This post is a love letter to food written jointly by me (Sophia) and Tananya. 

I’m Sophia, the past head and creator of the Massachusetts Institute of Culinary Experiences (MINCE),⁠01 Check out mitmince.com and @mitmince on Instagram to learn more about our events, recipes, team, and general thoughts on food. (PS: Even we’re a little confused about the stylization of our club name. But we love the feel of 'mince.' It’s an action that often marks the start of a recipe, and by that understanding, 'mince' is an act of creation.) a culinary group on campus. Tananya is the current head of MINCE. I started this organization to create affordable dining experiences run by students, for students. Hosted at unique locations within MIT and beyond, these culinary pop ups are meant to serve both as a creative outlet for students interested in the culinary arts as well as an intimate space for students to form meaningful connections around the dinner table.

Our hungry, ever discerning MINCE cat

 The original intention of this blog was to expose more people to our organization by presenting the goal of MINCE and (attempting to) explain why we care about it. This itself was like finding yourself at a meadow, and having to explain why you enjoy it. Certainly, we still hope to achieve this message during the blog, but its driving pulse has since shifted to understanding why we ourselves are drawn to food, and through which mediums we’ve chosen to pursue that awe. Some of these include MINCE, others do not.

Sophia

Saying I grew up on food is no less obvious than saying I grew up on air. I needed it, both literally as sustenance and fundamentally as a gravity, a first principle to found my life upon. I’m not sure when it started and meditating on how and why would be unproductive. The truth is likely as simple as noodles slathered in chili flakes and green onions, a ladle of hot oil tumbling down, aromatics alive and well. Revolutionary. My love for food, this desire to cook — I found myself in the middle of it and holding a bowl of yogurt, drizzled with honey, a stray handful of raspberries. I haven’t yet found a way out.

Like most members of MINCE, my love for food feels more like an instinct, a second first nature, than any cause-and-effect relationship or line of logic. Among the few belongings I hauled to campus my first year of college was a cleaver carefully wrapped in a microfiber cloth. Most of the media I consume explores food in one form or another, whether that’s documentaries on world class chefs like Vladimir Mukhin and Nancy Silverton, or a short form Instagram series on compound butters. The one notebook I’ve kept consistently is a recipe ideation book.

A recent page

I knew, certainly, that there was a reason I was drawn to food, but the thrumming instinct to be involved with food occluded any desire to spell those reasons out, taking with it any clarity in the process of untangling. More than that, the expression of something so important was difficult — something simultaneously obvious and impossible to put a finger on.

I first hit something during the fall of my junior year with my friend Kenny, a recently graduated ’23. He is a brilliant biologist, statistician, musician, the list continues. He is intentional, kind, intelligent, and raucously funny. Though Kenny does not pursue accolades, he has an impressive body of research and awards. He could easily (and humbly) find himself at any institution post-graduation. Instead, he will be moving to Kansas City one week after graduation with a two-year contract with Teach for America, teaching biology to high school students. After those two years, if he enjoys the work and the district, he will consider staying.⁠02 I don’t include the previous details to perpetuate a ridiculous conclusion that because someone is well-educated at an institution like MIT, their goal must be to climb the ranks at even more elite institutions. I include it to illustrate a freedom of choice and diversity of opportunity that few people have access to, making his decision all the more thoughtful.

I asked why he chose teaching among his competing interests of research and academia. He explained with an integral.

 Teaching has an undeniable impact. It was the surest way, with his skillset, to make an impact every day on the twenty or so students that sat in his classroom. Doing that every day for years, he reasoned, was like integrating across a flat line (for the more scrutinizing eye, a unit step function). His career would have a reliable impact.

Whereas working on, for example, a research project is analogous to integrating a pulse function, or a right/time-shifted step function. Projects like these have high yield at success, but there is no guaranteed success.

There is clearly no best approach. Both must exist for a functioning and progressing society. However, his explanation acknowledged the fundamental importance of daily impact, something rarely accredited at MIT. MIT is an ecosystem of buzzwords. “Finding the next…”, “Breakthrough in…”, MIT is discovery, invention, and innovation. We are lucky to be in a place that enables us to pioneer the next novelty, but amidst this culture, you can easily lose your grounding.

In short, how we treat one another each afternoon, our daily services to our community, accumulates to reliably enormous significance.

Admittedly, rolling out tortellini on a Sunday morning for a friend, obsessing over the perfect acidity for a salad dressing, losing my mind over the set of a panna cotta, and claiming this was all important sometimes feels silly. However, I could not shake that feeling and at last he had given me the words.

More than an art, cooking is a service. Go one level further— what we cook is sustenance. There are few activities which are repeated so frequently and with such casual import. We have two to three meals daily, and we should get to enjoy those meals. Small changes to our attitude towards and preparation of food add up tremendously.

I feel privileged to cook for myself and especially for others. Participating in someone else’s ritual and on occasion elevating that ritual feels analogous to being let into someone’s most sacred habitual life, a fly on the (kitchen) wall. A meal is ordinary in the sense that it is common. A meal is also beautiful because it is so common. There is such latitude to experience food – all the flavors and textures, the sights and smells – because we eat often and with necessity.

I want to inspire joy through food, whether that’s a 15-minute ramen bowl or a meticulously orchestrated two-hour course. A meal may be ephemeral, but add it up — three times a day, 365 days a year, how many years in a lifetime? — and you’re left with something permanent, a lasting effect of care and love (because what is love if not the most consistent form of care?).

When food is posited only as the snack you eat in lecture, a trip to the dining hall before rehearsal — something fit in between the ‘actual’ events of our life — we forget the miraculous, life-giving fuel a meal is, and the nourishment food is capable of imparting. If anything is deserving of ceremony, food is surely a worthy candidate.

Well, what does this all look like in practice? MINCE is among my favorite examples. We are a 20-person team of students. Three times a semester, we host pop ups where we serve ~35 students, chosen by lottery, a 4-course menu priced at $17. Each menu is centered around a theme. I’ll expand briefly on two past events.

Night at the Art Gallery

Our goal with Night at the Art Gallery was to highlight the culinary arts by drawing parallels to well-known paintings and movements like the Renaissance period, Impressionism, and Neoplasticism. We wanted to transport our guests and challenge ourselves with modern gastronomy.

Our Night at the Art Gallery Menu 

Our menu was:

(starter) “Birth of Venus” Botticelli’s scallop nigiri

(main) “Compositions” Mondrian’s duck breast three ways

(dessert) “Water lilies” Monet’s white chocolate matcha genoise

(drink) “Starry Night” van Gogh’s 4D butterfly pea drink

our courses and some bts of our team

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Our dessert team spent eight hours the Tuesday and Wednesday before our event working on tempering a white chocolate flower for each cake. They even made a computer-aided-design (CAD) model of the flower and CNC machined a custom mold at a maker space on campus. Our main was an aged, sous vide duck atop a honey glazed milk bread sandwich with a duck-fat potato puree. To complement the duck, we experimented with countless set gels, eventually settling on an orange-safflower jelly and scallion, chicken broth aspic.

But food is only one part of any meal. The company and the environment make up the rest.

Our lottery intentionally limits parties of guests to 2. We encourage students to come willing and excited to form new connections around the dining room table. Our reservation form from this event asked participants, “what would you study if you could major in anything?”

A few of their answers:

coffee brewing

electronic textile handicrafts

meteorology

furniture making

gestalts

chipotle menu design

our wonderful guests <3 (hi cami!)

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We then formed tables with the responses, hoping to ignite chemistry and intimacy.

our design team working wonders

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Our design team made over 50 balloon-animal dogs by hand, a reference to Jeff Koons’ famous stainless-steel sculptures. One per guest was placed at the center of each table. A bamboo reed was stuck between the arms of each iridescent dog to diffuse lavender, the fourth dimension of our drink course. The table runners were brown sheets of paper carefully striped with intersecting lines of color, mimicking the precise geometric forms and primary colors of the de Stijl art movement we would reference in our main. Look carefully at our menu, and you’ll find that the background is a CAD rendered model of a man with an apple obstructing his face, a reference to The Son of Man by René Magritte. Angela, our head of decor, even sculpted 3 clay pieces for the event–apples, progressively melting–which we positioned on stands throughout the room. The venue was a lecture room in the architecture department, but that night, our guests dined in an art gallery long closed. Mesmerizing and whimsical. Sacred in its secrecy.  A tiny world created for the evening.

Romance through Film

Romance through Film was a Valentine’s Day event we hosted through collaboration with MIT Datamatch, a dating algorithm popular on campus. The event emphasized one of MINCE’s major goals: creating meaningful connections with food as the centerpiece. I asked myself before starting MINCE, “in the torrential firehose of life on campus, when do people have the chance to sit together unoccupied?” The answer was over a meal.

Our Romance through Film Menu

Our menu was:

(starter) Charcuterie cheese board

(main) Lamb ratatouille

(dessert, pt. 1) Apple rose tarts

(dessert, pt. 2) ‘Life is like a box of chocolates’

(drink) Love potion

our courses

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Each was a nostalgic reference to the food from childhood films our team largely grew up on, from Shrek’s ‘Happily Ever After’ potion (our take is a raspberry syrup, strawberry jam, and pomegranate concoction finished with dry ice) to a humble vegetable stew that transported the vulturous Anton Ego. In an extravagant touch that very much embodies the attitude of MINCE, the cook team laser-cut and assembled custom wooden boxes for our guests. Inside, we placed a Bordeaux chocolate and a white chocolate and raspberry truffle. Engraved on the box was the message, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get. Love, MINCE.” The head chef of this event, Michael, wanted to use the romance of memory to comfort and delight our guests.

our MINCE team looking as beautiful as the food ;)

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After service, we shared with him that as much of a pleasure the meal was for our guests, creating those courses had given our team a childlike joy we’d all missed dearly.

our décor and talented musicians

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 The decor for this event was simple and elegant. We booked a penthouse overlooking the Charles at sunset. Two talented friends of MINCE, a violinist/pianist and a guitarist, generously played our event. Our team focused on how to spark conversation between our pairs of strangers. We opted to create a deck of question cards, some taken from the New York Times’ 36 Questions That Lead to Love, others suggested by MINCE members. 

