Final streeeetch!

There are fourteen days left until I fly back to California for a much-needed break from this whole MIT madness. In these fourteen days I have:

• One three-page paper, 1.5 spacing, written in Chinese about the change in China’s societal structure as reflected by clothing of different eras
• One ten-minute Chinese presentation on the same topic
• One take-home Chinese exam, in which I have to translate the phrase “cultivation and molding of humanistic spirit, and the harmony of traditional and modern cultures” into Chinese. I don’t even know what that means in English Please don’t tell me what it means (that’s cheating :P), but feel free to laugh at it.
• One 7.10 pset, which should not have existed (as per the syllabus).
• One 7.23 final.
• Two piano recitals, during which I will be performing two different Bach concertos. I love Bach. He is my 17th century lover. (Sorry, Bobby. You didn’t exist bach then. HAHA FUNNY TYPO. I will leave it as is.)
• One ATS Xifan Sunday
• One TKD banquet, during which all the freshmen and/or new team members will present a skit roasting the seniors and instructors. I helped write it. It includes song and dance. It will be epic.
• One TKD cup party. (Did I mention that we won the league cup? No? WE WON THE CUP! IT IS, ACTUALLY, A VERY LARGE CUP. OF THE DRINK-OUT-OF VARIETY, NOT THE PROTECT-YOUR-GROIN VARIETY. I had to explain this to someone Michelle two days ago. Made for an interesting conversation.)

So basically, Chinese owns my soul, Bach owns my heart, and ATS+TKD nourish my (empty, empty) body.

Also, I’ve been eating yogurt + a crushed Nature Valley granola bar anda  Sabra pretzel chips + hummus cup for lunch every other day for the past week or so. It is delicious and nutritious and I don’t think I will ever get sick of it. Until I’m back home in California eating my mommy’s delicious cooking and wondering why the hell I ever put those things in my mouth.

Also also, I’m not sure why I only blog on Tuesdays.

Not the day to wear my good jeans…

The list of things they are now stained with includes but is not limited to:

• soy sauce
• almond tofu…juice
• coconut milk
• oil
• water
• red bean soup
• milk tea
• dirt and dust from our storage closet

Essentially everything event mildly liquid-y that ATS served at Strait to Taiwan yesterday, and then some. Annually, this is the most exhausting day of the year, but annually, it is also one of the most rewarding. When I hear people say “You guys should do this every day!”, I’m filled with an intense sense of pride in ATS, because this is an event that best showcases what the club is capable of. Sure, there are always setbacks (like us blowing every single fuse in the entire building and Facilities taking forever and a half to reset the circuit, thereby putting half of our booths out of commission for the better part of the morning…no I’m not bitter at all what are you talking about), but our ability to work through them is a hallmark of everyone’s leadership skills. I’m especially proud of the new exec members who’ve come so far, from being absolutely clueless about event planning to captaining an event as monumental as Strait to Taiwan.

Someday, years down the line when I come back to visit after graduation, I’ll be on the other side of the booth, waiting in line with tickets in hand for a grilled tofu kabob. Until then, though, I’ll have to remember not to wear my good jeans on Strait to Taiwan days.

Why, no, I didn’t fall off the face of the earth

I was actually on a cruise to the Bahamas with fifteen of my ATS lovelies for spring break. Pictures are forthcoming.There was sun and sand and water and food and….

Oh, the food. Good lord, the food. There was a buffet open for breakfast and lunch with a surprisingly large vegetarian selection, plus a pizza bar open until 3am with enough cheese and tomato sauce to satisfy late-night cravings. Dinner was a gourmet ordeal — three courses with the option of ordering more (an option that most of our male contingent took to heart). Admittedly, there wasn’t always a choice for my entree, but the desserts more than made up for it. Tiramisu, cherry jubilee, chocolate cake, key lime pie, and more ice cream than you could shake a spoon at. Also, there was a cold fruit soup appetizer every night that, aside from the first evening’s watermelon-and-tomato oddity, was always very tasty. There was a pear soup the second evening that was essentially pear-flavored applesauce. Why nobody has yet marketed pear-flavored applesauce, I still do not understand.

