Okay, now I feel really selfish and guilty for being ever-so-slightly pissed at FAS results earlier today, because I just checked my MIT e-mail and sitting there nonchalantly was… the DEECS ‘08 schedule!

A few highlights from the action-packed week:

Mystery Hunt, Tuesday at 6pm: a mini-version of IAP’s Mystery Hunt to entice us, perhaps?
Capture the Flag, Tuesday at 9:30pm: holy crap, it’s been forever since I’ve played this game; I used to do a pretty wicked defense, if I do say so myself ;D
Boston Tours, Wednesday at 7pm: what better way to spend an evening than trekking around town with my other DEECS mates?
Game Night, Thursday at 9pm: OMFG CARD GAMES, Y/Y? See you all at poker, and there’d better be some games of Spades going down…
MoS trip, Saturday at 10:30pm: I’ve been there once, would love to go once again, this time with my camera =D

And that’s just the beginning; one can’t forget the artificial intelligence projects we’re working on (autonomous robots, to be precise), the lab tours, and free food.

… FAS results can go jump off the Rainbow Bridge for all I care; DEECS is going to be kickass.

P.S. for those wondering, I am indeed in Canada and I am indeed going to make a HUGE blog post with a report of my journey once I actually have the time to. Look for it ;)

This post comes a few days late, but I have quite a bit of catching up to do with blogging, hehe.

Tuesday the 5th, the date before my departure, I spent the entire day with several members of my high school life that, truthfully, I feel incredibly sad to be leaving behind as I journey to a new life at MIT.

The first of these was my AP Biology teacher Mrs. Mann, whose house I invaded at 8:45 in the morning. After following her around for a while as she watered her plants and fed her turtle, we settled down on the couches with glasses of green tea and spoke about every subject under the sun - the 2009 scifair team, AP tests, college, political ideologies, vacations, the weather (I kid you not), Campbell’s Biology textbook… yeah. She also let me play with her new fancy toy…

… a Vernier LabQuest! Now for those of you who aren’t as scientifically inclined (i.e. not as nerdy as the members of the VRHS science department), this may seem like some random clunky PDA.. but it’s not! ;D Instead of using LoggerPro on the computer, the LabQuest can record data directly onto its memory, perform analyses, import/export said data, and even better… there’s a complete Periodic Table built in with every piece of data you could possibly want about each element :o

… okay, I can tell you’re probably not as excited as I am about this revolutionary data acquisition tool. Either way, I succeeded in freezing the screen while playing with said new fancy toy, and we were unable to find the reset button, so we ended up leaving the poor little overworked thing “rebooting” as we headed out to lunch at Midori Sushi with my other (honors) Biology teacher Mrs. Christman. Again, we spent about 2 hours at the restaurant, munching away on matching lunch dishes (chicken teriyaki with chef’s special sushi, California rolls, and rice) and discussing - once again - every subject under the sun. We finally said our goodbyes as rain began to trickle down from the skies; I was able to snap a quick picture with the two of them before the torrents became so heavy I had to stow away my camera.

Mrs. Mann and I dropped by her local H-E-B to pick up some ingredients to make devilled eggs, which I had expressed an extreme craving for over lunch. We spent the rest of our time together trying to remedy my terrible kitchen skills; thankfully, the devilled eggs that I made ended up edible, and I even took some to my next and final get-together before leaving for vacation… party at Sapphi’s house!

… I swear we’re all actually having a lot of fun, despite our really bored/pissed/forced looks. I actually arrived fairly early - Royce (is that how you spell his name?), Greg, and Steven had already invaded Sapphi’s house, and before the night was over we were eventually joined by John, Jennifer, Kavita, Joni, Joe, Mina, and Chris for a full party of 12. In between eating (a must at any of Sapphi’s get-togethers), laughing hysterically at random YouTube clips, watching the Onion Movie, playing with Joni’s puppy, and taking.. interesting pictures, amongst other things, I shared a ton of laughs with some of my best high school friends. (Now if only there had been a CS party earlier in the summer, but I have a strange feeling that would quickly turn itself into a LAN party of some sort involving FPS games..)

I left that night after hugging my friends with my throat choked up. It was hard to imagine this was the last I would see of everyone for a long time - sure, I’d come back for Christmas but it wouldn’t be quite the same. I love you all; I won’t ever forget our times together; you guys make life worthwhile =)

As many people know, I’ll be on the road during my real birthday, August 16th, so instead I celebrated it with my sister (whose actual birthday is today). The party itself ended up lasting from 3-6pm or so, and despite my lack of decisive spirit regarding what I coveted this particular year, I received a slew of amazing presents, including~

… the amazing digital camera that I had been advocating for! So naturally I put it to work right away by taking a few shots of the surroundings and the presents I received.

