Monthly Archives: May 2012

Sidney-Pacific Six Word Memoirs of the Past Year (2011-2012)

Inspired by the Six Word Memoir Project, we recently challenged several officers and volunteers to summarize this past year in Sidney-Pacific in exactly six words. These phrases could refer to the dorm more generally, or to a specific event or series of events that occurred over the past year; in the latter case, we put the specific event/program to which the submission refers in brackets, [ ]. Many thanks to all the volunteers who contributed submissions: Amy Bilton, Diana Chien JP Coutu, Tim Curran, Chelsea He, Ian Jacobi, Jit Hin Tan, Holly Johnsen, David Kwabi, George Lan, Ramesh Sridharan, Tanya Shatova, Brian Spatocco, Sunny Vanderboll, and several anonymous authors.

Self-reflexively strained backronyms and apronyms

SP Brunch

  • Sweet, Infinite, Delicious Procrastination: Activities CONSTANTLY
  • Students In (a) Dorm Planning And Caring
  • Seriously Incredible Dorm, Priced At Cost
  • Solipsistic Iconoclasts Seeking Pedestrian Athletic Conditioning [SP GetFit – Spring 2012]
  • Surely I’ve Demonstrated Pancakes Are Crucial [Brunch]
  • Sometimes Idiots Do PhDs. Accepting Calamity
  • … Soon Investigate Dorm Posses; Alternative Career??

Individuals sometimes come together for philanthropy

House Cup Food Drive

  • Flour: good for baking and winning [House Cup Food Donation Contest – November 2011]
  • 1967 pounds. Bring it on, 2012. [House Cup Food Donation Contest – November 2011]
  • Who needs sleep, up all night [Relay for Life – February 2012]
  • 20 pasta boxes can feed 100 [Cooking for CASPAR – March 2012]
  • From Philosophical Debates to Donated Crates [House Cup Clothing Drive – April 2012]

Delightfully awkward shout-outs to over-achieving SP-helpers

  • Communications majors rock! See David Rosen [CoSI Dinner Discussion on the Bubble in Higher Education – November 2011]
  • Tim’s workouts: lift today, hurt tomorrow [SP Getfit – Spring 2012]
  • Dave Rosen: 2 LeJit 2 Quit [Boston marathon – April 2012 and Trivia Night Coffee Hour – April 2012]
  • JP, sorry for not recycling.
  • Worst getfit team I’ve been on
  • SP graduates the brightest party planners

Places we have gone, achievements unlocked

Camping Trip to Mt. Monadnock

  • Unlimited chocolate? Dreams do come true! [Taza Chocolate Factory Tour – June 2011]
  • “To be awake is to be alive” [Quote from Thoreau’s “Walden,” Walden Pond Bike Trip – June 2011]
  • Triathlon training? Nope, ice cream pursuit [Bike Trip to Kimball Farm – September 2011]
  • There’s no crying in photo-scavenger hunts [September 2011]

    Dim Sum Outing

  • Smoke in eyes, lemon detergent shishkabobs [Camping Trip to Mt. Monadnock – October 2011]
  • Autumn foliage more colorful than expected [Arboretum Trip – November 2011]
  • Cretaceous and delicious. Jurassic and fantastic [Trip to Harvard Natural History Museum and Burdick’s Chocolate – January 2012]
  • Dodgeball: way more fun on trampolines [Winter officer’s retreat at SkyZone – January 2012]
  • Linsanity spreads like wildfire, fuels rivalries [Interest Groups Knicks vs. Celtics Game – March 2012]
  • Sunday fare? Durian buns, chicken feet! [Interest Groups Dim Sum Outing – April 2012]

Aborted passive-aggressive haikus from cantankerous residents

  • I will feed you lots of food
  • Please be my friend
  • Shh be quiet, it’s bedtime
  • .
  • Confuscious once asked
  • How does one trash a trash can?
  • SP Janitors
  • .
  • Too HOT! COLD! First world problems
  • Compost? I thought food was trash!
  • .
  • Your friendly, anonymous SP-forums posters

Compendium of major events for self-aggrandizement

Magic Show

  • Sing like no one is listening [SP Karaoke Night –July 2011]
  • Asian street food satisfies masses, over-subscribed [Asian Street Food Festival – July 2011]
  • 23 events, 21 days, 1 Orientation [September 2011]
  • Halloween pumpkin carving, orange goo everywhere [Halloween Pumpkin Carving Coffee Hour – October 2011]
  • Artistic pizza, chefs in the making [House Cup Pizza Making Contest – October 2011]

    CoSI Lecture with Professor Noam Chomsky

  • Snowstorm? Pshh, nothing stops SP superheroes! [Superheroes 5k Race – November 2011]
  • Scientists, do you believe in magic? [Magic Show – November 2011]
  • Krispy, colorful pi henge; soon eaten [House Cup Pi Day Dessert Contest – March 2012]
  • Onward, upward to the next decade [SP’s 10 year Anniversary Reunion Weekend – July 2012]
  • Twenty pounds of bacon, challenge accepted [Monthly brunches]
  • Serving 25 people/minute since 2001 [Monthly brunches and large social events]
  • Nalebuff, Duflo, Chomsky; fire code violation [CoSI’s distinguished lecture series]
  • lolcats ponder a lot of things [Monthly house council meetings]

Visit Boston!

