August 2005 - Posts
Don't worry, I'm not actually asking you. I just know that right now, no one really knows what their room phone number is. I suppose these numbers aren't as useful anymore since the dorm phone service has changed. But anyway, I remembered from long ago that there was a way to find out your room phone number. But I couldn't remember what it was. I asked the folks at IS&T what the number was that you can call. And here it is: 9400. Just pick up your dorm phone (or I guess any other campus phone) and dial 9400. You will be told your number by a computer.
Well, that's just my tip of the day. Let your friends know!
-Stephanie
P.S. I so far have managed to spot Mike and Julia at MIT. I keep running around Next House looking for some other folk. . .maybe I'm just bad at timing. Sorry! Oh, and let's all figure out when we can get ice cream like Kiersten mentioned!
That's right. I'm back at MIT! Room 319 if you want to drop by. Last two days I've been participating in RBA training. Good stuff, I've been learning about so many things that I can help all you froshies with! That, and I also got to go candlepin bowling for a bit of a bonding experience with the other RAAs.
Oh, and I went out to eat tonight with a couple of friends. I went to the Other Side Cafe. The place is kind of "hippie-ish", there are plenty of vegetarian options, and the food is pretty good. It's more the place to go with friends or on a casual date, as opposed to with your parents or someone you maybe want to impress. Hmmm, maybe I need to ad a new category to my posts: Restaurant Thoughts!
Well, I don't really know what else to post about. REX is starting to get under way. So I'll probably be helping out around Next House. See you around!
-Stephanie
Hmm, where to begin. Ah yes. Joseph has "finished" the Next House Website. It looks so cool! Way to go, Joseph! There are still a few broken links and missing information, but he's still working on it. But feel free to check it out!
In other news, I found an addicting website: 43things.com. It's really cool. You can list your goals and such, and see who else is doing them and stuff. Once I set it up a little more, maybe I'll post my list.
I also found out when I'm getting back to MIT. I'm coming in pretty late on Wednesday, August 24. (a week from today!!) You can try dropping by my room that evening (319 Next House), but your best bet is to wait until Thursday at least (though I will be training for another year of RBA for most of the day Thursday and Friday. . .but I'll try to visit you if I can (no promises!). Just let me know where you're living. (Next House people are most likely to be visited. . .sorry! I'm lazy!)
So, that's all for now. Really psyched to get to meet all of you after blogging and commenting with you all summer. Hopefully everyone keeps up with their blogs so we can all know what's going on in each other's lives.
See you!
-Stephanie
EDIT: (wow, i keep doing this now) For all you non-09s, schedules have been posted. Check it out.
So, this is mostly for the 09s, since hopefully the current students know about all this already. I wanted to let you know about a few ways to get useful software (besides the usual free stuff, like my beloved Firefox browser and Thunderbird mail client and RSS reader). If you are an MIT student (and have your Certificates installed), you really win in terms of getting some free software. One good site to download software is the MIT Software page, which has useful software for Macintosh, Windows, and Linux computers/operating systems. You can get the Kerberos authentication and encryption software, Adobe Reader, and Anti-virus software. There's also a pretty neat program out there that you can access online from pretty much anywhere, or through a desktop client (that you can download). It's called TechTime, and I am in love with it. It's based on Oracle Calendar, and is pretty nifty since you can actually do a lot of stuff like schedule events with other people, and such. I guess I wont explain everything about it here (that would be silly, and besides, I don't know everything about it by a long shot), but I might be able to answer questions (or point you in the right direction).
Okay, so that was a little overview about the completely free, no questions asked software. There is also quite a bit of software availible to you if you have a decent reason to use it (i.e. for a class, UROP, etc.). Don't be afraid to request the software, though, because there's some pretty good stuff there. Okay, so the site. It's the Volume Site License Software page, and it has some stuff that's free, plus some stuff that's discounted. Depending on the software, you either can request it for yourself, or request it through your class/major/advisor. You'll just have to read through the instructions for the software you want to obtain, to see what you have to do. I've gotten Mathematica and Dreamweaver through this site. I got Mathematica as part of 3.016 (Mathematics for Materials Science and Engineers), and I got Dreamweaver so I could make websites for my RBA advisees to find information. So, those were the reasons I gave when requesting the software. They don't usually have too much of a problem with requests, as long as they're not something like, "cause I want it" or "so i can do mean things to my roommate", or I don't even know what.
