Omar Abu

CERN Rap from Will Barras on Vimeo.

THIS VIDEO IS AMAZING! How is it that physicists and engineers (at CERN no less) have come up with the most knee-sleeping hilarious rap song ever? I don't think I've ever had so much fun learning - let alone learning about a particle collider. I find the awkward dancing and pretend beatboxing to be the most entertaining parts. If you're wondering, I really do wish I was cool enough to be in this video. Unfortunately (fortunately?), I am not freakishly stalker-obsessed enough with the Higgs Boson to be accepted wholeheartedly amongst the ranks of the good folks over at CERN.

Let's not be quick to dismiss this video as just a funny, yet lame, idea that was construed deep within the confines of some mad scientist's mind. Maybe they are onto something magical here. If we really want American kids to learn something, we should be teaching them in rhyme! Well, maybe that's a little sad to think about (because it would probably work). Anyway, kudos to CERN for producing the next great nerd rap (sorry Weird Al, you've been replaced).

For a couple seconds there, I forgot how soon the world's doom is. To be precise, September 10th will be the day scientists switch on the Large Hadron Collider, the 17-mile long racetrack, and micro black holes engulf the Earth. Woah, I even had myself convinced for a second - not. Seriously (and I'm talking to you Citizens Against The Large Hadron Collider) TAKE A CHILL PILL. The most credible scientists on Earth have concluded that there is no threat so sit back, make some popcorn, and watch a revolution in physics unfold before your eyes. And in the end, if the smartest people in the world are wrong, then at least we won't have to worry about Global Warming or Miley Cyrus anymore :p.

As I was perusing my 18.02 notes, I was reminded of when I posed you all with the "nerd test," this atrociously difficult math problem that can only be solved with ingenuity and elegance (is it sad that ASEs are the only things in this world that truly frighten me?). Don't let me mislead you. One stare at this problem had me running to the hills when I first encountered it. Now, though, I appreciate the trickery behind it, the way something so complex and seemingly insolvable can become refreshingly simple and, in hindsight, easy. Well, I return now with the solution to this problem. In reality, I don't think you'd be that impressed unless you live in Michigan and find it difficult to have a life. But seriously though, can you blame me when cows here are as common as McDonald's and soccer fields are found within corn fields? Anywho, without further ado, here is the solution straight out of some random multivariable calculus book that I seem to have lying around for some reason.



In actuality, I do live a life outside the blogosphere (*gasp shocker I know). Today my friends and I were doing one of those "I might never see you again so we should keep hanging out" get-togethers. In our attempt to relive the glory days of senior year, we all decided we wanted to gulp down frozen custard so obviously we met up at Culver's, home of the cheese curds and all that is Wisconsin.

To my delight, the flavor of the day was "rockin' raspberry." I approached the counter and asked the lady, "Can I get the raspberry Concrete Mixer?"
"Yea, what toppings do you want?"
"Hmm, let's see. Cookie dough and-"
"You want cookie dough with raspberry?"
"Yea, why not?"
Mumbling to herself, "You don't get cookie dough with raspberry..."
"It sounded good in my head."
"Ok, your call...anything else?"
"Yea bananas too!"
To the side, "Oh god, raspberry and banana really?"
"What was that?"
"Oh nothing..."

Five minutes later another girl comes out, "Raspberry concrete float with oh gosh umm-"
"Yea yea I know. It's mine. Givee here."

Well, you know what? It was positively scrumptious, despite all the attitude I received! It just goes to show that it's always the weirdest combinations, like peanut butter and mustard sandwiches, that turn out great.

Not that I have anything against Culver's, even though I should considering the girl who waited on me, I found their advertising scheme ridiculously corny. Everyone at the table passed around the flip card thingies so we could all take pictures and laugh at the cheesy slogans.





There you have it. Culver's, the heroic food chain of the cheeseheads, uses ads that insult our intelligence. I'd like to give their advertising agency a piece of my mind! At least they made for a good laugh.

