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

There’s never a dull moment in my life, it seems. Well, besides the fact that I’m sitting at my computer on Veteran’s Day desperately trying to learn Laplace transforms. That’s not exactly dull either; it’s simply something stressful that I would rather not do.

Thankfully, one of the wonders of college life lies in the fact that there always seems to be weekend distractions to alleviate said stress. October 2009 was definitely interesting; I attended a few parties and had a some majorly exciting moments. Here are a few of the highlights:

The night before the launch of Windows 7, the Microsoft Cambridge office held a huge launch party! There were students from Northeastern, Boston University, MIT, Harvard, and more. Although it wasn’t quite as exciting as I had hoped, it was definitely quite an adventure. I gorged myself on chips and salsa and wandered around with Chao and Jason. There was a Microsoft Surface table to sample, Rockband (Beatles version) to play – although I did not, because I’m not a Beatles fan – and free prizes to be had. They must have given away hundreds of dollars in prizes; Tiffany managed to wrestle a copy of Office 2007 out of someone’s hands, even though she managed to slice her thumb open in the process. Props to Tiffany and her dedication to free goods ;)

Late October, instead of accepting my invitation to the Alpha Delta Phi semiformal, I headed out amidst the wind and rain to karaoke with two of my Alpha Chi Omega sisters – Sarah Sprague ’13 and Ingrid Chaires ’11! We managed to sing everything from Broadway musicals (Phantom of the Opera!) to late-90′s pop (Britney Spears) to 80′s pop to the latest hits (Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, etc.) It was a ton of fun, especially since all of us were perfectly content to warble out the songs without caring too much about how on-pitch we happened to be…

“What’s this?” you say. “Vivian, I thought you got out of all that math-sciency stuff, aren’t you an economics major now?” Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but economics majors deal with numbers all the time. Especially at MIT, where the economics is very highly mathematical. This is a piece of my first 14.02 (macroeconomics) problem set, which I nearly aced after only attending class for a week. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself =)

And of course, the obligatory food image. Let’s just say that as of late I’ve gotten quite addicted to Next Dining‘s salad bar. I always get the same – a bunch of greens, topped with a ton of tomatoes (no one seems to like them), eggs, noodles (when available), olives (at times), and the slightest bit of vinaigrette dressing. And the best thing? An entire box of salad (which can fill up my Tupperware bowl) is only worth a jaw-dropping $1.50! Talk about cheap and healthy dinner…

Last but certainly not least, Alpha Chi Omega recently had its pledge class 2009 initiation… That means I’m now a full-fledged sister! After the ceremony, we went back to the student center and had celebratory desserts, serenades, and photo-ops. Shown above are all the sophomores (c/o 2012) currently in the sorority – there were four sophomore initiates this year. Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of the entire 2009 pledge class, but I’m sure the photo above is completely representative of the electric happiness present in the room the entire night =)