That said, if anybody is in the position I was in back in February – where getting up to go to lectures felt too difficult, in fact, getting up at all was quite a mission, and my project was just going nowhere – then I would thoroughly recommend looking at what I did. I realise you don’t actually know what happened, so cliff-notes version.

The stress of final year, combined with other, more personal stuff, started getting to me. I went to the doctor after a solid month of not wanting to get up in the morning (very unusual for me, I am usually up at the crack of dawn) and told them I thought I needed help. A few things were tried out, and in the end they recommended that I take an interruption of studies. In typical Corrie style, I hadn’t told my parents that I was having so much trouble, so after a very quick intervention, a couple of months living in a room in Tizard Hall, and a lot of advice from various people, the steps were taken and it was all confirmed at the beginning of May.

I’m now working as a temp, doing administration, filling my days and trying to get my head to a good place again. I’m also getting impromptu folk lessons from my flatmate, which is really cool. Quartet stuff is going very well, and I have a few posts about things I’ve done with my friends that have been incredible over the last few months still to write. For now, have some cake.

I am here only briefly, to break my near three-month silence with the news that I have, as a result of a few things that have happened since January, taken an interruption of studies. I am not sitting my exams at the moment, nor will I be until next summer.

I hope to expand on this at a later date, but for now, have a lovely picture of our quartet performing at a wedding in Dorset.

Still big things going on in my life. All shall be explained. Soon.

I went to Wiltshire. There were some really old stones.

I warn you: here follows a rant about elections. I want you to read it, so I’ve put in pretty pictures of a recent excursion to Wiltshire (and some teasers for Paris) to keep you going to the end. (I feel it is also my duty to warn you that I don’t know where my glasses are, and that I’ve had to take some medication that has made my head go a little woozy, so if this makes less sense than usual, there might be some excuse for it, aha.)

This week is election week. Yes, I’m campaigning. No, I’m not going to tell you who I’m campaigning for (because that would be against the rules, yup yup). So, if I’m not going to shamelessly promote one of the candidates, why bother mentioning it at all?

My dogs came to Wiltshire too. Here we are by one of the old stones.

Well, there are a number of good reasons. For one thing, we are already on Day 2 of voting. Thanks to an incredibly exciting statistics system that the good people at the Union have set up, we can follow voting demographics by department and also halls of residence (for the Freshers among us). Check it out. I’m addicted. Materials have been right up there with 25% of us having voted – at the moment we are beaten by the Department of Life Sciences at 27%, which upsets me greatly. 12.6% of students at Imperial have voted – a measley 4% of these are Postgrads. Imperial students love competition – can you get your department to beat mine?

Petty competitions aside, what are these elections actually for? We are voting for who will be the student leaders of our union next year. I’ve asked several of my friends in fourth year if they have voted yet. An almost overwhelming response has been “what’s the point? I’m not here next year, and I don’t know how they have affected me in the time I’ve spent at Imperial, so I won’t bother”. I’ll admit to being a bit involved (they call it Union Hackery). Why not? It’s my union! They sell Coke for £1 a pint, and that is almost a reason to love it all by itself. So excuse me if I don’t understand this.

While I was in Wiltshire, I saved a raven from a chimney.

Imperial College is an institution, not just a University. They do Serious Research. Important Things happen there. The Union is intended to be the place where we can be typical students – have a drink, have a laugh, do some activities, have a ‘home away from home’. We have a number of Sabbatical Officers who make this happen.

First off, the President. The Big Boss. The examples the Union uses are from fixing a broken vending machine to organising a multi-million project such as the refurbishment as the Union. How many of you have used the vending machines in college? I’m gonna guess every single one of you. In fact, some of the people who I have spoken to who are saying the Union doesn’t affect them go to vending machines at least once a week, if not once a day. And as for the refurbishment of the Union, well it goes without saying that this is important, and our views go through the voice of the students – the president. If you don’t like the Union, chances are you weren’t vocal enough.

Next, DPCS. (Deputy President of) Clubs and Societies. Ever been to a club event? Been to a club? Done anything for a club at Imperial? Yes, the DPCS has a direct say in this. They say which clubs are allowed to run, how they’re allowed to run, where they’re allowed to go, what they’re allowed to do. Mega important if you have anything to do with anything social at Imperial at all, starting with Fresher’s Fair and continuing throughout the year.

Here my mum is, walking the dogs in Wiltshire.

Onto DPE (Education). Ever had a complaint about your course? Ever had an issue and weren’t sure who to go to? Chances are the DPE is the one for you. Without feedback, things won’t get better - the DPE makes this happen.

