Hello Internet! I\'m briefly poking my head into the blogosphere as a respite from a very busy IAP (which I\'ll hopefully get to blogging about eventually...). But since I don\'t really have anything interesting to say about IAP yet, and I couldn\'t think of a single unified topic to write about, I decided to answer a bunch of questions from the blogger bot that Lydia K. so generously created for us bloggers who can\'t think of anything to blog about.\r\n\r\nPi or tau? Pi. \r\n\r\n(If it\'s okay with the other person(s),) tell us your funniest (PG-13) MIT \xc2\xa0\r\nrelationship disaster story. I actually haven\xe2\x80\x99t really had anything noteworthy in this arena - the first person I got into a relationship with at MIT is now my boyfriend :) \r\n\r\nWe often hear strange snippets of conversation as we walk through public \xc2\xa0\r\nspaces. Tell us about a time you overheard something interesting. Overheard at a fencing practice last year: \xe2\x80\x9cThis is MUCH less sexual if you understand quantum field theory.\xe2\x80\x9d \r\n\r\nGood news: another hour has just been added to every 24-hour day. How do \xc2\xa0\r\nyou use those extra sixty minutes? Sleep, obviously. \r\n\r\nWhat do you do to punt, de-stress, or reset, on or off the Internet? What \xc2\xa0\r\nthings on the Internet help you feel more happy and less anxious? When I\xe2\x80\x99m by myself, I like to listen to music or watch BBC nature documentaries. More frequently, I force myself out of my room to go wander around and find people to hang out with, or watch something on Netflix with my boyfriend.\r\n\r\nAre you a night owl or are you the early bird? What\'s your most productive \xc2\xa0\r\ntime of day? When do you do your best work? I\xe2\x80\x99m definitely not an early bird, but as I\xe2\x80\x99ve gotten older, I\xe2\x80\x99ve found it more difficult to stay up late. Last semester, I found that my most productive hours were in the afternoon. \r\n\r\nWhat are your resolutions? What do you want to accomplish over the next \xc2\xa0\r\nyear/semester? Due to an unfortunate health complication, one of my resolutions is to be more healthy. This means cutting sugar and red meat out of my diet, and since those are most of the things that I enjoy eating, that\xe2\x80\x99s going to be hard. I also want to be better at saving money; I realized between buying my own brass rat and taking a spring break trip to Vienna, I\xe2\x80\x99ll need to have enough money put aside. \r\n\r\nFilm (or write about, I\'m sure) anything related to music in MIT. This has already been done for me - check out this fusion performance of Phantom of the Opera by my a cappella group, the MIT Ohms (I solo at 2:15!)\r\n\r\nType up/embed/describe a short scene from a favorite book or movie and tell \xc2\xa0\r\nus about how something in your life is like that scene. There\xe2\x80\x99s a scene from my favorite movie (Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children...surprise surprise) in which the protagonist Cloud (the guy with the spiky blond hair) is physically pulled upwards by all of his friends to fight the very, very large monster threatening to destroy the city. I always see it as a metaphor for the support that friends and family provide in one\xe2\x80\x99s life - they pull you up and give you the boost you need to fight your own monsters. I cry every time I watch this scene. (I cried when I watched it before hyperlinking it to this paragraph)\r\n\r\nWhat do you need to do within 30 minutes of waking up to ensure your day \xc2\xa0\r\ngets off on the right foot? What happened last time you didn\'t? When I get up really early (before 11 am), I like to have a cup of tea or coffee to get me going. Otherwise, I like waiting until the last possible minute to get out of bed because there\xe2\x80\x99s nothing than puts me in a worse mood than getting out of bed.\r\n\r\nWhat\'s your signature beverage? How did it achieve that status? It would probably have to be thai ice tea boba, the only flavor of boba I really enjoy. Unfortunately, I can no longer drink the boba that\xe2\x80\x99s normally sold in MIT fundraisers, but fortunately, I\xe2\x80\x99ve learned how to make my own, reasonable tasting approximation. I also just really like making people tea, so tea in general is probably my signature beverage.\xc2\xa0\r\n\r\nDo you have any funny/harrowing/interesting memories from a sporting event \xc2\xa0\r\nyou attended, participated in, or watched at MIT? At the first fencing meet of this year, I started off very strong in the preliminary bouts, and was ranked somewhere in the high 20s out of 50ish people going into single elimination. At some point in my single elimination bout, my muscle froze up and I made the mistake of trying to push through the match. After struggling and getting to 14-14, I couldn\xe2\x80\x99t make the last touch and barely made it off the strip before my leg started spasming. I was really sad that I couldn\xe2\x80\x99t have done better - moral of the story is to stretch better, I guess.