A few of the cards are shared below:

Admit something.

What’s something you wish you could do for the first time again?

What would constitute a “perfect” day for you?

What do you wish you could spend more time doing?

our guests <3

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I am constantly surprised by the vulnerability strangers can achieve. Events like this have emphasized to me that when we create a place where vulnerability is both encouraged and importantly, casual, people will seek that space out with eagerness and intentionality.

This summer, I worked part time at a cozy ramen shop in Porter Square, Yume Wo Katare. Yume Wo Katare translates roughly to an invitation: talk about your dreams.

The shop is no bigger than two dorm doubles (maybe a generous triple) and is arranged in three neat rows of six. At any time, there are no more than 21 people in the restaurant, including staff. The walls are covered in cartoons. Each depicts one stage of the chef’s journey to opening this fan-favorite spot, from the years he spent in Japan to his arrival in Boston. There is a sign, much like one you might find on the road, NO PHONE ZONE, then in smaller lettering, stay present. Look up and you’ll find a painted sky, baby blue. Clouds, fat and imprecise, dot the ceiling. Each is a dream.

     Invent a patented design.

     Travel the world by van.

     Quit my job.

Even the chairs blend into this world of whimsy. The wooden backs of two chairs in the middle row read, THIS IS NOT JUST RAMEN. The second, THIS IS YOUR DREAM. There is only one item on the menu: pork tonkatsu. A broth so rich it looks almost murky, creamy from fat, some rendered, others still white, floating like icebergs in your bowl. Handcut noodles, chewy and jagged. Soft garlic, minced and preserved overnight, disappearing on your tongue just as it enters. The pork is salty and pink and has been braised for hours. Its fibers give way to the slightest parting of a chopstick. Delicious. When a customer finishes their bowl, a member of the Yume team will ask whether they have a dream to share. The customer nods and sets down their pair of chopsticks. The chef calls the attention of everyone in the restaurant. Even the noodles stop swimming.

He wants to build a log cabin in the woods and raise a family there. Stacked logs of cypress and moss, crisscrossing. Crickets chirping through the night (you hear them even with all the windows closed).

She is an amateur birdwatcher. Her dream is to spot a black-throated gray warbler, a rare bird found in the Midwest. She’s captivated.

“I want to grow old with my girlfriend.” She is sitting next to him.

“My dream is to publish a novel.” I know she will. The newest Brandon Sanderson sits on the table. I watched her thumb through it in line.

Inside the ramen dream workshop

 When I was first hired, I exhausted Jake, the owner and head chef, with questions about his bowl. What determined the plating order of all the ramen components? What was the flour mix and ratio he used? How did he come to the perfect minced consistency for the garlic? I tried and tried to drill to the root of the dish he had mastered from his Sensei. He answered, but I could tell he wasn’t interested. “You have to understand,” he said. “I’m not interested in food. This isn’t a restaurant; this is a dream workshop.” I was stunned. “I create a good bowl of noodles, so people respect the dream workshop.”

I am obsessed with food. I want to understand the mechanics of food, its science and interactions, in a pursuit of knowledge that feels more instinctual than necessarily deliberate. In this way, our attitudes are markedly different. But his words ring true to me. They remind me of the service and the space food occupies in the people it has and will touch.

Leftover gnocchi from our Fall in New England pop up, enough for an after party

The impromptu selfie

Leftover cream? No worries

Friendship <3

Upside down friendship <3

Haris’ masterclass on twerking, featuring the shores of Maine

A hug after our first pop down

Be real during R&D

Cutting custom tables for our first pop up

Don’t worry, it’s only a smoke detector

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 Among the people that food impacts, I want to emphasize that the service of cooking runs in both directions. In MINCE, as much as we focus on our guests, there is a special camaraderie built through battling with the kitchen. Most Friday nights before events, you will find the New House dorm kitchen and the adjacent conference room packed with members preparing pesto sauces, assembling banana leaf platters, julienning pickled radishes until well into the early morning. We’re fueled by our in-house barista, Haris, who at 11pm makes delicious instant coffee with hand-whipped cream. Michael once flew in a Thanksgiving pecan pie and roasted duck as a treat during one of our fall recipe and development (R&D) sessions. We listen to Tananya’s indie mixes. We go on roadtrips to New Hampshire’s White Mountains and Maine’s coastal cities for inspiration and retreat.

Without going out of our way to, MINCE has become a community of people who are as many parts passionate as they are kind and caring. A friend put it to me, “MINCE self-selects for people who would spend their weekends cooking for others.” I am proud of our members and lucky to call them my friends. As much as we create for our guests, who make all these events possible, we create for ourselves. The environment of innovation and friendship makes the delirious early morning hours, the frustrations over grainy caramel and burnt kulfis, part of an eager process for all of us.

team photos

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At the first restaurant I worked at, a modern Southeast Asian restaurant named Bone Kettle in Pasadena, California, days off were rare but anticipated. Each time, we would drive to Las Vegas to stuff ourselves at luxury casino buffets, stop at Cane’s for Texas toast off the highway, rip through bags of pork cracklings, and enjoy each other’s company in the brief refuge from long days. I consider the team at Bone Kettle to be an extension of family, and the two constants through our relationship were good food and good people. Working there in California was the last word of encouragement I sought out to start MINCE with my closest friends, because, in truth, all I’ve wanted was good food and good people.

Camaraderie on the line at Bone Kettle

As for MINCE’s future, I am excited to see Tananya’s vision come to life. Meeting her, getting to know her, is like taking your favorite walk at sunset by the river. Like putting on headphones and that first flood of music which crosses into audible sound, the swelling of something warm. More than anything, Tananya is open to the world, its ordinary and extraordinary offerings, in a way I find both incredibly rare and fundamentally accessible. I have met few people with such earnesty and affect. We share similar and different beliefs towards MINCE, which you’ll read about shortly. She has the patience and nurturing eye to both recognize and coax out the beauty in her environment. Further, she is able to translate that into something special, imparting onto others that sense of awe which comes so naturally to her, others might call magic.

Tananya and I

 I’m sure my understanding of food and my role in this vast ecosystem will change over time. This is my most complete, written understanding to date. When writing this blog, Tananya and I met many times to discuss. We were both struggling to commit pen to paper. She said, “how am I supposed to make every connection, when the words go in a line?” That’s exactly it. Like crumbs of bread scattered in my lap, the juice of a peach running down an arm…if I could explain the feeling with feeling.

Tananya

Hello! I’m Tananya, and I have just a few words I’d like to say. In my first draft, I actually had almost 2000 words to say, but after sitting on it for a month this is all I have left. Sophia has said most of what you need to know, so here is the rest. 

I’m writing this little piece because this summer, the responsibility of making decisions that guide Mince has been given from Sophia to myself. There’s been a lot to think about. I actually don’t have much experience dining in cool and innovative restaurants, and growing up I never ate out much. I probably don’t cook any more than the average person that just wants to save money, though I do want to work on that this coming year. Also like many other people, I see food as a meaningful expression of love and care, largely because of how I was raised–with good food shared with good people. Love, regularly scheduled, dinner every day. I believe that food is beautiful, because if you’re lucky, you have no choice but to eat, over and over and over again. If you’re lucky, eating is something memorable, and food becomes another way to find joy in daily life. 

In terms of joy, the other things I care about are pretty typical. I think the ways in which time is best spent boils down to only a few things. Being with the people I love, being with myself. Being with the outside world, seeking fresh air when possible. Reading good books, listening to good music, doing what makes me happy, whatever that entails. 

I also tend to believe that the things I pay attention to, and the fact that I pay attention to them, has meaning. Light and shadows, the feeling of wading in cold water. Kids running around places where they shouldn’t, the greenness of summer in my hometown. As I learn more and more about what it means to be alive, I find myself wanting to capture and express something about my experience, even though I haven’t quite put my finger on it. In short, I would like to be a storyteller. 

summer in Michigan

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I decided not to post 2000 words because explaining why I care about the things I do, to borrow Sophia’s metaphor, was like I came to the edge of a meadow and had to explain why it was nice. I want to try to tell my story in other ways, and see what comes through. 

I’m very happy to be able to call the people I’ve met in Mince my friends, and so grateful that Sophia started such a wonderful community. It’s a space where people can come together and share with each other, beyond food, what we love. Should you share a meal with us, we hope that you can feel that love as well. 

This is not a coincidence because nothing is ever a coincidence.⁠04 Catchphrase from <a href="https://unsongbook.com/">Unsong</a>, sometimes shortened to TINACBNIEAC by fans. Okay, it’s kind of a coincidence; if you’ve read my course catalog history you’d know that MIT had more than 21 numbered courses as recently as the 1990s. Anyway, I noticed this a few months ago, made a Twitter thread about some correspondences, and got the idea that I should commission art for this!

It was my first time commissioning art from people, and I had the following principles:

• I wanted to compensate artists for their time. I had no idea what a fair price was, so I offered $20 per card, and it seemed that people were fine with that? This money came out-of-pocket; I’m not making any money off this, I just wanted to see this happen.
• I didn’t want to use generative AI or whatever. Even more strongly, I wanted each card to be by an MIT student, and as much as possible get a different artist for each card. That means coordinating between 22 people, which wouldn’t be too hard, right?
• Not only did I want a different artist for each card, I wanted the cards to be as different from each other as possible too. That meant not having a consistent style between cards, and embracing the many different art styles that artists had. That meant I didn’t have tight specifications for each card either. I constrained the size and borders, and that’s it.

