It’s been quite a while, hasn’t it? Summer is going by faster than ever (halfway through!) I actually have a legit explanation for my absence, though…

I was in a car accident two weeks ago.

Long story short: I was biking back from Central Square (I ride the T from Alewife to Central and then bike back to the dorm). I stopped at an intersection and began to turn left. Unfortunately, the car that was stopped parallel to me thought I was not going to turn left. So I was effectively t-boned by the car.

Thankfully, I was riding on a fairly high bike; my leg was efficiently squished between the front of the car and the main bar frame of my bike. At the time, however, I was thrown onto the hood of the car, where I bumped my head, and then rolled off onto the pavement, right in the middle of the intersection.

I’m really grateful to the people who stopped their cars and got out to make sure I was okay. I curled up in fetal position while someone dialed 911. Since Jason was closest, I also instructed one of the kindhearted women to call him. By the time the ambulance came, I realized that I didn’t hurt that much. They asked me a ton of questions, which I kept on responding with, “Yes, sir” and “Thank you” in a really perky voice, haha.

At the hospital, they poked my leg and took it in for x-rays. Thankfully nothing was broken; I was only scraped up pretty badly (my left leg was gushing blood) and I was bruised all over. When I arrived home, I noticed that the bar of the bicycle (where my leg was smashed up against it) was bent. Yes, my leg bones > a metal bar. And despite being bedridden for nearly a week, I am now mostly healed and can speed-walk again :D

The moment of the accident was actually really inspirational. When I first landed on the ground (thankfully I caught my head in my arms), my heart was beating SO fast. I seriously thought I was going to have a heart attack. So immediately, as if a little voice had manifested itself in my mind, I heard myself saying, “CALM DOWN” … and then I started singing to myself. Namely, I sang the chorus of 女に幸あれ (“All the Best to Women”):

Ah, someday happiness will come;
It would be too unjust if it didn’t.
Ah, I’ll go all the way there.
All the best to women;
Rise, morning sun!

Needless to say, it was at that moment that I realized how inspirational music could be. In addition to this, I’ve experienced a bit of a social revival! Next semester, I will be focusing on striking a wonderful balance between the three facets of my life:

1. Academics
2. Career
3. Social life

… including being more involved with AXO, devoting a lot of my time and passion to AKPsi, going to more frat parties, and treasuring my friends more. In addition, of course, to aiming for straight A’s and a finance internship! And now, a bit about my….

New hairstyle!!

Last Saturday (in addition to two hours of fun karaoke with Chris Luna, Lindsey Shi, Michael Chen, and Jason Chiu), I took a trip to Chinatown to get a haircut at Ecco Hair and Beauty Salon. As I browsed through the hairstyles, though, I noticed that a lot of the styles I liked involved curly/wavy hair.

And so, on a whim, I decided to get a perm. And it looks surprisingly, absolutely gorgeous! I look very summery and younger; the volume in my hair makes my face look shorter =)

Also, guess what came in the mail today? That’s right; the first Alpha Kappa Psi shirt to be worn by a member of the newest colony at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology!

Anyways, after biking for so much, I collapsed in bed around 3am and didn’t wake up until 2pm, effectively missing the Ashdown BBQ that I had hoped to attend. Instead, I made myself Easy Mac and decided that even though I hadn’t been invited along to any of my friends’ excursions, I could go have fun by myself. I packed my new Decora bag full of essentials, threw on a summery dress, grabbed some lemonade and munchies at CVS, and at 5:00pm, I was off… to walk the Freedom Trail!

The Freedom Trail is a 2.5 mile long path (though after biking yesterday, it definitely felt a LOT longer on foot than 2.5 miles!) that leads you through most of downtown Boston, North End, and Charlestown. On the way, you hit a lot of buildings and monuments that were important to colonial Boston and the American War for Independence. Since it was Independence Day, I found it rather fitting to walk the Freedom Trail, especially since I had been hoping to do it for some time. I guess I just needed that little festive push to get me going =)

I started out by taking the Red Line from Central to Park Street, which is right next to the Boston Commons, where the Freedom Trail begins (and ends, if you’re starting from Charlestown). Before going off, I sat in the shade of the trees and watched families and groups of friends gather on the Commons to picnic and play. It was very quintessential Boston, I think =)

I started walking the Trail and soon arrived upon the Massachusetts State House, which is essentially our capitol building. Unlike Austin’s capitol (which is heavily modelled after the D.C. building), the Massachusetts capitol is made out of redbrick, and the dome is plated with copper!

