boston - week 9 and 10

okay, clearly history repeats itself. i've somehow gone two weeks again without posting. so, i'm not really sure what all has happened in the meantime, but it's definitely been good. i've felt really grateful lately for this summer--being able to live in boston, and turns out the internship only has a 10% acceptance rate. i had no idea. it's been a blast. all the other interns left 2 weeks ago, as their schools are normal (i.e. on the semester system, not quarter). so, it's just been me chillin in my new harvard/porter square apartment, and going to work each day. i realized that my schedule is pretty tight: leave front door for work at 7:30am, commute, work, gym, commute home, and it's 8pm. cook and eat, then it's 9pm. oh well.

last week, i walked to harvard to take some pics. originally i was taking pics of their grandiose, 1700s style buildings, but i ended up getting distracted by a garden of flowers and a bee. so, that consumed most of my pictures. i realize that sounds very masculine.






today was an amazing day. my tuition stuff was accepted, and i get to save $5k per quarter! (my 10-week tuition goes down from 8.3k to 3.3k). that's so hard to believe. that's soooo cheap compared to florida tech. 3.3k x 3 quarters = ~10k/yr. FIT is ~33k. yay for public schools. also, i think i got a new roommate today, and work is going well.

this week's indo lesson for the readers:
boleh saya minta aire botol = may i have a bottle of water
"bo-lay sigh-ya mean-ta eye-rrree bo-tall"

i have a feeling i'll be saying that very often when i'm there. it's quite possibly the most important phrase i've learned.

boston/cambridge - week 7 & 8

(pics of the charles river, which my room overlooked)

i really shouldn't go two weeks without writing, as i know i'm leaving out much.

at the end of week 7, all of us MIT lincoln lab interns had to leave our on-campus housing due to the incoming mit students' needing to move in. sad day. it was definitely an amazing place to stay. plus, one can only imagine how fun and easy it is to find housing in boston for only a 4 week stay. i should have started my search earlier. i had many craigslist people stand me up and back out just hours before i was going to come and pay. oh well. i finally got a nice, little place near porter sq (north of harvard). it was only $750/month, so i got a steal. :) only catch is there is no closet, so i improvised w/ the wall and the bookshelf in the neighboring room. it's only half a mile from the T (subway station), and the neighborhood definitely has a nice homely, old-school, historical, pot-hole-ridden street feel to it. it's good. its suburbian feel reminds me a lot of georgia's.




what i really like is how accessible and well-connected the town is--this applies to all of boston and cambridge. its walk-ability has helped me fall in love w/ this city. but yea, the streets here are uncommonly empty of cars, and are overwhelmed w/ joggers in all directions. i remember noticing this one day as i walked home from work in my dress shoes. as i crossed the intersection, i could see no cars in sight, but i saw a young woman pushing a baby stroller in the middle of the street to my left, someone w/ laundry on the sidewalk to my right, and a jogger coming towards me. later that day, we had a thunderstorm, and i just opened my windows and enjoyed it. i could definitely live here. at least i say this now, having not experienced the notorious winters. i don't want to be a snowman.

recently, i've been to a few restaurants, including a thai one and a more generic malayasian and chinese one. i need practice for when i go to indonesia. oh, and i've been learning some indonesian. i can only say basic phrases such as greetings, name exchanges, where i'm from, expressing what i like/dislike, want, need, etc, and just a tad concerning food, drink, direction/location. if anyone says anything beyond these exact phrases, i'm probably hopeless, heh. good thing i'll have my loving sidekick to help me out ;) she's pretty much fluent.

Q: which language do you wish to learn?

boston - week 6

the past two weeks have had the best sunsets i've ever seen in my life. the above pics were taken on different days, each with my cheap, old point-and-shoot camera (my main camera was still in the shop).

this past week, tim, one of my best friends from college (florida tech) was in town from nyc for a software engineering conference. so, we hung out, quite a few times... went to some restaurants, walked through boston, hung out w/ some of my boston friends, and went to a comedy show again. definitely good times, as i hadn't seen him in a 1.5 yrs, back when we were both visiting our parents in atlanta.

i ordered myself a new camera lens a while back, and it was scheduled for delivery this past friday. that's exciting since i rarely buy myself anything, and since i'll then have a really nice lens for when i visit sheley in indo. well, it wasn't gonna be too exciting since my camera body was still supposed to be in the shop for 1 more week. anyway, i called the repair guy while at work, and turns it out it was ready! the shop was closing soon and was 1.5 hrs away from me. so, i urgently called around and got ryan, who was close by, to walk there and pay the guy $200 cash for me :) what a good friend. so, it was great to be able to use my camera and its new lens on friday, instead of having until monday. that would have been annoying, but surely would have tested my patience, heh. here are some pics i took:





sunday, i went to a good church on park street for the 1st time. the sermon was very good. afterwards, ben and i went to a famous pastry shop. let's just say anyone with taste buds and eyes will immediately have their mouth watering upon walking in. actually, now that i write this, it's got me drooling again. in fact, im gonna go eat my last canolli from the fridge now :)

Q: what's your favorite dessert?

boston - week 4 and 5

i didn't take time to post last week, so i'm sure i'm leaving out stuff. the things that come to mind now are:

• went to Improv Boston. 4 groups. most were decent, 1 was amazing
• took my camera to repair shop :( out of commission for 3 weeks
• ordered canon 100mm f/2.8 USM lens! along w/ some other accessories :)
• got vaccinations for my trip to indonesia
• had an RA steal my mail package
  

oh, and one morning at 7:30, all the interns and i were walkin to the bus stop, as usual. as i crossed the crosswalk, i looked up and saw a guy walkin diagonally towards me. we were abt to collide and neither of us wanted to budge. so, naturally, he brought his elbow up to body check my shoulder as he said, 'get the [freckles] out of my way!' lol, it was pretty funny. who does that, especially at 7:30 in the morning? too much hatred.