As the night pressed on and my ice cream degenerated into a puddle of red, chunky mush, three teenagers sneakily approached the fence of the putt-putt place across the parking lot and slid underneath. They then proceeded to climb onto this giant fake mountain that featured this life-size lion at the top. The hooligans slowly made their way to the summit, only their silhouettes showing against the night sky. As my friends watched, the girls giggling, the conversation basically went like this:

"Wow, they're so cool."
"Yea I want to be just like them."
"Uhh, where's that guy's hand going."
"Is he putting his hand...up that...on the lion?"
"Umm, yeah I think so. Oh god-"
"Did he just pretend to give that lion-"
"Ow my god, what are they doing?"
"Yea, I'm pretty sure that lion is scarred for life."

These three teenagers single-handedly managed to gross out the entire customer base of Culver's in a manner of 5 minutes. After these kids finished molesting this plastic lion, they were chased out by the workers who finally noticed what they were up to. Talk about a shocking night >.<

Excuse me while I try to recover my eyesight and erase the events of tonight from memory.

"Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive." ~ Elbert Hubbard



Do you enjoy converting aerosol spray cans into impromptu flamethrowers? Do you spend your spare time playing with bubbles, soft, cuddly methane bubbles? Do you find yourself uncontrollably amused by popping hydrogen/oxygen balloons? If yes to any of these question, then you and I are destined to be friends - best friends forever.

Don't give me that look. I can still be utterly engrossed in pyromania and still be normal. We all burned ants with magnifying glasses as kids, watching them smoke with awe. We all messed around with fancy, high-tech lasers, using them to light matches in mere seconds. Ok, well maybe the latter isn't so common, but that didn't stop me from reveling in the wonders of green lasers! Before you think I'm absolutely obsessed with fire (well, maybe I am at times :p), let me get to the point. I recently learned of this boyscout survival technique that is used to start a fire when abandoned in the middle of nowhere. All it involves is a 9V battery and some steel wool - why someone stranded would have either of these I don't know.

When first hearing of this neat phenomenon, I was fairly skeptical, not believing that you could start a fire with just a common household battery, but as always, physics (and maybe a little bit of chemistry) has the answer. As anyone who has dipped their toe in physics would know, circuits produce heat, a whole lot of it - this being the reason why three obnoxious light bulbs can render my room 81.9 degrees. Well, that means if you have a plain old circuit, doing nothing but circulating electrons, then it's just wasting energy in the form of heat. If one were to use a wire - this is where the sheep wool comes in - that is easily combustible, then like dark, medieval magic, sparks fly and the good times roll. So what fun is a lengthy, boring description of this? Since I wouldn't be any good at this job if I didn't subject myself to horrifying dangers on a daily basis for the sake of blogging, I threw in bundles of steel wool into my handy-dandy fire pit and lit away. Check out my exploits below:

The new Harry Potter movie trailer is out! I'm excited to see it, especially since I may end up seeing it in Cambridge.

Welcome...please check any normality at the door.

We have a winner for geekiest household item ever. This trumps anything my wildest imagination could conjure and makes my "geeky sense" (sort of like the spidey sense) tingle. I want these (see below) so much!



No, those are not super enlarged eyes pulled out of someone's eye sockets like in Kill Bill, one of the sweetest movies to be produced in my time. These are eyeball lamps. Imagine these babies in action lighting up your room. You'd be the talk of the geek community. You'd be hailed as the uber master of all that is nerdy. Yes, you'd become geek overlord.

So why am I making such a big deal about something that seems so mundane. Why, because so far I've neglected to tell you one important (and perhaps creepy) part to all this. These lamps are tailored to resemble your own eyes based upon pictures of them! Like I said, you would be an overnight sensation in the geek world with these bad boys. Unfortunately, these would probably cost a fortune the tuition of MIT, so you won't be seeing my shiny eyeballs lighting my dorm room anytime soon. Regardless, you could at least whet your nerd appetite by going to the designer's website and drooling over pictures.

