pondering my post-grad orb

 My first blog ever on this site!

Teo’s blogpost reminded me that this awesome site exists, and figured it might be nice to recount some of my own experiences in the House now that I am graduated too– I’m feeling nostalgic with nothing to do at my job so I’ll blog on company time.

When I first told my friend that I lived in French House, they thought I was a weird Francophile 🫩 but now they live in French House too… sooooooo #whatdatmean 🤔 

I joined French House my freshman fall, back in 2022. My first exposure to French House was actually far earlier than that, during CPW, when I crashed in the quiet lounge. I think Fiona ‘24 came in around midnight asking if I was alright (My CPW host lives in Baker– I had no reason to be passed out in that lounge). 

Perhaps that was the first indication of what kind of a place French House was: even a random prefrosh asleep in the quiet lounge is checked on to make sure they’re okay. 

My time in French House often fluctuated; I was more present in some semesters than others, depending on what kind of curveball MIT throws at you. The sweet thing about French House, though, is that it doesn’t matter if you’re gone for two hours or four months. There will always be someone in the hall or the kitchen waiting to ask you how your day has been. 

French House often advertises itself as The Hub of Baking and Cooking at MIT, filled with friendly faces who are always down to join you in whatever you might dream of. 

And to its credit, it’s true. 

What you don’t often get to see is how French House shows up for each other: 

• Rallying in droves to wrap hundreds of stuffed grape leaves hours before you’re even meant to start cooking

• Staying up past midnight to make hundreds of tortillas 

• Cooking dinner every night and pouring your hearts into each meal regardless of whose menu it is

• Showing up to help you cook without any instructions, already knowing what needs to get done

• Dropping off home-baked goods, communal IAP groceries, and boxes and boxes of snacks so you know you always have food at home

• Seeing fudstuds (despite their best efforts not to) work overtime to fulfill every one of your crackpot menus 

• Cheering for your plane as it flies overhead at Johnson track 

• Dreaming up new ways to trick and delude you so that even after four years you’re still surprised when you’re brought before a pitch black kitchen at 10 pm

• Appearing at CPW events even if there’s only one prefrosh present just for it to turn into a house-wide board game night with each other

• Defeating cabin fever by play fighting in the snow

• Babysitting a puppy that hasn’t quite gotten used to being alone yet

• Packing up your entire room in the few hours before you leave 

• Flying across the country to hold each other together

• Going across the hall to hold each other together

Generations of LMFians before me have wandered the same halls I have, and many more will do the same after me. Nothing ever really felt the same from year to year– and I think that’s the point. The community isn’t so much a place as it is the people who make it up; it will grow and change and evolve into something new as the seasons do. Not much will stay the same, I’m sure, but that has always been the most exciting part.

It was and still feels so cliche to say that the best thing about this school is the people you meet here– but cliches persist because they’re true, and this one is no different. French House will show you exactly how a group of thirty-something undergrads can come together and make the east wing on the fourth floor of New House feel like home. I don’t think I’ll ever stop being grateful for that.

Goodbye

Goodbye French House. 

Goodbye to 6:15 à table and menus that are, of course, always on time.

Goodbye to incredibly talented chefs inspiring me to try new things

Goodbye to ice cream flavours as delicious as they are ridiculous

Goodbye to engineers crafting everything from websites to shawarma machines

Goodbye to oddly warped elliptical pans and inevitably unevenly cooked omelettes

Goodbye to athletes who can bike across the continent without breaking a sweat

Goodbye to #quoteboard, may the things written herein never see the light of day.

Goodbye to musicians who are unequivocally better than they pretend to be

Goodbye to bowls on fire alarms to save the kitchen

Goodbye to chess prodigies whose power increases the more glasses they wear

Goodbye to four dozen topperwares with four dozen non-matching lids

Goodbye to academic powerhouses who are already changing the world for the better

Goodbye to wonderfully kooky charts that are more often than not rather problematic.

Goodbye to DnD players fearlessly taking on dragons and krakens

Goodbye to Friday cookteam, my beloved, may your menus continue to be spectacular

Goodbye to the people that I love

Goodbye to everything that made me feel at home

Love and thank you for everything,

Teo A. Lara LMF 2026

MIT LMF Spring 2025 Report

 Introduction 

As a graduating senior, this is my last report as historian. I am still processing the fact that my time at French House has passed by so quickly. Although I will be doing the MEng in the fall, it still feels like graduation because I am leaving French House. My last semester at French House had many new events, which made it memorable indeed. 

