Kelly's content

Life

Kelly — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 05:49:32 +0000

I've decided that Brian is just dominating PlanetHolt far too much. Therefore I needed to reclaim some territory. So this is just a general update on my life.

My schedule is finally set for the semester! I'll be taking Physics 15a (Introductory classical mechanics and relativity), CS 50 (intro computer science class), English 182: Science Fiction (core class where we read science fiction novels), and Lit and Arts C 70: From the Hebrew Bible to Judaism, from the Old Testament to Christianity (which analyzes how Judaism and Christianity differently interpret the Old Testament). Sci Fi and LAC should be fairly easy and not-time-consuming classes, which is good since both CS 50 and Physics 15 are notoriously time-consuming and difficult.

Our first CS 50 problem set was fun....we basically got to make whatever we wanted using a program called "Scratch" that is basically computer programming for people who don't know any programming languages. My project (an RPG based on the life of a college student), can be accessed with the following link:

http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/kholt/678562

In addition to classes, coming back to school also means coming back to RCS (Radcliffe Choral Society), which is awesome! We just had sing-ins for our "newies," which was the culmination of the weeks-long auditions process. It's very strange to be an "oldie" in RCS but really fun and exciting to be on the other side of the sing-in process.

So...that's a pretty good update on what I've been up to.

Housing Day!

Kelly — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:15:44 +0000

Today was Freshman Housing Day! This is a big tradition at Harvard, when the freshman find out what House they will belong to for the next three years.

The process begins in early March, when freshmen register their “blocking” and “linking” groups. Basically, you’re allowed to form a group of up to eight people that will all be placed in the same House. Then, you are allowed to “link” with another group of eight, and although you won’t be in the same House, you will be in the same neighborhood.

The excitement really starts a few days before Housing Day, when all the Houses start advertising to the freshman. Since freshman don’t actually get a choice of what house they are going to belong to, this is more for House pride than anything else. (It’s also rather notable that it is the less popular houses that generally advertise the most… perhaps so freshman who get placed there won’t be disappointed.) One example is this video made for Mather House:

The freshman dining hall was also a popular spot for large groups of upperclassmen to gather to cheer their houses.

The night before Housing Day is traditionally when “River Run” occurs. Although the tradition has a variety of forms, the essential idea is that each freshman goes to the courtyard of each upperclass House they would like to be placed in and takes a shot while appealing to the “River Gods” with some kind of cheer. Of course, since many students have midterms/early morning classes/etc. on Housing Day, it is also common to just walk from house to house with your blocking group.

The second part of the Housing Day Eve tradition involves making a boat out of paper/cardboard, writing the names of all the Houses you don’t want on the boat, and then taking it down to the River, lighting it on fire, and letting it float away. According to the upperclassmen, this tradition is generally tolerated by Harvard University Police. Unfortunately for our class, though, someone decided to fill an Axe bottle with alcohol and light it on fire down by the river. Someone else apparently saw this fire and thought the boat house was on fire, and decided to call the fire department. This got the State Police involved, and soon the entire river bank was covered with police cars, leaving many freshman to wander around with unburned boats and unfulfilled traditions.

The morning of Housing Day, groups of students from each House wander around screaming and hand-deliver letters to each blocking group announcing their assignment. Starting at 8:30, my blocking group sat anxiously in the hallway awaiting news. Every time we heard cheering, we started freaking out, but there were many false alarms before we discovered:

PFO HO!!!

Pforzheimer House (a.k.a. Pfo Ho) is part of the Radcliffe Quadrangle (aka the Quad) that used to be the campus of Radcliffe before Harvard went coed.

Following finding out Housing, all of the Houses send large numbers of representatives to Annenberg (the freshman dining hall) to celebrate the new freshmen and to give free house t-shirts to everyone. This celebration was once thought by a news channel to be an Iraq War protest:

Al Gore Speaks at Harvard

Kelly — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 03:55:26 +0000

So, Al Gore was at Harvard today. I could only stay for part of his speech since I had to leave for chorus rehearsal, but it was crazy how many people were there. Walking away from the speech I saw that the rest of the campus was basically dead. Many people that I know had their classes cancelled today so that they could go watch the speech.

From what I could tell, the speech was not particularly inspiring, nor did it tell anyone anything new. However, I was quite impressed by the fact that Mr. Gore felt that it was appropriate to compare himself to Galileo. Seriously. He thinks he is like Galileo.

I would post pictures, except my camera's batteries were dead when I went to take pictures today.

McCain at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner

Kelly — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 16:17:17 +0000

So, these are some comments that McCain made at the Alfred E. Smith Dinner. And they're hilarious.

Part I:

Part II:

Yay.