as for the package stealing, i ordered a gift for sheley. i came home, saw the slip in my box signifying that i have a package. we interns were in a rush to go see the improv show, so i figured i'd get it when i come home. yet, at 11:30pm, the slip had magically disappeared from my box. nobody has access to my box, other than the RA behind the desk, as the boxes are open from the back, and the RAs are the ones who put the slips in. i asked the girl RA on duty--let's call her ms. jerkface--how that's possible. i saw my name on the list of ppl who had packages awaiting them, too. yet, my package was nowhere behind the RA desk. gone. she refused to even look through all of the packages for me and told me to come back tomorrow. how nice of her. 2 hrs of convos and investigation later, management and i confirmed that nobody had been accidentally handed my package, and that mrs. jerkface was the only person on duty during the span of time from when i first saw the slip and from when the slip was gone. clearly, she stole it, but they refuse to accuse her of such. i feel sorry for her, though. that's pretty low. management might reimburse me, though. yay.

boston - week 2

this past week has been fun-filled w/ so many events that i can't even recall them all. well, the ones that stick out at least are:

• going to see blue man group
• 4th of july fireworks on the charles bridge (and the pre-show on the 3rd)
• u.s.s. constitution parade
  
• my birthday

blue man group was pretty sweet, and the venue was much smaller than i expected. definitely worth the $25 we paid, but definitely not worth the retail price tag of $60.

3rd of july pre-show was marked w/ a huge downpour right before the show started, which cause huge lines as the ~200k people crammed into the grassy venue area once the rained stopped. the boston pops orchestra performed, along w/ the rascal flatts (country). a few people clapped for the flatts, but i believe they were clapping moreso from being happy that the flatts were done. it really amazed me that the theme included baseball so much, which definitely made me feel right at home here. i'm falling in love w/ boston. on the 4th, we saw the fireworks from the bridge. best show i've ever seen--the works went in tune w/ the orchestra. very nice :)

for my birthday, we went to one of the supposed top 18 seafood places in the nation. it only seats ~15 people. somehow, we managed to gather ~9 people to go... mostly intern friends and a few homeless people. good food, and not too expensive. afterwards, we walked by fenway and played pool. pretty much the best pool place i've ever been to. well, it rivals mr. cues II in chamblee tucker, ga. mr. cues is more for pros, though. anyway, it was all good. apparently ryan likes to use the [bleep] stick in pool, though... just incase anyone wants to know.

oh, and here's a map of pretty much all the significant places i've been to so far:

View Larger Map

boston - week 1

my 1st week in boston has been amazing. in fact, i couldn't have written a better script. within minutes of arriving in my MIT resident hall, ryan, brian, and i met up, which is the 1st time Team TacoBell has re-united since our internship 2 yrs ago in dc. mayhem was guaranteed to take place. well, we mostly just had ryan show us all around boston and cambridge since he's been livin here for a year. highlights from that 1st weekend when i arrived include:

• brian running through a public fountain
• brian being asked by a park ranger lady to put on a shirt, after which he jokingly ran at her
• brian's insane convo w/ ghandi
• ryan's friend, sushi. enough said

okay, i realize most of memories are inside stories and way too much to type, so i'll stop. basically, it was great. also, work at the lab is pretty amazing, too. right now, i'm researchin 2d pattern matching. i'm trying to find and implement the fastest possible way to determine if 1 image is found within another. i really hope i can do good work, and the environment isn't nearly as rigid as "taco bell's." this weekend was pretty great, too.

just within the one week i've been here, i've been to about 10 places, including some good japanese, chinese, and american eateries. i really appreciate boston's walkable-ness and how much it has to offer. i aim to visit more art-related places soon. i've met some pretty cool friends here, and my room overlooks the charles river and charles bridge. so, i live right at the brink of cambridge and boston. it doesn't get much better than that :) oh, and i'm making a google maps map of all the significant places i visit. i'll post it sometime.

if you could visit for 12 weeks any city in the states, which would it be and why?

it's summer time!

okay, trivial post:

this spring quarter has been very stress-free, as i was only taking 1 undergrad class, 1 grad class, and was a TA for 1 class. plus, the ugrad class was only comprised of 2 tests, and the grad class was only comprised of 2 projects. nothing else too significant. however, just to be cruel, both ugrad tests were pretty much on the same exact day that the grad projects were due. so, my entire quarter basically only had 2 real days.

so, the past few days have been crazy. the to-do list follows:
-wed @ 8-11am = cs181 final worth 60% of my grade
-thurs @ 3pm = cs263 project and 8-page technical report worth 40% of my grade
-friday @ 2pm = cs33 deadline for my grading all the projects
-friday @ midnight = cs201 little seminar summaries due
-need to pack my entire room (for my flying to atl, boston, indo) and cause i'm sub-letting my room this summer.

oh, to make it more interesting, apparently i booked my flight home to ATL to be at thursday at 9am--way before i was done with everything. wednesday, i awoke on 5 hrs of sleep, at 6 am, for my 8am final. soon as it was over, i picked up leslie, headed to my place, and we worked on the project and started writing the paper. after 16 consecutive hrs of work, we finished at 4am. came home, packed, and slept from 5:30am - 6:15am... a whopping 45 minutes, for a friend was driving me to the airport at 630am. needless to say, i slept on the plane rides :) yet, i was fortunate enough to wake up to some pretty scenery:




let the summer begin :)
boston, baby! it was all a dream.