This has been an interesting week. I want it to end, and at the same time I want it to continue forever…(kinda like quantum mechanics).
Firstly, I was ecstatic to be selected at the university level for the exchange to California! So much is going to change next year, and I am really looking forward to it. Summer is going to be hectic in a good way. My summer holiday will also get ruthlessly cut as term begins end-August…
The euphoria died down when I realized that by the day after I had to prepare an inspirational speech for the Engineering Impact lecture.
This month’s EI lecture focused on student-led engineering projects. Imperial strongly encourages these projects through the EnVision department, who are really supportive and always keen to help. They asked if I wanted to talk to the first years on behalf on Women in SET, describing our activities and so on. I took the chance – when else can someone like me talk in front of hundreds of students? And besides, people like Jonathon Porrit and Lord Darzi have given these lectures in the past. This would also be the ideal way to find out how a lecturer feels! I had the task of making the presentation enthusiastic, inspirational and full of energy – the last thing I wanted was my audience to fall asleep, or even worse, whisper. I hope I managed that.
Although I did do something pretty embarrassing.
I was describing the disparity in numbers between girls and boys doing engineering. I then went on to say “This difference is a huge problem, one that concerns everyone, the guys as well”.
For some reason everyone starts laughing at this – you know the annoying way that guys giggle at the stupidest things? I was a little unnerved by this, still I persevered, proclaiming, “But it’s true!”
Only after it was over Alison (tutor for student-led projects) told me what had happened. Apparently the whole room had twisted my noble words, thinking I had meant that there weren’t enough girls for the guys… That made me giggle afterwards too, especially considering how serious my tone had been while saying that!
Then I went home and had ready-made microwavable pasta 
The next day I went into uni and checked my outlook as usual. A strange e-mail entitled ‘A Winrar is You’ was lurking in my inbox. Initially I thought it was spam, but it turned out I had won a copy of Dragon Age: Origins! Yeah, that does sound like junk mail right? But I actually did remember entering that cometition – it was run by Felix. Even funnier was that the answer to the MCQ was written in the same paragraph (i.e. “The answer is B”). I have read some rave reviews about the game, so I’m looking forward to it. But first I will have to procure an Xbox 360…
On the weekend a good friend of mine came over from Warwick. We have known each other since the days I used to snatch building blocks from her chubby little fingers, so I was really happy to see her again. I showed her around London – where else to go than Trocadero? – and we met an interesting person.
He's a big soft toy
He snuck up from behind us quite slowly, but that was probably because of his/her huge head. Still, it shocked me and I let out a half-scream-half-’eee’. Nupura called it a ‘squeem’. The mascot then stopped slowly and lowered his hands – I could tell that inside the person had a dejected, sad face. I couldn’t see the person’s expression and yet I had felt really really bad about hurting his/her feelings. That’s why I asked the mascot to take a picture with us.
After that it was straight back to Racing Green and the Literature Research Project. LRP is basically a 30 paged essay we have to write in Mech Eng. More about all that later, but basically I just wish the holidays were here…