\r\n\r\nTell us about something fun you do for/around pi day (especially if there \xc2\xa0\r\nare pis or pies or taus involved). My high school used to have a huge festival in the cafeteria with lots of pi/pie related activities. The one I remember most vividly was the chance to pie our principal in the face. \r\n\r\nWhat\'s messier right now\xe2\x80\x94your bedroom or your computer\'s desktop? Tell us \xc2\xa0\r\nhow it got to that state. My computer desktop - I never look at it, and so it just builds up a layer of downloaded apps and files. My laundry basket does get obscenely full from time to time though.\xc2\xa0\r\n\r\nYour dorm is on fire. Grab five items (assume all people and animals are \xc2\xa0\r\nsafe). What did you grab?\r\n

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1. A box of cards and notes that people have written me
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2. My guitar
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3. My Buster Sword necklace that I keep hanging next to my sink
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4. My blanket because it is really soft and I love it
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5. My equally soft body pillow
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\r\nWhat did you do for fun in high school? How did these things define who you \xc2\xa0\r\nwere then, and how have they defined who you are now? I played video games for fun - and now there\'s a non-trivial chance that I might make video games for a living. Direct correlation!\r\n\r\nTeach us something you\'ve learned at MIT, academic or otherwise. After three semesters of being on varsity fencing, I\xe2\x80\x99ve determined that it takes almost exactly four songs to speed walk from East Campus to the Z-Center for practice. \r\n\r\nTell us about a time you made a false assumption about a person, a place, a \xc2\xa0\r\nclass, or a department. How did they prove you wrong? Somewhere halfway through the middle of last semester, I was wholly convinced that I would never have to apply any of the knowledge gleaned from my 6.004 (Computation Structures) class, mostly because I was doing poorly in it and I was trying to console myself. As a 6-3, 6.004 is the most \xe2\x80\x9chardware\xe2\x80\x9d class that I\xe2\x80\x99ll ever have to take, and I was fairly sure that if I just got through the class, I would never have to think about it again. I proved myself royally wrong by getting an entire job interview filled with stuff I wouldn\xe2\x80\x99t have known a thing about without some knowledge of 6.004. I also got that job, and that\xe2\x80\x99s what I\xe2\x80\x99ll be doing this summer, so I paid a lot more attention to 6.004 after that...\r\n\r\nTell us about the last time you got lost at MIT or in Boston/Cambridge. Was \xc2\xa0\r\nit an enjoyable experience, or a stressful one? (Disclaimer: This story has been edited slightly for reasons) I remember that I was exploring the 30-something buildings with some friends, and we split off to explore and said we\xe2\x80\x99d reconvene in building 9 in fifteen minutes. The challenge was to do this without ever exiting the buildings. I proceeded to get very lost - fun fact, the 30-something buildings are only connected through the 3rd floor and I did not know this as a freshman - so I spent twenty minutes running around with a dead phone, with no idea of where I was, and I eventually gave up and took Vassar Street to get to building 9.\r\n\r\nA prefrosh needs directions to Baker House. Instead of the fastest route, \xc2\xa0\r\ngive him/her the one involving the most fun (legal) detours. To be honest, I barely know where the dorms on Dorm Row are, so I can\xe2\x80\x99t even give a good answer to this. \r\n\r\n How did you handle the waiting period between hitting submit and March (or \xc2\xa0\r\neven between then and August (also known as senior year))? I graduated early and took a gap semester in Japan my senior year. I also studied for a bunch of ASEs, none of which I ended up passing (pro tip to seniors: just enjoy your summer, cause it\xe2\x80\x99s probably the last one you\xe2\x80\x99ll ever have in which you\xe2\x80\x99ll have lots of free time). \r\n\r\nTake some selfies with your friends and tell us about who your friends are \xc2\xa0\r\nand what you guys are doing together.