UPDATE:



Per Enas' request, I'm posting the nighttime picture because it pretty much confirms just how rocking this lights are. I'm not going to pretend though. Having these next to me while I sleep, staring at me, taunting me, would cause many twisted nightmares. Think Willy Wonka, but the complete opposite.

I swear I'm not a creeper. These are just toooo funny. If you can find more, pleaase share! By the way, before this post there were 123 posts on my blog. How exciting!

I just can't stop laughing at this. Maybe it's the accent.

Well not really, especially since you are reading this blog which makes you undoubtedly awesome. I am so addicted to these "FAIL" pictures. I can't stop looking for them, I can't sleep...I can't eat...well I guess I can eat, but when I eat I get sorta of sleepy...eh but anyway, these pictures rock. You'll probably end up laughing hysterically to most of them and hurt yourself (I almost did...whoops :) ), but take the chance and go to these two websites ASAP and have a good time!

So do you ever FAIL? Just yesterday I dropped a toilet paper roll and it unraveled a few meters. Yeah I fail a lot. It's ok though.

Above is a strip from my favorite web comic site: the Perry Bible Fellowship! Don't be fooled by the name. None of these are holy like. This comic rocks this world so much that it has been turned into one of the greatest books of all time. That's right! Nothing can beat a book that has a candyland theme. It even has one of those handy built in bookmarks. Go check the rest out NOW. Some of their outstanding strips include "Suicide Train," "An End to Gopher Trouble," and "The Tree of Irony." Let me know what your favorite comic site is in the comments!

For you mac lovers out there, a new site launched that allows you to make your own software bundles for discounted prices. I'm not talking about the 5% discount that saves you like 3 dollars on an item that's overpriced in the first place and is taking you for everything you've got. No. This has actual prices with discounts based on the number of applications you buy. If you buy five, you'll get 40% off! I was playing around and discovered that I could buy five applications for less than the cost of parallels, the only application I care for at this time. Sweet deal right?

Because of Enas '12 I can now have MIT's school calender on my phone! She created an iCal version of MIT's calender and posted it, allowing me to download it and transfer it over to my phone. Now I know precisely when every holiday is!




The only downside is that now I have no excuse for missing anything. Oh wait, I'm covered. "My phone ran out of battery." There we go I'm good for the time being. I do know though when that excuse won't fly like today with my physical exam appointment. This has been scheduled for months and I'm pretty sure my parents wouldn't be pleased if I missed it. Yeah, that's right. I slyly snuck in the fact that I'm almost done with some of the last major forms MIT needs! Once I get this medical report out, I believe I will be done for the time being. Woohoo.

The lesson folks: "Love is blind."

Gosh I love these cartoons. Enjoy!

[Picture are coming soon]

Tuesday was an amazing day as we all were treated to a dinner catered by Wolfgang Puck at the aquarium and desert at the World of Coca Cola. The dinner was amongst whales and sharks in an elegant dining hall, but the best to come was to be found at the World of Coca Cola. After getting my picture taken with the polar bear, I headed for the tasting room where there was about 6 stations each with around 10-15 drinks Coca Cola makes from around the world. Needless to say, I had to try every single one. I did shots by quickly going across each soda fountain and 20 minutes later my stomach was more than full.

While that was a great end to the night, judging was tomorrow morning. It was definitely more laid back than I thought it would be. The judges were extremely interested and nice, asking fair and not mind-numbingly hard questions. Things became intense though in the third session when I had an unscheduled interview with two grand award judges for the last 20 minutes or so. They kept asking questions one after another and knew what they were talking about. In fact, one of them had worked with leeches, my model animal for study, and was meticulously analyzing my work. It became more of an academic discussion though, which proved enjoyable and their questions about my procedure provided me with many ideas on how to improve.

