Summers End

Summer’s End Yesterday, I finished my UROP. I cleaned up my bench, double-checked all my saved strains of yeast, handed my notebook to my post-doc, had a quick exit interview with my professor and thats it. Done. A beautiful sense of finality, of completion of fulfillment. Today, I head back to South Bend home, or one of them. Ill spend some time with my familyrelax, unwind get ready for the hustle and bustle of fall 2008. Its been an amazing summer. I havent even had the chance to blog about all the incredible things Ive had a chance to do and be a part of mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! You might say Ive been living life too thoroughly to blog it :) though I hope to publish all those entries Ive been meaning to finish over the next couple weeks, when things slow down a little. From the Red Sox to the Assasssins Guild, from my UROP experiences to the housing lottery, I hope youll all find something interesting about my summer exploits and endeavors. (And dont worry, prospective 2013s I have some application advice and stories for you, too.) As I ponder my next words, outside my window I can see the sun breaking through the clouds over the Charles River. And I cant help but think that its a beautiful day to bid goodbye to Boston. Ill be back soon enough. summer’s end this is the first time ive spent a summer at mit as a UROP student. in that time i have: started cooking again filled out more stamp cards than i can count at the laverdes sandwich shop walked to harvard and back to satisfy a late-night ginger soda craving actually, finally, started and finished an entire novel finally visited pika  for the first time popped the tire on the bicycle im borrowing (sorry alyssaill fix it) done the whole esplanade fourth of july fireworks picnic sunburn thing gone sailing for the first time (sailing and learning to sail at mit is free to the mit community!) fallen into the charles river played guess-the-summer-camp with all the high school students on campus (i see you RSI, i see you WTP, i see you MITES, i see you MIT Launch, i see you MOSTEC) driven a zipcar full of friends out to westford, massachusetts for homemade ice cream and a late-night visit to mits  wallace observatory finished star trek deep space nine and started star trek voyager on netflix and suddenly its august. im tired of macgregors teeny tiny kitchens (sorry macgregor) and ready to move back home to east campus. im ready to sing with my a cappella group again (shameless plug: were holding auditions during orientation! stay tuned!). im working with the professor of my favorite technical class from last semester to spin up a 16.62x  senior capstone project. ive preregistered for my first mit grad class, an anthropology class in qualitative research methods (21A.819). and im excited to meet the 2020s! what are you all doing with your last few weeks? maybe check out selams how to college masterpost  or my list of questionably good advice  from last year as you start packing. and well see you on campus soon :)