"Before coming here, I apparently didn't know the meaning of 'bogged down with work'. I was up til 1AM last night working on Biology stuff. I hope that's the last time I have to stay up so late working on problem sets." MITES Journal, July 2, 2007.I recently found my English notebook from high school buried among other notebooks in my desk drawer. In between my junior and senior years, I took that journal with me to MIT and wrote 15 short entries that summer. Unfortunately, MITES was not the last time I would stay up til 1AM working on homework. In fact, much of this semester has been just that. I didn't take any more classes than last semester, they just simply all gave much more assignments than all of my previous classes. There were some weeks where I would spend every night staying up until 1AM, desperately trying to whittle down a mountain of problem sets. I didn't even have weekends, as they were devoted almost entirely to physics. Maybe things would not have been so rough if I did not have a job and ROTC leeching my time as well. My responsibilities in Air Force ROTC increased tenfold when I became Information Management Officer this semester. Basically, the entire detachment website suddenly fell under my authority and I constantly had to upload documents, change templates, and keep things current, something that would have not been so hard if Dreamweaver and MIT's server would get along with my computer. Thus, I basically had no free time this entire semester. Last semester, when I had stretches of free time hours long and no girlfriend, I could afford to indulge in my computer games like Civilization IV (which you should play). This semester, I would be lucky to have an hour, and if the choice was between LiveJournal's fussy photo uploader or the most beautiful girl in the world, well, there really isn't one. That is why I am here now, trying to explain why I have not written anything for four months. She's gone, classes are over and now I have nothing to do except miss her really bad and wait a couple days to see my family. Actually, I've still been really busy taking care of storage, packing, pre-registration, job applications, paperwork, last minute shifts at IS&T, and finding out where everything is.
As painful and psychosis inducing as this semester has been, the last few months did not just evaporate from my life. Thanks to what I've learned here, I now know how to solve several kinds of differential equations and linear systems. I can explain all of Maxwell's equations and tell you all about light diffraction and LRC circuits. I almost completely understand the inner workings of life down to the atomic structure of DNA and Biology now works thanks to chemical reactions and not magic. And in history, well, I already knew a lot about America, but I did get to write about 30 pages in papers that class. Plus, thanks to ROTC, I can storm a room using MOUT tactics, not get blown up by an IED, and turn my pants into a floatation device. I also joined MIT's newspaper, The Tech, as a cartoonist and my comic, Help Desk, appears to be wildly popular, at least among my class.
There have also been some fun times among the work. I've gone on some field trips with the Air Force, which were awesome and educational. I celebrated my first real Valentine's Day with the girl I love. I got to take her to the ROTC Military Ball and get some good pictures. I outdid myself on her birthday and she really liked that. I got to pretend to be a freshman for CPW and get free food, as well as relish in the power as my new position as TV Room czar for Burton-Conner and buy new equipment. I got to be on a boat and listen to 'I'm on a Boat' three times while on said boat. I was respected by my classmates and random strangers for helping them out with physics or computer problems, respectively. I got Windows 7 on my computer, which makes Vista look like an accident (although Vista really is an accident in my opinion). But most importantly, I've gotten to spend almost six months with girl who I can only describe as perfect, even though her humility would deny it. I've had a great time here at MIT over all I would say. Despite the many, many, many, many, many, hardships, I would have to say that the few good things that have happened make it all worth it. It's been fun, but now I'm really just bursting to go back home and talk with my Dad in person, give my mom lots of hugs, play videogames and watch the Office with my sister, let a big, fat kitty sit on me, and give my lazy turtles some exercise. Also, it'll be great to see my friends again. Meanwhile, all I can do now is pack some more and stew in this horrendous 90 degree heat with my butt stuck to my underwear and want to go home. Hopefully, two days from now, I'll be back home, away from this hellish (weatherwise) place. I conclude with a conversation I had with Maggie while taking her to the airport.
Me: Yeah, if my flight gets canceled again because of snow, people are going to die.Maggie: They would probably already be dead...
Me: ?
Maggie: ...If something was so wrong with the Earth, that it would be snowing so much in late May.
Me: True. (I love this girl!)
