maggied’s blag

For the summer, I am going to be interning at Boston Scientific. Specifically, I will be working in the Cardiac Rhythm Management (CRM) part of the company located in Saint Paul, Minnesota. I’m in Research and Development, working on making pacemakers MRI safe.

My first few days in the mid-west have been interesting. I have never been here before, and all I had to go on was the stereotypes and bias I have heard growing up in New York and time in the Boston area. As it turns out I am enjoying myself. My housemate Jessie has a car and we were able to explore the area a bit on the weekend, and she’s slowly been convincing me that there really is stuff to do here. I’m starting to believe her.

I arrived ridiculously early Friday morning, after a 5:55am flight out of Westchester Airport. Jessie picked me up from the airport and we moved all of our stuff into our new apartment. You can check out photos of the apartment here. A few highlights:

After unpacking and napping, we drove over to Dinkytown, an area just outside Minneapolis, to get some lunch. From there we went to a Super Target, got plenty of food and other goods, and settled in for the evening.

Saturday was so great that my body made my pay for it in the form of a pink face and scalp. Well worth it though. First we went to the Farmer’s Market, which is open daily but most bustling on Saturdays. We didn’t get much from the market itself but had a nice lunch and browsed a bit. All the pictures from the market are here. A few highlights:

After the farmer’s market we decided to visit the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. This was definitely my favorite part of my stay so far. My dad and a few other people had mentioned that we needed to check this place out, and it was definitely worth it. I took a ton of pictures. One neat thing about the garden was that you could call a number and hear commentary about the different pieces. Some of them sounded like nonsense but others seemed interesting.

The cherry was by far my favorite. This sculpture is gigantic and sprays water out of the stem at the top:

Another sculpture worth noting is this one:

Now Jessie and I are both pretty convinced that those blobs are pieces of poop. It sure looks like poop. According to the art commentary, though, they are actually amoeba. What do you think?

There is another sculpture that is just a series of marble benches with bizarre quotes written on them. One of the most applicable and thought provoking ones is this one:

The text reads:

Affluent college bound students
face the real prospect
of downward mobility
feeling of entitlement clash with
the awareness of imminent scarcity
there is resentment at growing up
at the end of an era of plenty
coupled with reassessment of
conventional measures of success

There was also a huge fish by Frank Gehry (with Jessie posing):

And finally, this is a bridge that you can cross to enter a park next to the garden. I really like it for the linear perspective:

After the garden we headed to Best Buy where Jessie shopped for a GPS to help us with driving and I got a web cam to keep in contact with people for the summer. We then picked up Jessie’s dad who took us both out for delicious indian food.

Sunday was time to start getting everything ready for work. We had an early breakfast with Jessie’s dad before he had to leave to head back home. Then we hit up Super Target again for a few other supplies, followed by Rainbow foods for real groceries.

Monday (today) was our first day of work. We arrived at 7:45am and had new employee orientation all morning. In the afternoon I met my supervisor and started getting situated. I’ll be training and reading papers most of the rest of the week, but it’s been fun so far.

All in all, I think I am definitely enjoying it here way more than I would have expected. The weather has been great, everyone is very friendly, and it feels like everything has been going my way lately. I’m excited for the next few weeks, particularly my 21st birthday (June 21st!) and the fourth of July weekend.

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Another term, another several months that I go without updating  my blog. Oops. Anyway, as of a few days ago I have completed my junior year at MIT. Junior year was probably the most challenging year for me at MIT academically so far, but in the end I came out on top and am happy with how I did. Everything seems to be on track for me right now and I am looking forward to what’s in store for the future.

After term ended I spent a few days in Boston hanging out with people before my train home Friday evening. Saturday morning my mom, dad, brother and I headed out for Lancaster, Pennsylvania to visit my aunt and her husband for the weekend. All of my cousins were elsewhere, so it was just us six. My uncle joined an oldies band a year and a half ago and they had a gig in Mount Joy, PA, so we all went over there to check it out. As it turns out, they were playing at the Mount Joy Popcorn Festival, which turned out to be loads of fun. Here’s me standing next to the sign. (To see all the photos in this entry and more, check out this set on Flickr).