After backtracking a bit, I then came upon the Park Street Church. Although I couldn’t go inside, it was amazing to be standing on the same steps where many important social reforms (abolition, women’s suffrage) were heavily supported. It also amuses me to no end when I look at early 1800′s buildings and see how small the doors are!

A short distance away from the Church is the Granary Burying Ground. The second I walked in, I felt a shiver travel down my spine. For some reason, I feel there is something terribly wrong about so many people going in to “sightsee”, children running around, teenagers posing for pictures while standing on top of Benjamin Franklin’s rotting body… either way, I don’t like burial sites (mainly because death is one of my biggest fears). Since these people were buried so long ago, a lot of the headstones have shifted or sunk into the land. The result is rows upon rows of crooked, weathered, chipped, and tiny black slabs stuck in the grass. There were even some headstones that were so small or had sunk into the earth so much, that only the tops peeked out. It was rather sobering.

A little down the road is the King’s Chapel, so named because it was originally built to house the British men who oversaw the colony. You can read more about the fascinating history of the Chapel in that above link, so I won’t mention much. I also wasn’t able to go in the church, but nevertheless it was a nice sight to see.

Next to the Chapel is the King’s Chapel Burying Ground. Compared to Granary, the headstones were more elaborate. I wonder if that’s because the people buried here are more important, or if the location has allowed the headstones to withstand the test of weather and time? Either way, some of the signs near the entrance described some of the headstone designs, mentioning the common motifs of Death (depicted as a skeleton) and Father Time (man with an hourglass). According to the signs, the carvings on the headstones indicated the age and situation at which a person died. I couldn’t look at many of the headstones, though: depictions of skeletons and skulls are too creepy.

The Boston Latin School is America’s oldest public school. There’s an impressive statue of Ben Franklin right outside. Boston Latin is actually still around (at another location). A while away is the Old Corner Bookstore, but I unfortunately didn’t get a decent photo of it.

Next up on the Trial is the Old South Meeting House and the Old State House. It was at the former that talk of the Boston Tea Party began. The Old State House is exactly that – where the Massachusetts capitol used to be before they moved it to the Boston Commons. Nowadays, the Old State House is a museum (which I didn’t enter since I didn’t want to fork over $6.00). There’s a very elegant spiral staircase inside, though! And interestingly, the lower back level is part of the State subway station (orange and blue lines)!

Finally, after a bit more walking, I came upon Faneuil Hall! It looks every bit as pretty as it does on postcards; in fact, even better! I walked inside, but all of the shops on the first level were closed for the night. There were a lot of people sitting on the benches outside, and I joined then to munch on some snacks and sip my lemonade. Right behind Faneuil Hall is Quincy Market (which confuses me to no end, since the actual town of Quincy is nowhere nearby).

After Faneuil, I started the longest stretch of the journey. The Trail took me all around North End to finally stumble upon Paul Revere’s House (no photo) and the Old North Church (where the famed “one if by land, two if by sea” lanterns were hung). The shady area right behind the Church was a nice place to relax. I helped some tourists take photos, finished my food, and relaxed for a bit before I continued onwards. The front of the Church is breaktakingly beautiful, especially since it was situated at the top of a hill.

Next up, Copp’s Hill, which is another burial site. I knew about this place because it was in a children’s book I read many years ago, titled Under Copp’s Hill. It was closed for the day, but true to its name, it’s actually on a hill; in order to get onto the burying ground, you have to walk up a short set of stairs.

The longest stretch took me from North End, across the bridge, and all across Charlestown before I finally reached the Bunker Hill Memorial. Once I stepped into Charlestown, I was amazed at how different it felt from Downtown and Back Bay.

All of the houses were quaint and small; the street lamps were wrought-iron; the roads were bumpy and narrow; everything was super quiet. I don’t know if it was quiet because it’s usually like that, or if everyone had just already left for Boston (to view the fireworks).

Either way, it was deliciously chilling, and I couldn’t help feeling awed that I was stepping into such an important location of American history. After a good 20 minutes of walking, I ended up at Bunker Hill Memorial. On the grassy lawn, a lot of people had set up locations to picnic or rest. I joined them on the grass to record an audio diary entry and Tweet a photo of my location ;)

It’s kind of interesting; as an MIT student, to me the “heart” of Boston seems to be the Downtown Crossing/Boston Commons area. And yes, it technically is. However, the main reason why Boston is so historically important actually lies further north, in North End and Charlestown, etc. However, when I was walking through Charlestown, I felt as if I was very far displaced from “Boston” (even though I was only 2.5 miles from Boston Common, apparently). I can’t quite place a finger on that feeling, but it was a little bittersweet/nostalgic.

