A Boring Friday Night (guest post by Nina L. 19)

A Boring Friday Night (guest post by Nina L. ‘19) Last Friday night I came home from lab, took off my jewelry, wondered what to do with myself, and fell asleep on the couch. There are a lot of Friday nights like this, and a lot of Fridays spent studying or coding. Many of us have big adventures and exciting weeks, and I do too, but most adventures are smaller ventures, and lots of evenings, especially as we settle into the semester, are exciting in smaller ways. The rest of this post is by Nina L. ‘19, about her Friday night. Tonight Lujan and I went to Harvard Square to get Dominos. We had decided we needed to get away. The semester is starting to heat up and being off P/NR is mildly terrifying. I had a shadow today and Lujan met me at Building 26 and we talked to her and her dad about why we had chosen MIT a bit. We departed and hung out in Lujan’s room at EC. His roommate moved out to another dorm so he has a single now and it’s pretty huge. I low-key hate him. “Eric” (because Lujan is someone who can’t decide if he should go by his first or last name), I said as I swung back and forth on his hammock, “I have a 6.004 lab and quiz to study for, a thing for my UROP I don’t know how to code, and an essay due Tuesday. Why do I always screw my weekends over?” “Honey, I wish I knew.” We ordered the pizza and hopped on the T. We talked about life. We laughed and had those heavy moments of rocks in our throats and chests. “Life sure does suck sometimes.” “Yea.” It was $6 for a large, two topping pizza. We got bacon and sausage and ate the whole thing. We were going to take it back to campus, but we ended up eating it there because we were too cold. “Do people eat at Domino’s?” Eric mused, “Like is this a thing that happens in real life?” The photos of stock models posed with various pizza and cinnamon sticks displayed were pretty creepy. I don’t blame him for being dubious. We talked more. About tour guiding and spring break plans and summer and movies and how weird college really is. “Someday we’re gonna have it figured out.” I said, “Come senior year we’re going to have it figured out, right?” “That’s what we’ll keep believing.” Eric asked about my love life and I laughed. We both haven’t been doing great in that department, so it’s nice to have a single friend to laugh about it over. “Have you ever looked at a Domino’s box? Do people do that?” he asked, flipping it around in his hand. “This thing has a patent,” he said, “A patent.” We talked about other pizza box designs, because we’re nerds. The air was cold and fresh. We chose to walk back to campus. Central Square was lit up and alive. We stopped at Starbucks and I tried a butterscotch Frappuccino. It was actually pretty good, not gonna lie. “Eric,” I said, “I think we just lost all of our hipster points.” “We had hipster points?” We parted at Main St where he walked back to EC and I walked back to MacGregor, where I pecked at work in my room and hung out with J Entry. I didn’t do laundry, though. I really need to. But half of my essay is written and I watched some videos about what I’m trying to code tonight. I know, my Friday night is pretty lame. I have a lot to do this weekend, but I feel more on top of things this semester. I’m going to the library tomorrow with some friends to work on 6.004 and my UROP code. I spent a lot of time in MacGregor last weekend because of how cold it was and I’m going stir crazy. Tomorrow we’re having a study break for the potential GRTs. I can’t wait to play poker and meet them. I know this weird account of my life is probably boring but…I think it’s important to see the highs and lows and in betweens here. Anyways, I have an early morning tomorrow, so I’m off to bed. Here’s to a (hopefully) productive weekend.