Giani and Jacob's French Marathon 

At the start of the semester, roommates Giani '28 and Jacob '28 started a bet of who could speak solely French to each other in LMF the longest. Giani asked for LMF residents to contribute ideas on what the loser should do if they lost, and Kailyn's idea of wearing the French flag as a cape for a week was chosen.  

The French marathon between Giani and Jacob last for about a week, and then Giani lost when he said, "I have to call my mom," in English by accident. As a result, Giani had to wear the French flag as a cape for a week where ever he went. Giani said that he got some strange looks from people on campus, but that's the point of wearing the cape. 

Caption: A selfie of Giani with his French flag cape 

In the past, French House did French marathons in which people had to speak French in LMF grounds except in their rooms, which had mixed results. Keith Winstein '03 was a big advocate of this challenge. 

LMF x DH Mixer 

In late February, French House and German House had a mixer, which was hosted in the French House kitchen. The mixer was indeed a mixer, as people in French House got to talk with German House residents. The event had many snacks and all kinds of drinks. The mixer was memorable for interesting conversation topics that I won't describe in detail. People who were there probably know what I mean. I will just say it was indeed a special night, as I learned about random things that I never knew before.  

Intramural Volleyball 

Kailyn '26 and Wes '28 organized an LMF intramural volleyball team this spring! The team played a number of games, and also included players outside of LMF on our team. 

Tobi and Lowell's Dog 

One of the biggest changes in LMF life was that Tobi '26 and Lowell '26 got an adorable Maltese puppy called Marty, who joined LMF in March. Marty is a friendly, sociable dog who likes hanging out with everyone in LMF! He loves running down the hallway to chase a tennis ball at night, and has definitely added vibrancy and joy to the life of LMF residents. Tobi has made many cute memes of Marty, such as the one below: 

I have not asked alumni in the past about pets, but it is possible that Marty may be the first LMF dog!

May Meme Mania 

In late April, Tony '27 organized a meme competition in May, which was called "May Meme Mania." Although last year's spring semester also had quite a few memes posted on the fridge wall, we did not have a competition.  The main rule was that memes had to be related to LMF, such as nettoyages, cooking, or mice in the kitchen. We had many memes submitted by a number of LMF residents, which ranged from LMF's lack of knowledge about French language and culture to jokes about the $100 menu budget. 

The competition consisted of tournament brackets, and the ultimate winner of the meme competition was Alysha's '28 meme of Tony in a maid costume, with Teo's '26 menu budget meme being the runner up in the meme competition. The competition encouraged residents to exercise their humor and creativity, and I hope the competition happens again next year! 

Caption: The final bracket of the two memes (left: Teo's meme, right: Alysha's meme) 

Senior Menus 

The senior menus were delicious and were diverse for the types of foods and tastes. Lila did a passport-themed menu with three desserts: midori cake, matcha shortbread cookies, and a guava jam cake. Kate's menu was memorable for having an insane amount of steak along with some red wine. Michelle '25 went to Worcester to acquire lulo juice for their Colombian menu, which showed incredible dedication. In short, all the menus were yummy. 

Caption: Lila's senior menu desserts 

Caption: Grace's Chinese food senior menu, featuring chive pockets 

Senior Brunch 

Senior brunch began with a hearty meal of items including shakshouka, fruit salad, and sausage with potatoes. All the underclassmen gave wonderful toasts for the seniors. Unfortunately, the weather was not good that day, but we still managed to take a nice group picture in the New House lobby. 

Caption: Senior brunch photo on May 10, 2025. 

Quiet Lounge Findings 

Although I have already written in the spring 2024 report about archives that I found in the quiet lounge, I decided to rummage through the quiet lounge again to organize documents. I came across a box full of old receipts and delivery orders. Before we used Instacart, we used Peapod delivery services. We also purchased many bulk items through Sysco. Most of the receipts and orders were mundane, but I came across a couple of interesting documents, in particular treasurer documents. 

Before the age of the internet (late 80s, early 90s), the LMF treasurer had to manually record each person's expenses across different categories in an accounting book. This meant writing each number and each description neatly, column by column, and line by line. Based on a record from the late 90s, the treasurer had to go to the local bank to withdraw and deposit money. Nowadays, things are much easier with engage.mit.edu for purchasing the meal plans, though we were still using checks as recent as 2022! 