After resting at Bunker Hill Memorial (by this time it was 7:00pm), I power-walked back to North Station and took the Green Line to Prudential, which is right at the center of “New” Boston (Back Bay). I grabbed a smoothie at Coldstone Creamery and dropped by Barnes & Noble to kill some time. I then walked to Hatch Shell, where the Boston Pops were playing!

I soon discovered, however, that my location was definitely not prime for watching the actual fireworks. I walked nearly all the way back to Mass Ave, forced my way over a footbridge (I will admit that I am ruthless when it comes to pushing through crowds of people), and eventually situated myself right in front of the barges from which the fireworks would be launched. Even though I arrived at 9:30pm, I managed to get just as good a view as others who had been there since 10:00am!

And now for the best part of the night… the fireworks!

More photos of my journey on the Freedom Trail will be uploaded soon; more fireworks videos can be found on my YouTube account =)

Date: June 7th, 2010
Time: midnight
Situation: chat with Jason

“This is the first time where I haven’t gone through break wanting desperately to go back to MIT. I think I’m starting to get really good at filtering out what’s important in life and appreciating what’s already there, instead of what I want but can’t get. I mean, if I want something really badly – be it repairing a broken friendship or a Microsoft internship – and it ends up not happening… I can live. In fact, I can live better without it, because I have a better love for what I do have.”

(Jason: “Wow, you’re now optimistic. What has MIT done to you?”)

“It’s not so much what MIT has done to me, but the fact that, in contrast to what I’ve seen at home… it’s that mixture of being in two very distinctly different worlds, and being able to see things from two different points of view. In a way, I think I have a better understanding than people who attended middle/high school in such competitive environments and then continued that in college.”

(Jason: “I’m glad for you. You’re realizing more of the world.”)

“It’s not even that I finally realized it; it’s just that I can embrace it now. I’ve always known, but it’s not until it hits you hard that you accept it. Does that make sense? I’ve always known; I just never accepted.”

Anyways, let me tell you a bit about my internship at Unica Corporation!

I’m working a product management internship for the NetInsight product, which is Unica’s web analytics software. I was a bit nervous when I first came in, because I wasn’t quite sure of what “product management” would consist. Even nowadays, I’m not quite sure what it means. I’m taking on a plethora of jobs, including coding, writing documentation, undergoing TAM (technical account manager) training, etc. In fact, this entire week consisted of training and setting up a database. The latter sounds like it should be easy, but I ran into errors left and right (mainly due to my restricted permissions on the test server).

I’m really glad, though, that I’m actually working on things that will be useful. “Real work”, Chao calls it. The stuff that I’m programming will someday show up in a release; one day, I can point to the features I’m implementing and say, “I did that.” I feel this has/will be a great experience, since I’m being exposed to so many aspects of the industry: developing, marketing, strategy, pricing, management…

Goal for this summer: meet everyone who works in the Unica building. EVERYONE.

I sit in a cube right next to my “secondary supervisor” Mike Lu. He’s not actually my supervisor, but he directly reports to my supervisor Dan DeMichele. For lack of a better term, I call Mike my “secondary supervisor”, haha. He’s been really nice about answering my questions and handing me files when I need it. Many of the other employees have also been really nice to me. Franklin (who sits on my right) dropped by to say hi on the first day. Gerry, Joe, Rahman, and Corrine have been helpful in installing items for me when I don’t have permissions. I’ve befriended nearly the entire HR department, along with quite a few directors and important people like Bill Ferro and Todd Belcher. For the most part, I really like meeting new people and learning about what they do. Everyone here has such an interesting personality, and group dynamics are always interesting to watch.

The people to whom I’ve definitely gotten closest would be the new TAM hires, who are on-site for 2.5 weeks getting training and practice. Brandon Madsen (from Utah), Dustin Wallace (from California), and Anand Madhavan (from Nebraska) are some of the most amusing and fun people here. We bonded over Starburst, Milano, World Cup, and TAM training. A few days ago, we went with Todd Belcher to Web Analytics Wednesday at the Asgard Irish Pub in Central Square. WA Wednesday is basically a meetup of individuals working in or interested in the web analytics industry; I got to meet another intern at Localytics, some more Unica people, and a handful of others from around the area. It was definitely “not a haahrible moment to remember”.