When we first arrived, not only were we shocked that we were at a Popcorn Festival, we were also shocked by how awesome the park was. James and I took a joy ride on the swings for a while and he hung out in the tire swing for a bit.

After enjoying the park we explored the rest of the festival. When we first got there in the early afternoon it wasn’t very crowded, but it definitely picked up as the night went on. One noteworthy attraction was the popcorn kernel spitting contest. The record spit for the junior division (14-40 yrs) was over 27 feet!

There were several other contests as well. There was a coloring contest for the kids, a popcorn hat decorating contest, and a contest to guess the number of kernels in a jar. My dad, James and I did our best to estimate the number of kernels in the jar by estimating the number of kernels per cubic inch. We actually came very close (all three of our guesses were within 10%), with my dad off by only 400 kernels from the winning guess. There were about 27,000 kernels in the jar.

After wandering around for a bit we decided to grab some Italian ice because it was just so ridiculously hot out standing on the pavement.  While we were eating the ice the old school popcorn truck also showed up and we got some delicious popcorn here at the festival.

After my uncle’s band the Ravens finished their second set, organizers of the festival convinced them to play an encore show because they had done such a tremendous job. In order to convince my aunt to let him stay later, the band played Freebird. It was hilarious and awesome. I put a video of it (with commentary from the crowd!) up in my public here.

The next day we were all pretty tired and didn’t get out of the house until after 2pm. We decided to go shopping at the mall so I could get more clothes for my internship this summer (It’s with Boston Scientific in St. Paul, MN), and James got a few things too. I picked up a nice pair of casual sandals and a pair of dress shoes, along with some slacks to go with all the blouses I got a few weekends ago.

After shopping we headed over to the Tilted Kilt Pub (also in Mount Joy) to listen to a few guys play that James and my Dad know from New York. One of them is a really mean keytar player, and things were great until it rained and we headed home.

I had a great time. Hopefully I’ll be posting more over the summer!

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Dale and I went to NY Comic Con the first weekend after term started. It was the first convention either of had ever been to, and needless to say it was pretty overwhelming.  When we first got to NYC on Saturday morning (after waking up at 7am; we were pretty dedicated) we walked with a crowd of people over to the Jacob Javits center. It was pretty obvious we were all going to Comic Con. Some people were dressed up but not quite as many as I had expected. Way more people were dressed up as Anime characters than as Comic Book characters and/or Super heroes. I got really excited when we finally arrived because many of the security guards were dressed up as storm troopers! A lot of them looked really awesome, so I got my picture taken:

We had originally made a list of the different booths we wanted to visit, but it was so crowded and awesome that we just wandered around through the booths. There were lots of vendors with everything nerdy. I took a picture with my favorite pal, Yoda, who was on sale for somewhere in the four figure range ($$$).

I couldn’t have all the fun, though (after all, this wasn’t a Star Wars convention), so Dale got a nice shot with Batman. Look at the super excited face!

After walking around a bit more I got my picture taken with spidey (even though I like Peter Parker better…)

And then the zombie spidey attacked us! What ever were we to do!

After drooling over the booths for a while, we attended an interesting panel called “Anime for Comic Fans, Comics for Anime Fans.” I thought the talk was really interesting because it defined characteristics about a given Anime or Comic and gave a recommendation of something one might like in a somewhat different medium.

The panel was really exciting, but Dale and I still had a fundamental disagreement about whether Anime or Comics were better. Conveniently, Marvel had just the venue for us to battle it out in (I’m pretty sure I won).

After getting that over with, we went to see a screening of the first few episodes of Gurren Lagann. It was pretty crazy; robots, breasts, and crazy battles. What more could you ask for (this is after I spent a few minutes arguing that robots and breasts aren’t what anime is all about. sigh.)

