Hello, guys!
I'm back to blogging! What's more, I've got a wonderful new home at http://ann.mitblogs.com. Thanks all for following “Ann of Green Gables.” Hope to see you at my new blog!
When do we submit the Housing Lottery?
When do we turn in FPOP applications?
Get all the answers with just one click.
Especially designed for the Class of '09, The Prefrosh Calendar (TPCTM) is the only calendar you'll ever need to keep track of all prefrosh-related events and deadlines. It displays all important dates published on Orientation 2005 and The First Year at MIT, so that you can find out everything in one place, from when to turn in the Housing Lottery to when to arrive for Orientation.
Wait! There's more!
TPCTM comes with mini-TPCTM (the small pink box on the left). With a sleek new look (as different from its beta), it displays and highlights important dates only in the current month. The instant you visit my blog, the state-of-the-art Today and Next Up technology lets you know if anything's happening today and what the next event in line is. Of course, if Today doesn't appear, it means today is a total bore.
To simulate the MIT experience, I coded all dates in Eastern Standard Time (EST). So, if you lived in Thailand, which is 12 hours ahead of Cambridge, mini-TPCTM would not display the Today event of May 15 until May 15 12:00 noon your local time.
Using trusty Notepad, I hand-coded TPC in JavaScript, CSS, and HTML. I had thought of developing TPCTM further, making it fully customizable, so that you could add/remove dates and pick your own colors, but I didn't have enough time. I've only tested it in IE 6. If you are using any other browser, and something in TPCTM seems out of place, please email me, and I'll try to fix it.
For those of you who frequent my blog, I'm sorry to say that I'll stop blogging from now on to study for the Advanced Standing Exams (ASEs). Let TPCTM be my parting gift till we meet in August.
If you think TPCTM should include any other dates, leave me a comment in Feedback or email me.
Enjoy! =)
EDIT: Many of you must have had problems posting comments yesterday! Sorry for that; I have fixed the problem. Thanks, Jane, for alerting me.
As you have probably noticed, I just added a brand-new gadget to the left menu. Seeing Ben's blogging calendar on http://www.3-107.com/, I thought, “Why not set up a calendar exclusively for prefrosh?“ The result is what you now see - The Prefrosh Calendar!
TPCTM will highlight and display dates important to prefrosh, such as FEE test dates and the dateline to submit the housing lottery. In the next few days, I will be coding scripts to automate the display of “Next Up” events (so that I don't have to manually edit it every time something new comes up) and creating a page for you to browse the entire calendar, from May till August.
How do you like it?
Hey, guys, I'm pretty prolific these days. Why? Because things are changing by the second!
The previously blank Orientation 2005 site is now up and running! There you'll find information about everything that relates to Orientation - International Student Arrival, Pre-Orientation Programs, Advanced Standing Exams, and much much more!
I haven't explored the site yet, so I'm going off to do so:
http://mit.edu/orientation/
Heeeeeyah! :)
The Freshman Essay Evaluation (FEE) is now open for registration!
Login at https://mit.imoat.net/stdnt/StudentHome.aspx.
I registered for the June FEE. What about you?
As a reminder:
The deadline to register for the June testing is June 6, 2005 at 5:00 p.m. EDT.
The deadline to register for the July testing is July 11, 2005 at 5:00 p.m. EDT.
Its the essence of this night, dark
This everlasting night, far
For whence it shall lift, bluebell
Come again it shall - foretell
The everlasting repetition of days and nights, conveyed by the above stanza from one of Shahab's poems, makes me think of the sine curve. Specifically, the equation
| y = |
 |
Let x represent the length of time in days, and y represent the position of the sun, with y = 1 meaning sunrise and y = -1 meaning sunset:
Then, as x approaches infinity, y oscillates between 1 and -1. In other words, as the days go by, days and nights repeatedly alternate.
And who says math and poetry don't relate?
Have you ever taken an essay test online?
As MIT prefrosh, we'll get to take one soon. The Freshman Essay Evaluation (FEE) is a mandatory essay exam for all incoming freshmen, except for those with a score of 5 on AP Language and Composition or AP Literature and Composition (sorry, an 800 on SAT II Writing does not count). Unlike the Math Diagnostic Test, the results of FEE have a direct bearing on us: if we pass, we may take any Communication Intensive subjects (CI-H or CI-HW). But if we fail, we must take a CI-HW class in our freshman year.
Even worse, if we fail terribly, we'll be labeled as "ESL (English as a Second Language) Subject Required," and we'll need to take 21F.222 prior to taking any other Communication Intensive classes.
But don't panic - the test is not that intimidating. FEE is a lot easier than SAT II Writing (in my opinion). If we take the test online, we will have three full days to compose just two essays - a narrative and an expository essay. The narrative essay prompt will simply ask us to relate a life experience, while the expository essay prompt will ask for our response to a reading passage. In addition, during the three-day testing period, we can utilize any combination of word processors, spelling checkers, thesauruses, and dictionaries to make our writing easier.