Photo courtesy of Brandon (snagged it off your FB)

Unfortunately, though, the three of them will leave next Wednesday. As such, this weekend we’ll be hanging out around Boston (along with Grace, who will be in Boston for a few days with her mother, the wonderful Michelle Herman). And speaking of this weekend, boy have I got a lot planned!

Friday

• 6:30-11:00pm ~ China’s Disabled People Performing Arts Troupe at Kresge! They were the ones who performed Thousand-Hand Guanyin for CCTV!

Saturday (aka “Day of Dance”)

• 00:00-2:00am ~ MIT Mafia Society summer session #01
• 10:30-11:30am ~ Intro to Ballet class at the Dance Complex
• 2:45-3:15pm ~ ADT performance at Sidney-Pacific’s Cultural Festival
• 7:30-10:30pm ~ ACAS Chinese Dance Festival

Sunday

• 00:00-2:00am ~ MIT Mafia Society summer session #02
• during the day ~ hanging out with the TAMs, Grace, and MIT friends
• 5:30-7:00pm ~ dinner at Fire & Ice
• 8:00pm ~ Skype session with Chao! =)

Thank goodness for weekends. Without them, my life would be so hectic. Is this really what the working life feels like? It’s a little saddening but also really nice. I like the fact that after I come home from work, I’m not obliged to continue working unless I want to. Contrast this with school, where the real work doesn’t even begin until you get home! I like being able to walk home from Central Square and grab some food. I like living close to Shaw’s, where I can go and pick up some fresh fruits at any time of the day (well, before midnight). I like living a distance away from my usual friends and taking time to work on my personal development without interference. Not that I don’t like my friends (quite the contrary), but when I spend most of my time socializing with them, it’s hard to work on personal things.

I honestly believed that throughout the years, your quality would improve. When I was Business Manager so many years ago (2005, to be exact), we were in our infancy; it was almost permitted that our quality was less-than-stellar. But five years later, and you still print inaccurate, terribly-written articles? Please, please do something about your proofreading skills and verify your damn sources before you print anything… or else those of us who can easily call your bluff will begin writing enraged blog entries defaming your organization.

…. oh, wait.

Nonetheless, the newspaper site definitely looks a lot better (I will ignore the fact that it seems to be made from a template). But that is no excuse for articles like this one, in which I can count at least three inaccuracies… the first being that MIT is not an Ivy League university! Not to mention the slew of English usage errors (the most prominent being the incorrect capitalization of the title; “of” and “the” should not be capitalized in Internet print headline titles)…

Tables. Ohh, tables. If you’re going to use them, place the sorting column (in this case, the last name of the student) on the furthest left. Otherwise, it really confuses the reader. I was literally sitting there for 30 seconds before I realized that it was not sorted alphabetically by category name. Oh, and it would really help to have table headers, right? Please don’t be lazy about this, editors.

Please get your photo captions correct. There is no such category (at least at the time of writing, 2009-2010 year) called “Computer and Mathematical Sciences”; Sarah competed in the “Mathematical Sciences” category. I won’t even start ripping apart the first paragraph of that article, which sounds like someone regurgitated a protein shake of Dickens and Hugo. Get to the point; I’m a newspaper reader, not a novel-gobbling hobbyist. My time is precious and I want to know what the article is about, not the intricate, life-alterating beauty of scientific advancement.

Please don’t use red text and underlining for emphasis. It’s not web 2002 anymore. And for god’s sakes, put some spacing between those lines of text!

Please, no more painfully obvious advice columns. In fact, the suggested “tips” almost beg the question; if I wanted to save money, of course I would save it… by not spending it. Duh. Either write better tips or come up with a better headline.

High and low C’s don’t really “blend”. Their frequencies are multiples of each other;  it’s like hearing the same note. I wouldn’t call that a blend. In fact, “blending” refers to the quality of the sound, not the pitch! Does the author of this article even know anything about music (besides what he picked up from watching Glee?) Perhaps you could speak instead about the harmonious thirds or melancholy minor sixths?

Oh god, did you just use double question marks in that last bullet point of the first section?? Don’t you realize how much it makes you sound like a MySpace-obsessed 7th grader?? And what’s this?? Double exclamation marks in the very last sentence of the article!!

I could go on and on about the quality of my former high school’s newspaper; frankly, I’m fed up with the level of mediocrity present in my alma mater. Please shape up, guys; I don’t want to tell people I went to a school where no one knows how to write a proper newspaper article without at least five mistakes.