We left the Con around 4pm to go listen to my little brother play saxophone over at The Bitter End. He was playing with his music school and  he went on last. Every time I hear him he gets a lot better. After listening to music for a while we went out to dinner and caught up with my cousin and her SO. They live really close to Times Square, so we got to walk around there for a while.

The next day at Comic Con was time for shopping. After watching The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (which I highly recommend — it was amazing, even despite the fact that it didn’t feature robots nor breasts), Dale got his Comic on. Meanwhile, I scored some totally sweet Star Wars plushies.

All in all it was a really fun weekend. Now term has started, though, and things are already pretty hectic. Hopefully there will be time to do something exciting for Spring Break!

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After spending a few days with family in Florida I flew out to Tucson, Arizona to visit Dale. My first impression of Arizona that it was very red/brown and flat (in a pretty way), and there were cacti everywhere. I had never been to the desert before, so it was really neat. You can also see so many more stars at night than back in New York or Boston. If you drive out for even just a few minutes the view is gorgeous.

My flight left from New York at 7:55am, but it was only 11:40am Arizona time when I arrived. After a stop for lunch we drove down to Tucson (a 2 hr drive or so). Most of the rest of the day was spend driving around Tucson. It may be hard to believe but I had never been to Sonic before and the whole drive and sit in your car thing really blew my mind. A picture was taken to commemorate this momentous occasion.

The next day Dale took me to the Desert Museum. We didn’t manage to catch a glimpse of any javelina, even though a little kid nearby piped up that he had spotted five of them on the trail. The museum had a fake cave to explore, a cactus garden and a hummingbird exhibit. I learned all about the different kinds of cacti. I still can’t get over how huge some of them are. I also shouldn’t forget to mention that there were vicious aviary predators out to get Dale.

Wednesday was New Year’s Eve. We relaxed during most of the day because our sleep schedules were slowly approaching normal (I started getting sleepy by 9pm most days). We went out to see Milk, which I would highly recommend seeing. The evening was spent at Dale’s friend Sarah’s apartment where we played Rayman and Mario Party on the Wii and watched Dick Clark. Oh yeah, and there were cupcakes. Delicious.

Thursday we spent time in. I read my new book I got for Christmas and Dale took care of a few things around the house. Thursday night we drove out to Mt. Lemmon and looked at the city from above. The lights glimmered and the sky was really clear.

Friday we drove out to Sabino canyon. The terrain was similar to the Desert museum but we got to hike in the canyon. The weather was really nice (especially in the shade of the mountains). There were a few streams that were nice to hang out by, and a main trail you could take to the top of the mountain. We walked about 2 mi in each direction (not counting when we wandered a bit off the trail). While we were resting before heading back to the car I got to practice my myspace photo taking skills. I’d say they are okay but still need a little work.

 

Saturday we headed back to Boston, where it was very windy and cold. Fortunately it’s Independent Activities Period (IAP) now, and there’s plenty of time to do whatever you like. This IAP I’ll be taking an Ice Skating PE and working on a project with my 6.011 TA from last term. Although a week has passed already, there are still 3 more!

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Looks like my last entry was shortly before term started. Oops. Things have certainly had their ups and downs in that time period. Unfortunately my grandpa died at the age of 77 earlier today, so writing about the past few months is bittersweet as I didn’t get to see him at all during that time. He was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia on Thursday, but the cancer or an infection was so aggressive that he passed away in only a few days. Because of Christmas, a wake and funeral won’t be scheduled until at least Friday, so my Dad, brother and I will be flying down to Florida on Wednesday. We’ll be meeting up with family that I haven’t had a chance to see yet and staying until Sunday. I’ll fly out to Arizona early Monday morning to spend the rest of Winter break with Dale. I think it will be nice to get out of the house for a bit and I’ve been looking forward to visiting anyway.

This IAP the plan is to take a PE and work on a short project related to MRI reconstruction. I’ll be doing a little research into the subject if I have the time over break. Other than work, I hope to have some time to relax, finish up Dr. Who (we’re on the fourth season now!), watch some anime, and play my DS/other video games. This term was very hectic, but as the grades start trickling in (3/5 so far), it has proven to be very rewarding.

