Happy Leap Day

February 29 - the day that comes once every four years.

Almost as widely anticipated as Pi Day.

Seriously - my advising group and I went out to dinner at The Cheesecake Factory (for free! oh, I do love MIT's free food) a few nights ago, and we actually ended up talking about how all of us were really excited to see what Pi Day at MIT would be like.

Yeah, we're nerds.

Anyway, I have my first 5.12 test in oh, 40 minutes. Who's excited!? (Not me.)

Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy orgo. But I am not looking forward to this test.

In other news, it's Friday. :)

Micro-rant*

I was under the impression that MIT professors and course administrators prided themselves on quickly updating their online gradebooks.

So would someone please tell me why my 18.03 grade still isn't online, more than a week after I turned it in?

*Micro-rant = A volatile vilification of a single subject, reported rapidly.

The alliterative definition is mine. Although I was hoping I was the first one to coin the term, a Google search revealed over 1300 hits - alas. Maybe I'll get credit for popularizing it, though. ;)

Sort of sad

Now that semester's started and I actually have work (what? work at MIT? crazy, I know), I've had to come up with some better organizational skills. The most important step has been setting up a pretty kick-ass Google Calendar (I've also been experimenting with Lightning, which is the calendar add-on for Mozilla Thunderbird) that complements the schedule I keep on my lovely Treo. However, I also occasionally resort to much lower-tech methods - in particular, emailing myself reminders and lists of things to do.

Here's an example of an email I just sent myself, upon realizing that I have an assignment due this Wednesday for 20.020, my bioengineering lab course.

From: Me
To: Me
Subject: 20.020 STUFF IS DUE SOON!

Also, work more on your 18.03 and 8.022 p-sets. And finish the reading for your HASS class. Now.

Rawr.

***

I sure know how to intimidate myself, don't I?

Now, off to 5.12. Organic chemistry. Yum.

Messiness

So I'm currently tooling away in the lovely reading room in the Student Center, also known as W20. I usually like the reading room - it reminds me of a library that just happens to be tucked away into a corner of W20, except without the books - but for some reason, I really can't stand it right now. Compared to the Athena clusters where I usually do my work, somehow the reading room just seems too clean, too quiet, too bright. Call me crazy, but sometimes I like a little mess in my life.

Also, a confession: I regularly bring food and drink into the clusters. The horror, I know.

Read the Year in Review!

The Tech, MIT's largest student newspaper, has just published their "Year in Review" issue, which draws together a truly comprehensive array of articles about almost every major decision or controversy that affected MIT over the past year. Some of it is opinion pieces, some is straight-up reporting, some of it is just about the year's best movies and songs - but either way, it's one hundred percent MIT. From hacking to housing, it's all in there.

I feel obliged to point out that, while a lot of good news came out of MIT last year, so did a great deal of bad news - and, well, bad news tends to sell better, or at least make more interesting reading. On the whole, I think the "Year in Review" issue strikes a good balance between the positive and the negative while still remaining on the whole accurate to what really happened at MIT during 2007.

You can find the entire issue in HTML here - or, if you have a good connection, you can download the very nice PDF instead. I have to run to class now, but maybe later I'll link to some of the pieces I most liked or think are most important. Until then, I'd just recommend reading the entire thing, or as much as you have time for. Maybe, if you read carefully, you'll find a familiar face...

Some quick thoughts on Initation, Freshmen on Campus, and the Super Bowl

Last night was initiation at Skullhouse. Obviously, I can't say much about it - and nor do I want to, since really, there are some things that, in my opinion, should only be appreciated firsthand...sort of like hacking, actually.

But yes, I am now officially a brother of Phi Kappa Sigma, which is...there's a lot of words running through my head. Awesome probably comes closest. I have quite a bit more to say on this, but I think I'll save those ruminations for my admissions blog.

In other news, I'm officially moved back into Simmons. Kind of depressing, actually, that one of my first acts as an initiated brother is to move out of the house. But that's Freshmen On Campus for you.

Also, as the entire world probably knows, Super Bowl is on tonight! As you can probably guess, I'll be rooting for the Pats - even though I would much prefer the Colts to be playing instead. Although Simmons is showing it in our awesome Multi-Purpose Room, I'll be back at the house to watch instead. I think we're having not one but two TV's set up for that purpose. Sweet.