So, what other software do you guys use? I really recommend checking these sites out (especially the MIT Software page). I don't know if they still do this, but they might hand out a CD of all the software found on that page with your big packet of Orientation information. So maybe that will make things even easier.
This post makes me want to talk about Athena, but I figure that's for perhaps another post, maybe made by another person all together, since there is so much to know about Athena. If you have any questions about that, you can also try asking me, though I might just point you to a friend or a website. . .
Well, hope that was useful. Again, let me know if you have any questions about this stuff (or anything else). Can't wait to meet you all!
-Stephanie
EDIT: p.s. as one of my comments says, I discovered that MIT is already presenting this information nicely. . .check out Computing for Students at MIT.
So here goes nothing! I updated the links slightly, because I just found the Class of 2009 Calendar that I knew would eventually pop up (there were similar ones in past years). I guess there's similar information to Ann's Prefrosh Calendar.
I'm currently helping Joseph update the Next House Website, but as of right now, we haven't gotten stuff updated yet. I figured the whole website was a pretty big job, and that Joseph deserved a little help. So, I'll definitely let you know when the new site is up.
I'm going to be done with work in a little over a week. I'm a bit worried, because I should have all my data collected and ideas put together before I leave. We'll see.
I know a lot of you guys are packing and stuff right now, so if you have any questions about what to bring/what not to bring, feel free to ask me!
Hmm, for some reason I can't seem to write longs paragraphs right now. Oh well. Short little paragraphs will have to do for now. . .
-Steph
Okay, I just love that quote from Finding Nemo. Dory was such a great character! Anyway, I've been chugging along at work. I've actually found something that I think is pretty cool. I was able to get an imprint from a splice that, when viewed under a microscope, shows minute cracks. This may sound lame to you, but that's basically what I was hoping to find, and I never thought I would see them in such detail. But yeah, I'll keep recording all this fabulous data and things should go well.
Finished reading another book. I tell you, 4 hours of travel time really helps you get a lot of reading done. So, I just finished reading Let Go of Clutter by Harriet Schechter. She's got a couple of websites out there, too. One for the book, and one for the author in general. I really liked this book because I have so much trouble with clutter and trying to keep my room in order (just ask Katelyn or Sarah about just how messy my room can get)! It gave me a lot of ideas, and it got me thinking about all the stuff I want to do for my dorm room when I get to campus!
Anyway, that's all for now!
-Stephanie
Well, my friend Jamie came up to visit me this weekend. Lots of fun. We went into Philadelphia and saw some of the historical places there. The buildings we went into were all part of Independence National Historical Park. We saw the Liberty Bell, and also went into Congress Hall, Old City Hall, and Philosophical Hall. I'd been there quite a few years ago, but it was nice going back to see some historical buildings and symbols. And I couldn't help but feel a bit special thinking about the Course 3-ness involved in the Liberty Bell! I also liked learning more about the history of Congress Hall (where senate and congress met while Philadelphia was the nation's capital), and the Old City Hall (It acted as both the city's courthouse and the supreme court). Philosophical Hall was more of a tiny museum of art, science, and history.
We got back to my town, and went out to a local Mexican restaurant for some really tasty food, then decided to check out the movies. We decided on Wedding Crashers. There weren't too many choices, and we figured, why not? I guess the movie was pretty funny, but part of the movie just made Jamie and me want to visit Washington, D.C. (the city the movie takes place in). It probably had something to do with our historical site seeing earlier that day.
But yeah, don't want to bore you folks too much. . .I don't want to turn this into a diary where I talk about everything in great detail. So, I'm done.
-Stephanie