I took 5 classes this term. I had never taken 5 before but ironically enough the added pressure seems to have improved my grades. The classes I took were:

• 6.007 - Applied Electromagnetics
• 6.011 - Intro. to Communication, Control and Signal Processing
• 9.01 - Intro. to Neuroscience
• 9.20 - Animal Behavior
• STS.010 - Neuroscience and Society

I liked all of the classes overall, but my favorite was definitely 6.011. I think that 6.011 is the best class I’ve ever taken here: great lectures, recitations, tutorials, helpful p-sets, and fair exams. The staff did a great job at conveying the relevance of the material, which taught from different approaches would probably seem rather abstract.

Other than work during term, I also served as Vice-Chair of the Undergraduate Association (UA) Senate, and am finishing up my responsibilities as EC Rooming Assignment Chair (RAC). A few of us also checked out a few sweet concerts and movies. The most recent concert was In Flames and I really enjoyed seeing them a second time, even though I wasn’t feeling great shortly before they came on stage. Rachel, Betsy, and I regressed to our teenage selves and went and saw Twilight on opening night. I hadn’t read the books, so I wasn’t as into it as some of the other girls there were, but there were certainly lots of hot boys in the movie. The amount of shrieking is unparalleled. I also got a crack blackberry over Thanksgiving, and it’s been really handy.

A few exciting things coming up:

• IAP - January 5th
• Andrew Bird Concert - January 30th
• EC Retreat - January 31st
• New York Comic Con - February 6-8

I’m sure there are lots of things I’m forgetting, but I figure I’ll leave it at this for now. I don’t really feel in the holiday spirit right now, but being with family and then with Dale before IAP starts should help.

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Haven’t posted in a while. These past several weeks have been really busy (in a good way). I stopped working my UROP for the last few weeks of the summer, and dedicated myself to freshman orientation (as EC’s Room Assignment Chair and a DormCon Junior REX chair). Considering the fact that REX and the Friday Night Event were two big things on my mind the past few weeks, it feels pretty weird for them to be over. Both went really well, though, and even though term is going to start of hectic, I’m glad it will start on an up beat.

Other than orientation, there were a few other fun things from over the summer. As I mentioned in my previous post, a few of us went to Six Flags New England. It was really fun (we rode what is arguably the best steel coaster in the country) until rain started coming down in waves around 3pm. Can’t win them all, I guess.

A week or so later, Dale, Sarah, Rachel, Danielle and I went to New York for the weekend. We took the Lucky Star bus down to the Chinatown on a Friday afternoon. Even with a bit of traffic we made reasonable time. After leaving the Bowery, we walked through a fesitival that was going on in Little Italy. Lots of people were out eating late, candle lit dinners, and it was very tempting to get some pastries. After walking around a bit, we headed up to my house in Westchester for the evening.

Saturday morning we went to one of my favorite spots for breakfast (the Patio in Briarcliff Manor). Our early start was cursed, though, because after our brief stop over at Starbucks (damn MIT students and their caffeine), we were stuck in the rain. The storm was ridiculous, and my street flash flooded, preventing the Hudson Metro North line from running, and delaying the Harlem line. After a bit of a wait we made it into the city, which showed little to no sign of the storm. Our first stop in the city was Jamba Juice and the candied-peanut stands (mmmm Jamba Juice). We decided to sit in Central Park and finish our drinks. Next stop was the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where we met up with Vinayak and Charles, who were looking very hipster indeed. They had crazy modern art that I took a few pictures of. By the time we left the Met we were all pretty hungry, so we headed over to Union Sq. Unable to resist, we spent some time in Forbidden Planet and The Strand, which someone I know seemed to really enjoy. Now starving, we went to an Indian restaurant that Rachel had coincidentally also eaten at with her family before (at the same table!). Our last stop before heading back to Grand Central was Times Square. It was really amazing at night. Although Dale was the only one who hadn’t been there before, we all really enjoyed hitting up the M&M and Hershey’s stores.