Some lessons I learned:

• I wrote a spec doc with some details that I gave to artists. This turned out to be a great idea, though I could’ve made some details clearer, like payment methods, or that I wanted artist’s notes for each card.
• Different artists take different amounts of time to make art. Some artists finish overnight, others take a few weeks of incremental progress. I forgot to account for this when scheduling things.
• Sometimes things happen to people, and they can’t finish what they signed up to do. It’s not that that person is bad, it’s just life. This is also something I forgot to account for when scheduling things.
• That adage about multiplying time estimates by π is true. Even when you think you’ve accounted for the buffer time, you haven’t, and you always need to have more buffer. Always. Hence why I’m making this post several months after I graduated…

Anyway, here’s the cards!

0: The Fool / 0: Undeclared

The Fool represents beginnings and spontaneity, and is set apart from the Major Arcana by being unnumbered. A first-year student begins MIT undeclared, ready to embrace the unfamiliar.

Artist: Song K. ’25, major in Computer Science and Engineering.

The Fool traditionally stands precariously at the edge of a cliff. We don’t really have cliffs on campus, but this frosh is standing on top of the Great Dome. (don’t try this at home) They are also in approximately the same pose as the person in Wanderer above the Sea of Fog.

I: The Magician / 3: Materials Science and Engineering

The Magician taps the forces of the universe to create things, a conduit between the spiritual and the physical. In MIT’s Glass Lab and Metal Lab, people bend material objects according to their will, shaping reality to match their thoughts.

Artist: Rihn ’23, major in Mechanical Engineering, major in Humanities and Science, @rihnscape on Instagram.

The magician; blowing a witch’s ball out of glass. Using tweezers, they manipulate glowing molten glass at the end of a blowpipe into a delicate ornament. The scene is framed with ornate wrought iron swirls. This card’s content is based off the MIT glass lab and the forge and foundry in the basement of the infinite. The likeness of the magician is loosely inspired by several of the glass lab’s wicked cool instructors.

II: The High Priestess / 24: Linguistics and Philosophy

The High Priestess guards the inner structures of our thoughts, the objects that philosophers study. The card also represents the mystery of infinite potential. How can a finite language contain infinite utterances?

Artist: Shuli J. ’22, major in Computer Science and Engineering.

The High Priestess sits at a desk, contemplating a complex syntax tree. To her left and right are alternate universes where similar but different versions of herself do the same thing. Each of them hangs in the space of infinite possibility and branching. In the physical space below them, galaxies form; in the abstract space above them, linguistics symbols tumble around.

III: The Empress / 7: Biology

The Empress is seated in the realm of nature, the setting for the life sciences. Through molecular biology and genetics, researchers seek ways to treat diseases and promote health. Nurturing and sustaining, two key characteristics of The Empress.

Artist: Michaela P. ’24, major in Biology.

I don’t really have much of an artist’s statement. I just liked drawing this.

IV: The Emperor / 8: Physics

The Emperor is about rules and structure. Things like dark matter, ultracold gases, or high-temperature superconductors all show that complex structure can arise from simple physical rules.

Artist: Andrea J. ’26, major in Computation and Cognition, @hydreajia on Instagram.

With physics as a graduation requirement, all undergraduates have some sort of interaction with the MIT physics department. Most students take 8.01 and 8.02 to fulfill the physics requirement. These subjects are taught in a unique flipped classroom format using lightboard videos. 8.01 and 8.02 are shown on the pillars of the emperor’s throne to represent their foundational nature, and the lightboard is incorporated with glowy writing all across the card. The emperor levitates a marker using the power of the right-hand rule. The emperor is dressed in robes that resemble Roman attire to give a scholarly look, and his features take inspiration from Peter Dourmashkin, one of the beloved staff of 8.01 and 8.02 who is a prominent lightboard video instructor. Finally, I’d like to credit my friend Lucas Ospina ’26 on the card as he helped me come up with many of the ideas that make the card what it is :)

V: The Hierophant / 18: Mathematics

The Hierophant represents formal systems and the pursuit of knowledge. The rigor and axioms that form the basis of modern mathematics form the dogma of mathematical belief, and many mathematicians find math intrinsically worthy of pursuit.

Artist: Tara S. ’24, major in Computation and Cognition.

I basically tried to convert all of the typical elements of the hierophant card into math concepts. The two pillars are now knotted strings meant to be a nod to knot theory in topology. The hierophant’s crown in the Mandelbrot set fractal. Their robe are is meant to look like an undirected graph. Their right hand is showing the right hand rule used for cross products, and their left hand holds a golden integral sign. The two devotees are made of various numerical notations from different time periods and cultures. I tried to generally have a chronological ordering to it, starting from a copy of tallies from Ishango bone, one of the earliest known numerical-related inscriptions, and continuing outwards.

VI: The Lovers / 21: Humanities

The Lovers is about relationships, values, and chocies. These are explored under the many departments of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, ranging from anthropology to music to history to gender studies.

Artist: Dora H. ’25, major in Computer Science and Engineering.

The Lovers represents relationships and choices; Course 21 covers a broad range of fields that intersect with each other and fall under the umbrella of MIT’s HASS requirement. The lovers are discussing their differing opinions on the person in the middle’s newest artistic creation while studying/working on individual projects in various humanities fields. I put references to Course 21- and HASS-related classes and activities in the lovers’ assignments, as well as the bulletin board behind them (i.e. the orange textbook on the table is Genki, the textbook used by MIT’s Japanese classes). I included three people to reference the abbreviation “HASS” (H, A, S). Here’s a game: count the hearts in the drawing!

VII: The Chariot / 2: Mechanical Engineering

The Chariot represents the willpower necessary for an undergrad to study mechanical engineering in MIT, like the willpower required to take a class and present your work to thousands of people.

Artist: Anika H. ’26, major in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

(anika didn’t write an author’s note, so this is cj pretending to be anika writing one) rollercoaster go brrr

VIII: Strength / 15: Management

Strength encompasses patience, tolerance, and compassion, person-oriented skills that go a long way in the world of business. The management major doesn’t need force or coercion to tame their problems.

Artist: Teresa J. ’26, major in Business Management and Design, @pianofinqers on Instagram.

The overall layout of the card is heavily based on other Strength tarot card designs, which traditionally feature a woman taming a lion with an infinity symbol on/above her head. I replaced the white robes you’d typically see with a business suit, and kept with the white, gray, and red color palette I normally associate with MIT. I gave her the infamous course 15 backpack, as well as a brass rat as little nods to everyday MIT apparel. As for the symbols in the back, I just put some that are commonly linked with business majors: email, briefcases, bar charts, even a playing card inspired by 15.0251, a game theory class I took on listener. I especially made sure to add a nametag with the name Sloan on it, as name placards are required in most business classes, as well as a little calender with 15 as the date as an homage to business being course 15.

IX: The Hermit / 10: Chemical Engineering

The Hermit gives up outside distractions to focus on their work. Chemical engineering undergrads have nicknamed their course lounge “The Bunker”, symbolic of their dedication to comprehensive major requirements.

Artist: Via T. ’26, major in Computer Science and Engineering.

MIT is hard. Often times, we find ourselves holed up in labs or libraries, trying to meet deadlines for thesis, projects, and psets. It’s hard not to feel alone during these times, as we miss calls and texts from those we care about because we just don’t have time. For this tarot card, I attempted to recreate these times, depicting a student asleep in lab, trying to make deadlines while their friends try to reach them. The equally scribbled papers on the other work stations remind us that despite the fact we are struggling alone at the moment, others are also in the same boat.

X: Wheel of Fortune / 14: Economics

The Wheel of Fortune, on the surface, is about luck, but it’s also a vision of the world’s systems working in harmony. Economists cut through seemingly random data, looking to create policy and programming that’ll make the world better.

Artist: Elizabeth W. ’26, major in Mathematical Economics.

Most of the card is based on the Stonks internet meme, with the Alchemist as the guy in the meme. The wheel and the moons surrounding the wheel are representations of the actual wheel of fortune, as well as the money sticking out of parts of the wheel. The firehose was just included to reference MIT, and the numbers of the stocks in the background are course 14 class numbers, such as 14.01, 14.02, etc.

XI: Justice / 11: Urban Studies and Planning

Justice and fairness across services like housing and transportation is a key urban planning goal. Crucial to achieving this is a deep understanding of cause and effect, another aspect of Justice.

Artist: Caroline C. ’25, major in Urban Science and Planning with Computer Science.

The scales of justice are unbalanced. The central figure Justice represents the honorable late Mel King who, along with many hands from the community, is poised to add more housing to rebalance the scales (thanks to anon for suggesting this). The map of the Cambridge/Boston area emphasizes a sense of place.

XII: The Hanged Man / 1: Civil and Environmental Engineering

The Hanged Man looks defeated or lost, but finds success by acknowledging his situation. The climate crisis can be discouraging, but civil and environmental engineers are committed to respond.

Artist: Jinhee W. ’26, major in Management.

i based it around ecobrutalism (the meaning behind the hanged man, as a symbol of rebirth and renewal in a sense), as well as incorporating small elements such as a bridge in the water and small windmills in the windows. for references to the hanged man, it was mainly just having her hang from a tree

XIII: Death / 5: Chemistry

Death is about inexorable change and shedding the superficial, much like the difference between the chemical and the merely physical. Death represents transformation, and from chemistry we get a key example: chemical reactions.Artist: Madison W. ’25, major in Chemistry.

In order to design the card, I drew upon ideas of Eastern spirituality, where life and death are deeply intertwined. The lotuses represent rebirth and enlightenment, but the number four, which is the amount that are blooming, represents death. I also opted to tranform the periodic table, an emblemic symbol of chemistry, from its traditional form to a circular format, attempting to conjure the image of the samsara and alchemy circles. The imagery hopefully evokes a more gentle and empathetic interpretation of the card.

XIV: Temperance / 20: Biological Engineering

Temperance is about balance and health, factors that come into play when engineering biology to benefit humanity. Patience and purpose are key to both Temperance and wet lab work.

