I was in such a good mood after my last exam. So good a mood that I practically skipped home and proceeded to tidy all the revision clutter from my room as if I were recoding a movie-style montage. The one thing I failed to do was utilise this rare moment to get some blogging done. Predictably, since then I’ve had another exam that went horrendously badly. Fortunately, the sun, the old faces I bumped into today and the Tesco lemon sorbet (Corrie’s Tweet, My Response) working its cooling magic down my oesophagus, have kept my spirits high enough for this to be a happy blog post.

So why was I in such a good mood a little bit ago? Simply because the exam I had that day went very well. This was rather significant, as prior to that one I had taken 4 papers that I had described as violating, repugnant and all the nasty profanities, I’m not allowed to use on this blog, in between. My morale had been shattered and I had no drive to carry on with all this tedious revision. Thanks to that exam and my housemate’s birthday party over the weekend, I was able to relax and re-invigorate my efforts to remain sane until June 11th.

Over the weekend we had a surprise party for my housemate Alex, who became what can only be described as, 21 years old. These kind of birthday parties are always fun, especially in the lead up, because of all the lying and deception involved. However, when the surprise party is to be held the weekend after the subject’s birthday, the levels of deception become a bit too overwhelming for anyones liking. Alex obviously wanted to organise something herself, so we all had to play along with the idea that there would be a party for her on Monday (when our one was on Sunday). Seems like a small inconvenience, but it involved: keeping communication regular and synchronised across 2 Facebook groups, involving over 20 people; faking bookings and reservations, by delaying everything by a day; and me lying about the dates of my exams (which gave me a false sense of security for a good few days). Luckily, all of this climaxed at a positive end and we were able to greet her in the restaurant with loud noises and party poppers. She didn’t suspect a thing.

My Irreplaceable Housemates

We had a huge meal, courtesy of Alex’s, very lovely, parents and her sister Jenni (who deserves a lot of recognition for the tremendous effort she put into the party). Afterwards went to the Ice Bar near Regent’s Street. For those of you unaware of the ice bar, it is exactly what it says on the tin. Imagine a relatively small room made entirely of ice: everything from the walls to the counter-tops to the drinks glasses. Now imagine the insatiable urge to lick everything that follows you into the room. You literally can’t resist it, and I certainly don’t regret it. This also sparked a little bit of competition between me and my housemate Mini, as we pressed our ice cold cups onto each others cheeks to see who would succumb to the cold first. It ended in a rather desensitised stalemate.

Do Try this at Home

After that was a bit of frolicking with lovely people in the park before returning home to play card games and chat until 4 in the morning. All the best bits about student life packed into one marvellous day. As part of the celebration the house made two short videos where we said a little happy birthday message to Alex. I promised them I wouldn’t publish any of this to the internet, for fears that it would humiliate them to the point of irreversible blushing, so I won’t, but I will say a huge HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Alex here, as anyone who has read my first blog post will know that she was the one who persuaded me to become a Student Blogger and, is subsequently, in need of a massive hug and a great deal of thanks.

Now I return to the myopic schedule that will carry on for yet another week. I noticed today, upon meeting some lovely faces from last year in the library (Eluned, Goloka, Peggy, Sak & Daniel, if they happen to be reading), that it’s already taken over everyones social skills as we literally have nothing to talk about besides exams and what we are dreaming of doing after exams. Hopefully this week will go quickly and painlessly and my physical health and general state of mind can remain in tact for a celebratory blog post when it’s all over.

Thanks for reading,

Chris xx

The sun is out, the birds are warming up their vocal chords for spring time, and all across the campus students are leaping to their windows in anticipation of the day when they can finally leave their winter coats on the bedroom floor. Unfortunately for me this week will, most likely, not involve any reclining on Queen’s Lawn trying to boost my genetic tan.

Exam fever will soon hit and all bloggers, students, lecturers, staff, builders and innocent bystanders at Imperial will all begin moaning about what they have coming up or about the abundance of moaning on campus. The sales of Red Bull, Relentless and Caffeine tablets will lead to record profits for the respective companies (and possibly a third F1 team for Red Bull) and the library will be inundated with complaints that being open 24 hours a day is not enough.

I know what you’re thinking, it’s far too early to start moaning about work, but the amount of coursework I have to do this week means that I am feeling it early. I was hesitant to write a post of this nature, but I figure starting now will allow me to stretch the complaints along a much wider timeframe and give you all a more gradual progression into my eventual insanity.

