Venturing to far living groups

Venturing to far living groups Annie asked I was wondering if you could tell me which floors have cats and which floors are smoking floors in EC (ECs webpage doesnt seem to be working). One thing to remember is that just because a hall is smoking doesnt mean that youll be submerged in clouds of smoke. People are pretty polite about it. Cats, Smoking 4th West 5th East Cats, No Smoking 1st East 3rd East No Cats, No Smoking 1st West 2nd West 3rd West 5th West 2nd East 4th East And on to the point of the entry One concern I hear a lot from people who are not MIT students is Oh no, if theyre allowed to choose where they live, theyll only associate with their living group and not experience diversity! I have to say, if you only have friends in your living group, somethings wrong. Just because you love your living group doesnt mean you cant visit other people at other places. For example, over the weekend, I went to Random Hall for boffer combat on the roofdeck. Boffing is very popular at Random well, its popular other places too, but Id say most so at Random. You fight with swords or staves made of PVC pipe covered in foam, which is covered in duct tape, with airholes poked in the end to keep it soft. These guys were moving so fast that I could barely keep them in the picture. Dan 08 presses forward against Yoyo 07: But Yoyo regains the advantage, lunging at Dan, who backpedals. Oh look, its me, fighting Dan! I think I deliberately circled around here to make it easier for Yoyo to get a pic. Grrr! Dan and I in fierce concentration, swords locked together, as Andrea 07 wanders by to look at the sky and the neighboring rooftops: And last night, I went to dinner at pika. Whats pika? you might ask (I did the first time I heard of it). pika is an Independent Living Group, or ILG. An ILG is a non-dorm, MIT-affiliated living group. Sort of like a fraternity or sorority, but without a national organization. pika used to be a fraternity, Pi Kappa Alpha, but left its national when it went coed in the 70s. If I had to describe pika, I would describe it as a liberal, hippie-ish commune full of bright colors, carpentry, and cooking. The cooking is a big draw each night, two students prepare dinner for the house, with vegetarian and vegan dishes (probably half the house is vegetarian or vegan), and meat dishes if the cooks are omnivores. Non-pikans can purchase full or half meal plans for a sum of money and agreement to cook or clean once every couple of weeks, so there are often many non-pikans at dinner, both those on meal plans and those who go over to hang out once every few weeks, like me. The pikans live in this pretty house in Cambridgeport, only a few minutes farther from main campus than some of the dorms. My good friend Dave 06, who has been leaving snarky comments in this blog, lives at pika, but he wasnt at dinner for me to get a picture of. Too bad. Rod 08 and Noelle 08 eat dinner. And you probably thought by now that all my friends wore black! Noelle is a pikan, Rod lives on 3rd East. Rod isnt keen on having his photo taken, which is why hes glaring at the camera, but he figured that at least there will be a snarky comment from Dave. You can see the Doonesbury mural behind them. pika is very politically conscious. This normally means national politics, but they are always happy to discuss campus issues with me when I visit, and usually have insightful things to say. Maggie 07, pictured here, and fellow pikan Cassandra 07 are two of my oldest friends at MIT. I think I met them before we had our permanment housing assigments. Tucker 07 and Liz 08 are summer pikans. During term, Tucker lives at Random and Liz lives on 3rd East. Despite their similar looks, interests and personalities, they are not brother and sister (as so many people think upon meeting them), but a couple. They were responsible for the omnivore-friendly dinner, I believe. I mentioned before that pikans like carpentry, and hands-on things in general, as shown by this picture of the back of their house. They built the porches, stairs, and treehouse themselves. You know, every time someone tells me that its better and safer to require all freshmen to live in dorms (as has been done since 2002), I want to point to pika and say What could possibly be better or safer about not allowing freshmen to live in this place? Dave, Im waiting for the requisite snarky comment. *grin* Post Tagged #East Campus #pika #Random Hall