Sunday I decided it was time for everyone to experience the awesomeness that is New York Bagels, so we walked into Briarcliff and ate a nice breakfast on the benches in town. Fortunately there was no storm this time, and we headed out to the city. Sarah really likes her Jamba Juice, so we stopped there a second time. Dale decided to try a piece of Junior’s cherry cheesecake, and it was really good. We walked around Central Park for a while, and relaxed on the grass watching puppies and families go by. In the early afternoon we headed back down to Chinatown, grabbed some fruit, and caught the bus back. Overall, a really fun weekend.

Dale and I also decided to hit up a few concerts this summer (and plan to go to several more during term, woo!). The first one (since I’ve last posted) was The Faint. The lead singer wore a lab coat and goggles. It was my first show at The Roxy, and it was amazing. They played a bunch of songs from their newest album, along with some of their great older songs. The next night we decided to switch things up a bit and went to TT The Bear’s Place (right next to the Middle East) for my first post-rock show. We went to see Yndi Halda, who were unable to make it due to a broken axle on their van. But Hadoken and Caspian were still pretty awesome. Even though it was a small venue, the sound was massive and really took over you. The last concert was Nightwish, which I went to with a whole bunch of people. It was at The Palladium again (I saw them last October, too) and put on an amazing show. We all left exhausted and covered in sweat after the show. Totally a great way to get ready for term.

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I’ve had a lot of down time after work and on weekends over the summer, and have spent a lot of it watching movies, reading, and getting out on the town. I’m sure I have forgotten about some things but this is as comprehensive as I can remember. I’ll try to avoid any serious spoilers.

Let’s start with movies. In no particular order:

• The Incredible Hulk - I had low expectations (other than Edward Norton), but this turned out to be pretty good. They didn’t focus on the back story as much which I think was a good thing.
• Wall-e - Most.Adorable.Movie.Ever. I love Pixar movies but I still think this one takes the cake. When I saw the trailer I thought it looked dumb but I could hardly control my giggles during much of it.
• Hellboy II: The Golden Army - Vinayak and I had an argument about how good this movie would be. Vinayak loses (sorry Vinayak). I really enjoyed it; definitely way better than the first one.
• Requiem for a Dream - A lot of people told me I shouldn’t watch this movie or I would be super depressed afterwards. It was definitely a bit of a downer, but I wasn’t particularly upset. I thought many of the scenes were kind of ridiculous, but really enjoyed the cinematography.
• Wanted - I read the graphic novel (which is nothing like the movie), and didn’t have particularly high expectations. The movie was ridiculous, and if you had any hope for it, you probably hated it because it was pretty silly.
• Equilibrium - To get us pumped up for The Dark Knight, we decided to watch a bunch of Christian Bale movies. I had seen a few of the scenes from the movie. It had similar crazy-action moments to Wanted or the Matrix, but I thought it actually had a reasonably decent plot.
• Batman Begins - Had already seen this one, but it was part of our Christian Bale stunt. Still enjoyable the second time around.
• The Dark Knight - We waited 3 hours to see this at midnight Thursday Night/Friday Morning. Totally worth it. Heath Ledger was impeccable. I loved his performance, and the rest of the cast also did a terrific job. Definitely intend to see this again at some point.
• Pink Floyd The Wall - Believe it or not, I had never seen this movie before. It was pretty crazy and took me until the end to figure out what was going on. Even then I was a bit confused.
• Persepolis - Second time seeing this one as well. Enjoyable in a sort of dark way, Persepolis is one of those movies that puts you in the shoes of something that you otherwise might not understand.

