*dusts off blog*

Hello! Yes, I am still alive. I have now finished my exams and just have to write the rest of the lab report for my summer project – more on that after I demonstrate my feelings towards the exams via the medium of emoticons (because if I write any more I may get the urge to curl up in a box for a while).

Maths

Mechanics and Relativity

Problem Solving

Vibrations and Waves, Structure of Matter and Quantum Physics

Electricity and Magnetism

Maths Analysis

Next year, interpretive dance.

Now, moving on to the summer project! All first year physicists (except the Physics with Musical Performance lot) do a project in the summer term and present it at the Physics Open Days. My partner Isabella (with whom I also watched Lord of the Rings and Star Wars – my nerd card now stands less of a chance of being revoked) and I did a project entitled “Chaos and Stability in the Solar System” – we used computer languages C and C++ to simulate the motion of an asteroid and look for chaos. Computing projects are less popular, both as choices and on the open days, so we were able to do a large chunk of our lab reports during the open days. I didn’t get a chance to see the experimental projects upstairs, but heard they were very exciting! Though not as exciting as creating the solar system in your computer of course

This Tuesday is a Global Day of Solidarity for Troy Davis, who has been on death row in Georgia, USA, for 18 years. On the 23rd he will be having an evidentiary hearing and here at Imperial we will be helping to create a photo petition in his support, so please come along to the JCR between 12 and 2 to “lend your face for justice”! There’s a vigil going on from 5pm to 7pm outside the American Embassy too, so go along to that too if you have the time to spare!

This coming week, in addition to Tuesday’s events, I will be staying in London – I could have gone home, but why would you want to if you could have a free week here?  I will be going to a couple of concerts (Scissor Sisters and They Might Be Giants – thank you, I know my taste in music is terrible), and if anyone has any other ideas about cool things to do let me know.

I will be out of the country for half of July (at the EuroScience Open Forum in Turin, then at CERN for a week because of my EUCYS prize), but this summer I will definitely be writing “The Imperial Fresher’s Guide to the Galaxy”. If there’s anything you would like me to cover (I’ll do things like academics, social, financial, etc.), let me know! Having seen the 2011 prospectus, perhaps I should have done it sooner, but hopefully you will all still find it useful.

Finally, if you’re currently (or going to be) an Imperial physicist and you’re interested in writing or editing, please join the group I have created for Schrödinger’s Cat, the department newspaper I hope to start, and contribute ideas or sign up for things.  I did an interview with Simon Singh a few weeks ago that will hopefully go online and in the first issue.

I can’t think of anything else, and I’ve procrastinated from writing my lab report for too long. See you on the other side!

Well, I’ve had a fairly eventful few days!

ICSF AGM OMGWTFBBQ
Thursday was the Sci Fi Society’s Annual General Meeting, where new committee members are elected, the year is reviewed and the constitution discussed. I stood for the position of Fanzine Editor and was surprisingly elected! It was just a relief really not to be beaten by Miranda the Dalek, who stood for every election (as RON – Re-Open Nominations).

Felix
I wrote an article about the Amnesty society’s involvement in Fair Trade Fortnight and it got into Felix! You can see it in last week’s edition, in the Clubs and Societies section.

Astronauts
On Friday I was lucky enough to attend an event where the speakers were Neil Armstrong, Jim Lovell and Gene Cernan.

Yeah. That Neil Armstrong. That Jim Lovell. That Gene Cernan.

When I say lucky I mean lucky – first I gave my ticket to a friend so she could go instead, then when I was taking her there I headed towards the wrong place on the tube, then got off at the right stop by sheer fluke, then got directed to Burlington House (where the Royal Society of Chemistry, Royal Astronomical Society and a few others are) instead of the Royal Society by two people, then got the right directions off a nice man with an iPhone, then thought I had got us lost and got upset, then happened upon the right place, then managed to get a seat outside, watching the live feed!

I took notes, and I will probably write something lengthier if people want to read it. I think the experience summed up best in my friend’s insistence that it couldn’t have been real. I wish I could have stayed longer to mingle, but it was so crowded you could barely move, so we bid a hasty escape to freedom and Nandos.

Saturday
My friend stayed the night and on Saturday we went round the Science Museum – I think my favourite section (besides the gift shop) is Exploring Space, and all the history of medicine bits (despite them making me feel a bit woozy). Cosmos and Culture was disappointing though. In the evening I managed to cook for her (and she is still alive!)

Ready Steady Cook
My hall, Fisher, ran a Ready Steady Cook competition – we were given twelve ingredients, plus a mystery ingredient, and could make whatever we liked! My team made the following:

• Starter: Butternut squash soup with honey roasted pumpkin seeds
• Main: Spaghetti Carbonara
• Dessert: Chocolate surprise! (dubious chocolate cake that ended up turning rock solid, plus melted white chocolate and a random raspberry on the top)

We won Most Original! Last night we used part of our prize to make cocktails, which eventually degenerated into smoothies (which is what usually happens if you put me, fruit and a hand blender together).

Catching up
If I had one word of advice for prospective freshers it would be this: don’t miss a lecture unless absolutely necessary. (That and don’t buy fabric softener instead of detergent like I did. But more the lecture thing.) However, in the past couple of days I’ve managed to get through half of my E&M course, so hopefully by the end of this term I’ll have caught up on all my work!

The second Big Bang Fair was last week too – I was hoping to go as a judge, but couldn’t, and anyway had a good reason not to go just for fun (besides the cost of train tickets: see above). It made me feel all nostalgic about my science fair attending days!

And now to bed.

The area in and around Soho combines three of my favourite things: bookshops, Chinese food and rainbows. I’d love to have a photo collage here, but it was a horrible rainy day so any pictures would have just been rubbish! The fact I’m writing this for you indicates that I got out of Soho in the end, and just so you know, nothing untoward happened. I got lost looking for a restaurant, then I ate Chinese food, looked in bookshops and bought a bowler hat.

Oh, and I almost wandered down a street with lots of neon signs.

…

I’m not going to be allowed out on my own again, am I?

If you’re ever in the area, I recommend eating at Hing Loon on Lisle Street. I went there when I went on the Sci Fi bookcrawl on Hallowe’en (as well as on Saturday) and they have a £4.50 for two courses deal! Most importantly, the food is tasty and eating there gives me a chance to practise my mad chopstick skills (I’m sure the other diners thought me an uncoordinated idiot, but at least I didn’t drop one of them this time). After lunch I went and bought a few Christmas presents and was accosted in the street near Forbidden Planet by a very nice lady from a temple who recommended that I do some yoga and visit their vegetarian restaurant.

The rest of the weekend was given over to problem sheets – checking the ones that I had answers for and finishing some of them. I also wrote a bit of a story – yes, even now that NaNoWriMo has finished. I must be mad.

Recipes (with photos!) will come next term, when I need to cook again – I currently have enough meals prepared to last me until the end of term (I am both lazy and horrifyingly organised when it comes to cooking). We’ll be cooking Christmas dinner in our kitchen this weekend though!