After judging was the student mixer. Food was served on trays and so everyone had to chases the waiters down to eat. It was hilarious because throughout the entire night you would see a big mob of people chasing after a waiter with such delicacies as scrumptious chicken wings or mini hamburgers. After a couple of hours of watching lame dancing in this brightly lit atrium, I and a few others headed to the Hard Rock where we didn't order much, inadvertently angering the waiter who obviously desired a large tip. After eating my apple cobbler, we headed to the Omni and sat around talking until we felt dreariness from the past few long nights overcome us. We concluded that the hotel wouldn't be pleased with a bunch of geeks passed out in their lounge so we called it a night and crashed in our rooms.

Right now I have to head to the exhibition hall as public viewing starts at 10 am. Today will be an interesting day.

We're two days into the science fair and Atlanta is packed with aspiring young talent from end to end. Everywhere I walk in Atlanta, I can expect to see the signature orange finalist ribbon dangling across someone's neck. It's as if we've taken over the city in a matter of days. I'm not complaining though. Geeks everywhere. Science in the air. What more could I ask for?

Let me take you back through the past two days so that you can vicariously see ISEF up and close. Trust me if you have even the smallest inkling of nerdiness in your blood, this will be a treat you don't want to miss :p.



As we were driving in on the ridiculous 7 lane highway, Atlanta's skyline slowly became visible, popping out from amongst the trees. In addition, to the weather being good on Sunday, the rental company gave us a covertible and so my friend, chaperone, and I drove into Atlanta with the top down and the tunes blazing (<-- who are we kidding, we were'nt listing to music...I was reading).



When we finally made our way through the streets to the Georgia World Congress Center (GWCC), the wind had picked up and was blowing everything. Luckily, we survived. ISEF takes up the entire GWCC to my knowledge. Regardless, it is humungous. I'm not just talking about the exhibition hall, which rocks in its own right. I'm talking about all the rooms, including the e-lounge filled with internet enabled laptops and a plasma and the presentation room filled with awesomeness (aka a huge, huge projection screen).



Sunday night was the pin exchange in which I met many old friends and many new. My name badge strap now has pins all over it from all sorts of countries. For the record, it's funny how many Stanford pre-frosh are here. I met like 10 at the exchange, but only 2 MIT '12ers.



I spent Sunday evening and Monday morning setting up my project and after about 4 hours I was finally approved. My project check was funny and unnerving at the same time because the inspector kept analyzing the leeches in my pictures attempting to ensure that their weren't any ghastly views of the dissection process. Apparently, there are thousands of young students coming out on Thursday who would be disgusted by opened animals. Plus, there's the whole issue with animal rights.

The HUB in the exhibition hall is by far the coolest feature available to exhibitors as it has endless supplies of every single tool and type of material you would ever need.




Monday night was the opening ceremony, which had the exact same setup that I've seen in the online videos. I was overjoyed to finally experience it all in person. The swinging cameras definitely add to the whole glorified atmosphere of the event. It rocked. I have many videos of the Atlanta Drumline (featured in the movie Drumline) performing, the Intel CEO giving a lecture, weatherman Nick Walker from the Weather Channel hosting, the president of Society For the Science and the Public encouraging us, and Philipe Cousteau from "Oceans" motivating the crowd. The shout outs came afterward where reps from each country sprinted up onto stage with posters inducing shouts and clapping from their respective countries. The entire night was just amazing.












The host (weatherman) is on the left and Phillipe is on the right.
After the event, I got a picture of everyone leaving the hall. Anyone care to do a Fermi estimate of this?


Of course, any trip to a great city isn't complete without the obligatory skyline photos.





Today I hope to see the CNN tower and go the Science and Technology Panel with Nobel laureates. Then tonight is the dinner in the aquarium and dessert at the Coca Cola center. Tomorrow is judging!

[Guest Entry on MIT blogs]

While I’m not cool enough to enroll at MIT on an iTouch or to dedicate myself to MIT for four years weeks before CPW, I am cool enough to now say, “I am enrolled at MIT!” In fact, I just enrolled moments before finishing this very blog entry and am proud of it. Now with that out of the way…Hi, I’m Omar!