For every birthday celebration at our house, I’m in charge of decorating. (Though, let me tell you that I don’t particularly enjoy decorating because frankly, I suck at it.) One of the main attractions each year is the use of crepe paper to create shapes and images in this open area that separates our kitchen and living room. I’ve done fish, hearts, stars, musical notes on a staff, and much more… so naturally this year I was at a total loss for what to do. The result?

I’m not even sure what to call this design. “Slightly Lopsided Square Quadrilateral Rotated 45 Degrees With Accompanying Lines Placed for Aesthetic Purposes”? Or I guess if you want to be reminded of Calculus, it could be a very limited slope field for a circle?

Despite my lack of affinity for non-tacky decoration, my siblings still enjoyed it thoroughly. My sister and I opened presents alternatingly, and I ended up receiving:

• an entire slew of pro-looking clothing
• quite a few figurines and collectables
• miscellaneous knick-knacks; bracelets, pencils, boxes
• adorable fleece blankets (for the frigid nights in Massachusetts)
• as mentioned above, the digital camera (score)
• … and a digital camcorder (double score)

Shown above is a conglomeration of presents that my sister and I both received - naturally, the fiction books are hers while the “1001 Things Every College Student Needs to Know” is mine. Despite the rainbow-coloured cover, the content of the book is amazing; the style of writing is very similiar to my own, in that blunt and commanding tone that expresses strong opinions the way they ought to be expressed - clearly and without sugarcoating.

And I know I’m usually not one anymore to squeal about how adorably cute things are, but I couldn’t resist taking a close-up of the Hello Kitty plushies that my sister and I each received (mine’s on the right). I used to have quite the collection of HK items (actually I still have all of them, haha) seeing as how she is the only cartoon-ish character that I actually have a true affinity for. I also received a pair of HK pajamas, bracelet, and some pencils for my horde ;)

And as per tradition, my sisters and I dressed up our dolls for a photo. We all received these for our birthdays (mine is a Samantha from the American Girl historical collection, given to me on my 9th birthday, second from the left). Along with my HK collection, I have a doll collection for display purposes instead of really “playing” with them, along with an entire large box filled to the brim with 50+ dresses and clothing sets. Anyways, it’s a tradition that any birthday and Christmas, we would get our dolls out and take pictures with them. Even though I’m not a child anymore and admittedly find more entertainment in my laptop, it’s a nice touch of nostalgia every major holiday to see these dolls again.

I wish I had more interesting pictures of the party itself, but it was kind of hard to take pictures with my camera when it was still wrapped up in its box, waiting for me to unearth it from the depths of its confinement. As an apology, I’ll provide for you a picture of our 42.86%-eaten cake (yes I actually estimated that calculation) - delicious vanilla with frosting and trimmed with fruit. Naturally, I plucked off all the peaches before anyone else could lay hands on them.

… and that’s about it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off for a well-deserved card marathon with my family once again. Hopefully they can last longer than they attempted to on graduation night. I’m considering teaching my siblings how to play poker, but I have a slight feeling that instilling gambling ideals into them at a young age isn’t exactly the best influence an elder sister should be exerting… or is it? ;)

@Matt and co.: I have a slight feeling I’m one of the earlier submissions, but hopefully this will allow you more time to continue following my blog as the application process continues through August ;)

Typical Sunday afternoon. 14-oh-hundred, the family’s out shopping, I’m sitting in front of my laptop, mouth slightly open and eyes glazed over, munching on grape tomatoes and typing away about every subject under the sun. The hours march on past, and I have somehow shifted from sitting up straight (kind of) to slumping over the surface of my gray desk. Boredom as usual. When is something exciting going to happen in my life for once, so I can actually make a decent blog post that -isn’t- advocating for proper English enunciation or whining about audio player interfaces or complaining about how Gary Jules’s rendition of Mad World is inferior to the original?

… and then the almighty Piper comes in our humble MIT’12 abode on Facebook and mentions that the call for bloggers is up on the MIT Admissions site.

Holy shit. I am so there.

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Warning: extremely long entry ahead!

TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. In the Beginning
II. The Cast of the Play
III. A Typical Day in APCS 8th
IV. When We Actually Programmed
V. AP Test Prep
VI. Why I Enjoyed APCS
VII. At the End of the Day
VIII. And the Future Draws Near

I’m not a nerd. I swear. I just love my CS class way too much.
This one’s for you guys.

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