I'm pretty sure most of you guys know this already, but I just want to brag about the fact that Obama is coming to MIT tomorrow! He's giving a speech about America's leadership in clean energy. Even more, he will be speaking in Kresge Auditorium, which is located literally less than a block away from my dorm. Seriously, it takes me 3 minutes max to get there. The most frustrating part: I can't see him live. Only a "select few" among the undergraduate student body is allowed to go, and those select few are big on energy here on campus. This logic is fair, but give the rest of us a chance!! Ok so maybe I'm whining a little bit, but I'm so sad that Obama is 3 minutes away from me and I can't see him myself. Grr. Oh well, a couple of us have a half-serious plan to hide out in the backstages of Kresge and just sleep there overnight. I highly doubt that will happen, but it would be nice....
But this event is really surreal. The MIT community was not notified about it until some of us read the Boston Globe and spread around the campus like wildfire on Tuesday. Then the Vice President of Institute Affairs made a formal email to the campus a few hours later that evening. Then today I'm seeing like a millions barracades stacked in a corner of a parking lot ready to be set up early tomorrow morning. On my way to classes and lab, I see tons of "No Parking" signs, or signs that TV newscasters claimed for the day tomorrow. I see people marking places to set up tents and lines. The last time I saw this much security was last year when the Dali Lama came! What makes the event especially weird to me is that no celebrities ever come to MIT. Yes, we have very important people come to MIT fairly frequently- Nobel Laureates, Muhammad Yunus, etc-and they all have accomplished extraordinary things, but still not "famous" enough to warrant huge media coverage. But tomorrow, the nation's eyes will be on us, and I'm super proud of my school. I will try to take pictures and try to at least see him enter the auditorium. Let's hope the Secret Service won't hurt me. More tomorrow!
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
note to self
Ok good thing I held myself accountable to blog by writing that NTS, since this post would not be happening otherwise.
Life's been good! Really busy. But that business can be translated into both positive and negative sentiments. Of course, I can feel overwhelmed at times. And it causes me to forget things...like turning in an application that was just sitting at my desk. But it also is good! I feel productive, active. I used to think I hated work and would love to just sit around all day...but I realized that being a bum can be infinitely more frustrating than being busy. This past weekend, I had a little more time than normal, and I came out of it feeling like I had done nothing. Just kind of clammed up at my place and wasted the time away. And my negative feelings for being here really came roaring back. Like..."huh, i have nothing to really look forward to, not even free weekends because those are kind of lame too. This place sucks!" And certainly, just putting myself on overdrive and being so busy that those feelings go away isn't the healthiest thing to do. But it works. I mean, it's like Brian Fuentes clearly isn't the long-term solution for the Angels bullpen. They're much better off finding a real closer who can throw above 90 mph. But for the meantime, he works.
Living alone has been awesome! My classy bachelor pad, full of frozen food, ramen, a semi-big-screen tv (with HD and DVR), and a waiting list for girls to come over. Kidding about the last part. But really, it's forced me to be more social around campus, initiating hang-outs or dinners (when I want to steal food from people...errrr, i mean when I want to hang out with people!) while giving me a quiet place to relax when I get home. It's also nice to be able to walk a few feet without running into a wall.
Oh well, that's all for now. I guess I wasn't really funny in this post either. I think my brain is just getting numb. We're currently learning:" What is P(x = 2 in 3 coin tosses). This is a huge upgrade. A week and a half ago, we were learning "the y-intercept is the value you get when you plug 0 in for x." Econ stats is making me dumber. I should have majored in econ. Oh wait--but then I wouldn't be an engineer. Ah, yes, Stanford School of Engineering ftw!
Life's been good! Really busy. But that business can be translated into both positive and negative sentiments. Of course, I can feel overwhelmed at times. And it causes me to forget things...like turning in an application that was just sitting at my desk. But it also is good! I feel productive, active. I used to think I hated work and would love to just sit around all day...but I realized that being a bum can be infinitely more frustrating than being busy. This past weekend, I had a little more time than normal, and I came out of it feeling like I had done nothing. Just kind of clammed up at my place and wasted the time away. And my negative feelings for being here really came roaring back. Like..."huh, i have nothing to really look forward to, not even free weekends because those are kind of lame too. This place sucks!" And certainly, just putting myself on overdrive and being so busy that those feelings go away isn't the healthiest thing to do. But it works. I mean, it's like Brian Fuentes clearly isn't the long-term solution for the Angels bullpen. They're much better off finding a real closer who can throw above 90 mph. But for the meantime, he works.
Living alone has been awesome! My classy bachelor pad, full of frozen food, ramen, a semi-big-screen tv (with HD and DVR), and a waiting list for girls to come over. Kidding about the last part. But really, it's forced me to be more social around campus, initiating hang-outs or dinners (when I want to steal food from people...errrr, i mean when I want to hang out with people!) while giving me a quiet place to relax when I get home. It's also nice to be able to walk a few feet without running into a wall.
