The Masochist's Institute of Technologyanecdotes of an ambitious MIT student

At this time last year, I was completely and utterly stoked to be going through sorority recruitment. I don’t recall the exact moment I wholeheartedly decided to pursue sorority membership, but I believe it was somewhere around April 2009. Either way, I became rather obsessed with the idea – I browsed through the websites of all 6 NPC sororities on campus (AXΩ, AEΦ, AΦ, KAΘ, ΠBΦ, and SK), looking at all the photos of happy girls decked in evening gowns, hugging each other and grinning as if they had truly found paradise. I wanted to be a part of that world, not only for the professional connections (although I do believe that was what started this whole fiasco), but also to belong. I wanted to feel that “sisterhood” bond, since I never really had close girlfriends during high school at all. I wanted someone with whom I could go shopping; I wanted someone with whom to obsess over dieting, or work out… I wanted someone to call up or AIM-chat at bizarre hours of the night about bizarre YouTube videos; I wanted to be invited to dinners, to go party-hopping with a group of gals (no offense to my guy friends!), to do our hair and giggle over the latest chick flicks.

Everyone says that you will eventually find where you belong in college. During freshman year, I identified myself heavily with the 4W/WhiteRabbit group in Next House. However, we have all drifted since then, with many of us moving to different wings, pursuing different majors, p-setting with different people, and being involved in drastically different things. Understandable, of course – we are all independent individuals – but that doesn’t mean I don’t miss them from time to time. Perhaps it was that drifting that prompted me to reach out towards sorority membership as a means to fill in a hole, especially when it came to female friends.

So I went through recruitment, all grueling 5 days of it. (I know it’s proper to not speak of what happens during recruitment, but a lot of the “don’t ask don’t tell” sentiments during recruitment really irritate me.) Before and during the process, I had my eyes set on joining KAΘ, actually. I knew a lot of girls who were Thetas, and frankly I thought that they were the most involved, most refined, and most organized of all the sororities. They radiated professionalism. However, as typical of recruitment, I was cut from Theta right before preference (4th round). I was instead invited back to AXΩ and ΠBΦ. At the time, I was devastated. I even considered dropping out of recruitment right then and there and trying again for KAΘ the next year. Thankfully, I ended up going through pref at both of the sororities that did invite me back; I fell in love with AXΩ during pref and eventually pledged them.

At the time I felt as if I had finally found a place to belong. Everyone was so warm, so welcoming, so nice. Everyone wanted to know you, to be your friend. Everyone invited you everywhere, sent you cards when you felt sick, dropped care packages for you, wrote encouraging messages on your whiteboards. Honestly, it felt great! I loved Fridays, when I donned my AXΩ shirt and strutted down the Infinite, flashing a smile and a wave to anyone else with a matching shirt.

You felt special as a pledge. You felt like you were wanted, like you were the popular new kid over whom everyone fawned. Although I missed quite a few events (scheduling conflicts left and right), people still wanted to meet up for ice cream or chat with me. Initiation came and went, and the hype began to decrease as midterms set in. The weeks turned into a month, a month into two, and I still didn’t know very many girls… yet I didn’t give up hope. I joined because I wanted true friends; I wasn’t going to give up until I reached my goal. They always say that sorority life is a two-way lane; you have to make the effort to get to know people. They didn’t just become friends with you. I understood this very well, but at the same time, I didn’t want to force friendships. I didn’t want to be another overenthusiastic sorority girl who screamed, “Oh my gosh, you wear my same letters?! Let’s automatically be friends, thanks to our sisterly bond!” Instead, I wanted patiently, seeing who I could address, who I could befriend over similar interests, who could make me feel like I -really- belonged.

It’s been a year. I’m still waiting.

Of course I’ve made some friends. Of course I’ve had fun at some events (brunch with Minh; karaoke with Sarah and Ingrid; Fiddler with Julie; etc.) It’s not quite the same, though, as the kind of friends with whom you can randomly hang out, talking about random topics at random times of the night. In AXΩ I haven’t found the true “bond” for which I originally joined; in AXΩ I found friends, not sisters.