(02:10:59 AM) Chao Xue: do you sometimes feel like we’re going against our nature?
(02:11:09 AM) Chao Xue: trying to be technical and businessy people?
(02:11:20 AM) Chao Xue: while we’re really artists in the heart

My immediate answer was that I “view my emotional side as rather separate from my career”, but the question still significantly troubled me. I fell asleep at 3am still mulling over the topic, and now that I’m rested up from a good night’s sleep, I feel as if I should expand on the idea of “career vs. Career” a bit.

I often joke about the fact that I am a money-monger; I laugh about how I’m going into finance so I can get rich; I dream about the huge house I will eventually own and boast about the towers I will someday own in NYC. One of my most uttered phrases is, “Whoever said that money can’t buy happiness was dead wrong.” To any common stranger, I probably seem like a very materialistic person, always thinking about money and the goods it can buy.

However, while it is true that money is an integral part of my motivation – yes, I do dream of waltzing down Fifth Avenue and buying $500 shoes like they’re nothing – I don’t adhere to the belief that money is everything. I just view it as.. a means to an end. Likewise, my planned “career” (investment banking, or something similar in the field of finance) is just a stepping stone to something greater. Not that I don’t hold an interest in finance (on the contrary!), but I definitely can’t see myself working in a corporate setting for my entire life. After a while, I want to be more independent; I want to start my own company, be it a business solutions consulting practice or a software marketing company.

(02:12:39 AM) vivian: I distinguish between my academic/career side, and the more personal side
(02:12:48 AM) vivian: so that when I come home after a hard day’s work, I can sit and reflect
(02:12:59 AM) vivian: it’s a bit harder at MIT since work is never really finished…

Ultimately, I want to start my own entertainment agency, so that I can share my love for music with the world. If I could, I would attempt to be a performer myself, but I cannot sing well enough, cannot compose, cannot arrange music, cannot play music, and cannot dance all too well. So I would probably function best as the director or producer, shaping and molding new artists until they too can find their voice. I view this as my final Career – the job that I would most love to have if money were not an issue.

I’m sure most people have a similar Career in mind, whether it’s being a professional world traveler, or a journalist, or a fashion designer, or an astronaut. You know, the jobs you wanted to be as child, when there were no limits to possibility. A child’s mind is innocent and pure; without taint of the “real world”, without knowledge of money and the power of status. I think the fantasies we dreamt up during that period of our lives is a reflection of our true selves. Wouldn’t it be amazing if, at the end of the day, everyone was able to achieve what they truly wanted to achieve?

I definitely don’t want to disappoint that starry-eyed 5-year-old that grins up at me from my old, yellowed photo albums. She had big dreams of being famous, of being a star, of sharing her thoughts with the world. And even as I sit here, a cynical and pessimistic young woman of nearly 20, I make this promise: I won’t give up on my younger self and her Career goals.

• Internship with Unica Corporation
• Learn more about finance
• Attend networking events

Dance and other performing arts

• Practice for Dance Revelasian Expo
• Take classes in ballet

Personal development and errands

• Redo wardrobe
• Care more about things that matter and less about those that don’t
• Sell stuff from room to make money and get rid of things! stuff purge!

Websites and online

• Get Vivian-lee.net online

Asian Dance Team

• Summer rehearsals
• Summer workouts daily
• Completely redo website
• Create members’ area
• Audition logistics for fall
• Book fall rehearsal venues
• Purchase fall costumes and props
• Lighting design with Jason
• Create fall promo materials
• Create preliminary program document

Streetlight… people…
Living just to find emotion
Hiding somewhere in the night.
Don’t stop believing;
Hold on to that feeling.
~ “Don’t Stop Believing”, Journey (covered by Glee cast)

I have been listening to “Don’t Stop Believing” from the Glee cast (Chao got me hooked on yet another show!) for the past few days, nonstop. It’s an extremely inspirational song, and really makes me look back and assess where I am now. In fact, at this very moment I have a ton of thoughts coursing through my mind, and I have absolutely no idea how I want to phrase them. There are just so many emotions all jumbled up in there, and I don’t know how to begin getting them down on paper.

I was looking through Facebook earlier today. Many of my classmates from high school are already experiencing many “adult” milestones and activities in their lives. For example, many of them are already married (or planning to be). Some are already mothers. Some have already gotten divorced! In their eyes, I see a sense of supposed adulthood. They dress differently, act differently… even pose for pictures differently. They sit in bars and clutch their significant others… skin worn down by makeup, eyelashes dark with mascara, waving around martini glasses and chatting about rock concerts.

