Water Fountain Connoisseur

One of the biggest changes I noticed, and subsequently had the most difficulty adjusting to upon my transition from living at home to living at MIT was the profound lack of cold water. Even before college I really enjoyed a tall glass of cold water, downed in one long gulp. We had a spigot in our fridge that always delivered ice cold, pure, delicious water. I'm from Oregon, and the water tastes really good there. I discovered this was not the case when I arrived in Cambridge in the middle of august. Now, in Oregon, even the tap water is cold and tasty. Upon returning to my dorm room after a hot day, I went to fill a mug with cold water. I stood at the sink letting the water run over my hand as it switched from warm to luke-warm, where it stayed. No cold water! Oh no! Well, I filled my mug anyway- I was thirsty. Then I tasted the water- horrific. Hardly worth drinking, and left a bad taste in my mouth. I spent a good 15 minutes visiting all possible ice dispensing units in the building, and finally got a cold cup of water, which mostly made up for the taste. With that said, I drank soy milk until I got used to the water, which I now fine no problem with. But that still left the issue of cold water. Where oh where could it be? Eureka- just at the air on the first floor of my dorm is air conditioned, so is the water fountain- for a while this was my only source of the precious resource- a fountain of ice cold manna that chilled my teeth to the bone. Slowly, like desert nomad, I found and cataloged the various other sources of chilled water on campus. I would have to say my favorite, and one of the first I discovered, is on the second floor of a building I travel through often, and I often go out of the way to cross the building on the second floor for this reason. The water is almost the coldest water on campus, and has high pressure so you don't feel like you have to inhale the spigot to get a decent mouthful. If a random passerby asked me where building 9 was, I would have little idea, but if they wanted to know the 3 closest water fountains to my multivariable calc class, in order of proximity, pressure, and temperature, i'm the one to ask. When ever I take a new route through the maze of buildings, I sample the water fountains on the way, making mental way-points of their location for future use. I can almost tell you how cold and high pressure a fountain will be without tasting it- I see clues like how near it is to an outer wall, patterns in which design has the highest pressure, and if the metal is slightly fogged with condensation from the cold elixir in its pipes. Often one can feel the chill through the metal button, or if it has a dedicated plumbing system. (Plumbing- comes from plumbum, latin for lead, because pipes used to be made from lead- hopefully none of those at MIT)