101 Things To Do Before You Graduate

13/101 Things To Do Before You Graduate Bloggers of old have written about the 101 Things To Do Before You Graduate list. See here, here, and  here, for example. To summarize: during orientation, every freshman receives a list of 101 things to do before they graduate, which they can (a) keep with them as they go through their four years at MIT, (b) leave in the closet for all four years, then pull it out when they graduate to use as a reminiscing tool, or (c) lose immediately, if theyre me. My friend Daniel 12, on the other hand, used his list as a placemat for his jade plants. He pulled it out after finals, and realized that he still had 26 items left.  In case you think this would be an easy thing to do in the two weeks between finals and graduation, take a look at what he had left: Run a bridge loop Take a class at Harvard or Wellesley Go clubbing on Landsdowne Street Buy clothes at the Garment district Ride a swan boat in Boston Common Take a Duck or Trolley Tour Try some New England clam chowder Walk the Freedom Trail Go on a Boston Harbor Cruise Check out the New England Aquarium Visit the top of the Prudential Center See a show at the Museum of Science Ice skate on Frog Pond Go shopping on Newbury Street See a Red Sox game in Fenway Go to Faneuil Hall Get funnel cake in Downtown Crossing Go on an MIT snowriders ski trip Get a discount on Bose products Visit Singing Beach at Manchester-by-the-Sea Play DDR in the Game Room Go rock climbing in Dupont Check out the MIT Museum Enjoy some Despinas pizza after 1 am Take free sailing lessons at the Sailing Pavilion Earn your degree. Um. The first thing you should notice is that the two weeks before finals and graduation is officially too late to do some of these things. Take a class at Harvard or Wellesley, for example. Ice skate on Frog Pond. The next thing you should realize is that some of these things are outdated. There is no longer a rock climbing wall in Dupont. Despinas pizza is now called Cafe 47. The Game Room by La Verdes (an on-campus grocery store) is now just has a bunch of tables and chairs. challenge accepted. Daniel and I put our heads together and did 13 of them in 2 days (MIT students are experts at getting a lot of stuff done at the very last minute): Run a bridge loop Ride a swan boat in Boston Common Try some New England clam chowder Walk the Freedom Trail Go on a Boston Harbor Cruise Check out the New England Aquarium Visit the top of the Prudential Center See a show at the Museum of Science Ice skate on Frog Pond Go shopping on Newbury Street Go to Faneuil Hall Get funnel cake in Downtown Crossing Go rock climbing in Dupont Whats that? Youre dying to find out how we managed to ice skate on Frog Pond? Great! Day 1 We drove to Boston Common (a big beautiful park right smack in the middle of the city), got lunch, then walked to Chinatown. First stop: buy some fish. I walked up to a very nice hairdresser, who spoke next to no English, to ask for directions. Me: Hello! Would you happen to know where we can buy some fish? Lady: ? Me: Umbuy some fish? Lady: ? Me: Fish? Lady: ? Me: Fish. Lady: OHHH! She smiled and pointed to a blue awning further down the street. We walked into the store, went up to the counter, and spoke with the very nice fishmonger who spoke next to no English. Me: Hello! Would you happen to sell any skate? Man: ? Me: Umskate? Man: ? Daniel pulled out his iPhone and looked up the Chinese character for skate. He showed it to the fishmonger. Man: OHHH! He pointed to a piece of meat that apparently came from something like this: Something worth mentioning: my only real phobia in the whole world is of dying fish. Not dead fish, not live fish: dying fish. Flopping fish. So, when the guy behind the counter slapped a LIVE FISH (not the skate; this was for some other customer) onto the scale and let it flop around, I booked it away to the stores candy section and hid, shivering. Daniel came to fetch me after buying the skate. Armed with a piece of skate, we walked to Boston Common, and found a lemonade stand. Daniel bought a Coke, and I asked for ice. Armed with the skate, and the ice, we walked to Frog Pondand iced the skate. Yeah. That happened. And Id like to point out that this is a totally legitimate reading of Ice skate on Frog Pond. They should have written it Go ice skating on Frog Pond. After the ice skating icing skate adventure, we took a Swan Boat ride. We wrapped up the day by walking the Freedom trail and eating funnel cake at Downtown Crossing, before driving back to campus in time for a trip to Cape Cod with a bunch of other French House friends. When we got back to MIT, we had one day to: Run a bridge loop Try some New England clam chowder Go on a Boston Harbor Cruise Check out the New England Aquarium Visit the top of the Prudential Center See a show at the Museum of Science Go shopping on Newbury Street Go to Faneuil Hall Go rock climbing in Dupont Day 2 The bridge loop we decided to run starts along the Cambridge side of the Charles River. We broke it into four chunks: (1) Along Memorial Drive (the Cambridge side of the Charles River), from the Harvard Bridge to the Longfellow Bridge. (2) Across the Longfellow Bridge. (3) Along the Promenade (the Boston side of the Charles River), from the Longfellow Bridge to the Harvard Bridge. (4) Across the Harvard Bridge. We started the day by running (1) and (2). (2) brought us to the Museum of Science, where we sprinted into the building one minute before the show started. After the show, we ran (3), then ate lunch and walked to Newbury Street, where I bought a pair of earrings. After that, we noticed that we were near the Prudential Center, so we went inside, ate some clam chowder, then  took the elevator to the top and immediately returned to the ground floor when we realized that one has to pay a ridiculous entrance fee up there. Whatever. We still got to the top! After visiting the Pru, we  got on the T (the Boston subway system) to go to the aquarium. After spending about an hour in the aquarium, we took a Harbor Cruise, before walking through Faneuil Hall and returning to the T stop on the other side of the river. We ran (4), completing the bridge loop. We then walked to Dupont (the MIT gym) Daniel brought a rock with him, and climbed it. And that was that. The next day, I said goodbye to all my senior friends and left Boston for the summer.  I hear that Daniel borrowed a friends DDR equipment and set it up in what used to be the game room. He and our friend Davie went to Landsdowne Street and hit each other with clubs (the playing card) since they didnt feel like actually going clubbing. Our friends Adrienne and Ben went to Harvard with him, and taught him to play Munchkin: a card game in which taking a class means becoming a wizard or a thief or something like that. Ben stacked the deck so that Daniel would start by taking a class, because he didnt want the game to last too long. Adrienne gave Daniel a sailing lesson. Yeah, some of this was cute and creative but Id measure the success by how fun it was. Embarrassing ourselves at Frog Pond (we got all kinds of weird looks from people, as you can probably imagine), running around the Museum of Science, going on a boat ride, seeing the aquarium all of those seem like perfect ways to spend ones last few days in Boston and at MIT. I still have two more years to finish that list. Ive decided to make it a personal goal for that list to be no different from 101 times that my friends and I did something awesome: each of those items is basically an excuse to go and have a good day. About two weeks ago, all of my senior friends did #101: they earned their degrees and graduated. Congratulations, you guys! Im torn between missing you dearly and being excited for the world, now that youre out in it. And thank you, Daniel, for the adventure.