At times, I must admit I am rather surprised that I grew up around these people. Save for some of my friends in the science department, they are so different from me. To some, their idea of success is graduating from a 2-year community college. To others, their idea of a job is working as a cash registrar at Wal-mart or receptionist at a local salon.

Up at MIT, it just feels like I’m living in a bubble at times. I don’t really notice this passage of time. At times, I almost feel as if I will be a student for a very long time, even though I know that’s not true. In fact, I only have two precious years left – I’m halfway through college already. But I don’t feel at all like I’m nearing adulthood – in fact, I don’t even feel as I’ve begun the journey! Looking at all of my high-school classmates… so many of them are doing things I would consider above our years (marriage, etc.) And yet, strangely, I also believe that in some ways their minds are still naïve and childish.

It’s really shocking and sentimental to reflect back on how much we’ve grown. It’s only been two years since we graduated from high school; when I’m at MIT working on problem sets, it feels like just yesterday I was lounging around in the AP Biology classroom learning about genetics. Other times – like now – those two years feel like an eternity. So many of us are going on to do amazing things: conducting biomedical research, landing acting careers, and more. And yet, so many of my high school graduating class will be forever subject to mediocrity. They will be the future housewives, living in low-class or midle-class conditions. They will be the future labourers, working construction and civil jobs. They will be content to work their day jobs as receptionists and waitresses.

And yet, despite this sense of “mediocrity” in my eyes, these people will also be content to live life as such. They will go to their rock concerts on Saturdays, have picnics in Zilker Park, take trips to tattoo salons, grab vanilla ice cream cones at the mall… and live as if that moment was all they cared about. Yes, I have many “friends” from high school who will be or currently are living as such. I know people who had amazing ambitions freshman year (9th grade), but are currently college drop-outs. When I’m up at MIT, life seems simple: you do well in school, graduate, land a job at some famous firm, make money, and live the grand life. However, back here it just seems so much more complicated: no one really seems to know where they’re going. They take life as it comes, even if it isn’t optimal. They have no major ambitions, but they are content to not have any. Or they may have highly alternative ambitions, like being comedians or cosmeticians.

I’m not quite sure what to make of these two different worlds. The fact that I belong to both of them is quite an experience for me. Personally, I would never pick the paths that many of my classmates have.. but I’ve also never been one to push my beliefs on others.

In a way, for this I am very glad that I attend MIT. I have many huge dreams now (mostly consisting of glamourous New York lifestyles), and I have to ask myself… would any of them have been created if I had not come to such a drastically different school? If I was attending UT Austin (my original plan), would I want to work in the finance industry? Probably not; instead, I would probably still be sitting in lab at 3am debugging code.

After taking 18.440 this semester, though, I was able to easily look back at my entire 6.02 exam and understand the minute details of each question. It’s amazing how much 18.440 has taught me. I then realized that – even though it never felt like I had learned much these past two years, I actually have grown a lot, both intellectually and as a person. At the end of each semester, I always look back at my 8.012 problem sets with tears in my eyes. Every semester, they seem to get easier and easier… and those good old times of group p-setting and struggles seem farther and farther away.

So what have we learned this semester?

• 欲擒故縱 (To catch something, first let it go)
• The ones who care most about you will accept you for who you are.
• So long as you are happy, everything else will fall into place.
• Sometimes you find friends in places you least expect. Sometimes the ones you considered enemies, losers, and jerks… end up being your closest friends.
• Even if it’s last-minute, even if it’s the day before a large event and you have no participants, even if it seems impossible… with enough resourcefulness and willpower, you can make anything happen.
• It’s just as much (if not more) who you know as what you know.
• Stick up for those you care about; they will do the same for you when the time comes.
• There is such a thing as being over-ambitious. The difference between an ambitious person’s success and failure is their ability to understand their priorities.
• If a student group or activity makes you dread attending events, hate their guts, and stress yourself out, it’s probably not for you. Leave now while you still can.
• Don’t fight the emotions – embrace them, set them free into the open sky, and face tomorrow with a clean slate.
• Finally… there is no such thing as impossible.

Well, that change has come, and it’s not pretty.

Proposed revision of dining plan

That’s actually a misnomer. It’s not proposed; it has passed, and we’re going to be dealing with it whether we like it or not.

Under the new dining plan, all current dining halls will move from 5-day (Sunday-Thursday) dinner hours to 7-day breakfast + dinner hours. That gives us a total of 9 extra meals (7 breakfast + 2 extra dinner). In the future, there may also be late-night and lunch options (which will probably require us to pay even more). According to the report, the dining halls will seek to improve their facilities, offering a wider range of foods and healthier choices.

