I finally found some nail clippers.  I’ve been looking for some nail clippers since arriving in Seattle, since they’re one of those things that you almost always forget to pack, despite the fact that you almost always wind up needing them.  I found some though, and I trimmed my fingernails.  It is a wonderful feeling.

My first four days at work have been crazy and hectic, but I think I’m starting to get the hang of things.  My team seems pretty awesome, and I’ve started making real progress on the warm-up tasks they’ve given me.  My opinion of Seattle right now compares a little less than favorably to Boston.  The public transit system here consists of a baffling array of buses, which makes the city feel larger than it should.  The people here are quite nice though, and I hear it’s a West Coast thing.  The coffee is definitely delicious, that’s for sure.

I’ve found that I have a habit of always ending my paragraphs with a short statement.  Weird.

Packing has always been a troubling and somewhat depressing affair.  You go through all of your possessions, subjectively turning down some for the journey and taking some along, all the while with a nagging feeling that you’ve forgotten that one thing that you can’t possibly live without.  It also is one of the few times when I actually feel guilty about owning as many things as I do.

Not to mention the fact that when you’re not packing for a vacation, you’re generally packing to leave one place for another.  I remember the night at the end of spring semester when I packed up most of my life into cardboard boxes and suitcases; saying goodbye to MIT and all of my friends there is never a happy time.

Packing for Seattle is a little strange, since I’m living there for three months, but the apartment I’m moving into is fully furnished, and even has bi-weekly housecleaning.  I’m basically packing to live in a hotel for three months.  And I’m bringing my Wii.

It is my greatest hope and dream that one of my colleagues will bring Rock Band.

The last of my semester grades trickled in today, and I can finally say that all of my obligations to spring semester classes have now been fulfilled.  I also have the warm, fuzzy feeling of knowing that I’ve managed a 5.0 (of 5.0) semester GPA at MIT.  Whether this is actually repeatable or not remains to be seen.

My down comforter at home is leaking, and so every morning I wake up covered in feathers.  I feel like I’m slowly turning into a duck.

I’m leaving bright and early (5am, yuck) on Saturday morning for Seattle, WA, an event that I am exceptionally excited for, dangling preposition be damned.  My employer is graciously providing subsidized housing for us interns, which also means that (hopefully) there will be a gaggle of enthusiastic nerds to socialize with once I move in to my new living arrangements.  Anyone ever been to Seattle?  I don’t really know anything about the city, but I’ve heard from others that it’s “green and pretty” and “has good coffee.”  I like coffee.

Beyond those things, I’ve mostly been gaining weight and catching up on sleep at home with my family.  When I get bored of that, I dabble a little bit with the new MIT DanceTroupe website that I’m slowly building with the Django web framework.  It will be a thing of beauty when it’s complete, I promise.

I’ve recently been involved in a relatively non-trivial undertaking known as Tech Theater. For those of you not hip to the jive, Tech Theater is a small production that is put on for the incoming freshmen during their Orientation that’s written and performed by current MIT students. Its purpose is to inform them about all the ways they can avoid drinking themselves to death, and all sorts of fun and family-friendly things of that nature. Somewhere between the free dinner at one meeting, and discussions about the implications of cricket death, we all decided that the introductory video for our little play should be shot and edited in the style of the Friends intro. We’re actually going to frolic in the moat. Frolic. In the moat. On camera. Overall, I’m pretty thoroughly amused by the whole venture, and also pretty excited about getting a chance to act completely ridiculous in front of most of the new freshman class. I need to start things off on the right foot, don’t I?

It’s both comforting and somewhat disconcerting (you resolve that contradiction, I’m lazy) that summer is almost over. It’s been a pretty unusual summer for me, as far as summers go; it’s been my first summer away from home, and also the first time that I’ve worked full-time for any real length of time. I’m going to miss having up to 40 hours a week to devote to improving Timegrid, but I think it will be refreshing to move on to spending my time on other things (like classes, and stuff). There’s also the idea of people that I know (!) and like (!!) actually living on the floor, which is exciting. Perhaps even more exciting is the idea of people I don’t know moving into Burton-Conner, i.e. the freshmen, that I can corrupt enlighten.