Reuben's blog

Since I seem to be in the habit of writing nigh on 1000 word Blog posts every few weeks, I thought I’d chop this one up into friendly chunks for you to enjoy at your leisure. This is part 2 of 2. Read part 1 here.

Showing off: Me getting my new orange belt from Olympic and World champion Maki Tsukada (I will post photos of things other than judo soon...)

So a world and Olympic champion in Judo has been training with us… More photos at the end of the post!

Other Extracurricular Activities

I’ve had several weekends away in the last few weeks. There was a wonderful (if exhausting) weekend in Cambridge with the choir. This was mainly to rehearse, but also to have a nice time away together. It’s a lovely city and an enormous contrast to London, reminding me why I applied to go to university there a few years ago. I must say, it’s a quite a contrast to London and imperial.

The whole place feels much smaller and focussed around the colleges and the university. Imperial is more one of many focal points in a massive city filled with focal points. Of course, this means that there are lots of focal points (national art galleries, museums, a mind-boggling selection of entertainment venues…) around you all the time. Sometimes it feels like being at the centre of the world.

I also went home for the third time this term, to go and refuel (both in terms of food and spirit) with my family.

Elsewhere, I’ve joined a Confirmation group at the main Catholic Chaplaincy near UCL. It’s really great, and I think I’ll have to write some more about it as part of a general comment on the (excellent) London chaplaincy services in the near future.

Physics

“So, everything is great! But how about your physics degree?” I hear you ask. Well, physics is ticking along. At the moment it feels like more of a day to day job than one of the great passions of my life, but I think that’s because unlike at A-Level, I don’t have other things to compare it with. Problem sheets feel like a chore rather than being immediately interesting. Passion clearly needs rediscovering, and it’s a problem the department is, pleasingly, trying to fix.

This is, I think, a symptom experienced by many in the middle of a long degree, rather than any kind of black mark against physics or Imperial! At the end of the day, I maintain that physics is hard but ultimately rewarding. To give an example: learning about quantum mechanics has felt difficult and overwhelming at times, but there is a palpable sense of satisfaction when one steps back and examines the entirety and the implications of what has been learnt. Perhaps I need to do more “This is Awesome” posts about physics!

So, to summarise: Choir is joyous and going to be much of my life next year, Judo is painful and invigorating, my family and friends are beacons of awesomeness, and physics is fascinating if occasionally draining.

- Reuben

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Since I seem to be in the habit of writing nigh on 1000 word Blog posts every few weeks, I thought I’d chop this one up into friendly chunks for you to enjoy at your leisure. This is part 1 of 2. Read part 2 here.

DAY OF ANGER, DAY OF TERROR! Are words that I currently know the (rough) Latin translation of rather well*. And that’s not because I’ve been getting spooked at Catholic Mass. (I can already hear the “obvious joke” groans).

Choir

It’s nearly concert time again with Imperial College Choir and Verdi’s Requiem is filling my mind with its thunderous crescendos and poignant quiet moments. A musical friend of mine once affectionately described playing in the orchestra for Verdi’s Requiem as ”Quiet, quiet, quiet, then… LOUD NOISES.” It’s rather more beautiful and captivating than that might suggest, but I must admit that the chap in who’s memory it was composed must have lead one heck of a dramatic life if Verdi was trying to give an accurate reflection!

I keep forgetting to take pictures of the things I do, so please forgive this one not showing you a lot. Shiny though!

I really love singing all this classical music in the choir. Perhaps the novelty will wear off at some point, but I do find it extraordinary that ordinary me gets to be a part of such extraordinary music. It’s quite a privilage. Anyway, enough gushing.

This time of year all the clubs and societies have AGMs. These involve finding out how the club is doing, the Very Serious Business of electing committee members (to the delight of vote counters everywhere, the union insists on a second preference voting system for all elections) and plenty of mild banter. I managed to persuade the other members of the choir I liked it so much that they elected me Vice-Chairperson for next year. Apparently “I don’t know about you, but I love choir!” is a winning line.

My new job started today, as I went to help sort out the choirs enormous (and fascinating) collection of music, some of which was quite old when the choir began in the 1950s… One person noted that the whole thing would have taken a lot less time if we hadn’t stopped all the time to practice singing the pieces.

