How My Wife Stole My Car in Massachusetts
An object lesson in navigating the registry of motor vehicles
When we moved from Arizona to Massachusetts, my wife graciously offered to take care of registering our car, letting me focus on starting classes at MIT. If someone offers to go to the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) on your behalf, you say two things, and two things only: 1) ‘Yes’ and 2) ‘THANK […]
Not a Contradiction
You can raise a family at MIT
“You know,” my wife said, “For our kids, MIT won’t be this abstract place they hear about sometimes in the news. It’ll be home: where they learned to ride their bikes and to read. They’ll think of it as the place where they grew up.” My wife – who deserves more credit than I could […]
The Wonderful World of Procrasti-Baking
How I manage grad school stress in the kitchen
You have spent days – maybe even weeks – planning the perfect experiment. You have gathered all the materials you need, written down the protocol in your lab notebook, and made sure all the necessary equipment is available. Line by line, you perform the protocol with precision and manage to get through it without any […]
Learning to Engage in Deep Conversations
How a conflict management class awoke my interest in interfaith dialogue
In the third year of my PhD, two things happened that dramatically changed the way I see the world: I took MIT’s 40-hour conflict management course in my training to become an MIT REF, and Donald Trump was elected president. In their own ways, both opened my eyes to a whole new way of seeing […]
MIT Graduate Housing
The guide I wish I'd had
During my interview weekend at MIT, I went on a brief housing tour of three MIT graduate housing residences that current students lived in. One student proclaimed her room was the biggest bedroom in the whole building. I made a mental note—the biggest room in the furnished dorm is not very big. Don’t live there. […]
