I got back to campus almost 2 weeks ago and so far Boston is not disappointing. The trees and grass might be dead but the skyline is still brick red and glints in the sunlight. Earlier tonight I heard a bunch of girls screaming songs on Mass Ave and it really did feel like college again.

Of course, things are different. Masks are required. You can’t meet anyone outside your pod unless you’re outside. I have to get tested twice a week. The food at Maseeh is terrible (like always). Overall though, I’m glad I came back to campus.

Last weekend I was virtually running around Zoom for Blueprint, HackMIT’s annual high school hackathon. I was teaching 1iOS dev on Zoom from 11 AM to 6 PM on Saturday and actually thought I was going to lose my voice the next day. Miraculously that didn’t happen. The workshops went better than expected, and honestly I want to teach iOS again. It’s gratifying to (imagine) kids’ surprised faces when they run their first app.

Schoolwork hasn’t been terrible yet, but I am fully expecting it to ramp up on Monday when the first 6.031 pset is released. The hardest part so far is learning C/C++ for 6.08, but building systems on Arduino is pretty fun.

Another good thing about being back to campus is that I finally get to meet people for the first time. I recently realized that the people I talk to now are mostly those who I met in quarantine, which is pretty impressive given that most people found it hard to meet new people this past year. Since this is my first free weekend back, I’ve scheduled some walks with my new friends around Boston. I’m pretty excited to finally wander Boston and 2finish discovering places I didn’t get the chance to last year.

I’m also committed to exercising regularly. At home, that meant I ran every weekday at 9 AM but with Boston’s unpredictable weather, my running schedule essentially follows the weather forecast. When the weather is nice, I get to see the good side of the city though.

Here are some photos of my first 2 weeks back:

Snow dome It was snowing the first week I got back.

Frozen Charles A picture I took from the Esplanade. Would’ve liked to get closer to the river but my shoes did not permit me to trudge through the snow.

Cambridge afternoon I took this earlier today on Harvard Bridge, looking like a tourist.

Boston afternoon I also took this earlier today, facing Boston.

  1. The repository I used for the curriculum is here. I taught it through 4 workshops, roughly 5 hours, and the end result of the tutorials resulted in a demo app. Each workshop has a starter and a completed branch, with the completed branch having complete documentation of the Swift programming framework. ↩

  2. Oath pizza A foodie friend of mine took this very aesthetic photo of my dinner tonight. ↩