Me: [sudden urge to watch 'The Day After Tomorrow' when I get home]
- Location:My room
- Mood:
and sticky - Music:Not this time
So I sit at my desk late into the night blogging away, something I haven't had the free time to do since I started losing my mind six weeks ago. But it's okay now. I'm back to normal. Starting from the beginning, I was eventually able to fly out of Boston on December 23, two days before Christmas. I had a few hour layover in San Francisco and Alaska Airlines had the nerve to charge $200 extra for all this. The nerve of those pansies. They call themselves 'Alaska' but cringe at snow in Portland. However, I did arrive to find Portland buried by the worst snowstorm since 1893. Basically, the storm of the century had to climax on the day of my original flight. So my break at home was mostly marked by me desperately trying to remove several dozen viruses, trojans, and spyware that had infiltrated my computer during the few months I was too far away to protect it. At this point I would like to say that until I left, that computer never, ever had a single virus in the 3 years that I've owned it, and neither has my laptop. Remember, being responsible on the internet not only keeps one out of trouble, it keeps people like me from having to waste my break fixing other peoples' mistakes. Having the skills and tools to do so, I did remove them all eventually, which is much better than paying Best Buy to wipe my hard drive. The rest of my break consisted of being snowed in, going places when possible, and not really having time to do what I wanted. Thanks, Alaska, for robbing me of time home and charging extra for it. 
When I got back to MIT for IAP on January 4th, I hit the ground running, literally. The morning after I got back, I slipped on the ice and scraped up my knee and palm on the way to my conditioning class. My weekly schedule went like this for the most part: PE (Total Body Conditioning) on Monday and Wednesday from 0800-0900, 18.02A lecture Monday thru Friday from 1200-1300, 18.02A recitation on Tuesday and Thursday from 1000-1130, and work at the IS&T Help Desk Monday thru Friday from 1315-1715. Of course, there were daily problem sets and I would often work on homework after I got off work until going to bed around midnight. At least the weekends were nice, and Maggie and I were able to switch to the same 18.02A recitation section, so I could see her more. I missed a lot of the fun IAP activities that went on over the past month because of work though. I have to say, this IAP would have absolutely sucked if it were not for one crucial thing: I'm in love with the most incredible girl ever and I got to be with her almost every day. Maggie and I were able to do some fun things together during the weekends. One day, we watched Office episodes from my DVDs, on MLK Jr. Day, we went to the Museum of Science. It was the first time for her and was a lot of fun. The LSC Sci-Fi Marathon was on the night of the 24th. It consisted of five movies (Jurassic Park, Brazil, Dr. Who, Southland Tales, and Planet of the Apes) played back to back starting at 1900. I saw Jurassic Park with Pearle and Ethan. Afterward, Maggie and her pre-frosh came to see Brazil with us. That was a weird movie. Go watch a trailer or recap of it. You won't understand it. Maggie and I had our two month anniversary on the 26th and we went to a restaurant in Boston called BoLoco. It was quite delicious and I had a great time with her, even though it was freezing outside.
Today was a very special day indeed, for it was the day of MIT's 16th annual Charm School (http://web.mit.edu/charm/). Charm School consists of several classes in social etiquette set up in the Student Center from 1200-1600. Yes, I took the day off work, and no, I do not regret it. Maggie and I left the Calculus final (which was also today) at noon and headed straight there, where we took classes such as Bowtie Tying, The Perfect Handshake, Elevator Etiquette, and Ballroom Dancing. Each class you complete would earn you one Charm Credit. If you earned 6 credits, you would earn a B.Ch. (Bachelor's Degree in Charm). 8 credits would get you a Master's Degree (M.Ch.) and 12 would get you a Doctorate (Ch.D.). Accepting no less, Maggie and I took 12 classes together and each earned 12 credits. She also had 3 from an event earlier in the week, giving her a total of 15. This large number of means I could very well be dating the most charming girl on campus. I am so glad I didn't go to work today. Right now, I'm just really happy that this stressful mess known as IAP is coming to an end. It'll soon be replaced by a different stressful mess once classes start next week, but I'm feeling good at the moment. Plus, I have a feeling I kicked that 18.02A final in its metaphorical nuts.- Location:My room (where else)
- Mood:
calm - Music:Rascal Flatts (of course)
So the short story is this: It is about 15:00 Eastern Time on December 21st, and for some reason, I am still at MIT. Yes. My flight got canceled yesterday, 5 minutes before it was supposed to board. I wasted the whole day traveling and sitting at the airport, and six dollars on airport food. Now, thanks to the fact that Portland, OR is having the snowstorm of the century, I cannot get home. Luckily, my parents were able to schedule an American Airlines flight for the 23rd, meaning I have to spend three more days here. I am the only one in my suite, I don't know if there is anyone else on my floor. It's terribly lonely. I miss my family. I miss my girl. I miss everything. The part that really bothers me is that Alaska Airlines (I just realized they must be some 'Alaskans' if they are scared of snow) canceled the flight, not me. Now we have to spend an extra $200 to get me home 3 days later?! Where is the justice in that. If anything, the airlines should be paying me for the trauma and lost time that I have to endure being stuck in this mire all by myself. My new itinerary, while costing more and arriving later, will also include a five hour stay in San Francisco, a place that I can't say I'd prefer to be on the ground in. How am I supposed to stay occupied for 5 hours in an airport? I suppose if they have power outlets, it won't be so bad
I am also going slowly insane with what I now remember is called 'cabin fever'. The one major difference in this case is that I can leave my dorm to go outside if I want to, but it's 30 degrees out and is snowing like crazy with 20 mph winds again. However, the loneliness is there, along with the buried pessimism that I may not actually be able to get out of this place if the trend in Portland continues. Right now, it looks like I'll only be able to spend 11 days at home with my family, down from 14. My visiting schedule was already packed to begin with and now looks even worse. Right now my clothes are still soaked from when I got back from the grocery store an hour ago. I had to trudge through a foot and a half of snow in some places, and I don't have boots either. I need to find out if the T (subway) is running in the wee hours of the morning the day I leave. Otherwise, I may be forced to shell out $20-30 for a taxi, which sucks because this whole mess is Alaska Airlines fault, not mine. I should sue them for damages. I did manage to take some pictures of the snow outside before my camera ran out of batteries. I'll get some more tomorrow because if I spend an entire day in this room, I'll go insane. A few months ago, if you would have told me that I could have chance to be snowed in all by myself, with no responsibilities beyond eating and going to the bathroom, and have all that time to sit around and play computer games, I would have been so happy. Now I realize: It sucks. No amount of videogames could fill the void left by Maggie and my family being so far away. I want to go HOME! I hate this place! Get me out of HERE!
