By Sumit Dutta, Sidney-Pacific Outing Chair 2013-14

It can be easy for us to get soaked knee-deep into our studies at MIT. Fortunately, we need not look far to find the occasional escape in our bustling city. Since the vast number of attractions around us may be overwhelming, I would like to share a few outing ideas that have resonated well with graduate students.

I have had the pleasure of organizing a number of outings with students in Sidney-Pacific. These outings appeal to a variety of tastes, and I present a few of these ideas here.

Hike the Middlesex Fells

Sumit hiking the Middlesex Fells.

Hiking opportunities around Boston are just a subway ride away! One of the more scenic forest preserves on the outskirts of the city is the Middlesex Fells Reservation. From Oak Grove, the northernmost station on the Orange Line, you need only walk a few blocks to enter the Middlesex Fells at the trailhead of the Cross Fells Trail. On a clear day, take the Cross Fells Trail to the Rock Circuit Trail to discover stunning vistas of the Boston skyline from various hilltops. The reservation is expansive, as are its trails. It is best to bring your own hiking gear and some trail food, remembering to leave no trace. If you are hungry at the end of the hike, you may want to walk to the nearby town of Melrose for a variety of dining options. There is also a Commuter Rail station there. Right off the Fellsway East path is J. J. Grimsby & Co., a classic diner where you can eat well before your return trip.

Directions to the Middlesex Fells Reservation are available at https://goo.gl/maps/YZ5sL and a hiking trails map is at http://www.fells.org/Fells_Reservation_Map.pdf.

Castle Island and Fort Independence

Castle Island

On a clear summer day, a trip to Castle Island can easily feel like a vacation getaway. It offers a beach, picnic areas, an ocean walkway, and views of Boston Harbor and the Massachusetts Bay. The windy location also makes for great kite-flying, if you feel like exposing your youth. You should also arrive early in the day if you want to see the historic Fort Independence, which has free guided tours in the summer typically between noon and 3 o’clock. Castle Island is actually not an island because it was connected to the mainland via landfill by the 1930s. You can reach the park by walking or taking a bus from one of the stops on the Red Line, or by driving.

Ice Cream on the Minuteman Trail

The Minuteman Trail is one of the most convenient paths to get out of Boston on a bike. The path is a dedicated bikeway between Alewife and Bedford. The Minuteman Trail was built where there was once a railroad, making it a flat and gentle path suitable for all skill levels. I would recommend riders to carry ample water and carbohydrates. Along the way there a number of ice cream establishments where you can refresh yourself. Some examples are Toscanini’s, Christina’s, Bedford Farms, and Kimball Farm. Finding the Minuteman Trail is the trickiest part, but it’s smooth sailing once you are on it. The map below shows a safe set of streets you would take get to the Minuteman Trail: (1) Hampshire/Beacon Street, (2) Somerville Avenue, (3) Massachusetts Avenue, and (4) Rindge Avenue.

Annotated by Sumit Dutta and map data from OpenStreetMap.

The full bicycling directions to take the Minuteman Trail to Kimball Farm are at https://goo.gl/maps/7sRA0.

Catch a Symphony or Two

Image courtesy of Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology.

Get some peace of mind by immersing yourself in the Boston fine arts scene. If you are committed to seeing the Boston Symphony Orchestra, you can pick up a MIT/BSO College Card for $5 and get free concert opportunities around the year. If you are less committed, plenty of opportunities still exist to get discounted or free tickets at any time of the year for other groups such as the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra or Boston Chamber Music Society, through the MIT Arts Council. Concert venues typically include Symphony Hall, the Saunders Theater, the Pickman Concert Hall, and of course our own Kresge Oval.

By William Li, Trustee Chair, SP Board of Trustees

This semester, I took the course “MAS.700: Future of News and Participatory Media” in the MIT Center for Civic Media. One of the assignments is to report on a local event. I chose Open Doors Night on Saturday, February 15:

During Sidney Pacific’s Open Doors Night, several residents host small parties in their apartments and residents go around from room to room, meeting new people and enjoying snacks, hors d’oeuvres, and desserts. I decided to tell the story in the style of “Humans of New York“, a blog that features photos and quotes from New Yorkers in their daily lives. Here are the 15 hosts, what they served, and what they said.

Katie (and Georgia): ebelskivers “It’s a family tradition!”