That all sounds fine and dandy, but then the price was revealed.

$1900 per semester.

My literally stood up and screamed when I saw the price. Any ounce of dignity and objectivity I possessed up to that point immediately went out the window. So this entry is dedicated solely to ranting about this atrocity.

An email thread immediately started up on next-forum, the Next House mailing list (we’re one of the dining dorms). Under the new plan, not only would we have to pay over $3600 a semester for housing (for a single room; those in doubles pay $3200 or so), but we would also be required to pay this $1900 a semester on top. That totals about $10,000 a year in living/dining expenses alone. That is equivalent to about 6 credit hours of tuition at my state college (UT Austin). It’s horrendous. My family is not dirt poor (although in that case, MIT would give you a full ride anyways so it wouldn’t matter), but they certainly don’t have money to throw around. I’m severely disappointed that such a significant portion of only working parent’s salary has to go towards feeding other people.

That’s right; all of the residents of dining-hall dorms are required to pay this $1900, even if they choose to not eat at the dining hall at all. Essentially, if I didn’t eat at the dining hall, I would be paying $1900 a semester so that other people could eat.

I’m sorry if it sounds really selfish, but I am not going to sit around and pay for other people’s meals.

“Okay,” you say. “So you don’t want to pay for other people. Why don’t you just eat more often at Next Dining, then?” The simple answer?

I don’t eat that much.

When I visit Next Dining, I spend a maximum of $2.00 on a dinner. It’s usually a salad + a drink. Let’s assume that, under the old plan, I decide to eat:

• One salad + one drink every day of the week dining is open (5 days a week)
• Every single day of the month (around 20 days)
• Every month that it is open (Sept-Dec, Jan-May; total of 9 months, or 180 days). That’s a total of $360 that I spend in Next Dining.
• Let’s also add in the cost of eating out-of-dorm and groceries. I spend probably $50 in TechCash every month eating from random places (LaVerde’s, Lobdell, Sloan, etc.) That’s $450. Toss in $30 a month from groceries. That’s $270.
• That brings me to a total of $450 + $270 + $360. That’s $1080. And I don’t actually eat in dining every day. I eat there maybe twice a week. So you can actually remove $200 from that above sum, if you want accuracy.

“Okay”, you say. “But that’s under the old meal plan. You get 7 breakfasts and 7 dinners! Isn’t that enough for the $1900 to be worth it?”

Simple answer: no.

Complicated answer: the new meal plan works as an all-you-can-eat, so I can’t use the above numbers as a metric. However, I can use an alternative comparison.

My family used to go out grocery shopping as a family every week, back when my siblings were younger and couldn’t be left at home alone. So we would go out, all seven of us, and purchase groceries from the Chinese market and H-E-B (a grocery store in Texas similar to Shaw’s up here in Boston). I remember looking at the receipt and gasping. We were spending about $200 a week on groceries! That mean that over the course of 9 months, we spent $7200 on food. That’s a lot.

• However, my family had eight members.
• Dividing $7200 by 8 gives you $900 for 9 months of food.
• That food included breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, and midnight munchies.

And now here I am, in college, paying over twice as much for food… food that I don’t even eat. Where is the rationality in this?

Summary of my complaints

1. No matter how you look at it, I will never eat enough to cover the cost of that $1900 payment. For one thing, I am a very light eater (as I said before, my dinners usually consist of a salad and a drink). I’m sorry, MIT, if you expect your students to eat that much, but I would like to remain thin and healthy. I’m not going to eat more just to make your ridiculously overpriced dining plan worth it.
2. I keep strange hours. Dining halls (in aggregate) will span the hours of 5-9pm, but looking at my schedule for next semester, I will be out of the dorm until at least 6pm every day. I have student group meetings, Asian Dance Team rehearsals, office hours to attend, and labs that need to be completed. I will most likely not be anywhere near a dining hall during those hours. I can’t eat if I’m not there.
3. I’m very miffed that, in addition to paying full tuition (since MIT refuses to give any financial aid to middle-class families), I now have to pay a mandatory $1900 against my will. That is ridiculous. Ignoring the obvious infraction of freedom of choice, the numbers themselves are ridiculous. In short, I don’t eat enough to warrant that amount.

What I personally think should happen (but probably won’t)

Problem: MIT dining is running a deficit.

