omar eduardo’s blog

It’s 64 degrees outside, a few days ago it was in the 80s. The result of this temperature drop, I got a cold during the summer. Exciting, huh?  So today I’m in my room trying to get over it. It feels like I’m way too familiar with this routine. Get a cold, drink some meds, stay in all day, try not to die. With the frequency this happened to me last term, I may soon be recognized as an expert (or at least in the ‘advanced level’) at getting colds for no reason. My body doesn’t get used to non-tropical weather. 

The good thing is that I get to rest and play with my new toys. I got my bose headset this week and I also borrowed some photography equipment yesterday. I’m in my room using all of these things and trying to ignore the fact that I feel like I was beaten up in the north pole. It’s kind of cold up there (or so I’ve heard). 

The good news are that I’m almost done with one of my jobs this summer, and I’m moving in to my new apartment next month. Also, my birthday is coming up, which is really nothing exciting since there’s no point in turning 19, but it’s still kind of exciting. Who knows, maybe in the real world Hogwarts accepts their students once they turn 19 instead of 11 and I can just transfer there next week. If you stop seeing me in the fall, you can safely assume I’m hanging out with wizards.

Actually, I need to confess that I’m pretty sure my mom is not a muggle. Not with the skills she has shown. She’s been able to disappear money, thousands of dollars, by swiping a card with a magnetic stripe. She also guesses exactly what I’m thinking and what I’m about to do, and I even witnessed how she made her hair, and my aunts and grandma’s hair, look straight a few times. That, my friends, is magic. Also, since I was about 3-4 years old my mom started telling me and my brother stories about witches that she had seen as a young girl while living at my grandma’s. Apparently, she even saw two witches fight at night during a thunderstorm, each one of them was at the top of a different hill casting spells against each other. The one dressed in white, the good one, always won over the one dressed in black. 

I still look outside every time there’s a thunderstorm and I’m around hills.

So, I’m in my room getting over my cold while pondering the idea of moving to Hogwarts instead of East Cambridge, MA in the fall. Meanwhile, just in case things don’t work out too well, I’m trying to decide what colors I want to paint the walls of my new room and I’m also trying to get to Ikea soon to buy furniture. I might get tatami mats for the floor and no bed (just a futon mattress). 

Exciting times ahead. 

-Omar

Bella, photo taken an hour ago

There are times in which all you want to do is lay down and relax all day. Today was one of those. I woke up in the morning, brushed my teeth and used my computer for a while. Later I watched episodes of Sex And The City until I exhausted all my resources (i.e. finished the last season). While watching one of the episodes I realized that I was really hungry, so I made a bowl of noodles that had sufficient sodium to satisfy my daily sodium needs for over a day. All because I didn’t want to get out of my dorm to get food. 

In between SATC episodes, and checking my e-mail, I also read a book I bought recently. It’s a self-help book that made me happy for the rest of my life. Now I’m happy. If you look at me, you’ll only think about happiness. Make a web search for “omar”, it will prompt: “Did you mean happiness?“.

Other than being happy, eat sodium, watch SATC, and learning some Japanese… I did one thing. To think ahead about days like today, in which I don’t want to do anything, and think about how to make them more enjoyable. The answer was, to have a nicer room, of course. So I got back online and looked at gorgeous furniture and room designs. I spent a few hours at Amazon.com and Ikea.com looking through furniture and thinking about how to make my room the place were I want to live. There are certain key issues I have: size and shape. I really need to see how to make a dorm room nice and comfortable. 

But at least my room next term is going to be bigger, so that will make things slightly better. I don’t know what I’ll do about the carpet, since I don’t really love it all that much, and I definitely have to paint the walls. Living in a white room makes me feel foreign to the room. So I’m trying to think about the right colors. The bigger problem is, I then got distracted with YouTube videos and ended up watching Lewis Black, rather than think more about useful things. 

Here’s the coolest video I’ve seen today:

Titanic Inspires All of Us

After two years and a month in Boston (that including three summers) I still find it quite peculiar how big 4th of July is here. But as a good Puerto Rican and US citizen I need no other excuse to embrace the holiday other than… it’s a holiday. That, of course, defeats the purpose. This time I am celebrating fourth of July with friends I’ve known for four years. It’s quite an event.

Two days ago I went out with two of my best friends from high school. We had dinner at Chinatown and then walked back to MIT from there, an approximate 3 miles walk according to google maps. We stopped at the new Apple store in Boston, because when I saw it I simply HAD to walk in. Not only because it was an Apple store, but because it is an amazing store. The building is gorgeous.

I looked around and was tempted to replace my laptop with a mac laptop.There was no logical explanation for this other than, I want it. I decided to just go play with the iPhone for a while and go home. That was enough to calm down my need for a new mac product.

Yesterday, fourth of July, my two friends and I went out to the Haymarket subway stop and visited a very interesting and historic catholic church in the area. It brought back memories. Right after that we visited a graveyard that was nearby, just to get the full picture of the attractions around. After that thrilling experience we went forward with our lives and ate an exquisite meal at Ristorante Saraceno, a great small Italian restaurant in the area. I highly recommend it to anyone. Right after we saw the Holocaust Memorial. This was completely by chance since none of us knew about it. As someone who hasn’t studied or heard much about the Holocaust, only a few remarks, I must say that the memorial really made an impression of me. It really sent shivers down my body and made me realize many things about this horrible event…

After a day of experiences in Boston, my friend and I decided to return to MIT. We spent the afternoon/night at Senior House, the MIT dorm in which I live during the term. We had a barbeque in the afternoon and, afterwards, we all went on the Senior House roof to watch the fireworks. If you Google Senior House’s address (70 Amherst Street, Cambridge, MA) you’ll realize that the dorm is located right in front of the fireworks show. There is simply no better view. You’re jealous, I know.