Cheeky plug, since we need people to come and see us perform to keep the Choir afloat:

Imperial College Choir’s performance (with orchestra) of Verdi’s Requiem is at 19:30 on Saturday the 17th of March at Holy Trinity Church, Sloan Square. Tickets can be bought from Choir members, here, by calling 0207 594 9354, on the door (less cheap) or in the Sherfield Lobby on Wednesday and Thursday Lunchtime. Selling points: Great music, great choir (who have put in lots of effort), great venue, it has me in it, and Verdi’s Requiem is awesome.

Now back to the serious business of discussing my life…

Judo

Judo is as painful and invigorating as ever. The whole club is focussed on the looming inter-university BUCS competition, success at which decides much of the funding for the club. I’ll spare you a Reuben Rant on how unfair the funding system for clubs appears to be (it’s based on the number of points gained at certain qualifying competitions. Except not everyone can get points, and different sports are elligible for different numbers of competitions and points. Grrr…).

To the detriment of my big toe, which took a nasty strain when being swept from under me a few weeks ago, everyone is training extremely hard. I thinks it says something that even though every session causes me to limp off in pain at the moment, I still absolutely love it. (Whether it “says something” about my mental well-being or the sport of Judo, I have yet to decide.)

Oh, and former Olympic and World Champion Maki Tsukada has been popping in to train with us. Pictures soon.

Read part 2 here.

*I’m not sure quite how good the translation in our copy of the music is, but it’s definitely along the lines of “WRATH!” and “TERROR!”.

Me being thrown...

“There are a number of strangles you can do from this position” are somewhat ominous words. It’s apparently all good fun though, since this is strangling in the name of sport!

So, Judo. Roughly translated from Japanese it means “gentle way”. It’s a competitive fighting sport where the aim is to either throw your opponent from their feet (see the video at the end of this post for an example) so that they land on their back, hold them down with their back to the ground, or force their submission with an arm lock, choke or strangle. Gentle indeed. This year, the sport has for me has been a source of satisfaction, exhaustion, pain, and even my tentative steps into poetry.

Following my decision in September not to venture down to the river each morning to row (much as I enjoyed it, rowing was simply going to be too much of a time commitment), I was looking for a new sport to do at the beginning of last term. There are a venerable plethora of sports clubs at Imperial; after the freshers fair I found myself trying everything from Cross Country running to Muay Thai Kickboxing. It was, however, Judo which kept my attention.

Me getting stuck in during a ground fight. I discovered the massive tear on my back, which spelt the end of my first (very cheap) judo suit, after the fight.

Prior to trying Judo, all I knew of the sport came from my memories of other children doing it at my local leisure centre when I was young. They wore pyjama like suits and seemed to do a lot of rolling around on mats. At my first session “Rolling around” quickly revealed itself to be either viscous ground fighting, or a falling technique to avoid getting injured every time you find yourself approaching the floor at speed (which is often). The pyjama like suits… well I don’t know about you, but I’ve never worn a set of pyjamas that I could describe as being suitable for repeated forceful lifting, pushing and dragging the wearer. (If you have, then your pyjama based activities are clearly not meant for sharing.)

After a warm up, and often a silly game to work on balance (trying to “surf” a partners back as they crawl on their hands and knees seems to be a favourite of the coach), we get to training. This typically involves going over techniques or learning something new from the enormous library of moves, the mind boggles to imagine how the numerous inventive ways of strangling were thought up for example, or doing some fitness drills. This builds up to the latter part of the session where there is free practice: we take turns to fight with one another in standing or ground fights (competition fights tend to transition from one to another).

This is an exhausting, adrenalin filled test of the mind: getting past an (in my case usually far more experienced) opponent’s defences means thinking fast and knowing just what move to try in the situation at hand or, more usually for me, some good luck. I get thrown quite a bit. Thankfully, its amazing how polite someone can be immediately after they have just unceremoniously lifted you from your feet and driven you into the floor. To stop players being killed or injured all the time, fighting and training is done on shock absorbent mats. Still, a good throw always knocks some of the wind from you. One doesn’t dwell on this though, at Imperial Judo Club you get up (your partner perhaps offering a hand) and you get back to fighting. I have to admit, the feeling of satisfaction when you finally successfully throw or hold your partner is always fantastic.