Now we go to money. The big one, right? The DPFS (Finance and Services) has a finger in just about every pie at the Union, from club budgeting to the price of a beer. They have a major hand in organising the Summer Ball too, from which acts appear to which rides you play on. Never been to a Summer Ball? I have, and I loved it and don’t understand why you wouldn’t go if you had the chance.

We also found a cute old church (in Wiltshire). It was made of really old stone.

I could talk about this next one, DPW (Welfare) for a while, but again due to the rules, I’m not allowed to. Suffice to say any matter of equality – whether it is racism, sexism, accommodation, volunteering, or anything to do with home at Imperial, the DPW has a hand in it. Big things have happened, and will continue to happen in this role, and this is the big one in terms of student satisfaction. Wonder why student satisfaction figures come out low for Imperial? Maybe it’s because not enough people paid enough attention to their Union elections!

Fridays. A big day for me. At 11 am I skip along to the Felix stand in my department and get my weekly Hangman and Television fix. Who edits this? The Editor, of course. Massive role. Never been affected by the Union? If you read the Felix, you have.

We went to Paris. We took the Eurostar. We wore silly ears.

And finally, we move on to Student Trustees. These guys are the student voices on the committee of people who decide important things for the Union. The recent refurbishment has had massive student involvement – and that’s where they come in. There are, of course, other examples, but I think I’ve gone on for long enough by now.

I’ve taken most of this info straight from the Union website (here), and if you really care, go have a read. It is still making my blood boil that people think this isn’t important. I mentioned above “if you don’t like the Union, chances are you weren’t vocal enough”. I know what you’re going to say. “I wasn’t here when they were deciding on the Union refurbishment, so I couldn’t be vocal back then.” OK, that’s fair enough. However, if you then turn around and say “I’m not going to vote because I won’t be here next year,” I will see red, and you’d better run.

I'll talk about Paris a bit more later. This is Bryan. Bryan rocked.

Can you tell that this is frustrating me? It’s a massive deal. If people only voted for things which affected them at that instant, we wouldn’t live in the society we live in today. Here at Imperial, we do science, right? If we only did science for ourselves, we wouldn’t be at the point we are at today. I’ll use knees as my example, as I did a lot of work on this last year. The first prosthetic knee to be used was useless by today’s standards. But, did the doctors back then look at it and go “it’s not as perfect as the knee is at the moment, and it won’t be in our lifetimes – let’s not bother, I’d rather have a cup of coffee and think about things which are more relevant to my life”? No. They did something about it, and the result is that today, hundreds of thousands of people can go from being totally disabled to being able to run a couple of weeks after an operation.

This is another reason for you to vote.

I’m nearing the end now, honest. I know I’m probably talking to a brick wall. If you can’t be bothered to vote in the first place, why would a rant from me make any difference at all? Well, I’ve tried to make it easy for you. I’ve told you what all the positions offer. I’ll give you the link you can go to to vote (RIGHT HERE). It’s up to you to read manifestos, check out websites and decide who you want to vote for. Just don’t, for God’s sake PLEASE, sit back and say “it doesn’t affect me”. Because it does.

Make sure your ID photo is good, cos you can't change it.

A handy snippet of advice for those of you who come to Imperial next year. I know it seems a bit odd to be saying this now (it is, after all, only March), but this is around the time when people start finding out if they got their offers or not, so you know…

Anyway. In 2007, way back when I was still an innocent 18-year old, I got an email from Imperial College saying “send us your photo now and we will have your ID card ready for you when you arrive”. ‘Perfect’, I thought. Except, I’d just got back from six weeks working in Zambia, I was a bit grumpy, and I had no photos suitable. So, I took one, uploaded it, and thought nothing more of it.

Fast forward to yesterday. I lost my ID card, over a 60 metre stretch of corridor. I got stuck in the RSM at night, and couldn’t get out until a kind soul wandered past. I went to the ID card office today to get a replacement, and while there, asked if I could change the photo that has been haunting me for the last three and a half years. No?

Perfect. I have a newer, shinier copy of possibly the worst photo that has ever been taken of me. The only good (?) news is that I only need it for another four months (exactly, eeeek). Make sure you are happy with the photo that will be your official representation for the duration of the degree before you send it in!

The end is approaching with a scary rapidity.

Lunch outside the QTR in the FREEZING cold.

Pipetting in the lab.

I love these guys. They are making fourth year good.

Statement made: evidence to back it up.

Last week, Nic came round for dinner and ended up staying the night because he was very tired and didn’t want to cycle home. I offered to take him home and put his bike in my car, but he refused my offer because he didn’t think it would fit in the car.