Artist: Marissa A. ’23, major in Biological Engineering.

I kind of wanted the vibe of a less-is-more tarot card deck. The angel of temperance has been replaced by a bioengineer and her chalices are now a pipette and microcentrifuge tube. The background, though some of it obscured by the scientist, contains references to all course 20 core classes. And, as a small easter egg, representing the depicted polypeptide as its one letter codes spells out TEMPERANCE on repeat.

XV: The Devil / 6: Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

The Devil represents material wealth, addiction, and ignorance. Do any of us fully understand the consequences of the technologies we wrought upon the world?

Artist: Michelle M. ’26, major in Computer Science and Engineering

the card is from the pov of a course 6 student reaching towards the alluring glow of their laptop, a portal to infinite power and knowledge but also deep danger. we see the figure of a student whose shadow morphs into a demonic figure (the bezos head shape was not intentional but we can pretend it was) with a twisted devils horn crown (it’s the citadel logo.) there are eyes in the background as well as the webcam as a symbol of the perpetually watchful eyes of the internet and judgement as a whole. i also made the eyes kinda distorted and the ai-generated-esque hands very distorted as a symbol of recent advances in ai and the ethical questions that arise with them, esp in the realm of art. (to be honest idk why i chose to draw eyes and hands. the bane of my existence smh </33). oh also the webcam eye is red as a portrait of the average eecs student (coming into mit i saw that one compilation of student sleep times by major and saw eecs averaged around 3 am, and thought “??? no way that’s me”,,, oops lmao) also the background is red bc i thought it looked cool. no blue curtains there

XVI: The Tower / 4: Architecture

The Tower is hit by fire and lightning, and yet it stands. An architect designs a building with physical disasters and other challenges in mind.

Artist: Jenny B. ’25, major in Artificial Intelligence and Decision Making.

I had fun squeezing in references to real-world architecture in and around campus. The obvious references are the Great Dome and the little roller coaster-esque rendition of the MBTA Red Line. But if you look closely to the sides of the Great Dome, I stuffed in Simmons Hall (left) and Stata Center (right), since they’re pretty recognizable on-campus. I also added the Wiesner Building (MIT Media Lab, List Visual Arts Center) which was designed by I.M. Pei. At the very top of the tower, I stuck some vague renditions of brutalist architecture, kind of to poke fun at the Student Center and also Boston’s City Hall and Government Service Center. Everything else is made up.

XVII: The Star / 22: Nuclear Science and Engineering

The Star shines with hope for the future, representing faith in response to difficulties. Nuclear science shines with the promise of clean energy, undaunted by the grand challenge of fusion.

Arist: Emily L. ’24, major in Computer Science and Engineering.

Didn’t really have an artist’s note to add, just combined the star arcana traits with elements of course 22 and also puffin

XVIII: The Moon / 16: Aeronautics and Astronautics

The Moon is the triumph of imagination over fear and uncertainty. Boundless imagination flew us to the moon despite fears of falling, despite imperfect tools and instruments.

Artist: Steven L. ’23, major in Aerospace Engineering.

Most of the layout and design is just what i think looks nice, but the wolf and the space shuttle name Divination are references, respectively, to typical designs for the Moon arcana in tarot decks and tarot’s perhaps most notorious use. The wolf tail becoming the Milky Way is an arbitrary choice; similarities to some Native American myths are purely coincidental.

XIX: The Sun / 12: Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences

The Sun drives the Earth’s weather and climate. The undergrad EAPS motto encourages students to go beyond, and bring discovery energy into their fieldwork, attributes The Sun reminds us to hold.

Artist: Gloria Z. ’26, major in Mechanical Engineering, @orangebead_ on Instagram.

For my card, I incorporated imagery corresponding to the fields of study in EAPS: the ocean for earth, wind and clouds for atmosphere, and the sun for planetary bodies! I tried to imitate traditional tarot styles when drawing the sun, human figure, and telescope. The waves and seafoam at the bottom are inspired by Hokusai’s famous print “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” :).

XX: Judgement / 9: Brain and Cognitive Sciences

Judgement is about discernment and reckoning, examples of cognition. BCS seeks to understand our mind, which all judgement ultimately comes from.

Artist: Kristine Z. ’24, major in Computation and Cognition.

Like the various directions of BCS, this scene includes perception through the senses, understanding in the mind, neurons to neuron connections, and corresponding neural network models. The neural network shape literally and visually represents the trumpet call in the Judgement card which brings everything hiding under the mask into the open like how the models strive to uncover mysteries of the brain.

XXI: The World / 17: Political Science

The World represents completion, integration, and involvement in society at large. Political science focuses on global understanding, and seeks to empower individuals to participate in governance.

Artist: Rachel P. ’24, major in Management.

Political science represents the study of governments and political behavior, even at an international level. The red pins and string on the earth represents the interconnectedness of the different states of the world.

Final thoughts

I don’t have plans to organize a print run, though I do want a physical copy. If you’re interested in printing these, hit me up and we can talk about it.

For me, this project was a reminder that things happen because people make them happen. I thought getting people to make art would be cool, so I wrote a spec doc, asked friends for feedback, wrote an email, and set up a spreadsheet. I’m super happy with how the project went, and it’s satisfying to see this finished after several months of coordinating between people.

x = cos(t) + 3/4 cos(-3t)

y = sin(t) + 3/4 sin(-3t)

From “Parametric Equations at the Circus: Trochoids and Poi Flowers” by Eleanor Farrington

The oblong “petals” are created by spinning the poi head in the opposite direction to that of the circle traced out by your arm, hence the term “antispin.” In other words, if your arm is moving clockwise, your wrist would be rotating counterclockwise. By modifying the number of petals, direction, timing, plane of movement, geometry, and other parameters, variations on the basic flower pattern encompasses a whole family of poi tricks. It’s fun to nerd out about the mathematical intricacies of poi spinning, but that’s a whole another topic that deserves its own blog.

fire flowers! i think i was doing split time, same direction, side plane flowers here. Photo by Waly the blogger, who has photographed many of our fire shows :)

these are wall plane CAP flowers, where each hand is only completing half of a flower but it kind of creates the illusion of a full flower. photo by Shruti '24

long exposure shot of Jason and I's partner poi performance, where we stood in a line and did flower-extension (large circle) hybrids. photo by Waly

the back of our t shirt features the 4 petal antispin flower!

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I love the way the flower imagery bridges rigid geometry with the living and organic, inspiring me to recreate this pattern as LEDs on a printed circuit board (PCB). This would be a relatively straightforward project that would allow me to make all the mistakes that a beginner PCB designer would and to learn how to fix them.

Laying out the PCB

Having learned how to use Kicad from 2.679⁠05 Electronics for Mechanical Systems II last semester, I use it here to design the PCB. The first step is to lay out all of the components in a schematic. My main components include a USB-C port to supply power, an ATtiny microcontroller to control the LEDs, and of course a bunch of LEDs. For this project, Kicad’s built in library already included all of the symbols for the components that I’m using.

Here we also specify how each component is connected to each other. Pins labeled with the same name indicate that they will be connected by a trace (copper wiring) later on.

The symbols on the schematic can represent a family of similar components, but how these components attach to the board can vary across manufacturers and variations of the same part. For example, through hole resistors and surface mount resistors can have the same resistance and therefore serve the same purpose. The former would require two holes, whereas the latter would require two solid copper pads.

The exact pattern of the exposed copper on the board is called a footprint, which needs to be specified for each component. I’m hoping that Kicad would already have all the footprints for the components that I was planning to use, but alas no. I can’t find a suitable footprint for my USB-C port anywhere on the Internet, so I figure out how to make my own by referencing the part’s datasheet:

footprint of the usb c port

notice how some key dimensions, like the height of the smaller holes, aren't actually defined... so just make your best guess and hope it works out

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Once the footprints are specified, Kicad can “translate” the schematic into a board layout. The actual shape of the board, the location of the components, and how the traces are routed remain an exercise to the reader (or in this case, the maker?). Properly labeled schematics mean that at this step, Kicad only lets you connect two pins with a trace if you’re supposed to.

the board is supposed to resemble the diamond mode flower, but here it resembles the box mode flower because rotating the board actually makes it cheaper to fabricate

Ideally, your traces should be routed “correctly” at this point of the process, BEFORE you send it to the PCB manufacturer. Double check that everything is connected to what it’s supposed to. Triple check it.

Or not, and suffer later. :’)

Rerouting traces on the physical board

Three weeks after I place my PCB order, I finally receive it in the mail! Because I want to get these boards completed as quickly as possible to give them out as gifts, I’ve opted for the manufacturer to solder many of the components for me. Five copies of my board, getting some of the components soldered, and shipping total to about $40.

The joy of finally holding my physical boards turn into horror when I realize that I connected the LEDs to the RESET pin of the microcontroller. I could have chosen literally any other pin (except for ground and power, which are more obvious to avoid), and it wouldn’t have been a problem.

noooooo (D25 is the label that corresponds to the input of the first LED)

Luckily, Winnie, the amazing LA⁠06 lab assistant who reviewed everyone’s PCBs in 2.679, reassures me that it won’t be necessary to pay another $40 and wait three weeks for revised boards. She shows that by severing the misrouted trace with an Xacto knife and soldering a thin magnet wire from LED end of exposed trace to the correct microcontroller pin, you can reroute the board by hand.

the trace lives under the red solder mask, which can be scratched off.

a thin wire connects the LED to the correct microcontroller pin

multimeters have a continuity check mode that can show that my LED is now connected to the pin I want it to be, and no longer connected to the RESET pin

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Rerouting traces in software

When I turn on the board for the first time, I realize I messed up the LED routing too. Five LEDs are placed out of order, which would disrupt the flow of the flower pattern. My first instinct is to dig up and rewire two traces per misplaced LED, for a total of 50 traces across all of the boards, but there’s a much faster solution here.