Aside from stuffing our faces, the sixteen of us also jetskiied, parasailed, and generally chillaxed all over the place. The cruise docked in Nassau, Bahamas; Coco Cay (a private island owned by the cruise line); and Key West, FL. It was really windy the first few days, so we wore jackets over our swimsuits and only entered the (cold!) Caribbean waters with hesitation. However, Key West was a spring break dream come true. Gorgeous weather, a cute window shopping district, and an extremely chill Australian ex-pat surfer with the most adorable boxer mix doggie. He was a self-employed painter from New Jersey who decided to road-trip down to Florida for a vacation with his adopted rescue dog. We first started talking to him because we wanted to play with his dog, but ended up chatting for awhile about weather, high-strung people, and places we’d like to travel. In Key West, I had a second jetski adventure (after the first in Coco Cay) during which I saw a sea turtle and fell into the ocean after an uncontrolled jump (the two incidents are unrelated). My third large purchase, after a Steinway Model D and a Kawasaki Ninja 500, when I become a Real Person Earning Money will be a jetski.

We returned to Boston at 4am on Saturday morning. It was frigid. Today, it is raining. Sigh.

ITASA at Duke

I spent this past weekend chillaxing with my ATS kiddos at Duke for the 2009 ITASA East Coast Conference. Duke has a pretty awesome campus–pretty landscape, tons of (delicious!) dining options, and vegetarian food labeled with large pink starbursts. Not to mention a kickass student center with a bunch of comfy chairs and 100% biodegradable smoothie cups. Every time I visit another school, I’m reminded just how tech-y and practical MIT is. There aren’t any frivolous comforts like the Sarah Duke Gardens, complete with a small lake, itself complete with rather ugly ducks and swans. Sadly (or possibly thankfully, for my allergies) very few of the flowers were in bloom when we visited, but I’m sure the gardens are gorgeous in the spring.

In the months leading up to the conference, I was really excited about the programming the Duke team had come up with. I was especially excited about the Hakka cuisine workshop because I know next to nothing about the minority groups in Taiwan. Unfortunately, I had to miss that particular workshop session because our bid team was giving a presentation to ITASA national board to hold the conference at MIT next year. Teaarrs. The Pon Fon Cha workshop during the next session more than made up for it, though. This adorable newlywed couple came to talk about the history of Taiwanese tea and the proper methods for brewing tea. Ana said that they kind of resembled teapots, and I totally agree. They were really engaging with their presentation and really enthusiastic about something that is, to us unenlightend folk, so small.

Out of the three ITASAs I’ve been to so far, my favorite was the UPenn conference last year. They had solid programming, short distance to travel between events, fun social events. But I do believe my favorite ITASA will change next year, because…

WE GOT THE BID!

Woohoo! ITASA 2010 will be held at good ‘ol MIT. I’m so ridiculously excited because ever since the Harvard conference my freshman year, I’ve wanted to have one here. ATS is such a strong club, both in leadership and membership, and I’m thrilled to be able to show off these strengths to all the TASAs along the east coast by planning the most awesome conference ever. Or at least in recent history.

Of course, this also means that I will be so hosed this next year…heh.

Congratulations is also due to webmaster emeritus David for snagging the Outstanding Website award and all of 2008 ATS exec for winning the Outstanding Project/Program award for Strait to Taiwan. I am so full of ATS love right now. xD

Sorry, no pictures because I (obviously) forgot to bring my charger and instead brought a camera with drained batteries. Fail.

我們的故事

This post has been a long time coming. I keep writing and rewriting it, trying to see if I can make it any more eloquent or any less ramble-y. I’ve given up, ’cause I guess it’s kind of like writing a college essay. Some things just can’t really be expressed in words.

Last Sunday was the last ATS event under my presidency, yesterday was the last exec meeting, and elections are in about two weeks. I’m incredibly nostalgic to say the least, because ATS has become such a huge part of my life since coming to MIT. No, that’s wrong. It is my life, with academics and other extracurriculars on the side. And I love it.

My ATS story technically began before Freshman year even started. Jackie, then ATS VP, was a counselor for FUP (Freshman Urban Program, a pre-orientation program designed to help freshmen get to know each other and volunteer around Boston). Before Freshman Dinner that year, she convinced Michelle, my freshman- and sophomore-year roommate, and me to run for Freshman Reps.

Here’s where the disaster began. Freshman Dinner was on the same night as CSC’s Utopia boat cruise. The lovely Ben and Darren decided about five minutes before we were supposed to leave that they needed to iron their dress shirts. Being male, they did not know how to iron shirts. Being the helpful person I always am, I did it for them. For half an hour. (I’m not very good at ironing shirts either.)