We meet for training twice a week: On a Monday evening at Imperial’s sports centre Ethos and on a Wednesday afternoon at an impressive historic purpose built Dojo in Chelsea (which is frequented by at least one Olympian). In the first term there was an extra session on a Thursday night or beginners, to teach us some basics.

Our club captain (blonde, centre) completing a throw on his opponent (my mate Thore, right).

All of this builds up to competitions, where we compete against players from other clubs and universities. I’ve so far competed in one, a terrific team effort at which Imperial won the overall trophy for the most medals. This was one of the most exhausting things I’ve ever done, easily comparable to racing a boat down a river, but also a complete adrenaline rush. I only realised how knackered I was when the fight was over. It was my first win that partly inspired the aforementioned poem.

So, if I may use this blog to plug something, it’s to say that you should try judo. Or, if you come to imperial, try a sport! There are some fantastic clubs here that perform to a very high standard (more plugging: several of the clubs, judo and the boat club included, are some of the best in the country). The (free) gym here is great too.

I hope this (rather long) post goes some way to make up for my lack of them of late. One thing to know about Imperial is that it knows how to fill student’s time! Must do better. Still, now the world knows that I know a number of ways of throwing, strangling and generally inflicting pain on people. Come to think of it, is divulging such information that wise..?

- Reuben

Lots more pictures, including a team photo (at the very end) and a video follow:

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Midnight snowball fight anyone?

It’s been a busy few weeks since my last post. Two weeks ago I fulfilled a lifelong ambition to visit the Royal Albert Hall by going to see Cirque du Soleil (a very impressive show and fantastic seats for just £25 thanks to some haggling by a a friend) as a halls of residence trip. Last week I organised my own trip with fellow hall senior Aysha, taking over 20 students to The Comedy Store to see a hilarious improvisation show. And last week it snowed twice, triggering much childlike glee. (See photos below the rant)

As previously mentioned: we have deckchairs!

Holbein and Willis Jackson (HWJ) Halls of Residence have also started their yearly ritual of showing every Six Nations Rugby game on the projector in the common room, complete with deck chairs, free beers and snacks for all. There are some things I will definitely miss when I eventually leave HWJ.

In choir, Verdi’s magnificent Requiem is coming along nicely, and I’m thoroughly looking forward to a weekend away in Cambridge with fellow choristers for banter and rehearsing in 2 weeks time.

Oh, and memes have taken over facebook.

In the interests of balance, it’s also that time of the year when I’ve started to get a little jaded with physics work…

Reuben Rant

Feel free to skip the below (I’ve helpfully indicated where it ends, and added some editorial balance afterwards), it’s more therapeutic for me to feel like I’m feeding back to the department than anything else.

The physics department here is overall pretty good and we are clearly being taught to a high standard. In terms of work, they have piled it on: Extra work for labs has taken the usual exorbitant amount of time: there’s masses of data analysis to be done, things to be written up, and then at the end of the four week experiment, a mere 2 days to finish all analysis and write a four page report. Much as I appreciate that working to tight deadlines is an important skill to master, having to stay up until 7am to get a report done is a little over the top… but perhaps I’m too much of a perfectionist, 2-3am seems to be more the norm.

There has also been a big assessed problem sheet to work on (taking up much of a weeks worth of spare time set aside for working), and each lecture course (of which there are currently 4 running) provides 1 or 2 problem sheets to do each week. Then there are lectures and things to go to as well of course… I have friends that do nothing extracurricular, and even they are struggling to keep up, but we are all learning.

This is all well and good, I know from last year that all work can be caught up with once the Easter holidays start and there is much more free time to study. The problem is that academic tutors (one of mine in particular) seem to be blissfully ignorant to this, and consistently complain that we don’t do enough of the problem sheets, on top of the extra work that they set us to do anyway…  Of course, I understand why they press us. There are a huge number of people that simply do not do enough work, and will not endeavour to catch up. These are the people that barely pass their exams, or commonly find they have to retake. It’s just disheartening to have a tutor getting frustrated with me for not doing enough work, when I know that I do all the work I can.

