Events that Defined LMF in 2022-2023

Hello, this is Vivian, the LMF historian and secretary! I am a member of the Class of 2025 and a Course 6-7. It has been 32 months since someone wrote a blog on this website, the last one written by another Vivian from the Class of 2020. For some context, I appointed myself the role of historian this year as I wanted to do an LMF history project that involved interviewing alums and gathering various documents of the past (pictures, videos, etc.). While a substantial part of the LMF history project has been completed as I have interviewed over a dozen alums from the Class of 1978 to 2020, I still have work to do, including documenting memorable events during the school year. 

The 2022-2023 school year went by quickly, and we welcomed a fun Class of 2026 that made LMF livelier and somewhat more chaotic. Here are some notable events that we probably won't forget many years down the road, each having its own eccentricities. 

Events: 

Random Hall LMF Milk (10/27/22 Thursday): 

On Thursday afternoon, a plastic bottle containing very old milk exploded in the kitchen. The horrible stench filled up the entire kitchen, causing cook team to move to the country kitchen to cook dinner. It took around a day for the smell to go away, so the kitchen was pretty much off-limits for the rest of the night. LMF used a fan and odor eliminators to resolve the issue. 

Slack chat history of the milk incident

How did this happen in the first place? According to Melbourne '24, the current LMF president, "The milk was in Frigo 1 for about a month till the end of September. Then it was taken out for fridge cleaning and the owner was notified." For some unknown reason, the milk in the plastic bottle was left on the windowsill. Either the owner or the person cleaning the fridge forgot about it. Over time, this bottle was forgotten and people never really thought of this suspicious-looking bottle as a problem. After being under the sun for a long time, the color turned from white to brown over time, so people weren't aware that the bottle originally contained milk and instead thought it was some liquid containing fertilizer for plants. Also, the stench was well-kept inside the plastic bottle and never leaked until the day when too much gas buildup inside the bottle and then it exploded. 

While this milk incident is not the same as Random Hall milk since we never stored it for future generations of LMF, nevertheless it is indeed a very interesting incident. The main takeaway is that if you see something strange that's rotting or decomposing, just throw it away. No questions asked. What if there will be another similar situation to this one in the future? We hope not. 

Mysterious Paper Scraps (11/19/22 Saturday): 

On Saturday morning, LMF residents saw something unusual on the quiet lounge table: many tiny scraps of paper covered with Maela's name in small font. The event may have been done in reaction to Maela's name being on each tiny whiteboard outside each room in LMF. Not surprisingly, this event really concerned Maela. To determine who the person was, people in LMF wrote on the quiet lounge whiteboard the names of residents and did process of elimination. The culprit turned out to be Anson '26 and he confessed to doing this for amusement and fun. 

The Broccoli War (week of 2/10/23 Friday): 

The first week of the 2023 spring semester started off in a rather unusual way. A week before 2/10/23 Friday, Teo '26 hung up some interesting posters that said "prepare yourself" to build some anticipation for their broccoli-themed menu. Nothing much happened until a few days before Friday when there were big posters that involved taping many printed pieces of paper together to make a big picture from the broccoli mosaic virus to a long document generated by chatGPT declaring broccoli to be bad and illegal.

   The ChatGPT-generated law in various languages 

The moldy broccoli 

A fat X over Teo's broccoli drawing 

These large-scale posters were made by Anson '26. Teo '26 retaliated by drawing a comic about how good broccoli is on the big whiteboard near their room as well as writing about how broccoli should be celebrated in LMF on the whiteboard outside the kitchen. 

Inspired by the Bible 

Writing broccoli on people's board 

Despite Anson's opposition to broccoli, the broccoli-themed menu was a success. To celebrate broccoli, there were many green balloons that hung around the LMF kitchen and green streamers. The menu consisted of the following items: 

Protein: Broccoli Quiché

Starch: Broccoli Farfelle

Vegetable 1: Roast Parmesan Broccoli

Vegetable 2: Sautéed Chili Broccoli

Side: Broccoli Cream Soup

The broccoli dinner

Teo wearing the broccoli crown 

CPW Decorations (4/13/23 Thursday to 4/15/23 Saturday): 

A few days before the start of CPW, the German House put their CPW events outside our kitchen as a small prank. Other communities in New House were also postering in various places around the dorm. But was there a more creative and attractive way to entice some prefrosh to come to LMF instead of other places in New House? Anson '26 was quite creative by creating an extremely long paper trail in the French colors of red, white, and blue. This trail started from the New House desk and went up from the first floor of Tower 1 to the outside of the LMF kitchen on the fourth floor. 

It is truly a wonder how the paper trail was taped and made. 

Face Morph Pictures (May): 

Anson '26 put a face morph picture of two roommates on the door of each double in LMF. The accuracy of each picture varied, with some looking 50/50 of each person while others looked more like one person over the other. Some faces looked real and familiar, like Melissa '23+1 and Ashley '23 's, while others looked like an AI generated one like Lila '25 and Kate '25 's. The face morph pictures were an amusing topic to discuss in the LMF kitchen. 

A face morph of Melissa '23+1 and Ashley '23

Conclusion: 

While this blog post doesn't cover some key events of LMF like Dîner de Nöel or Senior Brunch, the events covered in this blog are unique and memorable. I can't wait to see what will happen in my next two years at LMF with this community of wonderful people.