Another interesting document was finding old dinner attendance spreadsheets. Back then, an X was used to mark a person who was absent, and a G meant a garde. According to Mary Ross '03, some people wrote multiple Gs if they wanted to get more food (G for grand). In the late 90s, people also had to record the number of units of milk or juice they drank by filling out a circle. It is good we don't do that anymore and go off of an honor code trust system for drinking communal items like milk or juice. 

Closing Thoughts 

It has been a pleasure being the historian of French House for the past two years, and I will hand off the role to Alex '27. My best memories at MIT have been at French House, and I am very grateful for the friendly, welcoming community. I hope that French House continues to document its history, and look forward to visiting French House as an alum. 

Correction: an X meant a person was absent 

A Foray into Tabletop Role-Playing Games Over IAP 25'

    This IAP, Christian 27’ and I organized a role-playing game with interested members of the house. To our pleasant surprise, a full 13 people (including us), expressed a desire to play, filling up two adventuring parties for Saturday and Sunday evenings. Nobody in the house had ever played, our experience with role-playing games was pretty much limited to the first five minutes of Stranger Things. To say the least, we were a little nervous, but the result blew away all expectations we had. 

The Magic of Role Playing Games

I started playing Magic: The Gathering in fourth grade, which turned into an obsession with Warhammer: Age of Sigmar in high school. These days I spend my time reading the instruction manuals of board games I will probably never play. The point is, I’ve played my fair share of board, card, and video games, but never have I engaged in an experience as unique as game-mastering a tabletop role-playing game. Allow me to share a bit of game from our second and third sessions:

After stealing a lockbox from a zombie pirate and fleeing from a Kraken, the party was ambushed by pirates, threatened by a humanoid draconic pirate wizard to open athe magical lockbox or else. After acquiring an arcane drill, Saurus the orc broke the seals of the lockbox, arousing an ancient demon lich from a 10,000 year slumber. In exchange for their help, the lich killed the threatening pirate, teleporting the dragonborn’s quite dead body to the forest clearing where my adventurers found themselves. Needing to dispose of the body, Woggle the thief suggested they throw it down a mineshaft, and one fooled dwarven guard later, the party skipped town, having both killed the most dangerous pirate of the Shimmering Seas and unknowingly commencing the apocalypse in the form of the demon lich Thradak’narr. 

What other piece of media can evoke such emotional highs, cinematic moments, and downright goofy shenanigans in the span of two hours? Best of all, the above game was entirely improved on my part as the game master. Going in, I was convinced the party would fight the dragon pirate, I had even planned a fun sea-battle. But the resulting narrative was miles more interesting than anything I could’ve dreamed of. 

Role-playing games are unique in that literally anything is possible. The game master allows for the players to react to the world in whatever way they chose, presenting a possibility space that is unparalleled even by the largest open-world video games or bloated Kickstarter board games. As a game master, I was constantly allowed to put players in interesting situations. Each session, I found myself preparing less and less content, gaining confidence in my players to propel the narrative with their own ideas. Sure, I had a general idea of a story in mind and possible encounters, but at the end of the day, the players were the ones who controlled the world, I simply wove together what they gave me. At any crossroads, I chose whatever was coolest, and when a bit of lore about our world came up, I turned to my players. “Althea, how widespread is the church of Theyrad?”, “Saurus, how do Orcs feel about magic?” This resulted in a simultaneously natural and engaging narrative. As I am writing this there are around 24 hours until my group’s final session, and I have only prepared about half a dozen bullet points of fun things that could occur. 

A Brief Aside: Dungeon World is really very good

I am by no means qualified to review this game. Dungeon World was my first foray into the hobby, and I have played for less than ten hours in total as only the game master, but still I feel compelled to say that this game is incredible. The game allows for an emphasis to be placed on what matters most: Having cool characters do cool things. By unburdening itself of the complex systems of other games, players can focus more on the collective theatre of the mind rather than the rules of the game. Players are focused on each other rather than the rules sheet in front of them. Every part of Dungeon World effortlessly propels the story forward, the Powered-By-The-Apocalypse system allowing things to happen

In Conclusion…

Role-playing games have a bit of a PR problem. Generally, these games tend to be perceived as complex affairs of many-sided dice, long tables, and rulebooks that look like fantasy spreadsheets. Sure, some games are like this, and those games have their respective audiences, but at the end of the day, role-playing games are about telling incredible collective stories. Anyone can enjoy these games, all that is required is a broad imagination and a willingness to be a little uncomfortable. And for those who think they could be a game master, I’d suggest going for it; there is truly no parallel experience in all of gaming.