\r\n\r\n[caption id="attachment_41379" align="aligncenter" width="1000"] My friends and I are watching Spiderman 3 while I write this post! I\'m writing as I complain about how bad this movie is :P[/caption]\r\n\r\nTell us a story about your relationship with a musical instrument and how \xc2\xa0\r\nthat relationship has played into (hah) your experiences at MIT. I taught myself how to play guitar in junior year of high school because I was too shy to sing songs a cappella, which means without any instrumental accompaniment (how the times have changed). It was the only instrument that I brought to MIT and I\xe2\x80\x99ve initiated many a late night jam session with it. Playing the guitar always reminds me of the many ways that music brings people together; with just a few chords and a well-known pop song, you can get an entire room of people to sing along with you, and I think that\'s something magical.\r\n\r\nTake a photo of ordinary equipment that you use regularly at a UROP or \xc2\xa0\r\nelsewhere, and tell us about what it does and how you use it.\r\n\r\n[caption id="attachment_41408" align="aligncenter" width="768"] Jibo the personal robot![/caption]\r\n\r\nI don\'t use Jibo yet, but he\'s too cute not to post on here. I\'m UROPing in the Personal Robots group at the Media Lab for this IAP and the Spring, and I\'ve been tasked with creating a puzzle game that school children can play with Jibo. In just a few weeks, I\'ve learned more Unity and Photoshop tricks than I ever have before, and I\'ve tried to teach myself Unity and Photoshop quite a few times in my life. This is the first UROP where I really feel like I\'m in my element, and I really hope to work on this project until completion!\r\n\r\nMachines and appliances sometimes feel like they have their own \xc2\xa0\r\npersonalities. Tell us about the machines you own or interact with.\r\n\r\n...Let\'s go back to Jibo for this prompt! Despite his WALL-E-esque design, Jibo always surprises me with how lifelike some of his actions are. I\'ll walk into lab sometimes and be startled by the Jibo that I sit near turning to me and saying hello. My interactions with Jibo are remarkably similar to my interactions with other people, and I think that\'s really cool and speaks to how well he was designed. And while we\'re on this topic - Cynthia Breazeal, the head of the Personal Robots lab, goes a little more in depth about the reasons why we sometimes feel like machines (specifically robots) have feelings and personalities in her TED Talk!\r\n\r\nHow it is that you socialize? (How DO people socialize? MIT prefrosh want \xc2\xa0\r\nto know (but really)) I\xe2\x80\x99m not really one for going to social events outside East Campus unless there\xe2\x80\x99s a definitive offer of free stuff, so I normally socialize by going to East Campus parties, hanging out in lounges, and recently, playing a lot of Super Smash Ultimate (I main Cloud, because of course I do). But I\'ve noticed since last semester that it\'s remarkably easy to\xc2\xa0not\xc2\xa0socialize, which struck me as a surprise, since during freshman year I pretty much did nothing but socializing. Classes have become harder, and time management has become more stressful, and it\'s hard to pset in lounges when you can\'t hear yourself think and even harder to find the energy to balance all the things you\'re supposed to do.\xc2\xa0 I personally believe that if I ever have no time in a day to hang out with friends, I\'m probably doing too many things, and I\'m going to try to adhere to this for the rest of the semesters that I\'ll be here.\xc2\xa0\r\n\r\nTake photos of some places you\'ve fallen asleep on campus. What are the \xc2\xa0\r\nbenefits and drawbacks of being asleep there?\r\n\r\nI have actually only intentionally fallen asleep (morning classes suck eom) in one place on campus: the nap area in 26-110, better known as the Banana Lounge.\r\n\r\n[caption id="attachment_41409" align="aligncenter" width="800"] A picture of the nap area from The Tech article about the Banana Lounge.[/caption]\r\n\r\nThe nap area is really nice because the lights above it are dimmed, and people generally aren\'t loud in the lounge out of respect to the people who are sleeping. And when you\'re tired enough, even a yoga mat on the floor and a blanket will be the comfiest thing in the world.\r\n\r\nTake a photo or a video of your/your prof\'s/your friend\'s pet and tell us \xc2\xa0\r\nabout him/her/it. Bonus points if it\'s a plant or a pet rock.\r\n\r\n[caption id="attachment_41411" align="aligncenter" width="768"] Flora <3[/caption]\r\n\r\nThis is my family\'s cat, Flora! I\'ve met a lot of cats in East Campus (and in life in general, I guess), but she\'s still the cutest one I\'ve ever seen.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThat\'s all the prompts that I\'ve answered so far. This is actually pretty fun, so I\'ll probably blog a few more sometime in the next few weeks. Stay tuned for more tidbits about my life!