Erin: chocolate and plain croissants, teriyaki pork, lamb “Why do you enjoy cooking?” “It’s like the PhD grind, but you can eat it immediately!”

Atul and Pawan: aloo paratha, laddu “It’s an opportunity to expose people to Indian food and Indian traditions.”

Stephanie and Jen pinwheels (cheddar & bacon, spinach & mushrooms), sushi (spam & pineapple, crab meat & cucumber, salmon & cucumber), salted caramel turtle cookies “This is my fifth time hosting Open Doors Night!” “We thought we were going to be lazy but ended up doing a lot!”

Mariana: canapés, hummus, tabbouleh salad, tomato bites “I got this book [on Lebanese cuisine] for Christmas.”

Vadim: fresh fruit, croissants, coconut sweets, pizza, tea “What’s been the most interesting thing that’s happened this evening?” “I like the conversations. We talked about computational biology.”

Isaac (and Fabián): brownies, homemade whipped cream, empanadas “Brownie?” “Sure!”

Julie (and Neel): brownies, cupcakes, chocolate-covered pretzels, raisinettes “This is awesome! You open your door and people come and say hi!”

Ramesh and Szymon: stuffed mushrooms, peppermint brownie balls “The stuffed mushrooms are gone! There was sundried tomato and herb and bacon, spinach, and feta… and they both turned out really well.”

Hoss: nachos, cookies “I’m very thankful for MIT residential life for doing some of the living for grad students. (laughs) That’s not grammatically correct!”

Holly (and George): appetizers from the freezer (bacon-wrapped tater tots and more) “What is your favorite recipe to make and why?” “I like new recipes. I’ve made a new recipe every day for the past year.”

Sumit: Various snacks (nachos, chicken wings) “I wanted to make what people were familiar with, in large quantities!”

Yu-Pu: sweet potato bread, almond hot chocolate “I got into baking because I have more free time this year.”

Rachael: shortcakes “I decided to make lemon raspberry and strawberry shortcakes because they seemed like late-spring/early-summer foods, which seemed like a good idea in a blizzard!”

Steve and Frank brownies, tea “You’re the last apartment in my article! How do you want to be quoted?” “We have too much tea.” “Live long and prosper.” “Tea, Earl Gray, hot.”

Annette and Roland, the current Associate Housemasters, are leaving Sidney Pacific after their 8 years of wonderful service. Annette has accepted a position at University of Southern California, and before they move to Los Angeles they will be heading to Beijing in August for a one-year sabbatical.  Below is a letter from Annette and Roland to the residents of Sidney-Pacific:

Roland, Annette, Samuel and Joshua with outgoing housemasters Roger and Dottie Mark and members of the 2012 SPEC.

We would like to thank the Sidney-Pacific community for eight wonderful years being associate housemasters. Annette recalls some trepidation starting this ambiguous adventure called housemastering in 2005, while pregnant and on the tenure-track. We are so glad that we threw caution to the wind since as we now preparing to leave MIT, we can say without a doubt that the S-P community here has been the most rewarding experience of our time here at MIT. While most of us can say that our studies/research/work is ostensibly why we came to MIT, it becomes very clear that sharing life with each other, creating a community with you, is the best thing we ever did here.  Another way to put it is that when one makes a major life transition as we are doing now, it can provide a different and valuable vantage point with which to view life.

Joshua participating in the SP paper-airplane competition in Spring 2013. Courtesy of Annette Kim.

This time we are struck by how flat and cold our lives would have been without you, if we had just lived a more “normal” professor life in a private apartment by ourselves. One lesson we take with us is that in order to have a life richer and more extraordinary, trailing with warm memories, invest in relationships and community building such as Sidney-Pacific.

Some favorite memories include:

• Roland honestly trying to memorize all 700 residents’ names our first year!
• Making the kids’ first birthdays a dorm-wide event. Improvising a take on a Korean tradition, we had students take bets on what our babies would choose as symbols of their future (the scholar’s pencil for Joshua and the artist’s brush for Samuel).
• The surprise cake and flowers at this year’s nomination dinner was the best way to celebrate Annette’s tenure!
• Our weekly dinner meetings with SPEC

Annette, Joshua, Roland and Samuel at Samuel’s first birthday party. Courtesy of Annette Kim.