- Location:my room
- Mood:
depressed - Music:none, too sad :(
So I'm sitting in my room next to a giant suitcase listening to Rascal Flatts while writing a new post and wishing the clock would move faster. It's about noon right now and my flight doesn't leave 'til 16:40. I've been spending all of today and yesterday in total boredom. I love Maggie and I miss her, but she's about 2000 miles away. I love my family and I miss them, but they're about 3000 miles away. I love my computer, my kitty, my turtles, and my Xbox, but.... well, you get the idea. Also, what worries me is how much it's snowed out here. It's quite intense. There was about 8 inches of snow outside last night when I went to IS&T to go pick of a big box for the AAS clothing drive. Although, I did have a lot of fun pushing the box really fast along the nearly frictionless sidewalks while screaming, "I am the limit of F equals mu N as mu approaches zero!" I know. I'm such a nerd, but I can do that, because I got an A in Physics this term. At MIT. It took a while for that to sink in. I don't know if I did that well in my other classes, but I don't really care too much about my other classes. (Who needs chemistry or biology to design helicopters anyway?). I can't wait to leave. I need to get out of here. There's no one around and it's really lonely. 
I guess I should talk a little about the stuff that's happened over the last month or so. Well, the big thing I was all excited about was Baker Formal at Maggie's dorm on December 6th. It was just another winter holiday formal which was kind of a flop, but we found a way to have our own fun upstairs, putting together a giant puzzle, dancing, eating things composed of a large percentage of sugar. It was pretty great. I had a wonderful time with Maggie and took a lot of pictures, which you can see here. It was so fun. I kind of wish I could go back to that night, except I would also be going back to the day after, where I had to spend the entire day revising the final draft of my 15 page essay on the Soviet-Afghan War. That sucked. Almost as much as being alone here. I think I'll leave my dorm around 13:00. I just want to go home. At least I'll be able to 'see' Maggie at home. I got her Mac all set up for Skype and conveniently tested it with my parents, who somehow managed to disable their camera again. Apparently, a large amount of technological prowess left our house on August 22, if you know what I mean. :)I'll also be able to meet her family through Skype, with my family in the background. It will be like a big conference call, between families who are now suddenly brought together for the first time. It's going to be so awkward. I can't wait!
- Location:My room
- Mood: restless
- Music:Rascal Flatts!