To cut a long story short, yesterday afternoon John and I went to High Street Ken to pick up his bike, where it was hiding after it got a puncture the other day. He got it all sorted out, but was running late for a train, so I persuaded him to try fit the bike in the car. The look on his face when I said “It will fit, I promise” was priceless (one of those moments where I wish my camera wasn’t currently suffering from major splodges on the screen).

The fact that this is one of the major achievements in my life tells you something about how well the last few weeks of basic silence have been going. I’m getting my friends to revoke my Facebook access, have a pile of samples taller than my combined lab books and lecture notes to analyse, and am counting down the days to the end of my degree in terms of “how long does it take to write up this lecture, how long will it take to memorise this list of facts”. The word “panic” doesn’t quite sum it up succinctly enough.

I don’t think I’m really panicking about exams/coursework/deadlines so much, though. It’s more, The End. What happens next? Who knows. You’ll be lucky enough to find out what happens at the end of a degree in the next few months. Watch this space!

(One of my other achievements has been writing an article for Felix. This brings me up to three!)

Mmmm, yummy potatoes.

1. You don’t have to measure out ingredients to the fourth decimal place. In fact, sometimes, the more rough you are, the better the result.

2. You don’t have to wear safety gear; you don’t run the risk of killing your lungs with silica vapour, or accidentally inhaling too many fumes from the acetone dried samples. The worst thing you could do is burn yourself, or cut your finger – and let’s face it, I’ve done that and it wasn’t too bad.

3. You don’t have to lock other people out of your kitchen. You can socialise and listen to music. You don’t end up in the place that time forgot.

4. You don’t have to wash dishes five times – first with detergent, then with water, then with acid, then with water, then with de-ionised water. You don’t have to rewash something which has a watermark on it.

5. You don’t have to record every little step you took while you were cooking.

6. It doesn’t take four weeks to cook a meal. Once the meal is made, no further effort – apart from mastication – is required.

7. The fruits of your labours are edible, hopefully delicious, and don’t have to be stored in little sample containers that take over your life.

8. If you don’t want to add a certain ingredient, you don’t have to.

9. Your future success does not depend on the outcome of each meal, and your ability to critically analyse the results.

10. You don’t have to have specialised equipment to make good food.

Bowling with the ICSE crew.

Hello there!

What have I been up to the last two weeks that has kept me SO busy I haven’t been able to blog? Well, a number of things.

Project continues to keep me fully occupied during the week, as if having a huge number of lecture notes to go over wasn’t enough. Last week I learned how to use a pH probe (possibly one of the hardest things I’ve ever done…</sarcasm>) and how to make a TRIS phosphate buffer solution. I also weighed out a huuuge number of samples, all 150 mg, all into little plastic pots. It was tiresome and boring, and took 6.5 hours with no lunch-break and no sitting down. My legs ached afterwards. I’ve also learned how to do a compression test (watching the samples that took me 3 months to make being slowly crushed is…well, crushing). Lots of data to collect this week, as my supervisor kept reminding me. Lovely.

My fave corridor at Imperial. Strange, I know.

I rejoined ICSE! Most of you weren’t even aware I quit – I decided, in my infinite wisdom, that I didn’t have enough time to practice the pieces we are playing during the week, and that it would be more fair to the orchestra if I removed myself. Unfortunately, I didn’t factor in the number of people who are able to play viola (as in, not many), and I got an email last week asking me if I would kindly show my face again. So, I did. The concert is on Tuesday, in Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Square. We are playing for The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity. Tickets are £5 for students and £12 for adults – slightly more if you buy them on the door. It will be Tom’s debut as leader of the orchestra – if you are interested in attending, please do let me know!

Publicity stint over, we went bowling on Friday, which was good fun. Turns out that being awesome on the Wii does not translate to being good in real life. I wasn’t really surprised, but still. More practice required!

We’ve been going to the pub every Wednesday with the Materials people – last week we went to a lovely place in Notting Hill which had doors to fit hobbits! I felt right at home, haha. It was the Earl of Lonsdale, and had a load of private booths each with their own section of the bar, meaning we never had to go far to get the next (rather cheap) pint. Amazing. Next week we are off to a pub in Barons Court which has been described as the Tardis. Quite a lot of excitement from the Dr Who fans in our group about that!

Apart from that, I’m glad January is over. My lectures are rather more taxing than I expected, and I’m really looking forward to the sun rising at a sensible hour of the day. Six months of the degree left! Terrifying.

Ciao for now!

CORRIE