The joy axiom

Magnet #974 - MIT

For the most part, I'm a relatively intelligent chick, I think. But my downfall is and always will be anything having to do with numbers. Anything. Whether it's counting blocks or figuring out 20% tip, I cannot do it.

So, today, when we roamed the hallowed halls of MIT, land of the smaht people, I felt pretty unsmaht. Particularly at the student stores cash register, when I looked across the room and stared for a bit figuring out the "May The m x a Be With You." on the wall.

First, I got distracted by the random initial caps of the phrase and wondered who did a such a silly thing. Second, I was like why didn't they just use "force." And finally, the light went on in my head for mass times acceleration. (In my defense, I never took physics. Shut it. I've lived to my mid-30s without taking it. I'm fine.)

Anyway, my cousin (who is exceedingly smarter than yours truly, I'm learning) and I did the self-guided tour which took us all around the campus from the classrooms and labs to Gehry's Stata Center and the fun student union. (Also in my defense, I knew that this piece in the Stata was an Anish Kapoor before I saw the placard, which also made me feel a little smarter.)

Though, honestly, aside from the student stores thing, I probably would have felt a little more intimidated on campus, had we not taken a stroll down the Infinite Corridor of this building on this magnet. In addition to the fun exhibit on fonts (no, really) and on strobes (no, really), the halls were lined bulletin boards with all their fun things to do, and once I got a load of the student life activities, I pretty much stopped being intimidated.

That's what MIT Quidditch(!), the MIT Marching Band (with Strolling Strings!), the MIT Gilbert & Sullivan Players, and the MIT anime library collection (the largest in America!) will do for ya. I kinda thought, oh, wouldn't it be fun to be at MIT.

But then I remembered the joy axiom:

If it has numbers, no.

Wait. Is that a postulate? Definitely a fact, not theorem.

Sigh. I hated Geometry.