Wanna see real test questions? Here are the questions from last year's June and July exams: http://web.mit.edu/writing/fee/Advisors.html.
FEE is offered twice online, once in June and once in July. However, if you miss those two test dates, you can always take a paper-version of the test during Orientation. Each time the test is administered the questions change. Plus, you can take the test only once. The FEE website “strongly encourages” that we take the test in June. Because the results of the June test come out on July 11, we will be able to make informed choices of HASS-D classes when entering the HASS-D Lottery, whose deadline is July 15.
Choose your desired test date early, and register for your test date by its registration dateline. Currently, the FEE website is not yet open for registration, but I'll keep you posted when it does.
For more information on the test, visit http://web.mit.edu/writing/fee/ and http://web.mit.edu/commreq/. =)
This lovely postcard, sent to me by a Thai MIT student, pictures a helicopter view of the Dome and Killian Court. Click on the pic to enlarge.
Beautiful ground-view shots of Killian Court can be found on Anthony's mit2009.com. Here they are:
Killian Court View 1
Killian Court View 2
Killian Court View 3
View of Killian Court from Lobby 10
View of the Charles River from Killian Court
Up next: Those Freaking Easy Essays (a.k.a. the Freshman Essay Evaluation or FEE)
If the previous years are any guide, in May or June we pre-frosh will be receiving a Math Diagnostic Test in the (snail) mail. If you don't already know, the Math Diagnostic Test tests your knowledge of pre-calculus (algebra, geometry, analytic geometry, trigonometry, exponentials, and logarithms). The results of the test will be used by your freshman advisor to help you determine which mathematics or physics class you should take. For a peek at its difficulty, see these sample questions. If you get stumped, look at the solutions.
Most of you will probably breeze through this test. For those of you who think that the test is nothing short of a cyclone, help is available. The MIT Class of 2008 website provides math modules for your review, complete with several sets of practice problems and solutions. The modules page is hard to reach from the main page of the website, because there is no direct link to it, but I've got it here for you: http://web.mit.edu/firstyear/mathdiagnostic/modules.html
New versions of the modules could come out in May on the Class of 2009 website, but if you need prepping time, you can't go wrong with the above modules from last year.
Math Diagnostic Test? Hah!
No, it's My (our) Doodling Test.
Before I write about MIT in my next entries, let me first introduce myself. I'm Ann Rata, one of the four Thais admitted to the MIT Class of 2009, but the only one who is living in Thailand. Besides playing computer and writing poetry, I combat Bangkok's skin-melting heat on a daily basis (current temperature is about 40°C). Sometimes it gets so hot that walking a couple of steps in the shade will make you sweat. However, one good point of living here is the beautiful beaches! Among my most favorite pastimes are kayaking, swimming, snorkeling, and snoring (?) in the sunny sea (no, I don't sunbathe).
Last year, my senior class and I traveled down to the south of Thailand for our senior excursion, kayaking and snorkeling at some of the tourist islands in Pangna, Phuket, and Krabi. Below are pics of the islands and the Andaman Sea, taken just a few months before the tsunami hit. I'll surely miss this when I'm in Cambridge:
A lone fishing ship sailing in the Andaman Sea
Our troop kayaking at an island in Pangna, passing fantastic mangrove trees which stand naturally throughout our path.
I on the ship to the next island
The girls and I enjoying the feel of the wind against our faces on the deck of the ship
Along the way, we pass a fisherman's hut nestled against a mountain.
We kayak some more.
And a little more
Waiting for the ship at the dock. I love the clear blue sky!
Fishy fishy... time for snorkeling!
... and kayaking into the pitch-black Bat Cave, which is full of stalagmites, stalactites, and thousands of bats whose red eyes gleam back at us (don't worry, they are fruit-eating bats).
We travel inland to Laem Promthep, the southernmost tip of Phuket. People are eagerly waiting for the sunset.
What a long day! While the seniors play cards (not poker), I sleep.
Thanks my EIS friends for these pics.
For now, adios!
So, after a few hours of tweaking and getting a stats counter, I shall officially open my new blog - Ann of Green Gables!
If you recall the novel Anne of Green Gables from your younger days (eh hem), you will remember that Anne is a red-headed orphan who never stops talking. Most importantly, she repeatedly insists that her name is spelled with an e. But because I'm not the red-headed orphan whom Lucy Montgomery created, I will insist that my name be spelled without an e. Strangely, I also live in a house with aqua roof tiles. Hence my blog name Ann of Green Gables.
I'll frequently update my blog with tidbits about MIT I've found on the internet that we pre-frosh might be interested in, such as housing, the upcoming exams (FEE, Math Diagnostic, and Advanced Standing Exams), and other random stuff. Subscribe to my blog's RSS feed! =)
But first, in my next blog entry, I'll talk about me. ;)