Ironically, I have found this bond elsewhere. I’ve found it in the moments when Judy randomly drags me off to IHOP at 11pm. I’ve found it when Yiling and I huddle under my tiny umbrella, walking back to Next in the rain and talking about guy troubles. I’ve found it when Cynthia and I trade 20 emails during work brainstorming about our dance drama. I’ve found it when all of us gather at Cosi’s for dinner to help out JY and Nhu’s student organization. I’ve found it in the times when we’ve shared froyo, laughed about gummy bears, rehearsed until 3am in the morning, sat around in the TFL constructing silk ribbons, climbed over a train with Liza and Nhu to get to our Ashdown performance on time, gave Sheila advice on her classes, party-hopped together…

My “sisters” at MIT are none other than my Asian Dance Team girls (in fact, we joke that we’re “Alpha Delta Tau” and even decorated our own letters, which are currently proudly displayed on my door). After rehearsal yesterday, Judy, Yiling, and I just sat around in the studio, talking about careers, laughing about fraternity squabbles, planning our rush schedule… we later moved up to Judy’s kitchen, munching on pizza and cherries and froyo, sharing secrets and watching random TV shows (when oh when will Gossip Girl and Glee come back?!) It struck me how easy it was to get along with them, even if our personalities are radically different at times. I realized that with them (and the other ADT girls), there’s a sense of camaraderie, a sense of support. When one of us has trouble, the others express sincere concern and stick up for her. When I’m frustrated on a p-set at 3am, Judy is always there on AIM to share my frustrations (and random K-pop videos).

I used to hate going to AXΩ chapter meetings; they were boring and I felt out of place. I have only been over to the house for dinner once (I don’t even have access), and it was awkward. I don’t attend mixers because I wouldn’t be comfortable with either the girls or the guys involved. I’m too lazy to cross the river to visit the house; it’s too far away.

On the contrary, I never dread rehearsals; I look forward to them. I don’t mind walking with the girls to Berryline, even though it’s probably further away than Kenmore Square. Not only do I attend ADT social events… I plan them. ADT exec meetings are always fun, no matter how much material we have to cover or how irritated I might have been earlier in the day.

Founding ADT has been a lot of work; sometimes I wonder how much easier my schedule would be if I hadn’t. But then I recall the friendships I’ve made because of my dance team; I recall happy memories of the past and imagine more in the future. In the end, I’m so thankful I did create ADT, because I also created, from my own hands, the sisterly bonds for which I’ve been searching.

As for AXΩ? I honestly don’t know. I’m going through formal recruitment on the sister side this year; everyone says that Bond Week will change you and make you love the sisterhood, but I’m still skeptical. I really do want it to work out, but things seem so dismal that I don’t even know where to begin. I’ve tried speaking with sisters about it before, but it’s much of the same: “You should try to be more involved.” “You should reach out to sisters; you can’t expect everyone to come to you.” “You should actually come to chapter.” Yes, I know all of this. But the underlying problem is that I don’t feel the motivation to do any of that =(

(The above is a practice SAT essay my sister wrote. All items in red are my changes; all comments are mine. And anything below the double line is an explanation/timeline of simple verb tenses.)

Needless to say, I am quite the stickler for proper grammar when the situation arises. I mean, on my blog posts and Facebook wall, I couldn’t care less. However, during a standardized test, on college and research papers… yes, I do care about grammar. Quite a bit, in fact. Here are two of my biggest pet peeves:

1. “If I was [antecedent]” –> absolutely not! Haven’t you ever heard the song “If I Were a Rich Man” from Fiddler on the Roof? Since the statement is subjunctive (displaying possibility), you need to use the appropriate form of “to be”… which, in this case, is “were”. And of course, make sure to follow it by the appropriate verb form “would X”.
2. “This is the book I was looking for.” –> NONONONONO. This is my biggest pet peeve; NEVER end a sentence with a preposition. (Didn’t you learn anything in elementary school?) The proper construction is, “This is the book for which I was looking.” (This, by the way, makes proper use of the antecedent pronoun as well.)

Most of my grammar was learned in elementary school, using the A Beka curriculum. We were taught some pretty high-leveled stuff too, such as diagramming complex sentences and memorizing huge lists of pronouns. Even now, I can list off all of the helping/state-of-being verbs (have has had do does did shall will should would may might must can could am is are was were be being been) in under 5 seconds. Don’t believe me? Find me and ask.

However, when I entered middle and high school, I was appalled at the level of “language arts” (that’s what A Beka called it) knowledge that my classmates possessed. In advanced (note this) 7th grade English, we were drilling how to use commas and identifying adjectives in sentences. I had been doing these same exercises since the 2nd grade! My English skills fell stagnant until I started taking advanced French.

It’s really surprising how Romance languages can make English verb usage so much clearer; Romance languages have a lot of structure and rules, whereas the English language is full of exceptions, unpredictable irregulars, and strange tenses. Here’s a good example:

Indicative mood, past tense (composed past in French = simple past in English)

French: J’ai mangé.
English literal translation: I have [eaten].
There is no actual English equivalent for “mangé”… the direct French equivalent for “ate” is the passé simple “mangeai”, which is archaic.
English equivalent: I ate… which does not have the same connotation as “I have eaten”

Indicative mood, imperfect tense

French: Je mangeais.
English literal translation: I [imperfect form of eat]… there’s not really a direct translation…
English equivalent: I used to eat [continuous action in the past].

