And now, the thrilling conclusion of MIT Campus Preview Weekend…

I slept in reasonably late again on Saturday morning, but eventually got up and had some waffles at Next House. Then I headed for ESP because once again they were doing lectures that I was interested in: The Lambda Calculus and Unlambda. I think I almost understood lambda calculus, but unlambda went so fast that I was completely lost. That’s really ok, though, because unlambda is designed expressly to be impossible to code in. I also went to the Do-it-yourself Audio lecture on making speakers, which was interesting because the guy taught mostly about the circuitry of making speakers. I’m considering taking his IAP class, although I don’t know what I would do with a good set of speakers.

Next I hit up the East Campus barbacue, which was conveniently on the way to Sloan. A group at Sloan was doing a trading game simulation. It was really cool, although I didn’t win—I couldn’t spot a .COM bursting stock bubble when it was staring me in the face. Afterwards, they fed us pizza, and we headed back for Kresge.

After an official farewell from the admissions staff, all of the MIT a capella groups performed for the prefrosh. I enjoyed the concert, although I was kind of tired, so I had to work to stay awake.

Next was the Battle of the Bands. Now, I’m not really big on concerts, and I kind of like my hearing, so I came and went a little, but I did stay and watch Ben’s band play. I was fortunate to witness one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen: Tim the MIT Beaver crowd surfing. Don’t believe me? Here’s photographic proof (courtesy of Valery ‘08):

With my ears starting to hurt, I headed out and started wandering around. In particular, I was looking forward to Capture the Flag along the Infinite Corridor, but I didn’t want to be carrying the bundles of papers, promotional material, and propoganda, so I wandered back to Next House. My host wasn’t there, so I left my stuff outside his door, figuring it probably wouldn’t go anywhere (dumb? probably). I then headed back, and spent a little while in the ESP room. I talked with them about dorms, life at MIT, general stuff. Got some good input on what to do and not to do.

So anyway, Capture the Flag. It was sponsored by ΑΔΦ, who apparently does this regularly. We met at Lobby 7 and were split up into two different groups. Lobby 10 was neutral ground, and any part of the main campus was fair play. Also, everybody got t-shirts—either red or blue—that we got to keep. Much, much fun was had by all. We played a total of 5 rounds, I believe. My team ended up winning, although I never managed to accomplish anything. Anneke and I, plus an Illinois JCLer named Max, plus a few other people formed an elite stealth team. We were very good at being stealthy, but not so good at the whole capturing the flag thing. We finished at about 4:30 in the morning, though. I sat around in the student center with some other prefrosh for a little while longer, then headed back to Next House.

Sunday was for the most part uneventful. I packed up my stuff (actually, I had a hell of a time getting my bag zipped shut with all the extra t-shirts and such) and checked out at the student center. While there, I filled out my form accepting admission to MIT and turned it in. I had a quick breakfast, took the shuttle back to Logan, and flew home.

There you go. That’s it for my CPW coverage. Now that I’m done with that and school’s winding down, I should be able to go through the rest of my backlog soon. No seriously—I promise I will; I was really hoping to not get more than a month behind.

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