I come from a small Midwestern town located on the lower left side of the palm that is Michigan (I wonder how many people actually get what I mean by palm :-p). After a two hour flight, in which I met a matriculating Harvard Medical School student who tried to convince me to go to a public university, I was definitely ready for some MIT action. I left the plane and descended upon the luggage claim where I met my first MIT friend Shubhi. Although I never saw her again during CPW, there's no one like your first MIT prefrosh friend (words of wisdom).

To those who have heard rumors of a clandestine, transcendental chat group full of amazing people, let me assure you. There is an MIT 2012 chat room (commercial: if you would like to be part of this, for a one time only fee of five dollars (just kidding) you can join this interesting bunch by going to your favorite AIM client and joining the chatroom “MIT12”).



And here are our trusty sidekicks:



For the past few months, while waiting for my MIT decision and even after it, the chatroom provided me with my daily MIT fix. We laughed, we cried, we made fun of Harvard and Caltech, and we anxiously awaited CPW. All of us chat people became closeknit and couldn’t wait to meet at CPW. When I stepped off the Peter Pan bus onto MIT’s campus, I looked around hoping to spot someone I "know." As I edged closer to the student center, I saw some people doing an odd version of the cha cha slide and by the time I turned on my trusty, dandy, handheld video camera with laser deathbeam and all, I had realized that they were all MIT12 chatters!



(They are all going to punch me at orientation for posting that picture.)





My first duty on campus after registration, of course, was to find the admissions office. I quickly scanned the doors in the infinite corridor until I found:




After the chat group finished taking pictures we knocked on the door and an MIT student asked, “Are you prefrosh?” and we just giggled and nodded yes and she told us that all of the admissions officers were in the student center. We didn't care though, we got what we came for: a picture of the names.

Now, one of my personal goals during CPW was to collect as many free shirts as possible. While I ended up only getting 4, I still came away feeling like I had somewhat accomplished my goal. Two of the shirts were actually unexpected, while the other two I snagged from the enourmous activities fair. While I do not have a picture of the activities fair, I do have a picture of the CPW festival, which was held in the same place and looks exactly the same as the activities fair minus a naked guy in a box.





At the activities fair, I saw Paul again and he was at my favorite booth. He works for the MIT Undergraduate Research Journal staff and if I recall correctly is going to be co-Editor-in-Chief next year. This journal rocks and so I did what any prefrosh would do...I put my email address on "the list."

I ended up obtaining another shirt from the Arab Students' Organization (ASO). I adore this shirt because it spells “Massachusetts Institute of Technology” in Arabic. Yeah, you wish you had one of these. While on the subject of the ASO, let me go off on a tangent and say that I am very impressed with how MIT regards religion on campus. I went to a Muslim Students Association event held in the Religious Activities Center and it was amazing. There was a well-furnished prayer hall filled with everything a Muslim student would need. Out of all the universities I visited, MIT treats religion the best. End tangent here.

Aside from rocking out in Rock Band throughout CPW...



...some of the highlights of my trip at MIT included:

1) CPW Welcome

My favorite part about the welcome was definitely the MIT Logarhythms, MIT’s all-male a cappella group. For your enjoyment, here are two of the songs they performed:




Here in Your Arms:



Thanks to Sam '12 for uploading this second video for me :-).


2) Battle of the Bands



In this event, I received my fourth free shirt as one of the bands threw a shirt and I luckily pushed and shoved people out of the way and caught it. At first I was like “Meh another shirt,” but then someone pointed out to me that the band members on the shirt actually spell out “MIT” and then I was like “OMG this shirt rocks!” and I walked around feeling victorious.


3) Walking on the Harvard Bridge…like a bajillion times!

I quickly found the Skullhouse fraternity on the other side of the river to be a nice safe haven for breakfast, snacks, monster drinks, and, of course, rock band. As a result, I trekked a few times back and forth across the Harvard bridge, killing my feet in the process. That’s ok though because otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to stomp on something that relates to Harvard and I wouldn’t have taken this picture below, which adequately describes how I feel now as the orientation approaches and the next four years edge closer.