End Rant – Positivity Below

And that’s enough of all that. I should remind the reader that I hold Imperial in high regard overall (as stated previously) and this is just a niggle. If the above were to become a serious problem, I know that I could go and talk to my personal tutor and he would do whatever he could to help (my personal tutor is really nice), or use one of the many other channels there are of feeding back to the department (which I might just do). To give an example of feedback in action: Last term, half the year had one day fewer to get the lab reports done and our excellent year reps managed to get us an extra day to make it fair.

Most of the time I don’t use this blog to complain, which should indicate to you that most of the time I’m fairly happy. Time for some pictures of snow!

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The above words from the front of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy* seem apt.

I thought it was about time I wrote about the interview process for those of you that have applied for physics at Imperial or are thinking of applying. Being a top university with a top physics department, there are far more applicants for physics than there are places (about 250 new undergraduate places a year). So, as well as requiring glowing grades, the department likes to interview all prospective students to whom it is thinking of offering a place.

My (not very terrifying) Experience

The first thing to make clear is the the inteviews here are not at all like Oxbridge interviews (which, from my experience applying for natural sciences, are more of a verbal exam).

I had applied to Imperial on a bit of a whim. I knew that it was meant to be very good but I was nervous about living in london and having to be much more independent (the cost, and learning to cook immediately for example) than somewhere collegiate like Durham or Cambridge. After my interview, I liked the place so much that Imperial became a firm favourite.

To start off the day you’re meant to get shown around the college by a nice physics student, get to know the other interviewees and get lunch. That’s the official “you deciding if the college is for you” bit. Or so I’m told… on the day of my interview all trains into London Paddington were delayed by over 2 hours meaning I missed everything before lunch. All was apparently well, I rang the nice lady in the physics admissions office who encouraged me not to worry and assured me that I wouldn’t miss the business end of the day. My nerves, however, seemed not to be listening.

After my arrival I was shown around the department by the very friendly Academic who would be interviewing us. This was all quite informal, there was no expectation to have dressed up in a suit for example (Feel free to if you want though. The point is that judgement is not meant to be made on the basis of how you have dressed. Make sure you feel comfortable for the situation, be that in Jeans and a T shirt or a shirt and tie).

The academic was keen to talk to us about the department as he showed us around, answer any questions and explain the structure of the course.

The Interviews

The interviews themselves started after a cup of tea. We had a group discussion about the course and physics in general, then individually spent time with the Academic. I must stress that by this point I was far less nervous than I had been upon arrival. There are some very friendly members of staff here!

We discussed why I wanted to study physics, what I might want to do in the future, talked about my personal statement a little and ended up spending some time discussing our shared interest in Biology (which was somewhat unexpected). We eventually did do a few more “academic” questions: I was asked to sketch a graph and describe what I thought was going on in a particular physical situation. It was all pretty straight forward to be honest, I reasoned through what I was doing and was given a few pointers if I seemed to have gotten stuck. At the end I even asked how he though I had gotten on (a little unorthodox, I know, but the interviewer really was very nice!) and was reassured that, whilst it wasn’t the interviewer’s final decision whether I got a place, all was well.

Some final thoughts

I really was tremendously nervous. To the extent that I struggled to eat anything all morning before arriving. What I’d like to get across is there’s really not a huge amount to get nervous about. The interviewers know that this could well be your first ever interview in any context. If you’re interested in physics or science in general, then just let it come across! You’re almost certainly more than capable of answering any tough questions you are asked if you’re getting the sorts of grades to be thinking of applying here. Bear in mind that if they’ve given you an interview, they’re probably already pretty interested in your application. You’ll be fine.

Oh and Happy New Year!

- Reuben

*I could argue that it’s a comedy classic, but I like to think I’m allowed to be occasionally nerdy.

“SIIIIIILLLEEEENTTT NIIIIIGGGHHHT. HOOOOOOOLLLLLYYYYY NIIIIIIGGGHHHTTT.”

Picture the scene: 60 people on each side of the dance floor, some lolling about on chairs, some standing triumphantly. Suits and dresses are the attire, glasses of wine are in hand and Christmas hats sit atop heads. A bemused looking DJ watches as each group takes turns to shriek lines from a Christmas Carol at the other in a battle to be the loudest. It’s a carol sing off. Cover your ears! It must be the annual Holbein and Willis Jackson Hall Christmas Dinner!