Oh well, that's all for now. I guess I wasn't really funny in this post either. I think my brain is just getting numb. We're currently learning:" What is P(x = 2 in 3 coin tosses). This is a huge upgrade. A week and a half ago, we were learning "the y-intercept is the value you get when you plug 0 in for x." Econ stats is making me dumber. I should have majored in econ. Oh wait--but then I wouldn't be an engineer. Ah, yes, Stanford School of Engineering ftw!
simple math
Judging by time alone, I'm 64% of the way done. I've taken 75% of required classes for my major. 78% if you count the ones I got AP credit for. I've taken 83% of GERs. I've completed 76% of the required 180 units to graduate. And it's a bit frightening.
It's funny how we take things for granted. How things always look better in retrospect. How it's so common to start panicking once you realize that you might lose something that was once un(der)valued. I wouldn't say that I was fully ungrateful for my college situation. I understood the opportunities available. My shoulders would straighten up a bit when replying, "Oh I go to Stanford University" when asked. The prestige that comes along with the school with a silly mascot was quite apparent. Heck, I even had fun sometimes. What a concept!
But through it all, I found it hard to declare with abandon that I was truly enjoying myself, that I liked my time at school. A lot of it has/had to do with my recently-admitted regret at not going to a particular school on the East Coast that I had my sights on as a high school senior. Whenever things would go wrong, I would instantly lament my college decision.
I still have trouble embracing and rejoicing the fact that I'm here, I believe that I am finally moving in the right direction. For one, I've increasingly come to believe that God wanted me here, for reasons I can only somewhat understand at best. But it might be even more basic than that. Simple, really. Who knew that all you had to do was throw some job applications in my way, and I'll start enjoying college life? As I am considering options for post-graduation and cranking out cover letters to firms that allow me to apply this recruiting cycle, I suddenly realized how my time left here is limited. So I started to enjoy it.
I've always viewed school as a means to get to the real world. Study hard and you will be rewarded in the future. Just a stepping stone that can't be sidestepped. And every attempt to stop and enjoy the journey has hitherto failed. But as the stones are running out, and I'm nearing my destination (i.e. either unemployment or making bank), things changed. The stones don't feel as hard or cold anymore, while the destination looks a little more intimidating that I imagined. Believe me, I still want to get off that path. Just not as urgently.
And while my plans to graduate early will continue to impede on certain plans to enjoy the journey (like taking random classes), I have started looking to take advantage of opportunities available to us only as college students. After all, my college student status won't last forever. I can do the math.
It's funny how we take things for granted. How things always look better in retrospect. How it's so common to start panicking once you realize that you might lose something that was once un(der)valued. I wouldn't say that I was fully ungrateful for my college situation. I understood the opportunities available. My shoulders would straighten up a bit when replying, "Oh I go to Stanford University" when asked. The prestige that comes along with the school with a silly mascot was quite apparent. Heck, I even had fun sometimes. What a concept!
But through it all, I found it hard to declare with abandon that I was truly enjoying myself, that I liked my time at school. A lot of it has/had to do with my recently-admitted regret at not going to a particular school on the East Coast that I had my sights on as a high school senior. Whenever things would go wrong, I would instantly lament my college decision.
I still have trouble embracing and rejoicing the fact that I'm here, I believe that I am finally moving in the right direction. For one, I've increasingly come to believe that God wanted me here, for reasons I can only somewhat understand at best. But it might be even more basic than that. Simple, really. Who knew that all you had to do was throw some job applications in my way, and I'll start enjoying college life? As I am considering options for post-graduation and cranking out cover letters to firms that allow me to apply this recruiting cycle, I suddenly realized how my time left here is limited. So I started to enjoy it.
I've always viewed school as a means to get to the real world. Study hard and you will be rewarded in the future. Just a stepping stone that can't be sidestepped. And every attempt to stop and enjoy the journey has hitherto failed. But as the stones are running out, and I'm nearing my destination (i.e. either unemployment or making bank), things changed. The stones don't feel as hard or cold anymore, while the destination looks a little more intimidating that I imagined. Believe me, I still want to get off that path. Just not as urgently.
And while my plans to graduate early will continue to impede on certain plans to enjoy the journey (like taking random classes), I have started looking to take advantage of opportunities available to us only as college students. After all, my college student status won't last forever. I can do the math.