All right. Ladies and Gentlemen, this press conference has been called to order to discuss the realities of exactly what is going on here. By now,there are rumors and speculations flying around that need to be clarified. As such, the Michael Benitez Department of State (MBDOS) is releasing the following statement prepared earlier by Michael Benitez:[Begin statement]
"Yes, the rumors are true. For those of you that don't know, I am no longer single. That is, I have a girlfriend now. If you just spat coffee onto your keyboard, I suggest you clean it up within the next few minutes. Dried coffee can cause some really nasty problems underneath the keys and that's no fun. Now I'm aware that some among you may think that this is a little 'fast', but rest assured that I would not let myself go through with anything without considering all my options and consequences. How can I go from relationally apathetic in one post to my current situation in the next? Simple, my last article was written on November 2nd. I actually was about an hour late to an optional Physics review session because I decided to write my last post. I was not actually going to go, but one of my friends convinced me that I should. It was there that I first met Maggie Lloyd. I had seen her in my classes several times before and thought it would be interesting to meet her, seeing that she is so tall (5'11") and has the same quirky mannerisms as me. Details can be filled in later. She was stuck on the same rocket changing mass problem on the pset as me, so we worked together for a bit to find the differentials of mass and velocity and solve for the final velocity after a certain amount of fuel is expended. That was that. Yeah, I liked her. I decided I could use that pset as a stepping stone to talk to her more over the next few days. Later, after the Calculus exam, we talked all the way back to her dorm and I learned that her favorite show was The Office. Of course, this set the stage for her coming over and watching the episode we missed during the physics exam. I found that we have so much in common, it's unbelievable. Then I took her to go see The Dark Knight at LSC. More missed episodes of The Office. Old episodes from my DVDs. Talking every day we have Calculus. I liked her from the beginning, and it was easy to tell that my feelings were reciprocal. I told her that I think she's the most incredible girl I've ever met after we saw Forrest Gump at LSC last Sunday. This was followed by a hug from her and some sweet words. I visited her Tuesday night in her room (don't worry, her three roommates were there) while she was packing to go visit some family in New York for Thanksgiving, where she is now. I had a lot of fun spending time with her, and her roommates are interesting to talk to/watch also, almost like a TV show. As I was leaving, with her walking me out, she mentioned that her dorm was havi
ng a formal next weekend and if I could maybe, possibly go with her. "I'd love to!!" So that's next weekend. Today we went to the Stata Center and I bought her lunch before spending the last 15 or so minutes of lunch taking her to Killian Court, the heart of MIT, where the Convocation was (see earlier post). It was in this place, with the Great Dome in front of us, the Boston skyline behind us, and a massive group of camera wielding Asians to our left, that I told her she's amazing and I love her. Her response: same thing. With 5 minutes before class starting, we ran to the nearest Athena cluster to update our status on facebook together. And that's that. Now I have to live with the fact that I chose the day she left to do this and have to spend the next 3-4 days without her. Hmm, well that's what facebook is for, I guess."[End statement]
Michael Benitez concluded by saying that he is open to public and private inquiries regarding this matter. Currently, he cannot be reached for comment, as it is late and he is going to bed. Good night, everyone.
- Location:My room
- Mood: ecstatic
- Music:Rascal Flatts (what else?)
Well, it has been three weeks since my last post, so I decided I better catch up on this. I would have posted a week ago, but this past week was extremely intense. Did you know that I stayed up 'til 2am on Wednesday night working on an 8.01 pset that was due at 11am? Also, I had to wake up at 6am for PT. I think there should be a picture of MIT next to the word 'busy' in the dictionary. So I guess I should start in chronological order here. Shortly after my last post was my adviser dinner. You see, the freshmen advisers are allotted an unspecified amount of credit to spend on activities with their freshmen advising groups. Dr. Sheila Widnall, my adviser, took us all out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Somerville called The Border Cafe. It was really good and I was so full. Even better, some of my best friends (Pearle and Vamsi) are in my advising group so it was doubleplusgood (<--- random reference to 1984).
The following weeks were somewhat uneventful. They usually follow this pattern:
General Formula for a week at MIT
Monday: PT in the morning. Lots of classes and come home to study frantically for Tuesday's 17.40 discussion.
Tuesday: Does not exist: Leave at 8am. Work, classes, AFROTC, IST training meeting, Weight Training. Get back home at 9pm.
Wenesday: Morning PT. Lots of classes and work at IST, then come home to work furiously because 18.02A and 8.01 are due tomorrow.
Thursday: Wake up early to finish what didn't get done the night before, turn it all in before 11am. Classes. Relax. Weight Training. Watch 'The Office'.
Friday: Less classes than Monday or Wednesday. Watch 3.091 on TV with Pearle. Longer lunch. Get ready for weekend, stay up late.
Saturday: Sleep in. Try to work on stuff during the day. Go to MacGregor at night to watch a movie with Pearle and Ethan.
Sunday: Sleep in. Some work may be impending but mostly there is not as much of a rush. Try to do 17.40 readings a day early. Maybe see a movie at LSC for free.