4) Bouncy Ball Drop

This event rocked. It absolutely rocked. There is nothing like being the target for 10,000 bouncy balls that are being subjected to the cold-hearted force that is gravity. One moment it was quiet and calm, the next moment it was raining bouncy balls. I must admit that the strobe light was a nice addition, especially since it helped illuminate the floor in our scramble to collect as many balls as possible. Right as we all began collecting balls though, the fine folks of Senior House began pelting us with water balloons. After being struck by the third water balloon, I decided it was time to high tail it over to the Meet the Bloggers event before I was late.



5) Meet the Bloggers

With wet, soggy pants, I power walked through East Campus and the infinite corridor and reached the student center with time to spare. Inside, Ben Jones himself was preparing all the necessary supplies to make a scrumptious root bear float. The event eventually kicked off and all the bloggers filed in! After each person gave a brief introduction, everyone would clap with Ben and Snively earning the loudest clapping/cheering (no surprise there :D). When the introductions were complete, we were scoffed down root beer floats and conversed with the wondrous MIT blogging team. I got to chat with Ben, Matt, Paul, Snively, Melis, Mollie (college confidential ftw!), and Chris. Chris by the way does look a lot taller in person. I think that is the general consensus. To top off the night, we did the obligatory group picture!









6) Underground Capture the Flag

On the last night, a huge game of capture the flag took place in the vicinity of the infinite corridor. The underground tunnels, the main floor, and second floor were all fair game and made for an interesting battle. While my feet were killing me at this point due to the continuous walking for three days, I toughed it out and played offense with Sam ’12. We snuck around for most of the game, until we were deep in red territory (we were Blue) and were spotted. I made a run for it and somehow ended up out of bounds. Nevertheless, I hid around a corner for five minutes, but just as I felt I was safe again, a red person came out of nowhere and took me to jail where I found Sam ’12 sitting. Then just moments later, we found out the game had ended and everyone walked back to lobby 10 to discover that the Red team had dominated. Well, at least it’s “better dead, than red.”



7) Math until you die

I died after 30 minutes. Here are the poor souls who I left behind:



While I only stayed 30 minutes, the math involving group theory and topology was still fairly interesting.



8) Simmons Hall

After seeing the tour, I absolutely fell in love with Simmons and will be putting it as my first choice (disclaimer: all feelings I express now are subject to change). Let’s start with the basics:

a) Meditation Room




b) Cool architecture



c) Random walls that jut out



d) A very new feel (maybe because it is new)



e) Amazing, hard-to-reach views (can you guess where in Simmons this was?)



If I decide I don’t want Simmons anymore, I would definitely choose Baker. I think Baker made the cut when I saw this board filled with physics. It reminded me of The Big Bang Theory, one of my favorite shows.



If neither Simmons nor Baker work out, I could always live in the best room on campus: the study area within the great dome!



I must say that MIT has really shown itself to be a safe campus. It’s great to know that campus police have thought about every possible situation and have come up with ways to protect the student body. This really puts my parents at ease too.



After walking past this excellent hack, I was innocently rickrolled (yes, I'm streching the meaning of the term) as someone was cruelly playing Rick Astley's music video for "Never Gonna Give You Up" in the hallway. Of all places!



The welcome ceremony was also entertaining, giving us another performance by the MIT Logs and an amusing act by a guy with Chinese Yo-yos. Click here to see their performance of "Save Room" by John Legend.

At the end, I saw none other than Ben Jones himself and got a picture along with Pam ‘12:



Overall, CPW was a great way to experience MIT in a fun way (I hear it's not like this at all next year, go figure). It was so much fun that it persuaded me to enroll. I cannot wait to be a full fledged MIT freshman next Fall. I visited a few classes, such as Physics II (not too bad), Linear Algebra (I understood it all yay :-) ), and Applied Electromagnetics: From Motors to Lasers (cool stuff). The premed panel was also very helpful. I was afraid I'd come to MIT, leave with a bad gpa, and end up practicing medicine in my parent's basement, but it's not true! Just about 90% of premed undergrads get into med school :-).



I am very happy to say: Only four months left!