Solution #1. as proposed by P.Iannucci ’11 of Next House

Take the $600,000/yr deficit, divide it by the number of people in dorms with dining, and then charge them that much more. It’s like $250 a term by rough estimate. I would be far more willing to pay $550/semester on top of the housing fee rather than $1900/semester, and it would allow dining to break even.

As for removing further deficit from dining, here are a few points I would like to make:

• Get rid of McCormick Dining. Baker House is right next to McCormick; there is no reason why there should be two dining halls within that close of a walking distance. How many people actually eat in McCormick Dining anyways? I realize that McCormick is a female-only residence, and the girls may prefer to eat with members of their own gender, but seriously? Just get over it and go to Baker. There’s always empty tables at Baker Dining anyways.
• Get rid of Simmons Dining, but keep the Simmons Late-Night Cafe. Simmons is directly across the field from Next House. It takes exactly 3 minutes at a casual walk to make it from Simmons to Next. We also always have empty tables at Next Dining.
• Make dining plans optional. I was lotteried into Next House as my 4th choice dorm (my 1st choice was Macgregor, where there are no dining halls). It’s already bad enough that I had to live at a dorm that was not my initial choice, but forcing me to take a dining plan I never wanted on top of that? It’s just ridiculous.

If I have to pay $1900 a semester for food I won’t eat, I am moving out of this place.
In the “Read More” link: a few quotes and responses from the email thread that cropped up.

“I know it seems like a shocking change and a huge increase in price, but it is helpful to remember that comparing the $300/semester price to the $1900/semester price is comparing apples to oranges. The $300 plan only provides 5 dinners a week, not including the cost of the food… The $1900 plan includes 7 dinners and 7 breakfasts a week, including the actual cost of the food… For MIT to provide anything close to a “full” dining plan… it really can’t be done at a much lower cost.” ~ E.McIsaac ’12

For those who are happy with the $300 plan, I can see how McIsaac’s response is valid. However, for those of us who aren’t too happy about the $300 plan in the first place, raising the price to $1900 is like adding fuel to a fire. You forget that some of us don’t want a “full” dining plan. It’s useless to us, since not many of us keep regular dining hours anyways (for example, my lunchtime is 2pm and my dinnertime is 8pm). It may be “apples to oranges” in some people’s eyes, but to me I only see one thing – the outflow of money from which I’m not reaping direct benefits.

“Normally we pay $300 a semester. At about $5 a dinner, that’s about $25 a week. For 16 weeks, that’s $400. That’s $700 a semester. If you take the 14 meal plan, that’s $1900 a semester. However, we’re going from 5 meals to 14 meals – almost triple. $700 x 3 is about $2100. This meal plan is effectively the same price. In addition, it’s all-you-care-to-eat.” ~ A.Lai ’13

You’re leaving out those of us who don’t eat $5 dinners at Next Dining. In fact, for those of us who are on the house dining plan, it’s very rare that dinner will ever cost $5. I’d say it’s usually $3 max. In addition, not everyone eats 14 meals. In fact, I would prefer to just eat cereal-with-soymilk in my room every morning as opposed to a house dining breakfast, simply because I’m not a fan of many American breakfast foods. For those of us who would like our own choices for food, buying groceries in addition to paying this $1900 is ridiculous.

“Just out of curiosity, how many people cook/go out to eat on a regular basis (even if it’s only 1 or 2x weekly)? … How many people go to events that have food, and so don’t need to buy a meal? I feel like this happens a lot. Enough to make this mandatory payment an actual problem. Because, yes food is provided, but if you don’t eat it, you’re still paying for it. Every time…. So that’s a lot of money that people are forced to just give to MIT. ” ~ A.Lin ’11

Amen. Could not have said it any better myself.

“Does anybody know how many people in dining dorms would actually opt out (in some way or form) if given the chance? … If not that many people would actually opt-out, then there’s no reason why such an option shouldn’t be included. If that’s not feasible, there could be an opt-out option for the first two years of the plan, for those of us who are already in dining dorms and would be forced to move away from the community that we’ve established… After that, incoming freshman would be forewarned to the dining plan consequences and could make their housing choices accordingly, but those of us already here really don’t have that luxury.” ~ B.Lee’12

That’s not a bad suggestion, especially for those of us who have – dining side – been overall very satisfied with the dorm. I personally couldn’t see myself living in any other dorm on campus. I like the facilities here; I like my friends here; I like the culture and the feeling of the dorm. I would hate to give all this up simply because I’m being forced to pay extra for dining. I am seriously considering moving out my senior year (when it takes effect) because it’s absolutely ridiculous. I’m sure many other students would feel similarly.