Of course, my birthday was more interesting than an ordinary Wednesday. People sang for me at PT, work, and at the MITES reunion, which happened to be scheduled for that day. I liked the reunion. I got to see people I hadn't seen in over a year, if I hadn't seen them in class. There was good food, including steak, and also a cake. Earlier during the day, Pearle actually came to 3.091 lecture and took me out to lunch afterward. It was really nice of her. Not to make this a competition, but she'll just have to see what I have planned for her birthday in December! I got care packages from my parents, Uncle Sam and Aunt Prissy, and Nana Judy and Uncle Jimmy. They were mostly food... which is awesome. I love free food. I'm a starving college student, remember? I also got some other cool stuff like a WWII book from Nana Judy. Pearle got me a present too, two Easy Mac cups and an MIT beanie. Once again, so nice of her, but just wait 'til December. Oh also, the night of my birthday, I got showered. It's a Burton-Conner tradition. On someone's birthday, a group of their friends will hunt them down and drag them, kicking and screaming, to their bathroom and shower them in cold water for a few seconds. Luckily, I got some pictures for you all to see.After my birthday, things went back to normal for a while, with sporadic exams and quizzes, of course. We had a movie night at ROTC and I saw 'Mystic River'. Not a bad movie, very long though. Speaking of AFROTC, my LLAB last week was a Humanitarian Crisis Simulation. We were split into small groups consisting of a few AF cadets, a couple of political science majors from Tufts, and some military advisers. It was a scenario where we (AFROTC) had to play the Department of Defense people and the political science students from Tufts played the State Department and USAID. We had to draft up a plan of action to take regarding a 7.1 scale earthquake in Taipei, Taiwan. We had a limited resources at our disposal and other issues that would come up, like China promising it would send foreign aid if we sent satellite images of the disaster area. This is funny if you know about the relationship between Taiwan and the PRC. The scenario was a lot of fun and I enjoyed the Tufts campus.
This weekend was Halloween, obviously and Pearle and Ethan were distraught that I didn't know I had to have a costume. We rigged up something really quickly and I dressed up as "The Economy". The description of my costume is in a picture in the new gallery I uploaded about an hour ago. There are other pictures of all of us that Pearle took, and I'll get them later. She was Padme Amidala from Attack of the Clones and Ethan was a jungle explorer or something. I don't know. He had a stuffed monkey around his neck that people would not stop messing with. We went party hopping in Boston that night 'til about midnight. In my opinion, frat parties are really boring. You go in and there's just a bunch of people writhing around in an alcohol-choked, sweaty mess. Needless to say, we had more fun walking around Boston at night than at any of the parties. Thus, we went back to MacGregor to watch "Sunshine". This is the third movie I've seen in the last few weeks where something goes wrong on a space mission. I saw "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "Alien" recently. The last two nights, I've stayed up 'til 5am. On Halloween night, (or Nov. 1st morning, if you will), Pearle, Ethan, and I stayed up being fascinated by the incredible stuff Google Earth can do now and the amazing 3D detail of the entire Boston area. Whoever creates the 3D buildings in Boston has a lot of time on their hands. Yesterday, I just spent the whole day working on 18.02A and 8.01, which is good, because that is a whole day that I won't have to work on them during the week. I've been sporadically writing this, uploading pictures, facebooking, and working all at the same time during the last few hours. Since I ate brunch around noon, you'll have to excuse me. At 3:30, it's time for dinch. Bye, all.
- Location:My room
- Mood: restless
- Music:Rascal Flatts
I think this is the first time I've started writing a post in the evening as opposed to very late at night! It's also only been a week since my last post. I'm getting better at this stuff. This was a long and devastating week, to say the least. You can't imagine how happy I was after class on Thursday to know that everything was all wrapped up. It was mostly my fault for not doing any work last weekend, and forcing myself to do all my readings, psets, and online assignments at the last possible minute. I certainly did not let myself repeat that mistake this weekend, Thanks to my diligence today and yesterday, I have finished almost all of this week's homework already, with spare time to write this post and photoshop a new profile picture for facebook. I've obviously outdone myself on this one, it's much higher quailty than anything else I've made in Photoshop. I need to find out about how much it costs for MIT students. I would never get tired of it. I'm kind of writing this in a hurry because I'm going to go see Hancock at LSC at 1900 tonight. We had our second Gencomm meeting on Monday and Pearle and I got our ID cards. Now we can go see movies at LSC for free. Actually, a week ago, last Sunday, I woke up early at about 800 and took a shower. In an interesting coincidence, just as I was about to go to the kitchen and eat some cereal, my phone started vibrating. It was Pearle. She had made scrambled eggs, bacon, and croissants and wanted to know if I wanted to come over for breakfast. I'm so lucky to know her. That bacon was also really, really good. That LSC meeting was one of many obligations that I had during the week, and IS&T conveniently scheduled the worst possible times for me to 
