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!)

Combining art and revision (Carlos bought coloured chalk. That was a BAD idea.)

I had my first exam of the year this morning. It was Systems Physiology – a module that Carlos, Saj and I took with the bioengineering department, as part of our efforts to biology it up this year. Basically, we had to learn the anatomy and basic operating processes of the brain, heart, lungs, musculoskeletal system, and genetics. The exam was OK – I did some maths, which I was very happy about (the Nernst Equation – like, the easiest equation in the world), and blagged my way through answering some bits where I knew the information but wasn’t exactly sure what was being asked. We shall see. Four exams away from the end of my time at Imperial. Yes!

I’ve started a new tutoring thing with a lovely little girl in Knightsbridge. I’m to teach her piano and help her with maths, so I started that on Monday, and it was good. She’s very lively and bright, and I can only see myself enjoying it. It does mean I’ve spent ages trying to think of ways to play games with maths – and also looking up the syllabus for the Key Stages 2 and 3. My next step is going to Hamley’s, to see what educational toys they have.

Revision or play-time, you decide.

Well, it’s a good excuse, right?

I made a stew in the slow cooker the other night, which I was very proud of cos it had dumplings in it. I didn’t know what dumplings were – I’d never eaten them let alone made them, and I have to say, they were horrible. Even the picture looks horrible. Yuck.

Knitting is going strong. I’ve completed one glove, received 600 beads and 800 buttons for some scarf projects (I’m doing 11 in ’11 – knitting 11 scarves this year, pretty self-explanatory. If you care, I’ve started a crafty blog so that I can talk about CREATING to the internet, and stop annoying all my friends.) Tom’s parents bought us Wii Fit for Christmas, and it has told me I need to lose quite a substantial amount of weight. (Yuck). After studying the Systems Physiology course and learning about atherosclerosis, and knowing that since I stopped riding regularly (stupid project, getting in the way of my leisure time…I jest…) I’ve put on some weight, this is all going to combine into a massive plan for the next six months. Leave notes in college, run to and from college and home (the Oyster fare just went up, which is largely responsible for that little one), get a first and lose the weight that the annoying voice on the TV is telling me I need to.

Mmmmm, delicious...NOT.

I’m going to the pub tonight, then back to work tomorrow. I’m actually feeling really inspired, and am looking forward to blasting through the last six months of my degree with as much debauchery, studying and jollity as possible. I start Advanced Biomaterials, and Tissue Engineering next week, and I can’t wait.

Ciao for now!

Corrie

Arranged in pleasing height-order (on the whole), the NYE crew.

Bet you’ve never seen a blog with this title, huh?

This lot of revision has been reminding me an awful lot of the exams this summer, in which I totally shunned writing blogs and resorted to stupid little videos of me staring at the camera in various states of disarray (and in one, totally pushed askew by the effects of codeine). I decided not to do that this time. Mainly because I’ve been rolling out of bed at 7 am, and back in at about 1 am, still in my pyjamas, ready to repeat the next day, and the thought of the world seeing me in my pyjamas is truly horrifying.

This revision technique is a totally different tactic to anything I’ve ever tried before. I’m generally really good at staying on top of everything during the term, but as you may have gathered last term, I’ve found fourth year quite hard so far. Anyway, to put it simply – I got back to London on the 27th after a week of intensive relaxing, and have ever since been cramming as hard as possible, with a few breaks for brotherly visits, some board-games, a planned trip to the cinema which turned into an evening wrapped in the world’s softest blanket because the cinema plans went awry, and, of course, New Year’s Eve (which resulted in 1/1/11 spent wrapped in my duvet, drinking copious amounts of Berocca, eating bits of chicken on each shaky trip past the fridge on my way to the sink for more water, and definitely not getting any revision done).

Twitch and I indulge in one of our favourite games.

I don’t recommend this technique to anybody. I’m not sleeping well, because I have painted versions of the heart, neurons, the respiratory system and The Cell dancing in front of my eyes, and also because I’m not getting any exercise done at all and as a result, although I’m exhausted mentally, my body just doesn’t want to play. The amount of chocolate I’m eating isn’t helping. (I must have put on several increments of mass, depending on your preferred system). I’m living like a hermit, which I hate. I have eaten practically the same meal every night for the last ten days (spaghetti with mince and cheese!) due to the bulk-quantity cut-price ingredients I managed to buy. I am craving human company, but denying myself the pleasure as I know I have basically an entire A level to learn. I’m listening to more Coldplay than is good for me. My ability to write in short sentences has fled (on the plus side, one of my friends once said that I write like I talk, which means that you have an idea of how quickly I blurt words out in between breathing).

Unfortunately, I am well aware that many people at Imperial employ the tactic, and it has good results for them. We shall see.

Luckily for me and my support network (I’d like to acknowledge Tom, John, Toby, Beth, Greg, Mum, Dad, Casey, Ashton, Ben and Lucia in this post), my exam is on either Tuesday or Wednesday. I feel a little bit ready for it. Tom is back tomorrow, and the hamster and I have tonight been celebrating the only way we know how; by building little racing tracks out of kibble, and timing how fast it takes us to collect it up again.

My life is fascinating.

I’ll see you on the other side, hurrah!