S-P is the only home that Joshua and Samuel have ever known. Don’t all kids have 700 brilliant graduate students from around the world in their home?  They have been able to run up and down S-P’s hallways and find students who will come out to have fun with paper airplane contests, toilet paper fashion designs, epic water fights in the courtyard, and building the most incredible sand castles at the beach that only MIT engineers can do. They have gotten to see more fire trucks at our fire alarms than any toddler could ever hope to see.

We thank you for your kindness, generosity, good humor, and transparency. We will always think of you fondly and hope you will stay in touch so that we can continue to share life with you.

By Annette M. Kim and Roland Tang, outgoing associate housemasters

Officer Sean Collier. Courtesy of Somerville Police Department.

The following essay was written by MIT graduate student Sara Ferry the day after Sean’s death:

Officer Sean Collier was my friend, and the friend of many of my friends.

To give you an idea of the type of person he was:

He was friendly. He hung out at the Thirsty Ear a lot with the bartenders chatting. Recently, we were talking about the campus shooter scare of several weeks ago, and talking about how scary it was, and how we could make the campus safer. He was planning on starting a new job. He mentioned maybe joining the military at some point. He was so excited for his future, and was completely committed to dedicating his life to serving his community. We talked about throwing him a going away party to thank him for his service to our campus, and to celebrate the fact he might actually get to come hang out at the Thirsty in plainclothes a bit more.

He was so very helpful. When someone was breaking into my lab several months ago to steal scrap metal, the MIT police took our reports very seriously and caught the person within days. Sean offered to make a special point of coming by my lab on nights that my friends and I were working late to check on us.

He cared about the students. He loved my beloved MIT family: the residents past and present of Burton Third. When our DTYD hack this year went up, he messaged me to let me know he had heard it called in on the scanners, and could I please send him a photo since he didn’t get to see it before it was taken down? He worked detail at our party on Sunday, and mentioned beforehand that he was looking forward to it, because it had been a fun detail in the past. He messaged me after to say he had a good time. “[Burton 3rd] is good shit,” he said. BTB, you are the reason that my undergraduate years at MIT were filled with the best friends anyone could hope for, countless crazy nights of constant laughter, and stories that sometimes seem too ridiculous to believe. Sean loved you guys, and he – and the other amazing officers of our campus police force – is part of the reason that our floors’ cherished traditions and friendships are able to continue and grow year after year.

Boston area police officers attend Sean Collier’s Memorial service on Briggs Field. Courtesy of Tamas Kolos-Lakatos.

Sean loved the hacking community of MIT. To every one of us who has donned a Jack Florey shirt, who has found herself or himself crawling through a hidden tunnel or along a deserted rooftop of our beloved campus looking out over our beloved Cambridge and Boston from our secret vantage points, who has been on their way to Baker House, who has a collection of faded orange buttons in a drawer, who has spent a long night camped out in a ceiling (climbing gear and headlamp in tow) just to know that the the anonymous-but-oh-so-worth-it results of their hack will grace the campus the next morning: Sean was an amazing ally. Like so many of the MIT police officers, he loved our efforts and cared deeply about our safety. You were a huge part of the reason that he loved this campus and its students and its uniquely weird and brilliant culture.

He loved being outdoors. He had just bought a new truck. He was not much older than you, or perhaps he is younger.

He knew I was watching the marathon on Monday and was one of the first people to text me to make sure I was okay. Last night, he texted me at 10:30 to see if I’d be bartending at the Thirsty Ear that night — he was thinking about stopping by after his shift ended and hanging out with the students at our weekly karaoke night. He never responded to my text back hoping that he was safe.

Courtesy of Tamas Kolos-Lakatos.

Keep the MIT police in your thoughts. They are a kind, dedicated, hardworking part of our community. The extent to which they care about the well-being of the students and every faculty and staff member is inspiring and stems from a deep and genuine love of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Boston is my heart, Cambridge is my home, and MIT is where I’ve had the amazing privilege to live my life, working on the projects I love with the people I adore, for nearly six years. I love you all. When you’re tooling on psets as the semester wraps up, remember that they don’t matter. But the person who wrote the pset, the person who’s grading it, the person who’s working on it with you at 3 AM, the person who’s smiling hello as they clean up the reading room, the person who’s teaching the class? They matter.

Think of Sean Collier today. He’s a genuine hero and the best of what our campus represents.

I love you MIT. Mens et manus, and IHTFP. (second meaning.)

by Sara E. Ferry