At MIT I live a very sheltered life. My only expectations are really to attend classes and get good grades. I could add on the auxiliary expectations of learning how to do useful little things, like cooking and money management, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m far removed from the “outside world.”
Out there, my former co-workers at Amazon.com are putting in their 9-5’s every day while I sleep.
Out there, soldiers are dying in Iraq, while their girlfriends carry on anxious lives at home.
Out there, an African-American president has been newly crowned. The event itself was large enough to perturb the usual MIT indifference, but more recent political news seems to hit the MIT student body’s sense of apathy and fizzle.
Out there, many people in developing countries are living their lives in relative squalor.
Out there, there are tens or hundreds of thousands of people involved in academia and adding always to the collective body of knowledge that mankind has amassed.
Out there, a whole generation of teenage girls are going wild over Twilight.
Out there, the shaky Hamas-Israel cease-fire is being tested by some aggressive moves from both sides.
Out there, a team of programmers is already working on the next release of Ubuntu.
Out there, Randall Munroe is releasing a new strip of XKCD every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Out there, people are living ascetic lives, away from the outside world, meditating daily, participating in different ceremonies, and hoping to become monks.
Out there, people are frantically attempting to save their real estate investments, unloading assets on a market with very low demand.
Out there, people are making multi-million-dollar deals behind closed doors.
Out there, some insightful entrepreneur is starting up the next big thing.
Out there, Mexicans are in front of Home Depot working for less than minimum wage, while (some) beggars are trying to make ends meet.
Out there, high school kids are fretting over SAT scores and how they’re going to get into the colleges of their dreams.
Out there, the parents of those high school kids are also fretting over SAT scores and how they’re going to pay for their kids’ college dreams.
Out there, rock stars are putting on huge concerts for hordes of fans.
Out there, people are spending their lives training their minds and bodies in a number of different martial arts.
Out there, some studio exec realized that “Temptation Island” would be a lucrative show.
Out there, people are taking pictures of their cats.
Out there, every 15 minutes, someone dies in an alcohol-related collision.
Out there, 4 babies are born every second, while one person dies every second. Scientists worldwide are looking into ways to deal with this Malthusian dilemma.
Out there, lonely hearts are searching desperately for other lonely hearts.
Out there, someone is preparing a postcard for submission into PostSecret.
Out there, two robots named Spirit and Opportunity are exploring the barren landscape of Mars and beaming back live webcam across hundreds of millions of kilometers of empty space.
Out there, the automotive industry is begging Washington for a bailout while Washington plays hard to get.
