My Feelings Through Admissions Blog Posts

I’m an MIT Admissions Blogger. I write a lot about East Campus, and I write a lot about Tetazoo. I’d like to post about my feelings about EC and Tetazoo with lots of links to my blog posts, some pictures, and a lot of words.

One of my first blog posts ever as a new frosh at MIT was title “Cats!!” and the first line of the post is:

“East Campus is the best home I could have ever asked for.”

I said that after only living in East Campus for less than four weeks, and I still feel that way two years later.

We have some of the coolest traditions that happen each year, and we go on some pretty great adventures. There’s caving and quarrying and camping and more camping.  We have faculty dinners, where we show our favorite members of the MIT community how much they mean to us by feeding them glorious quantities of food. We have our finals week traditions, which also showcase how awesome our community is as we cook food and cookies for each other and provide incredible moral support during the most stressful times of year.

We are masters at snowball fights and water wars. We run the best CPW events. We run the best rush events. Where else in the world would you get the chance to build a three or four story fort and a fully-functioning roller coaster as a mere college undergraduate student?

We have the best art installations on and around campus. Sometimes we get fancy and do crazy things together.

Summer here is just as great as during the year. This past summer, all I could think of was how I wanted to come back home. Back home to Tetazoo and East Campus.

We have cats. All my posts have cats in them. I AM SO HAPPY WE HAVE CATS! These cats have helped me through the worst of times. I’ve cried into Galileo, Thor and Derp Cat’s fur many times and they just let me dig my face into their fur and made me feel better. I’m so grateful to live in a place that lets us enjoy and feel comforted by these therapeutic furry little companions.

We have alumni from back in the day (pre-1960) who still talk about their time here in EC. Last year, I ran an alumni barbeque for the alumni of my lovely home of Tetazoo. Over 100 alums from the past 50+ years gathered together and told stories of back in the day, when East Campus was so hardcore. I’d like to think that, contrary to popular sayings, we’re even more hardcore and united than back in the day.

MIT is stressful. I’ve had some really tough times, and I am still going through some really tough times. But I am surrounded by people who love and support me and are always there for me, even if the best way to be there for me is to leave me alone sometimes. Almost everyone understands that or has a way to make me feel better.

This is one of the most difficult times in my life for a multitude of reasons, and I cannot imagine living anywhere else while I am feeling this way. I do not think I would be on my way to recovery if it wasn’t for this home and the people who are always there for me.

And I love being there for others, too. One of my most well-known blog posts is “My First Week as an EMT.”  In summary, all of Tetazoo got a bad case of the Tetaflu, otherwise known as the norovirus (or any other really bad disease that more than half of Tetazoo gets all at once). But all of those who were not sick or who were recovering got together and took care of each other.  I posted:

“I learned a few things over the past five days.  First of all, I really like being an EMT and Medlink.  Even though it was torturous at times, I really did like being there for my friends, and I think it is important that people have someone to go to when they are not feeling well.  I know that if I was sick I would want somebody checking on me, and I am glad that I can be there for other people. Second, my community is really awesome.  My hall really came together in the rough times – making soup, bringing Gatorade and crackers to the doors of the ill.  It is amazing how generous and kind these people are, and I am so happy I live here.

Even in the most stressful times, I can think positively because of where I live.

I’ve said it a million times – East Campus is my home. I have stories. We all have stories. And we all have our own unique things about our stories that all add up to one thing – East Campus is an incredible community to be a part of.  And I am so grateful that I am accepted and loved here. By all the denizens of East Campus, even the little furry ones.