Unlike the microcontroller pin mishap, this one can be fixed with code! The ATtiny microcontroller is basically a more lightweight Arduino and can be programmed in a very similar way.

This array tells us the order that each LED is “actually” supposed to be in. Basically, what the microcontroller sees as LED #26 should actually be the 21st to light up.

based on my limited knowledge of electrical engineering, it’s kind of a joke to “fix [hardware problems] in software” because it’s often a bandaid solution to a bigger problem.

once again fixing things in software!

The ATtiny is able to store 512 bytes of EEPROM, which is memory that doesn’t get erased when it’s turned off. Here, the first byte of EEPROM stores the last pattern that was displayed. When the board is turned on again, it simply displays the other pattern.

Sometimes it’s not your fault, but you gotta fix it anyways

The lights flash in the right order. The flower flows. I’m done!

…until I notice that some of the LEDs are acting kind of weird. At least one or two LEDs from each of the five boards aren’t displaying the right color. Poking around with an oscilloscope confirms that my microcontroller is sending the right signals. I dealt with the signal timings for this kind of LED extensively for my 6.115 final project, so I’m pretty confident that I’m not the one at fault here.

it’s kind of hard to tell here because the camera’s frame rate isn’t lined up with the LED update rate, but the circled LED’s red component is broken :(

The PCB manufacturer must have given me faulty LEDs. Aaaaaaaaaa

Winnie shows me two ways to replace the faulty LEDs. One way is to use a hot plate and melt the solder joint holding the LED to the board into a puddle of quicksilver. Using tweezers, replace the faulty LED with a new one. Then add a drop of flux to facilitate the new electrical connection and watch the feathery wisps of flux smoke dissipate into the air like ghostly birds.

The other way involves taking a soldering iron and literally melting off the LED. The more burnt plastic particles you release into the atmosphere, the better.⁠07 /s It’s quick and literally dirty.

Because I’m not a big fan of inhaling carcinogens, I eventually get the hot plate method to work even for the inconveniently located LEDs. If I place the board on the hot plate for long enough, the heat eventually reaches said inconvenient location to release the faulty LED. I just have to be careful to not accidentally knock off the nearby non-faulty components. The hot plate doesn’t discriminate: it melts all of the solder joints in its vicinity whether or not you want it to.

If I don’t heat up the solder joints long enough before trying to tweeze out the faulty LEDs, I delaminate the trace. Fortunately, a bit of tape and more caution with resoldering the replacement LED goes a long way.

noooo

Finishing touches

Diffusing the light with a lasercut piece of acrylic scatters and softens the LEDs:

diffused lighting!

not diffused lighting

the ~liminal space~ between the diffuser and the PCB

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A flower that lights up is cool, but a flower that lights up and stands on its own is even cooler. I lasercut another piece of acrylic to make a screw on stand.

it's always a bit of a hit or miss when trying to laser cut precisely sized pieces, as the width of the laser adds uncertainty. in this case though, i got really lucky with how well the nut and the bolt fit into the T slot! as a result, the PCB can be attached to the acrylic stand without any glue, which looks hella slick. Unfortunately I wasn't as precise about how the two pieces of stand attached together and needed glue for that.

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TADA!!!!!!!!

fire mode!!

part of rainbow mode! unfortunately including the full rainbow cycle would make the gif too large to upload here

There’s something meditatively calming to watching the lights cycle through the petals, around and around and around. It reminds me of the horror manga Uzumaki by Junji Ito, where a cursed town becomes increasingly obsessed with spirals,⁠08 think eddies in a river, the cochlea (spiral shaped part of the inner ear), a mosquito's proboscis, etc until the townspeople and soon the physical town itself literally become one with the spiral. I don’t blame them; spirally patterns really are mesmerizing.

I hiked 16 miles today!! I am now suitably exhausted. I’m clean again, which feels like such a relief. Warm showers are my second favorite thing, after soap.

Alright — this morning I started late, like woke up at 11. I guess I was exhausted. Black Valley Hostel caters breakfast — eggs, oats, cereal, and toast, and the little plastic squares of jam that remind me of Waffle House. They bought groceries for me, too. Not knowing what to ask for, I requested beans and chicken.

I made eggs with no oil and then made oats in the same pan, and was about to do the chicken, too, when I decided that I wanted to get on the road. I’d forgotten the joy of pan-cooked oats. It goes way faster in a pan than a pot, too. Perhaps the thing to take over from yogurt as a daily breakfast?

I got on the road at 12:45 and vowed to turn around by 4:30, so that I could be back by 8:00, an hour before dark. The first few miles, everything was wonderful, so beautiful and green. The open valleys enhance the beauty, too — every new turn showed a whole new space, the valley and the climbing mountain on the other side of it. I enjoy that more than forests, I think. Coming out of a forest to see the edge of a lake, the rippling water, and the beginning of a river — that was magical.

I texted some friends about how hiking is like what I imagine microdosing psychadelics would be — everything is beautiful and exciting, and from another angle it’s also beautiful and exciting. “A mountain! A cool rock! The same cool rock from a different angle! Another cool rock similar to the first cool rock. A river!!” There’s dopamine from moving at the pace you are. It’s lovely.

rocks! and sheep!

a mountain! a river!

There is an Irish tradition of “permissive routes,” where landowners allow travellers to pass through their property. The Kerry Way uses these routes, winding for miles through private pasture. The gates have signs that I imagine are for foreigners, reminding them to always close the gates behind them.

I went through the gates, always closing them behind me. It felt — special? I knew this was an ancient tradition, and I was determined to respect it. I felt vaguely honored that this trust was extended to me, that I was not trespassing but being welcomed in. I would never feel safe on private property like that in America.

The first gate, I ran into a group of people herding sheep into a corral. They were shouting at the dogs, and one of the dogs was long-haired and mangy, and I wondered if it was aggressive. But it was fine, the sheep went into their corral, and the people asked where I was headed. I said I was walking the Kerry Way. That way, then, they said, and pointed me to their gate. It’s ok? I asked. Yes, of course.

ladder that goes over a fence

cool ironwork

I wondered if my nervousness around dogs could rightly be called trauma. Some of my family’s dogs were aggressive when I was a kid, though only toward other dogs, not people. We had to break up fights. I wondered if this is something I could resolve in the future, through some kind of exposure to aggressive dogs.

There were sheep everywhere, spray-painted bright colors, like I’ve seen on the internet. They were often nearly close enough to touch, but they always shied away from me. They were cute as hell, though. When you looked up at the mountain, it was specked with white dots, all the way to the clouds.

When I planned out this trip, and realized I couldn’t afford all the hostels along the Kerry Way, I was so afraid of camping. I didn’t really know the territory. I would definitely not camp solo in many parts of America. I decided to stick to affordable hostels, and hike out from wherever they were.

At this point in the hike, with the beautiful cloudy skies, I thought I could camp. Everyone I passed was friendly.

the sheep are blue!

I didn’t see any routes on Google to tackle Carrauntoohil, the tallest mountain in Ireland, but I figured there might be some that Google hadn’t picked up on. My plan, then, was to walk the Kerry Way and keep an eye out for trails that headed up the mountain.

Spoiler: I didn’t make it to the top of Carrauntoohil. There simply aren’t any paths from here — the trails, it seems, were hewn out later, and they are all accessible from the highway on the other side of the mountain. I could take a taxi there, if I wanted — and pay Western taxi rates — or see if I trust some fellow I meet tomorrow enough to take me to a mountain. That seems a sure-fire way of dying, so we’ll see.

When I reached the end of the road shown on Google Maps (which doesn’t show ‘permissive routes’), I saw a pathway heading upward. It was made of crushed rocks, never really packed down. I hiked up, passing a woman standing by a stream — she seemed ominous until she waved, and I realized she was there with her family. At the top was an orange tractor, moss growing between the tires. As I came higher, I saw a lake, in the hollow between two mountains. It was so beautiful. I cannot describe it. The runs running down to it, all of these rock tumbles. I took pictures — the orange tractor, bright against the natural hues. 

Then onwards — through this gap in the mountains, which had about 1000ft of elevation. There was a faint path, but mostly you were travelling from signpost to signpost. Fortunately the posts were abundant. The rocks were beautiful here, too, and impressive in their way. I was reminded of the stacked rocks in Arizona, although none of these were stacked, just jutting from the mountainside and covered in grass.

There is such abundance of life here, where everything is wet. The grass feels more soft, you wouldn’t call these plants tough — but they bounce back when they’re stepped on, because they have all the resources to. So you don’t have to worry about trampling them. It felt strange at first to step on plants so much, until I realized they would be okay.

Then down — for a long time — until I found the road again. There was a sign for the Cooky Monster Cafe, at the same place as a B&B I’d spotted on the map. I decided to shoot for it, telling myself not to get my hopes up (my hopes were sky-high. I was starving. I’d brought 2 granola bars, finished one). 

In fact the Cooky Monster Cafe was closed, but the man there (who saw me in his window, came out to greet me) let me fill my water bottle from a tap outside. Kindness everywhere. I filled my bottle, and then didn’t touch it again until I got back, because it started raining and was too much work to pull out a water bottle.

stone bridge

I went back. I passed some hikers, asked the woman, is it raining up there? It’s raining now, she said, and it’s windy too. As if I couldn’t tell, I thought. Or perhaps she thought I was criticizing her rain jacket. I was now the unprepared tourist, I thought, remembering travellers from Europe and Asia with little 12-oz water bottles, sunscreen slathered on their faces.

I donned my jacket not long after, for it began to rain. And rain. And rain. But when I got back my torso was mostly dry! A huge relief. 

The way back was exhausting. I was so hungry, wet, and tired. I started listening to a podcast of Irish folklore, which got me through. I ran into a whole herd of sheep, who ran away from me — by running farther up the road, so it looked like I was chasing them. I felt kinda bad but they eventually realized they could run sideways, and then I passed by them. A big fluffy dog ran out from its house, rolled in a field across the path, then ran back, directly at me. I shouted, NO! BE NICE! NO! BE NICE! and it kept running, but into its yard. I walked on in relief.

