Building 17? Nyet.

In the past two days I have been stopped three times by people looking for directions to various buildings at MIT. The curious thing is that they were all Russian. Which leads me to wonder why of all people on crowded Mass Ave, are they approaching me? I'm obviously older than the undergrads, no backpack, etc. I don't appear to be a student. Yet they make a bee-line for me, ignoring the stodgy old professor and the young Asian guy with the new wave haircut locking up his bike, and the girl jogging by with an MIT sweatshirt, and ask me where building 17 is.

I so don't know where building 17 is.

Dereck and Joelle totally know where building 17 is, I'm sure. Jo has a map. I know, because we poured over it at lunch last week and drew a little star on my work location so she can always find me. Her building has a number too, but my brain doesn't remember that stuff. All I know is that I go down that street where that hotel is that used to be a fire station or something.

Dereck totally knows where building 17 is, because 1) he pretty much knows everything to begin with, 2) has a tendency to "explore" (ok, trespass) around MIT at all hours of the night, and 3) he's totally an honorary member of the Asian breakdancing posse at MIT. Yep. The boy just jumped right in one day after passing by so many times and showed some skillz and was accepted immediately. At least he thinks so. He's not quite sure because nobody talks at the breakdancing posse. Not one peep. It's just music and poplocking every afternoon. It's all interpretive dancelike and such. In reality they could have been majorly resentful that he was stepping into the circle, but apparently he interpreted their body language as welcoming - something about a lot of nods and the leader stepping in and doing some dance-off type thing with him. I imagine it looked like a scene out of Electric Boogaloo except with a bunch of Asian molecular biologists and one 6'2" whiteboy from corn country.

My God, I love that man.

Oh, and just in case you didn't know, all the MIT buildings are numbered. But not in any consecutive way that anyone can figure out. They're probably numbered by when they were built. And I've yet to see an actual sign on a building displaying its number. Half the buildings in this neighborhood are part of MIT, yet the only thing I've noticed (and I'm so going to take a photo of it next time I have my camera) is that there's a parking spot on Mass Ave specifically reserved for the Falafel Truck.

This is how I've categorized some of the MIT buildings in my head:

-The big domey building

-The building where I can make a deposit and get some lunch

-The Stata Center (this building is so cool. Check it out!)

-The Dr. Frankenstein building (High Voltage Research Lab)

So it makes me wonder: do I look like an approachable person who might happen to speak Russian, or are Russians, though brilliant (they are attending MIT after all), bad with directions?

I think it is the latter, because in two instances they took off in the wrong direction.