Each year the Holiday Inn that towers over Kensington (which is less tacky than it sounds) greets a large group of students from my halls of residence, all keen to engorge themselves on as much Christmas food and wine as possible. A buffet was the order of the day. This catered perfectly for a range of needs: from those few who wished to eloquently enjoy a small plate of food to my rugby playing friend Sean who, like a good scientist, wished to investigate just how much protein and carbohydrate one can fit on a plate (he repeated this experiment several times).

Some were clearly a little tired.

Dinner was followed by games and awards. A joke telling competition was predictably varied: There were hall seniors joking about one another (what’s the difference between * hall senior name* and a brick? A brick gets laid. Ho ho ho.) that were received with good spirits and a middle finger, and one extremely long joke that had such a ridiculous punch line no-one quite realised it had hit. Awards included best dressed male/female, worst cook, messiest room… There were suitable awards for each.

After the carol singing competition ended the games (I think nothing could quite top the sheer absurdity of it) the dance floor was hit with aplomb.  People drunkenly hugged at the end; one person managing to pull a small group to the floor with his overzealous cuddle. Overall a good time was had by all, and several carols were massacred.

-          Reuben

The other hall seniors and I pose for a photo - December 2011

That crazy bunch at MIT have been busy. They’ve made a camera with a shutter speed so quick it can be used to see a single light pulse from a laser travelling through a medium. They’ve used their camera to “film” a light pulse travelling through a bottle. All is explained below:

Now they just have to work out a way to make the videos cat related and they’ll have an internet sensation on their hands.

I remember when we were planning for A-Level projects at sixth form: one chap in the class came in with a grand plan to try and measure the speed of light by filming a torch being switched on in front of a ruler, then go through the  video frame by frame to watch the light… When asking if it would work, the teacher and I simultaneously said “no”. If only we had seen this setup and the chap had a ton of cash to hand, we wouldn’t have been quite so quick to suggest he think of something else. One must keep an open mind at all times…

-Reuben

(found via Engadget)

I was very nearly on the BBC News at 6 Oclock today.

There are some moments where it becomes clear just how lucky I am to be studying at somewhere like imperial. If you’ve been keeping up with the news you might have heard that there was a big announcement from the Large Hadron Collider (one must keep the d and r in the correct order…) about the Higgs Boson*.

All day people around the physics department could be heard discussing the possible news. This was helped by an email sent around to all physics undergraduates:

“FOR YOUR INFORMATION:

My friend Tim doing his best "This is very interesting" face for the BBC.

The BBC are filming the Higgs Boson update between 1 and 3pm today, Lecture Theatre 3, so pop along if you are interested.”

A live stream of the announcement (it turned out to be more of a lecture) was to be shown and the BBC would watch our interested smiling faces taking in the wonderful discoveries.

The hall was packed.

There were a few technical hitches at the beginning as the video kept stopping. It became apparent that this was CERN’s fault, as someone announced that “Fermilab are having the same problem” – seemingly keeping in instant message contact with their US colleagues.

Eventually a person with a skype feed came down and plugged in their laptop, letting the eager crowd take in what was going on.

Unfortunately the sound quality meant we couldn’t really tell what was being said, but the slides gave us enough information to work out that the ATLAS experiment had nearly discovered the Higgs Boson (with 2σ – that’s 95.4% – certainty that it wasn’t just statistical fluke).

Klaus looking like he's not paying any attention to proceedings (he was apparently following what was going on with his laptop) - as seen on TV.

Satisfied that we had been sufficiently filmed and that ATLAS had done a pretty good job, we left before the second half of the announcement (from the other experiment looking for the Higgs – CMS – it’s results turned out to be pretty similar) to go be manly and hit the gym. Unfortunately the BBC elected to use footage from after we had left, hence not quite being on the news. My friend Klaus could be seen however; staring at his laptop, clearly in a world of his own.

Still, the excited atmosphere (there were plenty of high energy physicist who work on the experiments present) was great to be part of and the announcements interesting. Only at Imperial eh?