I definitely could not camp here, I thought, after the first two hours of rain. If I did, I would never be dry.

Then I was finally home. And I cooked all my chicken. And a nice man washed my dishes, even the pot with chicken stuck to it,⁠09 he didn't try to hit on me afterwards either! I disappeared to my room before he could try, but that didn't seem to be his intention and the German lady mumbled through all of her trip plans, and I went up to my room and read 2 pages of a book and then scrolled on my phone.

I loved the welcome on others’ property. How open a country would feel. How safe Ireland feels to me, now, even though I get anxious when travelling alone. 

I’m in Black Valley Hostel, a beautiful, cold little hostel about 21km south of Killarney, a town in County Kerry, Ireland. It’s the launching point to walk the Kerry Way, a nine-day hike around Kerry. This is also my only stop, as it’s the only hostel with beds below $70. Tomorrow I’ll hike as much of the Way as I can, then turn around and sleep here again.

my hefty yellow bag

I only caught the late train to Killarney. I hiked about 4 miles of the Kerry Way before it began to get dark, and my phone was dropping rapidly from 33% to 18%. It climbed to 23% when I charged it in the bathroom of an old abbey, and had fallen to 16% when I decided, fuck it, it was time to call a cab. The light was falling quickly now.

Uber didn’t work so I called one on the phone. This was the right decision — the fellow who picked me up was from a collective of ten-odd cab drivers. He was really nice, so warm, and had a fascinating life. He still bikes and hikes and hunts and fishes, even though his hair is white. He drives more aggressively with stick on tiny winding sheep-lined roads than anyone I’ve ever seen. He recommended a hike up the hill at the Killarney end of the Gap of Dunlow, which I might try for tomorrow. If not, then two days after — I could probably run there.

He worked in construction, structural steel, for thirty years — in many different places. Thirteen years, he said, alone in the Middle East. His children now are spread all over — Ireland, England, Australia. He bikes a 100-km loop around the Kerry Road on the first Sunday of July, when there’s a charity event for it. Folk come from all over the world.

He charged me at the top of the Gap, when there was still wifi, and when at the bottom of it we realized the fare was three euro more than I’d paid, he waved it off. Kind of him.

Sheep sprayed in bright pink, blue, or red kept jumping out of the road, or else hanging out just beside it. Cars went so fast, even though the Gap road is narrow and twisting, too thin for two cars abreast. 

The Gap itself was beautiful — dramatic rock with grass on top, hills curving down. I understood, again, why Ireland is praised for its landscapes. If fairies live anywhere, it’s among those stones.

When I got to the hostel, the woman welcomed me in and I realized that they only take cash. “You gave it to the cab?” she said, and I nodded, though I hadn’t. She said we’d sort it tomorrow — this is late for them. It was about 10:30.

I went to the room and I have it all to myself, which is a lovely lovely blessing. I haven’t slept in a room alone since… probably sleeping in the morning after I stayed at Kevín’s. A whole night? Not since I was in Tucson.

This is lovely, and I appreciate the beauty and people’s kindness in this place. The house is cute as heck — I love quaint maximalist European decor. All the same I am feeling guilty for not planning this day out better, so that I wouldn’t have needed to call a cab. I am also starting to notice the amount of money I’m so blithely spending — it’s really a bit much. Alas.

But no use wasting time on anxieties. I’ll get some work done tonight. But first I want to record the highlights of this day.

Lough Lane

This morning I said goodbye to Selena, and the beautiful Irish house in Dublin (an airbnb) that stressed me out because two other occupants were sick. Then I figured out which bus to take, with the help of a nice gay couple. One of them worked in finance. He had Buddhist principles — in Thai — tattooed on his inner arm, and more on his shoulder. His partner, he told me, had ink all across his chest. They’d spent two months in Thailand and went back every year — or few years? I don’t recall. 

On the bus, he told me highlights of Ireland, but was interrupted by a bald man with an accent so thick I could scarcely understand it at times. Dublin, he said, is full of — rubbish? Riff-raff? I remember the word starting with ‘r,’ the sense that it was a word you only hear this side of the pond. Be careful, the man warned me.

Then I left the bus and boarded a train. I spent the journey sleeping mostly, mirroring the older woman opposite me. The man with her seemed to be giving me strange looks, but maybe I was wrong, and after all I couldn’t blame him — me with my tourist backpack, my big coat curled over me like a blanket.

Then Mallow, a small town where I had an hour layover. I started walking to a café but passed a Bolivian flag (green, red, yellow) and Spanish music. I paused, looking between houses at the event. It seemed private, so I kept going, pleased that there were brown people in this teeny tiny town. But a white man at the event saw me looking and invited me in. It appeared that he’d invited himself, or perhaps he had friends who let him come. It was a bit awkward, because I didn’t want to intrude, and definitely didn’t want to do so in English. Everyone was friendly but I did feel like I was budging in. 

A woman asked me the typical questions — where are you from, how long are you in Ireland? — in Spanish, and I struggled to respond, but made valiant efforts. When I asked for a word, they switched to English. Someone offered me juice made with dried peaches, which has a special name and is common in Bolivia. Mocochinchi. A man with a beautifully embroidered shirt showed me pictures of this place that is a mirror of the sky in Bolivia, one of the seven natural wonders of the world. I think it’s ice.

Then the white guy started complaining about how white men get charged tourist prices in Latin America, which to me was wildly rude and out of touch. He started addressing the complaints to me. Not speaking Spanish clocked me in his head as whiter. I remembered reading about this phenomenon in an MIT class, how Latine immigrants who are bilingual are treated as ‘less fluent’ in English. 

I thanked them and left, making mental notes to myself to learn Spanish. I felt awkward about intruding but also so happy to have found this enclave of Hispanic people in the middle of  Ireland. We really are everywhere.

It’s called el Salar de Uyuni

Then I got back on the train, read some Neil Gaiman, and got off in Killarney. I fumbled for a map for a bit, realized my phone was at 33%, and well, you know the rest. I made some key mistakes here — not charging my phone on the train, not looking up maps ahead of time, not planning the train route ahead enough to get to Killarney early. Alas. 

I was stressed for parts of the hike but it was so beautiful. The lake with its islands is magnificent. The trees, the grass, all the plants — this is true hiking paradise.

Torc Waterfall

It’s near a bunch of roads, too, which meant that hikers of all ages were out and about. There were many families, and older couples, too. Imagine having this much beauty so close by.

There was a family of deer grazing in a meadow, not far from the path. Four different sets of hikers saw them and stopped. They noticed us too, one young buck taking watch the way geese do, but they didn’t seem afraid. They kept grazing. This is perfect, I thought. This is the dream.

Nine-fold Pinwheel

Designer: I forgot (and can’t find the model online)

I started folding origami in high school because of a book I’d found in the school library. It contained a variety of fun models, from the traditional orizuru (paper crane) to Christmas ornaments. I was amazed by how the satisfyingly geometric creases gave rise to complex 3D shapes, and I immediately fell in love with the art.

Despite only having nine folds, I found this model the most challenging in the entire book (mostly because the instructions were rather vague), but it’s super satisfying to fold once you figure out how it works.

Five Intersecting Tetrahedra

Designer: Thomas Hull

The origami I folded in high school is what most people would associate with the art – following step-by-step folding instructions on a single sheet of paper. But when I came to MIT, I discovered that origami encompasses so much more than that. During my first winter break at MIT, I started folding modular origami – origami composed of many simple “modules” linked together to form a larger, more intricate structure.

The Five Intersecting Tetrahedra (FIT) is one of my favourite examples of modular origami because it’s both fun to assemble and visually striking. I made this one out of sticky notes at work!

Excavated Icosahedron

Designer: Unknown

Here’s another piece of modular origami I made out of sticky notes. Although not as visually striking or fun to assemble as its cousin (the FIT), this model is actually two models in one – it’s possible to the spikes to stick outward!

(I had a few sticky notes left over from this one, so I also made a tiny crane and a lotus.)

Unicorn

Designer: Tetsuya Gotani

After folding more spiky origami balls in my freshman year than I’m willing to admit, I decided to start learning how to design my own origami. Luckily, MIT was the perfect place for that. Not only is there a class about algorithmic origami design here, but there’s also an origami club (OrigaMIT) led by world-class origami designers. (You should check out their creations here and here; they’re truly incredible.)

Andy D. from OrigaMIT was nice enough to lend me a book of more advanced origami models, which I slowly worked through in my sophomore year. This unicorn is one of my favourites from that book because the end product looks so cool.

Cardinal

Designer: Robert Lang

I folded this cardinal from a crease pattern – a single image showing a model’s creases when unfolded but without specific steps for getting to the final product. Learning to interpret and work from them was a big step for me in my origami design journey, and this cardinal was one of the first origami models I folded purely from a crease pattern. A big upgrade from the only other bird I knew how to fold (the crane), if you ask me.

Dragon

Designer: Jo Nakashima

Sixteen Intersecting Triangles

Designer: Byriah Loper

I just can’t seem to resist folding modular origami. Something about the precise geometry and intricate weaving just really appeals to me as an engineer. I learned to fold this specific model from a book owned by one of my previous professors at MIT.

Flower Motif B

Designer: Tetsuya Gotani

This is another model from the book lent to me. Despite being a relatively simple 2D shape, it was surprisingly complex and required 38 folding steps!

Hydrangea

Designer: Shuzo Fujimoto

I originally planned to release this blog post way earlier this summer, but it’s now the last day of my internship, and I’m preparing to fly home tomorrow. Thankfully, I don’t need to abandon my origami creations at my desk this summer. On Monday, I put all these pieces up for “adoption” in my company’s Slack. And I’m pleased to say they’ve all found new, loving homes!