Silence
Recently I've noticed that I'm surrounded by serious noise pollution. Part of this is my own fault. I wake up to my extremely annoying alarm clock (maybe 3 times in one morning, depending on how tired I am that day), and start playing music when I'm getting ready, as well as listening to my ipod when I have time to kill. As I walk towards classes, there's construction everywhere, people bustling in the Infinite, more construction near my lab, teachers talking, etc. I also have the misfortune of having a room in the central part of my dorm, so I can always hear the elevator door opening and closing, people pset-ing out in the lounge in front of my room, or people chatting in the hallway. Even last Saturday, my neighbor had a mini party in his room, and sadly his bass shares the same wall as my bed. So, needless to say, I was listening to his flippin music till 4am.
But now, at almost 3:30am, I realize everything is silent (well, except for the buzz of my laptop, but this is inevitable). Being in silence is actually a weird feeling, which itself is weird because back in high school I absolutely could not study without silence. It's quite sad and funny how I've been just sitting here for the past 15 minutes just soaking in the silence. Just thought I'd share this strange feeling with y'all.
Other updates of my life: 1) My computer apparently has 41 viruses. yay. I'm definitely going to IS&T tomorrow to shell out $90 for them to completely erase my hard drive since I don't know the first thing about computers let alone trying to locate these viruses. 2) I'm watching more TV than ever: Glee, How I Met Your Mother, and Project Runway (and once it's 2010, then Lost). 3) I'll be in LA all of January! Will be studying for MCATs though, so nothing too crazy. But I'm also 21 by then, so knowing me, I'll probably go explore my fair share of bars. I definitely want to go to the Standard Rooftop Bar and the Edison, both I believe is either in or near West Hollywood. Does anyone care to join? 4) John Mayer's new album is finally coming out on November 17th! Gah...after three years of waiting, it's finally here!!! His new single "Who Says" is out, so you guys should check it out. 5) Current musical obsessions: Rachael Yamagata (again), Barcelona, A Fine Frenzy (again), Grizzly Bear, and strangely, the Far East Movement (don't ask why...I just really like them!). 6) When it comes to food, I go in weird cycles. So I'm now eating tortilla chips and salsa all the time now. The last time I had this phase was freshman year in high school whoa!
7) I saw Ben Afflek twice and Blake Lively from Gossip Girl once this past month and a half. 8) sorority update- I have an awesome Little! Her name is Chrystelle Kiang, and she's from Haiti. She's the best and I love her a lottttt. It's fun being both a friend and a mentor for someone. 9) I've been so bad this semester, and I've gone out almost every weekend. However, this past weekend I was actually anti-social and stayed in. Friday night was epic- watched Rear Window and Vicky Christina Barcelona by myself in my room, and I liked it. 10) It's freakin snowing already! wtf???
That is all. Miss you guys, and sorry for my lack of posts!
<3,
Yoon
But now, at almost 3:30am, I realize everything is silent (well, except for the buzz of my laptop, but this is inevitable). Being in silence is actually a weird feeling, which itself is weird because back in high school I absolutely could not study without silence. It's quite sad and funny how I've been just sitting here for the past 15 minutes just soaking in the silence. Just thought I'd share this strange feeling with y'all.
Other updates of my life: 1) My computer apparently has 41 viruses. yay. I'm definitely going to IS&T tomorrow to shell out $90 for them to completely erase my hard drive since I don't know the first thing about computers let alone trying to locate these viruses. 2) I'm watching more TV than ever: Glee, How I Met Your Mother, and Project Runway (and once it's 2010, then Lost). 3) I'll be in LA all of January! Will be studying for MCATs though, so nothing too crazy. But I'm also 21 by then, so knowing me, I'll probably go explore my fair share of bars. I definitely want to go to the Standard Rooftop Bar and the Edison, both I believe is either in or near West Hollywood. Does anyone care to join? 4) John Mayer's new album is finally coming out on November 17th! Gah...after three years of waiting, it's finally here!!! His new single "Who Says" is out, so you guys should check it out. 5) Current musical obsessions: Rachael Yamagata (again), Barcelona, A Fine Frenzy (again), Grizzly Bear, and strangely, the Far East Movement (don't ask why...I just really like them!). 6) When it comes to food, I go in weird cycles. So I'm now eating tortilla chips and salsa all the time now. The last time I had this phase was freshman year in high school whoa!
7) I saw Ben Afflek twice and Blake Lively from Gossip Girl once this past month and a half. 8) sorority update- I have an awesome Little! Her name is Chrystelle Kiang, and she's from Haiti. She's the best and I love her a lottttt. It's fun being both a friend and a mentor for someone. 9) I've been so bad this semester, and I've gone out almost every weekend. However, this past weekend I was actually anti-social and stayed in. Friday night was epic- watched Rear Window and Vicky Christina Barcelona by myself in my room, and I liked it. 10) It's freakin snowing already! wtf???
That is all. Miss you guys, and sorry for my lack of posts!
<3,
Yoon
Monday, October 12, 2009
sick
i am sick and it sucks. it started with body aches on friday, overheating on saturday, excessive coughs and overactive sinuses and sunday, and a missing voice today. what fun.
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