come in and work. It was only through the grace of God that I came through and finished all my work on time. I also extremely owned this Air Force Jeopardy game we played in AS100 on Tuesday. I teamed up with Vamsi, who is also well versed in 20th century history, and we destroyed the rest of the class. It was pretty epic. My Air Force class is actually getting smaller. More freshman cadets are starting to disappear as AFROTC interferes with their schedules or they can't meet the physical demands. It's kind of sad, but it also makes the scholarship pool smaller and increases my chance of getting one next semester. I still can't wait to go on the base visit next month. I went grocery shopping this weekend and spent a bunch of money. The cool thing was, on average, I saved about 40% on everything I bought combined. It would have been a lot more if I didn't get that jar of raisins for full price, but I really needed raisins for my gross oatmeal flavors. I also found waffles and syrup on sale. Butter was not on sale, but whipped cream was. You probably know where this is going. Well, whipped cream is better than butter because it tastes really good, it's fun, and I don't have to spread it on my waffles with a knife. There. I bought 8 
boxes of Post cereal, of which 6 were the big 15 oz. boxes of Honeycomb. Those are normally $4 and I got them for $2 each. Naturally, I stocked up. I also used two coupons that got me two free boxes of Honey Bunches of Oats. Pearle loves it, but I think it is one of the nastiest cereals in the world, so I'm just going to give them to her. Considering all the free food she's prepared for me, it's the least I can do. I'm practically alone in my suite tonight. Everyone else went on the Burton 4 camping trip except Wendy, so it's been really quiet here. They'll be back tomorrow. I didn't go because I think it cost money and I don't like camping anyway. Too many bad experiences from summer camp and outdoor school. I also found out last night that my dorm has an online laundry server: http://www.laundryview.com/laundry_room.p- Location:My room
- Mood: cheerful
- Music:Rascal Flatts
00! Woo! So, perhaps, readers, it is easier to understand why I simply cannot post to this blog more often. Although the good thing about me posting so infrequently is that I can put pictures up every time. Let's begin now. I can't remember exactly where I left off, but shortly after my last post, the Air Force Detachment here scheduled an outing to go candle-pin bowling (a New England tradition) with our fellow cadets. I got to meet some of the cadets who didn't go to NSO and see some of our officers in civilian attire, a rare opportunity. So far the Air Force stuff is going well. I've gotten to do some fun things in LLAB and all those PT sessions are resulting in some strange bulges in my arms that I've never seen before. I also did a 1.5 mile run for the first time without stopping in my life. I'm getting better at this physical stuff. If you ever need a good exercise regimen, join the Air Force. I also got to wear my SDU (Service Dress Uniform) for the first time on Tuesday. I look really sharp in uniform. I'll get a better picture of myself in it tomorrow. I need something cool to use as my facebook profile picture. I've seen a bunch of movies in my downtime lately: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Apocalypse Now, 28 Days Later. I also saw Get Smart again because I volunteer for LSC and get to watch movies for free. Everything has a downside though, and for this privilege, I had to help screen Sex and the City, which I can say with confidence that I will never, ever watch again. Aside from being busy all the time during the week, life is pretty good here. The weekends are certainly a nice break. I spend a lot of weekend time doing homework but it saves me from going insane during the week. I bet a lot of people in my 17.40 class haven't even started their papers yet. I'm done. Yay for me. I went to the Museum of Science last night with Pearle and Ethan. We went and visited all the exhibits Pearle and I missed back on August 23rd. It's a very well-put together museum, much higher quality than OMSI, not to offend. After my Arnold Air Society meeting today, Pearle called and asked if I wanted to go to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts with her and some friends. What? Once again, free admission for MIT students? Well, yes, that sounds splendid, I'll go. The MFA was actually much more interesting than I expected, although you can't compare it to the Museum of Science though. We probably walked past 5 different colleges/universities on the way there. I forgot to take pictures of downtown Boston but I'll get to it eventually. 
The four of us then walked to the Prudential Center and ate dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. Trust me, I would never eat anywhere so expensive if it wasn't covered. Luckily, it was, and I thank Julian's parents for paying for our dinner. It was his birthday, if I haven't already mentioned. I was so full and took some leftovers of my stuffed chicken tortillas home. Now they're waiting in the fridge for me to eat them tomorrow! All in all, I had a fun day. Even typing that paper was occasionally interesting. I really need to try to post here more often. I apologize to those of you who check the blog every day hoping for a new article. If only you could imagine how much work I have to plow through here. Anyway, enjoy the new pictures I uploaded tonight.- Location:My room
- Mood:
sleepy - Music:Rascal Flatts!
