So, so busy at the moment, hence the slight lull in posts.

Although if you were to ask any of my friends, they will immediately tell  you I can’t really be busy – that I don’t even take a proper course. In fact, another of the student bloggers even had something to say about my course! As Ken so beautifully put it, – “Environmental geosciences (WTF is that!!!)”

So this blog entry is a brilliant opportunity to do 2 things.

 1 .Explains to any potential Imperial students what environmental geoscience is, and why you should take it!

 2. Annoy the people I live with by putting my subject in a blog post

Just because my department is one of the few that do have reading weeks, I constantly have abused hurled at me about how my course is part time and mining isn’t a real subject. So I just thought I’d explain what environmental geoscience is, and point out that although I belong to the royal school of mines and own a hard hat – I AM NOT A MINER!!

My department is part of what is called the Royal School of Mines. Thats just historical, Imperial does not offer ‘mining’ as a subject area!!! There are 2 departments within the Royal School of Mines – Materials, and Earth Science and Engineering. Obviously ESE is the better of the two. ( If you want the whole history, just look  at Wikipedia. Explains it far better than I could).

Within ESE there are several different undergraduate degrees. We all start off with mainly the same modules and diverge from then on – until 4th year where we pretty much all do our own combination. So my degree is called environmental geoscience. It doesn’t mean it’s just about climate change and global warming (although that does come into it) – it’s just geology with bit more of a global environmental focus – i.e. looks at the worlds oceans, geohazards and stuff like that.

I chose to study this because I’m definitely more interested in earth science that is a bit more ‘happening’ – let’s face it, you aren’t ever going to see a new arrangement of continents in your lifetime. Plus, you can’t see what’s happening in the Earth’s core, but I can see the polluted River Thames flowing through London…

The best thing about my department is how flexible all the modules are – so if you realise there is something you want to specialise in, you are given every oppurtunity to, at the same time as taking the core modules to ensure you know enough about the general subject area.

So in summary, environmental geoscience is actually a proper degree at Imperial – even if no-one has heard of it. In Freshers week I actually got asked by one concerned 3rd year if I was at the right Union, or if I’d just got a bit lost from another university in London!

PS To my friends – I reckon the real reason you all take the mick about me for  my reading weeks is just because you want some too!

PPS Even though I haven’t actually had a reading week yet this term but chemistry have!

Thanks for reading – if you have any questions about my course/department/anything else, feel free to ask!

Got shown this by a friend….I think its pretty cool! Its made by a bunch of Imperial students, who decided that, in true student fashion, it was far too much bother to walk downstairs to the kitchen to fetch a cup of tea!

Now I just need to come up with a cool idea to install in my house next year (why, oh why did I not choose to live with some engineers? when will a physicist, mathematician, chemist or a biologist ever really come in useful?! )

Well, I was managing to keep the whole being a student blogger thing fairly quiet…till we ended up on the Imperial homepage… within hours, my friends were having fun trying to play basketball with me and drop a TV on my head!

Mum and Dad also seem quite impressed. I eventually got round to sending them the link…which they then forwarded to  just about everyone in their email address book :S So if you actually know me and you’re reading this, then HI!!

Still, the new homepage is pretty cool. I know I’m supposed to be a bored student wasting my time on pointless websites…but it is quite cool playing  human pyramids where I can balance 5 people on one arm!! Although I am quite disappointed I couldn’t jump into the mug of coffee…

Also, if any of you are interested how we actually made these blogs, take a look at the ‘Making-of’ video. I’m not sure quite how I got to it, but if you keep messing around on the homepage screen I’m sure you’ll find it!

Always been a favourite food of mine, and its so easy to make! Plus, some ready meals do actually taste alright, but mac cheese is never even half decent. I made this last night for about 14 people, and they assured me it did actually taste fine, so don’t worry!

Firstly, the cheese sauce. Now I know there are loads of posh ways to make sauces, where you mix certain ingredients in certain orders, at really specific temperatures…this recipe is based on one we used to use at school, where everything just goes in all together pretty much. So, for 2 decent portions, allow

• 25g butter
• 25g flour
• 250ml milk (or 200ml milk and the rest water)
• big dollop of mustard (the kind thats all grainy)

Stick all of the above into a saucepan, then put it on a middlingish heat till it starts to bubble. Its best to keep mixing it quite a lot, I find it easiest to use a whisk. Once its started to bubble, stick in

• 50g cheese (cheddar works best)

and stir around for a minute or two. Then turn it off the heat and pour over some freshly cooked pasta. Eat.

Or if you want to make it posh, you can add peas or tuna/sweetcorn. I was brought up thinking this was completely normal…apparently its not?! However it does actually taste pretty good, I assure you! (plus, 1 of your 5-a-day! )

If anyone actually tries this, let me know what you think!