I want you to burn

I want you to burn DID YOU KNOW? The word meaning the closest approach of an orbiting body to Mars is periareion. My dorm, Burton-Conner, is the best. Even though we havent meaningfully updated our web page in two and a half years, were still the best. Why? Kitchen space. As Laura showed you, each floor is arranged into suites of 4-10 people each. This means that for a modest reduction in room size, every 6 people in the dorm get a full kitchensink, cabinets, two refrigerators, stove, and oven. No lugging a Target refrigerator from Omaha, NE in the back of your parents minivan. It also means that we have the highest per-capita average of fire alarms of any dorm on the MIT campus. Because just because you go to MIT doesnt mean you know that you should take the wrapper off of a microwave burrito, or that you shouldnt put pita chips in the oven and then forget about them. Not that its necessarily a bad thingI never would have met the former second-best Goldeneye player in the world if it werent for a random fire alarm at Burton-Conner. (I WAS SO EXCITED) Long long ago, I heard something, maybe on these blogs, about the culture of a dorm being somehow determined by its physical structure. I think Burton-Conners culture is pretty much defined by fire alarms. Yeah, fire alarms and thats it. Its rare for any freshman to live in Burton-Conner for more than two weeks without hearing exactly how to prevent a catastrophe: Close the door when youre cooking and open the windows. The suite alarm can go off for three minutes before the dorm alarm kicks in and everyone needs to evacuate. If somethings on fire, cover it or throw it out the window! Actually, its rare for any freshman to live in Burton-Conner for two weeks without having a fire alarm go off. Just because its 3 AM, or 12 degrees outside, or the night before the Boston Marathon, doesnt mean that someone knows how to cook a pepperoni n cheese Hot Pocket. People usually take the minute before the fire department gets there to put on their finest attire and grab some playing cards or a s nack. Then later w reminisce about how much fun we had playing hearts or secret card or whatever at a particular fire alarm, and how cold it was. I know 3 sets of people whose facebook friendship status is They met randomly: Burton-Conner Fire Alarm! I even wrote lyrics to the ringing alarm. Basically, if Burton-Conner ever actually burns down, were all pretty much doomed. But doomed awesomely. And since its better to show, not tell, I grabbed my camera last night. You might think its stupid for me to just show 15 pictures of my ridiculously attractive friends standing outside a non-burning building, but lets see what kind of blog entries you come up with when someone wakes you up at 3 AM. Oh no! A fire! You better ring the alarm! Unfazed, Gabe 08 makes his traditional mug of hot cocoa for the road. The only two exceptions were the time that he set it off while insouciantly frying a hamburger and the time that he was in the middle of a boss battle in Zelda: Twilight Princess, so he locked the lounge door and hid under a couch so the firemen wouldnt reprimand him. Well, I can do that too. I got a little worried that the fire department was going to find us there and yell at us (they have threatened to make everyone sleep outside after finding someone hiding under his covers hoping that the torturous noise would finally end), but Gabe assured me, no, I do this EVERY TIME. As you can see, Gabe does look pretty rowdy drinking his cocoa, doesnt he? Its a tradition. Sung 10 has an adorable hat and is saying something, probably, Its Lauren 10s birthday and theres a fire alarm! Because everybody at MIT talks like that and says peoples class year right after their name. We really do talk in numbers here. Richard 09 sympathizes. When Ling 07 saw that I was taking pictures, I think she said something like, You should take one of me because Im not wearing any pants. Trust me. Or you could ask Evan 10 in the background. Anyway, I gave her some cocoa to thank her for this awesome pose. Jeremy 09 brought his Mac outside so people could watch House. Everyone was entranced, except David 09 who apparently likes me better than Hugh Laurie. Neither the late hour nor House nor the fact that it only snowed, like, one centimeter could stop Jeremy from throwing snowballs at his girlfriend Alice 09. Oh, kids. Sam, you have a camera? Psh, Laura, Im blogging this [stuff]. Thats what it should say on the back of our blogger t-shirts. THIS IS THE REAL MIT! I dont think I really said that last thing, but in my head I did. In my head Im also six foot one. Then I just started taking some portraits, which turned out surprisingly decent considering it was 3 AM. E-mail me if you want any names or phone numbers! Evan 10 hes wholesome! Mason 10 he can moonwalk! Richard 09 hes from Wisconsin! MARK 09 the lowest grade he got all term was an 88%! And he builds killer robots! I didnt really capture it well here, but there was actually a few puffs of smoke trickling out of the second-from-top floor window, which is much closer to an actual fire than most of our alarms are. It also meant that we had to stay outside for an extra 10 minutes while the air cleared. But the end of the alarm has come often, and continues to often come. We headed back inside to beds or Wiis and decided that we would do this again sometime. Probably sooner than we want. THIS IS THE REAL MIT! Post Tagged #Burton-Conner House