omar eduardo’s blog

[title inspired by bobby's post]

As of yesterday night, I finalized the details of my housing situation for the fall. I’ll be moving off-campus, to an apartment that is a 15 minutes walk from the MIT campus, and a 5 minutes walk from the mall. One good thing is that in snowy days I can take the mall shuttle to school which goes straight to Kendall Sq. Hopefully I wont be tempted to spend more time in the mall than in school. 

The main reason why I chose to move off-campus vs. the convenience of living two steps away from class, was not living two steps away from class. I feel like having my own place, outside of campus, will really mark a distinction between being at home vs. being at school. This doesn’t mean that I won’t do work when I’m home, I’ll have to, but it will give me a physical separation from the ugly MIT campus. This is a separation that I need to keep myself mentally sane. 

Living in a dorm means that you have no control of what happens outside of your door. If someone decides to have a party the night you have a migraine, you’re screwed. If someone decides that cleaning up their own vomit is too much work, you’ll face it and smell it in the morning, and probably for a few mornings after that. Also, I like being able to sit on a clean toilet. 

Something that I’m really excited about is decorating my place. Sharing an apartment with only one other person means that I’ll have much more freedom and flexibility in choosing the layout of the common areas. Although I’m mostly interested in my room. I’ve been thinking of different ways to decorate my room. I was thinking, maybe I could just have my futon mattress on the floor, and have not so tall furniture. I was even thinking I could have something similar to what my friend Suzanne has in her living room. 

Her living room is really nice. It has a tatami mat area which is extremely useful, comfortable and fun. That’s where we have had dinners in the afternoons and I’ve loved eating and then just laying there until the food coma is over. I’ve also witnessed the space being used for other activities such as working out, dancing, and sleeping. I’m a huge fan of that last one. Around the tatami mats there are storage areas, a table, and open space to walk in/out of the mats. 

Here are a few pictures from things/ideas I’ve liked, 5 out of 6 are Ikea’s! I’ll put more up later. 

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