Hello everyone, I know it has been a while (several weeks) since my last post so I would like to start of by announcing that any rumors that I am dead are, in fact, not true. Though some nights I may be in a zombie-like, comatose state after absorbing too much calculus, I am still very much alive. There is a simple reason for the lack of posts recently. I have been VERY busy over the last few weeks. You might say that the quantity of my free time could be modeled as a function of time, f(t)=1/t, where t represents the amount of time from my last post. If anyone is interested, the integral of such a function would be F(t)=ln(t)+C, but that's only important because I have been calculating integrals all week and I can't get them off my mind now. Luckily, today is Thursday, although it might be Friday by the time I actually post this. On Thursdays, I have only two classes and my Physics (8.01) and Calculus (18.01A) P-sets are due. Now I can breathe a sigh of relief as I prepare to take on next weeks homework. At least there's a three day weekend. For those that don't know yet, I did get the job at IS&T that I may have mentioned earlier. I sit at a desk and answer peoples' questions about computer problems over the phone for $12.50/hour. Basically, I'm MIT's Tech Support along with everyone else in the call center. In ROTC news, I now have almost all of the parts of my uniform, the one piece I am missing will not be necessary until winter. I got my shoes two days ago and took my pants in to get hemmed today. The Air Force classes have been going well. On this last Tuesday's class, I got to learn squad positions, maneuvers, and hand signals and crawl through the field to assault an objective and take prisoners. It was a lot of fun. Part of AFROTC is Physical Training from 0740-0830 every Monday and Wednesday, meaning I now wake up at 6 in the morning almost every day. More details about my schedule can be found on my facebook page. I have taken several pictures since my last post and am thus uploading them in clusters to keep better track of them, and also because livejournal makes me upload each one individually and it takes forever. So as you sit and enjoy the pictures, remember that they are there because I underwent a tedious and time-intensive process. In short, appreciate them because getting them on here is a pain! Back to my life, lots and lots of things have happened since August 25th. September 3rd was the first day of classes. Sometime before then, fraternity rush started and there was never a shortage of free food provided by MIT's fraternities, sororities, and ILGs. Even before this, (I know I'm out of order) Dorm Rush ended and I entered into a lottery to confirm my choice of Burton-Conner. I elected to either take a double on any floor or keep my single on Burton 5. The results came in and I was moved down to Burton 4, which I actually like a lot better. It has a friendlier atmosphere. Burton 4 had four double rooms available, and my roommate and I got the smallest one. 
Additionally, Burton 4 was overbooked by 4 freshmen, meaning all four doubles became forced triples. So yes, I have two roommates in a room that should only accommidate two people. This does mean the cost of the room is less, so perhaps it's better, and my roommates are both friendly and I talk to them a lot. Rooms in Burton-Conner are grouped into "suites". A suite typically contains a study area/kitchen that leads to a hallway with 4-7 rooms and a large bathroom. My suite, 454, is in the corner of the building and the two windows in my room have a fantastic view of the fire escape shaft and nothing more. Suite 454 consists of five rooms: three singles and two doubles. In the three singles are Brian, a sophomore; Honghsin, another sophomore; and Wendy, a junior from England who is involved in the Cambridge-MIT exchange program. My two roommates, Stephen (Massachusetts) and Nick (Maryland), are both freshman and they are both alright. The other double in the suite is occupied by three freshman girls: Kellie from California, Katie from South Korea, and Suzie from Texas. So yes, myself and three other guys have to share a bathroom with five girls. No, there have not been any problems and nothing awkward or weird has happened. Contrary to my parents' belief, everything has worked out fine. We talk, eat together, and help each other with homework and everyone lives happily. As for friends outside of my dorm, everything is going well. I still meet regularly with many of my old friends from MITES, including Courage, who is now in Air Force ROTC as well. I went into a lot of details in my last post, which I am too lazy to do now since I have met much more people. I'm drawing a blank on many of them right now as it is 23:45 right now and I woke up at 6:00. Getting only about 5 hours of sleep a night has not really helped. Anyway, I spend time with my friends whenever I can, which I had no time to do this week because I missed the whole weekend because I was at Westover Air Reserve Base for an AFROTC outing and didn't do any work. I do have lunch with Pearle regularly and have convinced her that Cambridge Grill is the best restaurant on campus. We're in the same Chemistry class (3.091) and still see each other a lot. Last week, she got a "care package" from her parents consisting of cheesy rice and several Xbox games. Consequently, we nearly beat Portal together and ate cheesy rice and pasta. It actually saves me a lot of money when she cooks for me so I pay her back every time. This weekend we are both scheduled to be ushers for LSC (the MIT cinema club that projects movies in 26-100). By be
coming a member, I get to go to all LSC screenings for free instead of the usual $4. Unfortunately, LSC is about the only extracurricular activity I have time for, thanks to AFROTC and my new job. I really enjoy it though. On Sept. 2, there was a free screening of Iron Man for all freshmen and I went to go see it again with Pearle, who has seen it 4 times now. Movies that reference MIT are very popular here. I wonder why. Going back to news of my room, it was actually about a week after I moved in that I built our bunk bed arrangment so Stephen no longer has to sleep on a mattress on the floor. A few days ago, I put sheets and blankets on my bed, which is nice because I had only been using a throw blanket and a pillow previously. Also, my grocery shopping expeditions have been quite successful. The combined efforts of collecting coupons, getting a Shaw's card, and reading the online circular shave dollars off my shopping trips. Just a few days ago, I bought 6 bananas (3 pounds) for $0.39/pound, which is an incredible deal compared to the campus grocery store's price of $0.75 per banana! I only buy things that are on sale and have been living and eating healthy. I save money on lunch by bringing my water bottle from my dorm instead of buying soda. As of now, I am very tired and cannot wait for Season 5 of The Office to start next Thursday. It is now midnight, and I am going to bed. Good night, loyal followers.- Location:My room, 454F
