"Sabar drums, Rwanda, and the C.I.A"

I know what you're thinking, "Whoa, two posts in two days? How can I be so lucky!?"

Well thanks, I'm flattered.

Anyway, that's enough ego stroking for the day, the real reason is because today was so cool, so impressive, so absolutely awesome I couldn't help but blog about it. Since it's impossible to rank the events by awesome, I've ranked them chronologically:

11:00 a.m. EST- Sabar Drumming Class
Before you graduate, the Institute not only wants you to be able to use maths to solve all sorts of problems, but to be cultured and knowledgeable about the world you live in. They rank it up there with the Black-Scholes model. (don't know what that is? me either I just googled "hard math") To fulfill this, you're required to take classes known as HASS courses. (NOTE: literally everything at MIT is an acronym, or as I like to say "L.E.A.M.I.T.I.A.A"(did you catch the Fe-y?(triple pun!))) Wow, sorry about that. Back on track, my HASS class this year is 21M.030, or as you'd want to tell your grandmother "Intro to World Music". The class is taught by Professor Tang, who is an ethnomusicologist. It's a fascinating examination of the relationship between culture and music. We've been studying the "griot" people of Senegal lately, and listening to Sabar drum music. Today we got to actually play them:

not pictured: the full extent of how cool this was

I named my drum "Todd" (we weren't supposed to name them, I just did)

Hi Todd!

We learned songs in the traditional language of Senegal, such as [translated] "I went to Gambia and found a nice car and drove and drove and drove it back to Senegal", and the friendship song [translated] "[your name] [your name] we'll be with you 'til we die!". Also my personal favorite: [translated] "What did you have for dinner? '[whatever you ate for dinner]'"

Unfortunately I had to answer that last one with "Easy Mac" =(

After about an hour and a half I felt pretty confident with my drumming abilities, I think I'm ready to start doing some remixes. I'll just call up 'ye and see what he's up to.

"What d-d-d-did you have for d-d-d-dinner? EASY MAC!"

3 p.m. EST- Career Fair. (Also, the president of Rwanda is there)
I think it's safe to say that there is a lot of stuff that goes on here. Unfortunately I can only mention in passing that the president of Rwanda was here today as I went to the Career Fair, which was going on at the same time.
I didn't want to take too many pictures, lest I be remembered next year as "that-one-guy-who-just-took-pictures" and be passed over for a job at the C.I.A

Whoa, hold up, what?

Yea, the C.I.A was there, and I couldn't resist taking a picture of their booth.

They taught me how to magnify images like that at the booth. (not really)

I don't want to say too much more about it, for reasons I couldn't say because it would be saying too much. Just know that I met the C.I.A, and they gave me a pen that also doubles as an arc welder. (They'll tell you it doesn't, but I know it does, I just can't figure it out).

There are plenty of other cool companies there though, as illustrated by the tons of swag I collected.

I find it funny that Facebook handed out breathmints, concerned with out social networking abilities?

There's stuff from Google, AQR, and MDT in there too. And a bunch of other big name companies were there as well, such as Microsoft, Apple, Merck, essentially any major company in what you're interested in doing will be there to represent themselves. If you want a job with any of those companies (or the literally hundreds more that were there) it's definitely possible.

Pretty cool eh? And that's just Thursday! Tomorrow I have an 18.01 Test and-- I'm sorry what?....oh, you don't want to hear about that? oh. well alright then. Guess math is just cooler to some people than others...

He'd want to know how my 18.01 test went....

--
Jean-Louis Kayitenkore
Procurement Consultant
Gsm: +250-08470205
Home: +250-55104140
P.O. Box 3867
Kigali-Rwanda
East Africa
Blog: http://www.cepgl.blogspot.com
Skype ID : Kayisa66