Something Important that I Forgot to Mention!

On Sunday, 9/11, I sang in a beautiful memorial concert in Institute Park right across the street from WPI. Here is an article about the concert, featuring Tyler Wack, a junior at WPI:

http://www.telegram.com/article/20110912/NEWS/109129937

A Capella, Boston Harbor and Hackers?!

Hey everyone!

So, this entry is going to be pretty long since it has been a while since I posted. For those who don't want to read the entire story, here's a quick recap of what has been happening (in chronological order):

• I got into the Technichords! Yay! We had our first rehearsal yesterday, and I volunteered to plunk out some of the parts on piano; yay sightreading! It went okay, and I'm thinking about trying to be assistant director later in the year because I would like that on my resume and I can help out by playing piano. :)
• I went on a day trip to Boston with Cody, on of the Dean's List winners, to meet up with Christina, another one of the Dean's List winners who is going to MIT!
• I had two tests; one in math and one in physics. I've gotten both back and I did well on both of them! :)
• I joined the CSL (Collegiate Star League) team with Thomas. We are a 2v2 diamond team now, so we've been practicing and trying to get good enough to fill the 2v2 spot.
• I joined the new freshman hackerspace group!

Now, all of those things in more detail.

Technichords

I want to credit my successful Technichords audition to everyone at AHS and the Hi-Liners for teaching me audition and interview professionalism. I dressed up in business casual clothes, put on a smile, sang "Happily Ever After" from Once Upon a Mattress, and went through some sight-singing (meh) and blending exercises with the girls in the group. I felt like I was well prepared for the audition, and evidently I left a favorable impression upon them! They are such a talented group of musicians, and I am honored to be working with them. We've already learned five songs, and some of them are pretty challenging. I can see that this group is going to push my music skills and I can't wait to learn from them!

Boston Trip

I had an amazing day in Boston. Unfortunately, it was kind of rushed because I had trouble figuring out the train schedules (not all mass transit systems are like the light rail!) so we only ended up having about two hours to run around and see the sights and get some food. My good friend Christina, who was one of the 2011 Dean's List winners, met Cody and I at the train station when we got in around 4:00 PM. She had gone on a tour of Boston as part of the pre-orientation activities at MIT, and so she knew all of the good places to see.

Boston is probably the most amazing city I have ever been to. It is very true to the time period in which it was built in that it is pretty much a pedestrian city. There are tons of markets and pedestrian-only streets, with lots of shopping AND STARBUCKS! We walked along parts of the freedom trail, and saw many sights including old graveyards where Sam Adams and other historical dignitaries are buried, Boston harbor, and of course, Old North Church (one if by land, two if by sea.) The church was definitely my favorite place. Instead of pews, the families sat in booths, and they would decorate them to indicate social stature. There were many plaques that said "[insert historical figure here] sat here." Most of them weren't confirmed, but the one that was read "Theodore Roosevelt." How cool is that?!

Christina also showed us plaques in the courtyard of the church commemorating historical events that had occurred there. Of course, the biggest one was about how it was used to signal where the British were coming from in the Revolutionary War, but her favorite (and mine) was about a guy who, in the mid 1700s, had jumped off the roof of the church with a DIY flying device and glided from the roof of that church to another building. They posted that plaque commemorating his "flight" in 1923 when the first continental flight was completed. I love that story because of how random it is!

After seeing some sites, we got delicious delicious pastries and pizza, and then booked it back to the train. If you can believe it, we did all of this in under two hours! I need to find time to go back to Boston and just sit at the waterfront and enjoy the ocean, but that trip was a wonderful chance to get to see Christina and get a taste of all of the rich history of Boston. I will definitely plan another trip to Boston in the near future, now that I understand exactly how the silly train schedules work!

Hackerspace

And finally, possibly my favorite part of the events; the hackerspace! For those who don't know what a hackerspace is, I will explain it in brief. It's basically a room filled with materials that the hackerspace group can use to build awesome projects. On a deeper level, it is a network of geeks who have different skills and lots of ideas for cool engineering projects, like 3-D printers and shopping cart go-karts, who can form small teams and go at it! If you want a good example of a hackerspace, check out the MIT group, MITERS, here. One of my good friends, Dan, is running for VP of the hackerspace (if you're a WPI freshman and reading this for some reason, you should vote for him because he is awesome! :D) He invited me to the second meeting, and so I decided to go after dinner and D&D (D&D&D.) Anyway, most people hadn't heard of a hackerspace before, and after visiting MITERS, I felt like I could do a pretty good job of explaining what a hackerspace is, so I stepped up to do that. The president of the club recognized my communication skills, and recruited me for publicity after the meeting. I'm extremely excited about this group, and even more excited that I have skills to offer in return for the technical expertise of its members! Navid and Thomas built a segway for their senior project, and they got a much more hands on experience than they had in FIRST because it was just the two of them and three-ish mentors working on it. I have been wanting something like that as well, but I haven't known where to look for the resources. Now it has been handed to me!

That's it for now; I will try to post more often in shorter installments!

Lydia