So that’s a lot of movies. Now books:

• Love in the time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez- I finished this early on in the summer. It took me a long time to get through with term and all, but I wound up enjoying it. Despite being different from the books I tend to enjoy, I thought it was a worth while read. Didn’t really like the ending all that much, though. I would like to see the movie at some point, but have not gotten around to it yet.
• Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely - I started this on the train to New York before my trip to the Caribbean; I finished it 3 days later. Loved it. The book felt highly relevant and had a lot of room for introspection.
• Wanted by Mark Millar - Crazy. Adrenaline filled ridiculousness. No wonder the movie was nothing like this.
• Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson - Stereotypical cyberpunk. I started the book and there were a few things about it that I thought were completely nuts and over the top. People had hyped the book a lot so I didn’t really know what to expect. Overall, it turned out to be fun, and Raven really is a total bad ass.
• Neuromancer by William Gibson - Haven’t finished this one yet. Just started it a few days ago; it’s been hard to get through (I don’t really know what’s going on…) but I’m trying to persevere, for now at least.

Other outings:

• Laser Dark Side of the Moon - The Museum of Science Planetarium has Laser Light Shows. A few of us decided to to one a few Saturdays ago. Holy crap. It was totally incredible. Definitely planning on going to another one some time.
• ArtBeat 2008 - Freezepop played this year! They played a fun set and even gave everyone lots of freezepops. Very tasty. We also saw Rota Temporis and Akrobatik. I took a few pictures.
• New England Sand Sculpting Festival - The Sand Sculpting Festival happened at Revere Beach again this year. This year the center piece had a bunch of comic book characters including the Hulk and Batman. I took pictures of most of the competing pieces. Sarah Hopp and I decided it would be a terrific idea to submerge ourselves in the freezing cold water, which didn’t work out so hot. Unfortunately it started to storm when we had only been there for a little while, so we came back to hall early.
• New England Aquarium - We went because I wanted to see the Sharks and Rays exhibit, the advertisements for which are all over Boston. Also Sharks3D. The aquarium turned out to be small and underwhelming compared to Monterey (I’m spoiled now, I think), but we saw a gigantic sea turtle get fed a head of lettuce and pet some sharks and rays. The IMAX 3D show was unlike any 3D film I had seen before (no more red and blue glasses). It made my head spin but was also pretty neat.

And I think that’s it. Things to look forward to:

• Six Flags, July 27th
• NYC trip, August 1-3
• REX planning (for EC and Dorm Con)
• The rest of the summer

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It’s finally time to write about my trip to Sint Maarten, Dutch West Indies. You can find more pictures here. I went with 5 friends from home (Emma, Erica, Jillian, Meredith and Michael). We departed from JFK on July 1st, and arrived in Sint Maarten in the early afternoon. The island is known for having a crazy airport. As we were landing, all I could see was ocean out the window, until all of the sudden we were touching down on the island:

Emma reserved us two nice rooms at The Atrium in Simpson Bay. There was a very nice view up the hill, and the beach was probably the best I’ve ever been to.

We spent our first afternoon relaxing on the beach, and went to a restaurant recommended by the hotel for dinner. Things were very different for us on the island (one can gamble and drink at 18), so we all tried our luck at Black Jack for the first time. It went well for me this first time, but we all quickly learned that we weren’t cut out to be gamblers.

Our second day consisted of lots of lounging around on the beach: I spent time finishing Predictably Irrational (which was great, btw) and took a few more pictures of the beach. I was particularly fascinated by the crests of the waves on the sand so I took several pictures of them.

In the evening we went to what is (arguably) Sint Maarten’s best night club on the Island: Bliss. I enjoyed myself even though I’m not really big into the night club scene. There was a lot of dancing and the music was really fun.

The third day I finished Predictably Irrational and started on Snow Crash. Keeping with the tradition of the past two days, we spent most of the early afternoon on the beach, and we took some pictures of the sunset.

On our fourth day we finally went to the French Side of the island (they spell it St. Martin there). The city of choice is Marigot. We took the local bus service (which is actually a bunch of privately owned vans that seat 12 people) over to the Marina and had a great experience with conversion factors to the Euro. There were a whole bunch of fancy shops, but as was pointed out by several of my friends, you could just shop at those places in the city and it would probably be cheaper.

