has been on an MIT campus tour has seen the pictures of great hacks of the past. Study here for a year, and you’re sure to see a hack with your own eyes. Yet despite the knowledge that hackers are fellow students, the people that crawl between the walls and pull high-tech pranks remain a mystery to most. In Hack, Punt, Tool, hackers take center stage in a story steeped in MIT mythology. This new musical is written, scored, and orchestrated by MIT students. For those who have ever wondered who was behind the abduction of the Caltech cannon or the many creative alterations to the dome, this is the show for you.
Dr. Grammarphile
“You’re dog was tracking mud all through there house. I was literally so embarrassed that I thought I’d die!”
WELCOME 2012: New year, new look
Out with the old, in with the new; that’s what New Years is for. Having learned from the mistakes of the past, a new year is time for a new beginning. As a sophomore looking back at 2011, I noticed that my freshman enthusiasm had crashed into the reality of classes, p-sets, and the need to find a career lucrative enough to pay off my college debts. I holed myself in my room, without going to the student theater shows and lectures I had formerly enjoyed. Worse still, my increasing workload led to a stagnant routine: a while-loop of note-taking, studying, and sweating over exams. Surely there was more to college life than this. I was supposed to become a well-rounded adult, not a workaholic.
THANKSGIVING A tale of two turkeys
Once upon a time, there were two turkeys, which I shall refer to as Turkey A and Turkey B, in order to avoid garnering any sympathy for them. Fortunately for them, they lived a charmed life on a small family farm, unlike their debeaked relatives on overcrowded farms. Instead of being the industrial Broad-Breasted White breed, too broad-breasted to reproduce without artificial insemination, they were a slower-growing heirloom variety with a more robust flavor.
CLUB CONNECTION Keeping track of the past
If you’re like me, then the closest thing to a model train you’ve played with is a Hot Wheels toy car, complete with a pre-designed shark pirate robot ninja track. I could always tell that a book I read was decades-old when the winsome rascal received a model train under the Christmas tree. But little did I know that this old-fashioned hobby was still alive in the Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC).
THEATER REVIEW How was the show, Mrs. Lincoln?
If you are at all familiar with American history, you will know that John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln and that Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President John F. Kennedy. You might even know that Charles Guiteau assassinated President James Garfield and Leon Czolgosz assassinated President William McKinley. But what about those who failed, like John Hinckley, Jr, attempted assassin of President Ronald Regan? Why did they do it?
REXing the frosh
Hey, frosh! I hope you enjoyed this year’s REX, because you’re going to have to run it next time. And you don’t want to start planning from scratch when you’re running an event for hundreds of people and the reputation of your dorm rests on your shoulders. But fear not! From my experiences as one of the Senior Haus REX chairs, I’ve created a list of tips on how to ensure your REX is successful and less stressful.
VIDEO GAME REVIEW Demon’s Souls: Turning boys into men
Fail to dodge an attack. Die. Walk into an “atmospheric” fire. Die. Fall off a castle wall. Die. Beat a boss, then walk into a dark tunnel and get ambushed by dogs. Die.
RESTAURANT REVIEW A piece of North Africa in New England
Tucked discreetly beside Creation “N” Hair and Cambridge Auto, its modest black and white sign blending in with the other businesses, Baraka Café doesn’t stand out to the casual observer. But behind the door plastered with Yelp! and Zagat recommendations lies an authentic North African experience, one I would never have heard about without the recommendation of a friend from pika.
A taste of pika
Ah, summer. Free from the flurry of p-sets, labs, and tests burying us in a pile of work, I finally have time to slow down and enjoy the simple pleasures of life: leisurely reading books instead of hastily cramming for a HASS paper, staying up until 3 a.m. watching Doctor Who without worrying about sleeping through an alarm, and having time to explore Boston with my friends while the temperature permits shorts.
CLUB CONNECTION This is not your grandmother’s spinning club
Fire. That bright orange blaze speaks to a nostalgic part of me, reminding me of toasting marshmallows and chilly nights alternating roasting and freezing. Both a danger and a delight, fire can be tamed and turned into a performance art by those brave and skilled enough to wield it — namely, the MIT Spinning Club.
CLUB CONNECTION What’s your beef?
Step aside, small fries! Mooove over, chicken! Beef is where it’s at, at least according to mitBEEF, MIT’s one-and-only beef appreciation club. To see whether that was true or just a load of bull, I headed over to Random Hall to do some “investigative journalism” at the first Miscellaneous Cow Part Competition, where a plethora of unusual beef cuts were laid out for us to taste and identify.
CLUB CONNECTION Breaking into dance
The acrobats of the ground, the mix-masters of moves, the poets of percussion; they are the ones that challenge the laws of physics. Moving in ways you’d hardly believe, their bodies twist into contorted shapes and then pause, fixing the impossible pose for a moment, just to prove that it can be done. But who are “they”? The breakers of Imobilare.
Swinging the blues away
To the jazzy sound of the clarinet, pairs twirl and spin across the floor of Lobdell, switching styles from improvisational blues to fast-paced swing in tune to the music. But this wasn’t a dance competition, or an exclusive party — it was just one of the weekly dances run by the MIT Lindy Hop Society.
Craving for caving: Meet the MIT Caving Club
Tired of the daily grind, the salt-crusted asphalt, the grey sky above? Feel the itch to explore places unknown? Or perhaps you’ve conquered the gym’s rock wall and are looking for another challenge? A cave could be the place for you. See waterfalls, exotic wildlife, and nature’s rock sculptures, all underneath your very feet.
An even more modest proposal
In 2009, 43.6 million Americans were living poverty, a number compounded by the effects of the recession. Of all the hardships of poverty, the most tragic is the lack of food. It saps strength and leads to listlessness and apathy, not to mention stunting growth in our still-developing youth. In 2009, 50.2 million Americans were at risk of hunger, and 17.2 million of them were children.