Indicative mood, pluperfect tense

French: J’avais mangé.
English literal translation: I had [eaten].
English equivalent: I had [already] eaten.

Things to note:

1. The tense of the main verb “eat” is different amongst all three phrases in the English equivalent. In French, they are the same in the two composed forms (imperative and pluperfect), as expected.
2. In English, the imperfect is not indicated by the verb, but rather by a clause (“used to”) that seems rather silly if you think about the verb “use” as its common transitive form, defined by Webster as “to carry out a purpose or action by means of; utilize”. From where and whence did this little anomaly come about?

The entire reason why I wanted to continue into higher-level language studies is to learn more about things like grammar, usage, mechanics, and syntax (not-so-cleverly called “GUMS” at my high school). Unfortunately, since I don’t actually want to major in linguistics, I guess this will have to remain a hobby. I do look forward to taking 24.900 sometime, though!

When I’m not actively working on things for my internship, I’m still working hard all the time to get things done for student organizations, personal career development, and more. Here’s what you can expect me to be doing during a single evening in summer 2010:

Alpha Kappa Psi

• Get on LinkedIn and message about 30 alumni to see if they want to speak at our rush events
• Send about 10 emails to my exec board, asking for input on the latest versions of our rush posters; get extremely irritated when no one responds.
• Bother the MIT scheduling office until they give us the room reservations that we want.
• Drop off forms for room reservations at the office since we aren’t an official group yet and can’t reserve online.
• Spam the website link on Twitter a couple of times.
• Re-share the “Rush AKPsi @ MIT” event on my Facebook wall once every few days.
• Email professors to wheedle them into becoming faculty advisors.
• Email fellow students to wheedle them into joining.
• Browse about 10 Greek t-shirt websites looking for lowest price.

Science & Engineering Business Club

• Work on SEBC Marketing underground guide.
• Shoot some emails back and forth between sponsors, trying to get them to return for next year.
• Shoot some emails back and forth between exec board, pestering them to do work over the summer.
• Make promotional items for fall recruiting.
• Debate about for which position I want to run next year.
• Send about 10 emails trying to book rooms and publicity spaces.

MIT Asian Dance Team

• Choreography, choreography, choreography.
• If Wednesday, attend rehearsals for two hours.
• Work on website redo, lose motivation, stop working for the night after only getting three things done.
• Pester Judy to make room reservations.
• Send 20 emails to Cynthia discussing future setlists and costuming.
• Search a ton of Chinese websites to find lowest price on costumes and props, and then cry because S&H costs are through the roof.
• Make posters, cards, promo materials for fall recruitment; spam some freshmen on Facebook to convince them to join.
• Pester members to fill out Doodles, forms, surveys, etc. and answer my emails when I ask them for their availability to perform.
• Get very angry when members do not respond in timely fashion.

Cambridge Chinese Choral Society

• Practice piano for weekly rehearsals; realize that reading four sets of staffs is a lot more difficult than it looks.
• Attempt to redo website but constantly run into creativity blocks. Same with promo posters.
• Mull over concert setlist for December and whether or not we are prepared.

Academic/career development

• Pore over Econometrics books for tutoring at Harvard Business School
• Cold-call some local boutique investment banks and see if they want to take me as an intern for the fall semester
• Contact a handful (read: 10) MIT alumni to chat about their respective industries/companies.
• Attempt to write cover letters; realize it’s hard to write cover letters when you don’t know to what you’re applying.
• Go through investment banking interview prep books and get frustrated at brainteasers.
• Learn some more vocab (read: three phrases) of business Chinese.
• Build Vivian-lee.net page by page. Usually run out of inspiration halfway through and don’t get much done.

Miscellaneous items

• Scribble lots of to-do lists in my Moleskine; find great satisfaction in crossing them off as I finish.
• Devote 90 minutes of my day to p90x workout program. I had better get good abs and legs from this…
• Surf the MIT financial services job posting to see if anyone is in need of some quick web designing so I can make some money.
• Get extremely angry that none of my colleagues are responding to emails; send them some emails saying so.
• Constantly clean my room – I’m not very good at keeping things orderly when no one else can see it
• Dance around to some upbeat J-pop and blast some Lady Gaga. It’s a good workout.
• Surf all of my daily visits – email, Facebook, Twitter, RSS feeds, J-pop Oldies download forum, Greekchat…
• Go on random excursions with friends, usually to IHOP…

… and still manage to sleep by 2am every night.