After our evening in Marigot we went to a fancy club called Mansion. The club was so “nice” that they gave Mike a hard time about entering in his shorts. It turns out that Mansion is basically a place for people with a lot of money to schmooze and buy handles of expensive alcohol. Not really my thing; there wasn’t even any dancing, but the music was so loud you could hardly hear your neighbor.

The next day we resumed the beach-bum tradition, and made dinner in our awesome kitchen. Fully equipped, we prepared a nice meal that was much more affordable than eating out all the time. We took more pictures in nice outfits, and headed over to Mansion again.

Day 6 graced us with a wonderful rendition of Yes’s Owner of Lonely Heart over lunch. I was very tempted to text someone the lyrics, but alas, I didn’t have my phone on me. We spent more time hanging on the beach and I read more and more Snow Crash. For dinner we went to Topper’s where the waiter was very friendly. They had fish on all the tables and ours was named Dick:

I don’t have any pictures for day 7, but it was totally awesome. We decided to go snorkeling on Creole Rock, which is one of the best spots on the island to do so. We took the scenic route; over the water from Simpson Bay on speed boats called Rhinos. I had no idea how much of a need for speed I had until I got behind the wheel of that boat. Sooooo much fun! Unfortunately being on the water for so long resulted in a fabulously streaky sun burn that lasted the rest of the trip and into the following week.

Day 8 was totally great. My good friend Jesstess also happened to be on the island, staying on the French Side with her family! We decided to meet up in Philipsburg (on the Dutch side; cruise ships frequently stop there). The beach was so picturesque, and it was nice to meet Jess’ family. We had lunch and wandered around Philipsburg for a while before I headed home for the evening.

I spent our final morning packing up while the others headed over to Philipsburg. We took a few pictures before going to the airport and waiting around (they kicked us out at noon and our flight wasn’t until 3pm). I had a great vacation, but I was also pretty eager to get back to MIT. Overall, a good decision I’d say

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At the Museum of Science, for a limited time only! The group I am working with is conducting a study over in Cahners Computer Place involving our latest robot. The Computer Place is pretty fun to hang out in; when the little kids aren’t around, occasionally the UROPs will sit at the computers and play old games like (my personal favorite) Star Wars Pit Droids. I don’t want to spoil the study for anyone, but it takes about 15 minutes, and is a lot of fun.

I’ll be at the Museum Saturday and Sunday, probably from about 10 or 11am until 5pm. The Computer Place is to right next to the Theater of Electricity; starting from the entrance, you turn right, enter the theater and turn left and head up the stairs.  Pretty straightforward. Unfortunately the robot is out of commision pretty often; she is kind of tempermental and gets a little stressed out with all the people around. But we swear, she is a star. Anyway, if you are curious about coming to the Musuem, admission is free to MIT students, and the Musuem itself is also a lot of fun to explore. Be sure to give me a heads up if you want to swing by and I’ll let you know if everything is up and running.

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Rachel and I decided to head over to Harvard’s Arboretum today. Neither of us had been before, and both had free time in the early afternoon. We took the scenic route to the Arboretum and back, to say the least. The directions we got off the internet were meant for cars and not bikes, and we got lost on the first turn. After stopping for directions, we eventually found our way over to Jamaica Pond. We didn’t know which way the Arboretum was, but we rode around the whole pond, and took a few pictures.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous out.

We ran into a gigantic family of ducklings, and took a few pictures. More ducklings can be found here.

After hanging out on the Pond for a while, we decided to give it one more shot. Fortunately for us, the turn we needed just involved taking a different fork in the bike path. We arrived at the Arnold Arboretum about 5 minutes later. On bike, we decided to stick to the main trails. We went up Bussey Hill to the Overlook, hung around for a while, and took a nice nap. Coming down the hill was really fun. Some pictures:

I had a SLOPE meeting at 5:30pm, so we didn’t stay very long. Definitely would love to come back another time and take more pictures. On the way home, we got lost again, and wound up over by the Church of Scientology. With Mass. Ave as our reference, we managed to make it home alright.

As a side note, I decided to start playing around with collections on Flickr, so all the photos from today are in one here.

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