Well, it was fantastic.

My friends and I lingered around and had a quite good night, which culminated with a few burgers and the three of us walking back home.

What will I do today? I do not know. What I do know is that I am getting a much needed haircut. A $50 one that is, but may I tell you it is worth it.

I’m still waiting for the iPhone 3G to finally start being sold so I can change my two and a half years old Nokia 6020.

There is nothing much more I can talk about. My job as a chemistry teacher assistant is very satisfying, and my research at the MIT Langer Lab is exciting. My summer is going pretty well so far, I just need to get my small injuries healed so I can go back to taekwondo practice.

-Omar

There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.

J.R.R. Tolkien

As logical as it might sound, Tolkien’s quote pretty much describes the state in which I currently am, and I don’t only mean literally as in lab work. Getting through the day doing one thing after the other, being ‘productive’, I always stop at some point and wonder about my future. What am I to become in the next five years? ten years?

I’m in a constant state of wonder, questioning every aspect of my life and every action I take. And I do this just because I’m sure that if I keep thinking about things, if I keep looking for more, I’ll find something. Something that will make every step I’ve taken meaningful and will make the future much more clear.

I should join some sort of religion, that’s what people do. But there’s no need, I’ve got bacon.

-Omar

Two years at MIT are almost over, and I cannot describe how I feel. Oftentimes I’ve questioned if coming to MIT was the right decision. I could have done so many other things, how did I choose my current path? I really don’t know, and I don’t think I’ll ever be sure that this was the right decision. However, at the same time I couldn’t imagine my life being any better than it currently is.

Now that was a pretty strange thing to say. My life usually consists of being sleep deprived and trying to fake a smile in order to get through the day, this definitely wouldn’t be the case had I chosen something other than MIT. The amount of work that has to be done here, just to be disregarded as an average student, is something that I fear at the beginning of each week. The thought that, every minute I spend talking to someone is a minute I’m going to regret having ‘wasted’, later when I’m working on my problem sets… this is another sad thought. But hidden between all these horrible experiences that are enough to make many of us want to quit, there are the good times that makes it all be worth it.

The experiences I’ve had in the past two years are treasures that now I get to keep for the rest of my life. The rate at which I’ve ‘grown up’ in many aspects of my life is something that was catalyzed by my experiences here at MIT. Although I’m reminded constantly, much more often that I would like, that I’m just an average student, my academic growth as an individual is evident. At least to me it is. The activities that I’ve pursued while being at MIT are completely different to things I would have done in many other places. This is probably due to the people that I’ve connected with and the way they have influenced my life.

My second year at MIT is almost over, all I can say is… ‘THANK GOODNESS’. This is probably going to be my ‘worst’ term because of my course load, and soon I’ll be starting a ‘new’ phase of my education. This summer I’ll be doing research full time for the first time, and I’m quite excited about that. Also, soon I’ll become a junior… which is a scary but thrilling thought.

There is no real purpose to this blog entry, other than to say, I’m enjoying my life, even though it could be much better. I guess I have a very optimistic take on things. Now I’ll go back to work, and hopefully I won’t regret not having done something more… ‘useful’ during this time I just ‘wasted’.

-Omar

Milena wrote a few days ago about how she felt that the only thing she needed right now to compliment her life is a hot boy. She has good grades, she parties, she eats well and even goes shopping. As an 18 years old girl she’s only missing that special person that will give her some love at the end of the day. I was happy to hear that she was doing so well, but a prospective MIT applicant wasn’t. He wrote her the following:

“Well, you applied and got into MIT…as a prospective student, it’s hard for me to see someone who has been accepted have that kind of mentality. If the epitome of success is good friends, good looks, good grades, a good guy and being very well off, living off of a comfortable income and indulging in luxuries, then what is being at MIT all about?”

Let’s call this prospective applicant Y (because X was part of my last blog entry). I just have one thing to say to Y, I think you’ve been overwhelmed by MIT promotion material. Seriously, close your eyes and shake it off for a little while. MIT has ~4000 undergrads, most of them between the ages ~18-22. Do you really think that all these people are constantly thinking about how to save the world? No.

MIT students party, drink, enjoy their lives in many ways. This is, of course, when taking a break from doing homework. What kind of homework? The one that consumes their lives during the days (and nights). The solutions to the problem sets that MIT undergrads work on, are not going to save the world, not at all.

The things that Milena, and most MIT undergrads, want right now, are just normal things. They do not want to throw away the ‘college experience’ so they can save the world… because even if they did, they’ll probably just fail out of the institute after getting depressed. Which is pretty sad. In order to keep themselves sane, MIT students just don’t try to save the world and get good grades at the same time. It would just consume their lives.

I’m not saying that every MIT student wants what Milena wants. Oh no, some of them are just looking forward to Friday night so they can do something they call “LAN Parties” where they sit in a lounge and play starcraft all night. There’s also others that just want to watch a movie, or at least catch up on what has been happening in the world. MIT students barely talk about world issues, because they don’t know shit about what’s going on out there. Most of the people I talked to three days after the California fires began, didn’t even know that it was burning down there!

If you’re a prospective applicant, you can come get your high quality education, and afterwards use it for everyone’s good. But don’t think that after 50 hours of school work in a week you’ll be able to call home and say, I’m making the world a better place… cause you’re not. Not just yet. There’s time for everything, and current undergrads are just expecting that recent graduates are making the world a better place.

I hope my realistic point of view doesn’t go unappreciated.

-Omar