Amaranthine Forever

THEY DO NOT LIE ABOUT THE WORK HERE. I got up at 6:45 to go running and had one five minute break in the afternoon and then get to write now but the rest of the time I had literally no time to stop or breath or explore MIT or do ANYTHING. These are the two dashed emails I wrote to family and friends: It is 7:03PM :D. This is the first break i have and I actually have to get going in like one minute they just knocked on my door. I got up at 6:45 to run on the track with a group of friends and have been busy with no time to go back to the dorm at all or stop we went to two talks the first was the graduate school dean she talked alot about her research of designing armor based on scales and stuff in nature. Also google center info session and dean of engineering. Underwater robotics is really really really cool we solder and cut pvc pipe and have a lot of wires and batteries and motors pictures maybe too. We are making a underwater robot controlled with a tether. we were in lab...

Super exhausted. XD Yesterday we went on the Freedom Trail with Kevin and William from E2 and Rebecca from Girl Scouts. I It was awesome, relaxing, fun, saw many historical sights and a lady playing a glass harmonica and a chocolate making demonstration. E2 is AMAZING already. I met so many people and having a horrible time forgetting faces and names. Simmons is so cool with undulating walls and random colors and a super clean and modern yet earthy aesthetic appeal. They really really really really emphasize that we're going to be doing a LOT of work. They messed up with my course and sent me the electronics email. I was kinda bummed cause underwater robotics was my first choice. When I got here it turned out that I actually was in underwater robotics and they made a mistake. Today I got to Simmons and checked all in. The room was nice and I excitedly ran up and down the hallways and met people. Then we had our orientation and an Engineering Design 101 class, then more orien...

Just dropping in to say that I am now in the Boston area(deceptively close sounding, it takes over an hour to drive to and from Boston at any hour of the day because of traffic). I visited Harvard yesterday and MIT today, taking the T. Besides visits, we're basically hanging out, going fishing, playing video games, going on the trampoline, good times, good times. Harvard: Pretty nice campus, PACKED with tourists, most of the people weren't even Harvard students, spread out and urban and kinda small. Not really my thing and  somehow it didn't feel like "Harvard" to me. XD I imagined it to be more like Cornell, big and looming and silent and impressive. The Harvard Natural History museum was amazing , packed to the gills with all sorts of fish and birds and birds and birds and insects and birds and large mammals and displays and AMAZING rocks and geodes and tons and tons of stuffed birds. MIT was...wow. MIT is definitely my top choice and I haven't even do...

Really loud, busy, and exciting! Crazy drivers and traffic. I couldn't imagine trying to drive in the streets, even riding is scary. XD The first day we went, we walked around and went to the Museum Of Chinese in America, a must-see for any chinese people in New York City. It reminded me a lot of the tenacity and hardship my Chinese ancestors went through here. Where I live, there are more Asians than anybody else, and there are a lot of stereotypes of Asians being more smart or privileged, so it's hard to believe there was a time when it wasn't normal or cool to be Chinese. I think Chinese have assimilated into American culture to an unusual degree, so it was heartbreaking to read about the backbreaking manual labor in laundries or restaurants just so they could live in a place so they could live in America. It broke my heart to see and hear the primary source recordings and documents of the degrading hardship yet untainted pride of my ancestors. One of the people me...

My parents' alma mater! Really cool as well. We can see the University from our hotel right across the Genesee river. A lot of things have changed since my parents graduated, but I had a lot of fun walking to my dad's dorm, seeing where my mom and dad met, and visiting where my dad used to do research. We went to get a copy of the alumni book at the world-famous Optics institute and the receptionist just scheduled a meeting with me and a professor and the undergraduate coordinator when she heard I was a rising senior. XD It turns out that the Optics department is very in demand but they can't graduate enough students to keep up with it(there are only 90 undergrads in the department with only 10 or so last graduating class). So they really try to recruit more students. Optics is a specialized branch of engineering dealing with a broad range of things from light to lenses to lasers. Most colleges don't have an optics major, so I'll definitely consider it if I en...

Cornell is super amazing and GORGES(haha overused puns FTW). I liked the atmosphere and rural-ness of the campus a lot more than I liked Stanford's. The info session was pretty good too! The gorge was beautiful and had picturesque bridges and green trees and waterfalls... It was overcast today, which was GREAT because it was actually a tolerable temperature, just in time for my first campus tour of this trip. It was really deserted because summer, but I really enjoyed Cornell and it has been bumped up to third on my list. This is a photo of me taken at the BEAUTIFUL Ulrich Library. Here's another picture:  I feel like Cornell is one of the less-hyped of the Ivy Leagues, but I think it's amazing. It's the only one I'm applying to(College of Engineering, possible MechE major). They let you shop around for different engineering majors before locking you into one, have a great co-op program where you can work full time for a company, and have lots of ...

but the hotel still didn't have real maple syrup at breakfast D:<. Also, it's over 90 degrees and humid every day. The falls are really nice though! This morning we went and walked a very long time from the falls to the Duffiden Islands Nature Reserve. Lots of bug bites :(. Pretty though! A nice(though hot) walk. The tourist marketers have got this thing NAILED! :D We decided not to go on the iconic Maid of the Mists Boat despite the loudspeakers claiming it was THE ONLY WAY TO TRULY EXPERIENCE LE FALLS. The general area is really cool too, with lots of fancy hotels and fountains mixed in with souveneir shops. We're going back to MURICA tomorrow! The only difference I've found was the people with accents and they call the bathhroom "washroom." And the channels on TV are lamer! There was this freaking weird ad for a movie called "Sharknado" playing that was about a tornado carrying flying sharks that attacked a town. The canadian film industry?!...