How will you show off Boston to your family or friends when they come to visit you? Fortunately, Boston has lots of interesting places to go. Don’t forget to show them the MIT main building; they’ll likely want to take a photograph in front of it.

If it’s sunny, cross the Charles on the Harvard bridge and turn left on Beacon St. Your mother will enjoy the brick houses.

Boston Public Library

After you wander through the Boston Common, continue onto Boylston and peak inside the Public Library at Copley. I hear the Sargent Murals inside are beautiful. Avoiding streets like Newbury St. would be a wise decision if you go with ladies, unless you wish to transform their visit into a shopping event.

Take the T or walk to the Museum of Fine Arts. It is not like going to the Prado, I know, but there is something original to see within the American wing. My sister, the interior architect, really enjoyed the furniture.

Boston Museum of Fine Arts (Source: http://travel4all.org/?p=974)

The next day is a good chance to visit Harvard. I suggest that you take them to the gardens of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. John Harvard looks handsome, says my mother. It’s then time to go through JFK Street and cross the river towards the Business School.

If they are coming in autumn or spring, be certain to take them to the Arboretum near South Station. It is one of the most original botanical gardens in the World.

We took the commuter rail to Concord, where the American revolution started, in order to visit the North Bridge Visitor Center.  On the way, my mother remarked about the great difference between the old, fast moving and loud talking people of New York and the young, calm and quiet students of Cambridge.

Concord (Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootbearwdc/39037236/)

When it comes to the choir on Sunday mass in the MIT chapel, it surpasses the one in our church in Madrid, with a wider variety of instruments and voices.

That is the reason why I decided to take them to the Boston Symphony Hall the last day, so they could enjoy one of the best orchestras in the world. Places like the Boston Symphony Hall and Berklee College, admired by dedicated guitarists like my brother, is a sign that Boston is a city for the arts.

Don’t forget to taste the famous Boston clam chowder at any of the restaurants near the water before you leave. The only thing I know after coming back from New York is that people generally like it for a sole visit, but Boston is a more charming place for a European educated mind.

And what about me? I used to live in a big city where I had to drive every day.  I really enjoy a place that allows me to go walking to class. I wish I could stay here for more time!

By Jose M. Arias

Boston Flower and Garden Show

Michelle, the interest groups chair, and I recently co-organized a trip for SP residents to the “Boston Flower and Garden Show” on March 17.  The flower show is a relatively new event, started by the Paragon group in 2010 after the end of a 137-year-old major flower show in Boston, hosted by MassHort. The show mainly consisted of three parts: gardens, market places, and competition.

Source: http://www.bostonflowershow.com/

When we arrived at the show, I was surprised by beauty of the gardens; it surpassed all my expectations. The exhibitors had set up expansive gardens, complete with brick paths, bridges, fountains, and gazebos!  Each garden told a story, from the one with a stone path leading up to a bottle of wine on a picnic blanket to the garden with a kids playhouse.  As people were interested in different types of gardens, our group slowly split off into smaller groups as we wandered through the exhibits. By the end, I was in a group with Boris, Michelle, Steven, and Stephanie. In addition to the elaborate gardens, we were inspired by the educational amateur floral design and horticulture competition. We were so immersed in the experience that it took us more than 3 hours to browse all the displays. In the end, I, as the Plants Chair, bought some beautiful begonia for Sidney-Pacific. I would like to thank Boris and Steven in particular for carrying those plants all the way back to SP. Hopefully many of you have noticed the new flowers in the lobby and 8th floor common kitchen!

Source: http://www.bostonflowershow.com/

Source: http://www.bostonflowershow.com/

Courtesy of Michelle Chen

Courtesy of Michelle Chen

As the experience of the show was fabulous, I encourage you to follow the information about the next event on the website:

http://www.bostonflowershow.com/,

and hopefully we will see each other (again) next year!

By Dawsen Hwang, SP Plants Chair

SidneyPacific SPeaker Needs Your Feedbacks

In case you haven’t noticed yet, there have been various improvements on the newsletter in this past year. The most noticeable of all is the way the newsletter is distributed. In the past, newsletters were printed in large quantities so they were made available to every resident. In an effort to conserve paper and make the newsletter easier to read, we have introduced the electronic newsletter this year. Residents receive the newsletter via E-mail and can click individual article titles to read them in full. In addition to the electronic newsletter, a number of color copies of newsletter are available at the front desk for any interested readers to pick up.

Many efforts have also been made to increase both the quality and quantity of newsletter content. In addition to event reviews, we tried to include information that the residents may find useful or interesting, such as the orientation calendar, articles on upcoming events, and even article on Linsanity.

However, all of the improvements would be meaningful only if you, as the readers, agree with us. Thus, we hope you can take a moment to participate in the newsletter survey. The survey should only take 5 to 10 minutes to complete and your feedbacks and suggestions will be very helpful to us to understand what the needs of readers are and how we can make the newsletter better in the future. In additional, all survey participants will have the chance to be entered into a random drawing for three $20 Amazon gift cards. Just indicate that you would like to enter the raffle at the end of the survey. So let’s begin by clicking on the link below:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dDdaWHlkc3dMSlZTR3dQQllEX0h2eXc6MA#gid=0

The survey will end on June 1st. Lastly, I hope you continue to support the newsletter in the future by reading the articles or even submitting your own piece!

By Steven Chang, SP Newsletter Chair