One last thing: in Canada, we have approximately three oreo flavors. In the US, you have like twenty. I am fully committed, when I arrive at MIT in the fall, to trying each and every one of these flavours and writing a review at the end of the process. If hired as a blogger, I will guarantee you exclusive rights to the publishing of this review and all associated anecdotes and photos.

It is now May 2023. I have been a blogger for five long (and excellent) years. I have tried SO MANY Oreo flavors. And the time has come for me to share what I learned with you.

I have to admit up front my cardinal sin: I have not tried all the flavors. I think it would almost be true to say that I’ve tried all the flavors sold in the U.S. in the past five years, but even this more limited statement may not be true: the more unusual ones are often only available for a month or two and I may have missed some while away or during the pandemic. Over the course of this project, I’ve also come to realize that there are many more flavors sold in other markets; I couldn’t possibly hope to try them all without bankrupting myself with import fees and burying myself in Oreos. So, this post is a best-effort — but if you make it to the end (or if you give up early due to length :P) I think you’ll agree that the effort was pretty good indeed.

A few logistics: I’ll go through each flavor in the order I tried it and give a quick review and some anecdotes. Then I’ll wrap up with my overall thoughts and a tier list! In this post, I will not review the most common varieties of Oreos. These are ones that I’ve seen and eaten numerous times as a child in Canada: original, chocolate, and vanilla. Even if you haven’t tried them, I don’t think it would be helpful for me to describe them; these are the baseline against which all other Oreos can be compared. I’d recommend giving them a try, and they should be readily available in most locations. I also want to note that I won’t review every single flavor combination – for example, you can buy mint oreos, original oreo thins, and mint oreos thins. I won’t review mint oreo thins, instead counting them as simply a combination of oreo thins + mint oreos. This is partly because they’re typically very similar and partly because not doing so increases the number of unique flavors to an unmanageable extent.

1. Freshman Year

Freshman year got off to a great start because after I mentioned my Oreo quest to my new roommate, she brought me two interesting flavors to try! I thought that was really lovely of her, especially because she had come in on a plane from the Bay Area and had to pack all of her stuff into a huge suitcase. The two flavors she brought ended up being one of the best and worst I would try throughout the whole project, which is pretty funny.

Choose carefully: one always lies and one always tells the truth…

Cinnamon bun: really quite good. The cookie itself is differently flavored, not just the creme, which often sets the better flavors apart. The cookie has a graham cracker kind of feel to it, which helps to cut the sweetness of the creme. The creme itself was a little disappointing, tasting more ‘sweet’ rather than actually ‘cinnamon’-y.

Rocky road trip: extremely weird. The front of the packages advertises that the cookies have “soy nut inclusions”, and to be honest that descriptor sounds exactly how the soy nut inclusions tasted: surprising and kind of bad. They did give the filling a nice texture, with a bit of soft crunch a la lucky charms marshmallows. But ultimately, the cookie itself tasted bland and the creme’s flavor was weird in an unpleasant way.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie: I bought these on my very first grocery shopping trip of college! I felt like a real adult walking into the store and quickly learned why real adults write shopping lists, as I got overwhelmed and forgot all of the real food I had intended to buy. I found that the peanut butter was too strong here and made it hard to taste the chocolate (but I like chocolate more than PB, so this could be a bonus to someone who feels the other way). The sweetness balance felt good, though, which makes this better than many other varieties.

Red Velvet: I bought these when our GRT⁠11 Now called a GRA and sometimes called an RA elsewhere; a graduate student who lived on our floor and gave us life advice. took us on a group trip to the store, which was awesome because he had a car so we didn’t have to lug our milk home by hand. Opening the box hit me with a strong smell of cream cheese, but the Oreos themselves didn’t taste that strongly of it (again, a pro or a con depending on your opinions). Frankly, this flavor just tasted sweet, with not a lot else going on, making it not horrible but not particularly appealing.

Peppermint Bark: These were an IAP purchase. My grocery shopping always shoots through the roof in IAP as I stock back up after finals and winter break, and because I have more time to cook. I really really liked peppermint bark! There were little crunchy pieces throughout the filling that gave it a fun texture (but without the weird taste of rocky road trip). The flavor wasn’t too sweet or weird; it was actually quite light overall, and I almost wanted it to be stronger. This desire kept me going back for more Oreos — actually wanting to eat more after the first one or two was a rare occurrence during this project.

(I proceeded to get very hosed and hit the freshman credit limit freshman spring; I have few memories of this time and even fewer Oreo reviews.)

2. Sophomore Year

The next two flavors, I actually did buy in Canada! I went home for the summer and tried these with my parents.

Pistachio Thins: These are an exception to my rule to typically not try the combo flavors because you actually can’t get the pistachio flavor in the regular Oreo format! Not sure why, as the pistachio thins were great. The flavor is definitely more on the artificial side (think pistachio ice cream), but still delicious, and there’s a nice balance where as you take a bite, the chocolate cookie starts out stronger but the nutty pistachio comes through at the end. I think a more gently-flavored cookie would have made these just perfect.

Dark Chocolate: Honestly, the dark chocolate Oreos were just fine. They weren’t that different from regular chocolate Oreos (which I admittedly love), and although the chocolate flavor was a bit stronger, they were also a bit sweeter which felt counter to the typical expectations for dark chocolate. Ultimately, they were too sweet for us.

Caramel Coconut: These were another IAP purchase (notice how sophomore fall disappeared? Let’s call that another poor decision with respect to time management.) The caramel flavor was a bit artificial, but not too bad. The coconut was supposedly in small chips, but they weren’t very noticeable either texturally or flavor-wise, making these feel like they were just caramel flavored. They were super sweet which just made them hard to eat (you may be noticing that this is an overall theme with the weird flavors).

About a month and a half after buying the caramel Oreos, the pandemic hit. I spent the first six months at home in Canada with my parents, then moved into an apartment in Cambridge with friends for my junior year. For most of this time, we were getting our groceries delivered; that, combined with a general feeling that the world was a little short on joy, led to a lack of new Oreo flavors in my life. I did try two, though:

Chocolate Marshmallow: Another one that was just “fine”. It felt like a blander version of the normal chocolate Oreo. I don’t think you would notice the marshmallow if you weren’t looking for it, but with careful attention it does come through and is pleasant, if light.

Chocolate Hazelnut: A similar experience but somewhat better. My original notes read: “Tastes like you took 30% of the flavor out of a chocolate Oreo and then put 15% hazelnut back”. I like hazelnut a lot, so this was a win for me. I also liked that they weren’t too sweet, maybe because they were more lightly-flavored overall.

At this point in the post, you’ve made it through exactly half of all the Oreos. If you’re like, “whaaat, really?!” — me too, man.

3. Senior Year

Senior year was back on campus, baby! Knowing that the end for me was coming nearer, but the Oreo list wasn’t getting any shorter, I made a concerted effort to try to get through all the flavors I hadn’t had yet. A lot of the ones left were ones I hadn’t tried because I didn’t think I would like them, so I started bringing them to blogger meetings so that other people would help me finish them.

Birthday Cake: This one is not. it. It feels like they took vanilla Oreos and just made them worse — sweeter, more artificial in texture and flavor. It does look pretty though!

Coffee: Opening the package felt like getting suffocated with an artificial-coffee-flavored pillow. The Oreos themselves tasted a lot better than they smelled, but that’s saying very little. I thought I would dislike them because I don’t like the taste of coffee, but actually, they only tasted slightly like (fake) coffee; mostly they just tasted overwhelmingly and disgustingly sweet.

Mint: Again, I thought I might dislike these because I don’t like the taste of mint,⁠12 To such an extreme extent that I use kids' toothpaste to avoid the mint-flavored kind but actually they only taste faintly of mint. These were not as bad as coffee; they were less sweet and the gentle mint flavor was somewhat pleasant for a bite or two. I definitely still did not want to go back for more.

Gingerbread: These were pretty good! A welcome relief after the last few. They weren’t as strongly spiced as real gingerbread typically is, and they were still a little too sweet, but overall the sweet-spice balance wasn’t bad at all.

Toffee crunch: Another entry in the “textured with small pieces” category, but I felt like the pieces were a little too small to be noticeable. This mostly just tasted like sugar, but in fairness, that’s also a pretty good description of actual toffee; there was at least a little bit of a faint burnt/browned flavor.

4. MEng

I kicked off my last year by finally getting my hands on Fourth of July Oreos, which are only sold during (obvs) July and which I’d struggled to find for several years. These are exciting because they have a different gimmick! There are little crunchy pieces, but they’re actually pop rocks and they pop in your mouth. The Oreos themselves tasted boring and crappy, but the pop rocks were actually super fun. They popped on a bit of a delay, which made for a fun aftertaste after eating the main Oreo. If the flavor was better, these would’ve been awesome.

Pumpkin Spice: another classic but time-limited option. I was unconsciously imagining pumpkin pie without realizing it and was a little apprehensive, but these taste like the spice rather than the pumpkin and were pretty good! They were strongly flavored enough that they actually felt fall-appropriate.

Neapolitan: These supposedly have neapolitan-ice-cream flavored creme and “waffle cone” flavored cookies. What is waffle cone flavor? Bland. I had expected the creme to be in stripes, but instead it was stacked, which meant the Oreo tasted super different depending on which direction you held it as you ate it. The vanilla mostly disappeared, but it was fun to be able to choose whether to eat a chocolate Oreo or a strawberry one. Both did an okay job of replicating ice cream flavors, but were, as always, much too sweet.

Brookie-O: In case you, like me, had never heard of a “brookie”, it is the combination of a brownie and a cookie. This makes sense as a treat that you could bake, but it does not really make sense as a flavor for an Oreo, which is already a cookie, to have. The package advertises that there are three stacked flavors of creme: “brownie, original, and cookie dough”. Like neapolitan, in practice this mostly means depending on how you hold the cookie, you’re eating a regular Oreo or a chocolate Oreo, both of which are fine but neither of which are very interesting. The chocolate one did have my fave little crunchy bits!