Ah, what a big a geek this all makes me, but why not? I’m studying physics, I might as well embrace it. One of the lovely things about being here is that if you want to be geeky about something, you can, and others will probably join in. And if you don’t, almost everyone is pretty nice and most defy stereotypes about social interaction ability.

Other news:

In other news, the Hall’s Cold War themed Christmas party will be getting in the way of me finishing an essay (due friday) this evening, I’m singing in the Imperial College carol concert on Wednesday and I am no longer ill. I’m Thoroughly looking forward to going back home on Saturday to see all the lovely people there.

Reuben rant:

*I really wish that the media would stop calling it the “God particle” without any proper clarification. It’s a name that has the potential to suggest to the uninitiated that this Particle Physics theory has something to do with God and religion.  As ever in physics, it has nothing to do with either. The name “The God Particle” might be seen as a bit of a joke among physicists, but anything that has the potential to add to the false perception of divisions between physics and religion does nothing to aid the public understanding of Science.

Now, back to that essay I’m meant to be writing.

- Reuben

I love mince pies. If they were more widely available outside the festive months I would eat them all year. Imagine my delight therefore to discover boxes upon boxes being distributed amongst the choir and audience members after last night’s concert.

The mince pies were joined by chocolate and chatter about the concert. Politeness aside, the opinion of a friend and others seemed to be that it was of a very high quality and quite a success. Hooray!

There are some surprising intricacies to organising a concert. As well as enforcing what to sing and when, the final rehearsal included practicing standing up together, filing neatly onto stage, and a discussion of when to clap and when not to clap. Pre-concert activities included warming up our voices and pointing out just how many of the boys had visited Primark to get an inexpensive black shirt.

During the performance there was much theatre: The conductor regularly mopped his brow between pieces and disappeared off stage before the final piece for several minutes (it turned out the soloists were being fetched).

The hour and a half of concentrating on singing passed rather quickly. How time flies when you are having fun! Today I have an essay to write and a cold to get rid of, but I’m a happy chap after having sung in my first concert.

- Reuben

“Laaaaaa! Cough. Owch… Sneeze. OWCH!”

I have a dreaded combination of conditions: bruised/cracked ribs, a  cold, and the impending threat of singing in front of hundreds of people.

The ribs can be attributed to a successful Judo competition last weekend (more on that soon), the cold on being close to lots of people all the time (prospective students beware – at university colds spread quickly) and the singing on choosing to join the Imperial College Choir at the beginning of this term. My first concert looms tonight and I rather resent my body’s decision to try and block all my airways and make clearing them more painful than it should be.

So, the choir. I was presented with quite a predicament at the beginning of this year. Due to needing to have more of a life outside of rowing (and thus reluctantly not doing rowing), I found myself open to many new possibilities via the union’s 300+ societies. The current result is Judo practice 3 times a week and Choir rehearsals on a Thursday evening (and cheese society of course: occasional unlimited cheese is too good an opportunity to miss).

The choir is rather wonderful. It’s filled with lots of lovely people and it’s non auditioned:

There's a mad rush mid-rehearsal each week for tea and biscuits.

you just turn up, are given some music, stand next to someone who knows the piece, and start watching and listening to the conductor. It’s all very non-threatening to someone inexperienced like myself. I have been in a choir before, a small, fairly casual affair at 6th form. I am not however very used to understanding sheet music or singing four part pieces in Latin with a chorus of nearly 100.

I somewhat dove into the deep end. Tonight we’re performing Haydn’s Nelson Mass and Te Deum and another Te Deum by Karl Jenkins, all with an orchestra (click the link for an example). And you know what? It’s all come together. I feel like I have a much better ability to sing from music and sing notes higher than a middle c (it turns out basses don’t just belt out Barry-White-style low notes).

If I may let my Catholicism shine through for a moment, it’s also wonderful to get to singsuch beautiful religious music. After my first rehearsal I was somewhat giddy with excitement at the sound I had been a part of (“It’s like what you hear at an ACTUAL classical concert!”) and the connection to my faith is quite lovely.

So, I’m heavily dosed with paracetamol and crossing my fingers that the cold will not spread to my larynx before this evening.

I shall report back tomorrow on how it all went.

- Reuben