And so it came to pass that Michelle and I were half an hour late for Freshman Dinner. Not exactly the best first impression, to say the least. By that time I was tired, snappy, and irritable, so it came as a major shock when president Anne announced that I’d won. Apparently, one of my high school friends was there and convinced her entire table to vote for me. I can’t remember the looks on all the rest of exec’s faces, but I can guarantee that they weren’t pretty…heh. ^^;;

I don’t know when a gear clicked or a key turned, but at some point during the next month I fell in love. Richard, the other Freshman Rep, and I were assigned to work on TAI.101, a large event designed to replace Nightmarket for that year. There were so many nights when I’d look between my 8.01 pset and the minutes from the last planning meeting and decide that hey, why don’t I do something I enjoy?

In two years, the sentiment hasn’t changed. I love doing ATS things, whether it’s staring blankly out my window, brainstorming ideas for the next event or rewriting the Event Captain Checklist or updating the ATS Bible. I spend hours and hours on my long emails to exec, trying to get them as excited as I am about CPW or Orientation, where we draw in all the fresh meat. At some point in the last year, I sent 17 emails in the span of about half an hour, but somehow it’s never been a chore.

There are so many wonderful and inspiring people I’ve met through ATS. My little sib Angela is one of the most beautiful people inside and out I’ve ever met. She’s cute and funny and smart, and her enthusiasm is contagious. Or Bohan, my new little for this year. I’d seen him walking around Next House a lot in the past, but he’d always been shy and quiet. Now he’ll come visit me in my room every once in awhile, just to chat, and he’s just as excited about bidding for the ITASA conference as I am. I can’t even begin to describe how lucky I am to have worked with Anne, Jenn, and clee, past ATS presidents who have so much charisma and drive. ATS is my best friends, my family, my solace from the pits of MIT.

Of course, there are always times when I get frustrated. An event is going awry, or people aren’t responding to emails, or a task isn’t getting done. But I guess being president is kind of like playing mommy. You have to poke at your kids to do their homework, and you’ll get annoyed if they don’t practice piano often enough. But you also love them more than anything in the entire world. I hope my ATS kids know how much I do love them, and how much working with them for the past year has meant to me.

Picture post!

I’m sure you’re all tired of reading words. So here: pictures. None of them belong to me, ’cause I dropped my camera one too many times, and the flash is broken. (Side note: anyone know where I could get it fixed?) Click for larger versions! ^^

OMG want. I used to be pretty active in the Threadless community–rating submissions, submitting slogans, placing bulk orders during sales…the whole shebang–but lately, I’ve felt like the printed shirts haven’t been up to par with some of the old stuff. This one, however, is SUPERCUTE. Bunnies+giraffes+green. What more could I ask for?

Credit to Jackie (my TKD big sister and club president) for this one. MIT Sport TKD Club! I feel a lot of undeserved pride, since I contributed nothing to the win, but I’d like to think that I will sometime in the near future. :)

Some members of my family away from home at ITASA this past February. I love ATS. :)

I really wish my camera hadn’t crapped out on me, because I really want to show you guys the view outside my window! It’s nothing short of breathtaking, and it’s not even the best view in Next House. The trees are on fire and the ground is covered with fallen leaves. A little before noon, the sun shines just so, and lights up the Charles River spectacularly. Before October hit, I didn’t know I had a river view because all I could see outside was a big mass of green foliage. But now? Now I want it to stay autumn forever.

I could conceivably power half of Cambridge right now.

I am a big ball of energy. I’m so excited about everything right now. If I weren’t morally opposed to exclamation mark abuse, everything I type would end with !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. For now, I’ll settle for bouncing up and down, flapping my arms when I talk.

How am I excited? Let me count the ways.

1. Friends coming back to Boston. (!!!!!!!)
2. TKD tournament on Saturday.
3. Absurdly cute ATS kids. And fondue with them. Like…next to them. Not dipping them.
4. Bringing ITASA East Coast Conference to MIT.
5. Seeing doggies running around. There’s this one golden retriever puppy I see every day on my way to class. She’s such a sweetheart, and her owner adores her.

Admittedly, I’m still sleep-deprived and in a desperate battle against the cold infecting half the pistol team, but I feel like I could do anything in the world. Except schoolwork. I’m entirely too excited to do schoolwork.

Unexciting: Someone is eating something incredibly meaty next to me, and the smell is revolting.

Also: I have yet to write a blog post (probably since…oh…early 2007) that has been over 200 words long. What can I say? I’m spastic. :)