- Mood: tired
Saturday the 23rd was mostly marked by my trip to the Boston Museum of Science, which is a good 30 minute walk from campus and grants free admission to MIT students, undoubtedly because MIT has donated several of their exhibits. The museum is amazing and puts OMSI to shame, although they don't have a submarine. I spent the rest of the day going to random food and orientation events with friends. The 24th was notable for the 2008 Freshman Convocation that morning, which is now available to watch on TechTV at http://techtv.mit.edu/file/1321. I also attended some seminars on how to use MIT's computer system and network. From these two events, I acquired stashes of large cookies and cans of soda, respectively. Each side of the campus had a huge party in the evening. East campus was much more interesting due to the fantastic, wooden contraptions constructed by sleep-deprived students in such a short amount of time. The West side party simply consisted of a large amount of people pretending to dance in a dark, humid room and lost my interest upon entering. It was on this night that I stayed up late for an exclusive tour of MIT and didn't return to my dorm 'til 4am. There are some who would like to see this tour come to an end, and a strict code of secrecy is enforced. I can say no more online about this event. Today, the 25th, after two hours of sleep, I awoke at 6:30 to get breakfast and later left to check out the Advanced Standing Exam for 8.01 (Physics: Mechanics). After finding out that passing this nearly impossible exam would simply give me the option of skipping the course, I left to go to building W59 to get my Air Force ROTC uniform. I was originally starting to have reservations about giving such a time commitment but quickly changed my mind once I remembered how well constructed the program is. On a slightly related note, I found out that my academic advisor is none other than Shiela Widnall, who served as secretary of the Air Force from 1993-1997. This will make it very easy to plan my course schedule around ROTC. Later in the afternoon we got into our orientation groups. There are 105 groups with about 8-10 freshmen each. I'm in group 18. We then attended an informational skit put on by the orientation committee about stereotypes and choices. 
It was very funny and the actors did a very good job. (Especially with the fact that their characters in the play were given facebook accounts weeks ago and believed until now to be regular freshmen like everyone else). I've reconnected with a lot of old friends from MITES and CPW and made several new ones too. Over the course of a day I learn the name, home state, prospective major, and dorm location of about 20-30 of my comrades. Usually my slate is wiped clean the next day as I am not too good with names. However, a few of these people stand out as I see them on multiple occasions or for extended periods of time and eventually become friends. I've gotten to know each of them a little better. I met Ozzie Figueroa during CPW but forgot who he was over the summer. Over the last few days, I have seen him on occasion and have convinced him that Burton-Conner is the best dorm for us normal people. Being a comrade in the struggle against communism, it would be fortunate if he does move in and ends up on the same floor as me, I could really trust him as a roommate.I met Pearle Lipinski while sitting on the steps of the student center waiting for the museum tour to appear and head off. Our conversations about videogames and Course 16 endured the entirety of the museum trip. Afterward, like so many other people I meet, I prepared to never see her again. However, we both ended up being at the same events and would continue to talk right through them. This happened so often that we eventually just decided to stick together. Thus, we have done a lot of things together, including the maniacal 4 hour tour of which I am not allowed to speak of. Aside from her being liberal-ish, we are now good friends. I can't forget that my best friend Seth from CAL was exactly opposite of me on the political compass quiz. My orientation group contains a handful of other freshmen, including a girl named Erica, who I initially hung around with but now attempt to avoid since she is a chatterbox and doesn't seem to let up talking unless you interrupt her. During the process of one of my escapes, at which time we were currently merged with group 16, I struck up a conversation with a one of their members named Abby Koss who appeared to be very shy of the others. As we filtered into the auditorium for the skit, I sat us down in one of the best locations, chairs right by the exit so y
ou can get out of the auditorium quickly after the play ends instead of having to wait 15 minutes for 1000 people to squeeze out three doorways. Even though she plans to go into ocean engineering, Abby is quite interested in aviation and we spent much of the time before and after the play discussing some of my favorite topics like The Cold War, videogames, and World War III. In the following orientation activity where everyone had to chip in on how the play made us feel, our groups were still merged and we spent most of the time talking to each other. Don't worry, I paid attention some of the time. We then went to the giant orientation BBQ and finally got to sit away from the group, especially Erica, and spent the rest of the night visiting the ruins of the East Campus party, sticking LEDs onto a wacky piece of modern art, and exploring Random Hall. After this, I came here and spent the last hour working on this blog. It is now 1:15. Hopefully this entry included enough details to satiate your curiosity and concern for several days. I am going to go to sleep now. - Mood:Need Sleep!!
Profile
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1)
thethirdmike- Michael Benitez
- MB.gresham
Syndicate