Snickerdoodle: A typical weird flavor – these mostly just tasted like sugar with a very faint hint of snickerdoodle (although in fairness, many actual snickerdoodles are also pretty faintly flavored). Extremely mediocre.

Blackout Cake: These were actually kind of cool — I had expected them to be a dupe of dark chocolate, but they genuinely did taste cakier somehow! Maybe the creme was softer? Not sure, but it was interesting. The flavor was more like regular chocolate than dark chocolate, and as always they were too sweet.

5. Overall Thoughts

Overall, to be honest, most of these flavors totally sucked. They were all super sweet and either tasted bland or weird. A few flavors made it to the point of “almost as good as the original Oreos, but I would never buy them instead of the original”; even fewer actually made it to “as good as the original or better”. Here’s my tier list:

S tier (better than regular Oreos): Oreo thins, double stuff, peppermint bark

A tier (equal to regular Oreos): regular Oreos, chocolate Oreos, pistachio thins

B tier (not as good as regular Oreos, but I would still buy and enjoy them): cinnamon bun, pumpkin spice, gingerbread

C tier (not good enough to buy, but I would eat them if offered): vanilla, chocolate marshmallow, dark chocolate, red velvet, chocolate hazelnut, Brookie-O

D tier (if I picked one up and took a bite, I would finish it, but reluctantly): chocolate peanut butter pie, mint, caramel coconut, toffee crunch, Fourth of July, Neapolitan, snickerdoodle, blackout cake

F tier (if I took a bite by mistake, I would throw out the rest): birthday cake, rocky road trip, coffee

I think if more care had been put into each of these flavors, Oreo could have done a much better job with most of them. But I guess they got my money anyway ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ And in any case, I had a ton of fun doing this project over the last few years. It was nice to have something that could take a backseat when I hosed, but that I could pick back up when I wanted to, bring up at parties, and laugh about with my friends. We’d dissect and diss on each flavor together and have a great time doing it. I regretfully admit that I will likely continue trying every new Oreo flavor I see at the store, despite knowing that they will probably not be very good. Who knows? Maybe years from now, when I share new Oreos with my new friends, I’ll think back to all the people I shared them with here.

There are few projects I have worked on at MIT that have truly defined my time here thus far. So far on the blogs, I have written about two of them: the MIT Monologues and a class I developed and taught: 18.S190. I plan to write about a few more of these projects over the summer, but I wanted to give a short update about 18.S190!

Just this last week, lecture videos for this course have come out on MIT OpenCourseWare, right here! I believe that lecture videos are an important part of accessibility when it comes to education– accessibility heightened by the incredible work from OCW. These lecture videos even include subtitled/dubbing in Spanish and Portuguese!

I am really proud of the work here, and I hope you find it interesting too. Look at some of the cool things you can do while at MIT! I would’ve never thought I could do something like this in high school, and here we are.

Oh and one last thing– in my post about IAP plans, I threw out the idea of posting outfits I wore while teaching, an idea which was endorsed by a commentor on that post. So here ya go, here are some of my favorite screenshots from the lectures + the outfits I wore during them.

Lecture 1

Lecture 2

Lecture 3

Lecture 4

Lecture 5

Lecture 6

Previous Next

P.S.: Why do I look like I’m giving a TedTalk in each of these screenshots lmao

That being said: I know that conversational warm-ups can be helpful in certain situations, and that facilitators of icebreakers are often just trying their best. I have also been that person! I’ve been a camp counselor, I’ve led plenty of collaborative brainstorm-y meetings, and I’ve introduced different friend groups to each other and had that moment where I realized I needed to kickstart some name-sharing because I’m the only person who knows everyone in the room.

So my strategy, honed over years of enduring awkward icebreakers as an awkward person, is threefold.

One: do an activity that doesn’t require participants to be put on the spot, so they can opt in (or not) on their own time and comfort level.

Two: don’t make it overly complicated or metaphorical.⁠14 no, untangling a human knot will not portend how well a team can untangle a work problem, unless you're an acrobat or something

Three: get people laughing—or, at the very least, taking themselves less seriously—if at all possible.

My current favorite activity that fits this threefold strategy is something my brain calls “Draw a Blank,”⁠15 mentally stylized as Draw ______ but maybe that is bad branding which is a direct rip-off of my pal Valerie’s recent Zine projects. The leader of this icebreaker chooses an object or a character that the participants are familiar with, like a bike, or a car, or Shrek, and invites everyone to draw it from memory. Specifically, the instructions I use are: “Don’t look at any pictures of X or the actual, real-life X. Then, draw X to the best of your ability,” where X=bike or car or Shrek or Tim. Nobody is going to do a great job; that’s the point.⁠16 or if they do, they must have a secret or not-so-secret artistic talent that can be celebrated

After the drawings are done, either all at once or staggered throughout an event, you can have people share and chat about what a silly thing you’ve done! Plus, if you put them up on a conference room wall or something like that, you have a weird, good community art project that you can preserve or recycle depending on your heart’s desire.

The MIT Admissions and Student Financial Services offices recently had a post-Pi-day study break filled with pie and trivia and, yes, an icebreaker led by yours truly. And because I am an internet gremlin, I also decided to mine my coworkers for Blog Content by asking people for their consent to share their anonymous drawings from said icebreaker.

So, without further ado, I present to you DRAW TIM (the beaver) by MIT Admissions and SFS, with some brief commentary from me. If you’d like to contribute your own Tim to this collage, please do in the comments of this post!!

Cute Tims

All of these Tims embody the essence of cuteness, which you will fully understand upon seeing some of the other Tim subcategories I’ve had to come up with. Enjoy this palate cleanser! ⁠17 is this too ominous? or the appropriate level of ominous?

Pie Tims

Many people drew their Tims during the aforementioned pie-centric study break, so that led to the creation of some pie-centric Tims. I’m not sure whether the lines surrounding the second drawing are grass or fire (in the style of the This is Fine dog), and I guess you could think about pie in either situation.

Avant Garde Tims

Some Tims really just capture the general essence of our beaver friend. They are just as valid! Sometimes when you’re faced with a blank canvas, expected to draw something from memory with a marker, you just gotta go with the first lines you come up with.

Classic T-Shirt Tims

Other artists focused on representing Tim in his classic outfit of an MIT t-shirt (myself included), because how else are you going to distinguish him from a regular non-Tim beaver???

Chaos Tims

I realize I could have called this subcategory “just heads” or something along those lines, but they all had an enhanced level of chaos energy that really sets them apart. I don’t know whether to respect or fear these Tims; perhaps both.

[You can click on the pics below to enlarge them]

nerds

I found this small sketchbook in my drawer that I impulse-bought from Central Square last spring. I only had one pencil drawing and literally nothing else in it, so I decided to fill it up with things that I’ve seen over spring break.

Rogers Building (“The Small Dome”), Kresge Auditorium, Alchemist, Simmons Hall, Stata Center

I get this urge to keep every page perfect whenever I use a sketchbook, hence why I intimidate myself out of using one in the first place. I didn’t worry about perfect lines or accurate details this time; I just let my imagination run loose every so often and do whatever I wanted with the source material.

Anyway, someone told me that Simmons looks like the Borg cube from Star Trek and I can’t unsee it.

Joseph Hooker, Massachusetts State House (and the Sacred Cod), George Washington, “Tadpole Playground” sign, “Small Child Fountain”, the “Make Way for Ducklings” statue

The “MIT Bubble” is definitely a thing. As much as it’s inspiring to be around the latest research and topics in STEM, it gets exhausting when you’re getting fire-hosed⁠18 Getting an education from MIT has been likened to taking a drink from a fire hose—the sheer number of opportunities and rigor of our coursework can leave students feeling hosed. - mitadmissions.org in the face all the time. I need to detach myself from campus every once in a while and catch my breath, and re-immerse myself in the awe of a tourist visiting Boston for the first time.

BTW that’s supposed to say “Temple of the Sacred Cod.” I know it looks like “Temple Sacred of the Cod.” It’s an actual thing!

Benjamin Franklin’s obelisk, “Memento Mori” gravestone design, John Harvard, Charles Sumner, taxidermied pigeons, alive pigeons, turkeys

A few months back, my friend at Michigan State asked me if I had pictures of skulls engraved onto tombstones. This was for her archaeology class, I think. I remembered seeing them around Boston, but I didn’t have any pics saved on my phone. I finally got those pics to her, although she finished that class way back in December.

I hung around Harvard Square for a little bit later that afternoon because I had nothing to do. I should’ve brought my skateboard.

Red Line train interior, stuff people have written on public infrastructure

I still don’t know what that grandma thing means.

Fenway, Red Sox Hall-of-Famers (including Ted Williams before he got cryonically frozen), Government Center T station

I still have to watch a game at Fenway! I can’t believe I haven’t gone yet!

I drew this part of the sketchbook after I visited Quincy Market, which I left out because I was too tired to draw anything else and just wanted to make the blog post. I went out in my Red Sox jacket, which turned out to be a coincidence since the Park Street and Government Center stations were filled with people decked out in Red Sox gear. There happened to be a game between Baltimore and Boston (10-9) in Fenway that day.

the illest villains

BROCKHAMPTON (RIP the best boyband since One Direction ) and Gorillaz have been my go-to Spotify picks lately—I’m listening to B.H.’s The Family as I edit this—but I wanted something fresh. Then I remembered that Kellen made a whole post about MF DOOM two years ago.

Nothing feels more badass than letting Vaudeville Villain fill your soundscape while you’re getting to your next destination on the MBTA bus. Kellen has EXQUISITE taste.

Souvenirs: MBTA pamphlet, Suzie the Grim Reaper

There’s still a lot of places left in Boston that I haven’t visited—but god I love Boston so much. I really want to make a second part for this post if I get the chance.