So how have you all been this week? I’ve been spending a lot more time in the library and am beginning to like it here. The fourth floor always has a good amount of space and general mumble to work, and watching people read about microbiology, endocrinology and other immensely long words makes what I’m doing seem a bit simpler, at least for a few seconds.

I don’t think I’ll have the time to post this week because of my educational commitments, so I’m thinking of doing a special video episode in which I answer any questions you want me to answer. So please mail me any questions you have about the college, me or absolutely anything you can think of as fast as you can and if I get enough responses I will brave my video camera

Thanks for reading,

Chris xx

Character X: A typical Imperial student: so statistically male, Chinese, overworked, malnourished and half-asleep.

Character Y: (for equalities sake) A spritely female Imperial student, English (but not from London), blonde, with a generally positive outlook on life, doing a subject that doesn’t involve to much work like ..//ERROR- INSULT NOT FOUND//..

Y: “Hey, haven’t seen you in a while!!”

X: “Oh hi Y, didn’t see you there” (lie)

Y: “So how’ve you been? What’ve you been up to?”

X: “The usual: coursework is piling up, planning on spending my night in the library”

Y: “Ouch, well, hope it all goes well. See you!!” *hugs*

This conversation will happen roughly 8 times a week for an Imperial Student like myself. It’s Tuesday and I’ve already had it 5 times. So as you can expect: I’m in the library.

It’s quite nice to branch out of the EEE department and head off to do work, since everyone else is doing the same this time of year. Up two flights of stairs to the fourth floor and you’ll find a big cluster of students, with a few familiar faces. Today I unexpectedly bumped into three of my four housemates and three of my old hall-mates (Hi Jane!!) and had a lovely chat with all of them (similar to the one above). It is also quite a nice place to work, since everyone is doing the same thing and you lack the shiny distractions of your room.

Yesterday I was also here, and I decided to join a friend in the silent room. This is the part of the library which requires strict, Buddhist-monk-like, silence. Whenever I talk to people about it, they are all quite positive and say it is a great place to concentrate, but now that I’ve experienced it for myself, I really can’t agree. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so awkward in the library; the sound of me turning the pages of my book became a huge roar which echoed through the room. I spent more time struggling to minimise the sound of my eyelids blinking than actually work. Needless to say, I shall remain in the general mumble that resides outside of that room

Thanks for Reading

Chris xx

Life is busy at the moment, a trend which I’m sure will radiate across all the other student blogs sooner rather than later. The notion that I’ve been too busy to even blog (my favourite form of procrastination) is completely absurd, but happens to be the truth. So no prizes for guessing where this one is coming from.

I’m sitting on one of the few padded seats in the ground floor of the Central Library hacking away at my notes like a white-headed capuchin with a particularly tasty clam (David Attenborough points if you know what I’m talking about). My intention is to stay here till I am caught up but an hour into the stint and I’ve already retreated to find hot chocolate and a computer to moan about how much work I have. Fortunately, I think I will save these particularly boring posts till nearer the exams, when I literally will have nothing else to write about.

One positive thing I find when presented with a stack of tedious work, is that the little pleasures are dramatically enhanced. Cooking is a prime example for me. I love to cook: it’s creative, it’s experimental and you get to eat when it’s all over. While overwhelmed with whatever pile of lecture notes happened to be on my desk that particular hour, I went down to the kitchen and spent 10 minutes making home-made croutons. It was quick, it was the first time I’ve ever tried it and it turned out rather nicely. As a result, I was cheerful for that entire evening. If cooking is not your cup of tea, try shopping for one item, vacuum cleaning or arranging your cupboard. Any task that takes a short amount of time and gets something useful done, so it doesn’t feel like you’re procrastinating. The first of that list is especially nice if the cashier at Game decides 20% off a £9.99 game is £4.99 (I found that one out the nice way) 

So here is where I am going to try and get some comments: what is your ‘little pleasure’ which you do to get away from the woes of university?

In other, rather lovely, news I’ve made the Reporter!! At Imperial, this is the one bit of written appraisal you can get for your blog (unless you do something completely controversial and make it into the Felix), so thanks to whoever was a part of getting my post in there.

Thanks for Reading,

Chris xx