So, when some of my friends were looking at their university options and freaking out about where to go, I was feeling quietly comfortable. However deep down inside I knew no matter what my pro-con lists said, no matter how excited I was about being so close to the science museum…ahem I mean wild night life, no matter how well the course seemed to fit with my interests; there was no way I was going to put Imperial as my firm choice until our compatibility had been rigorously tested. That’s right, I went directly to the oracle of decision making; The Name Compatibility Calculator. With a result of over 90% it was all settled!

My arrival felt incredibly momentous, dissipating the nerves that I gathered that morning, all due to the bright balloons lining all the buildings, the red carpet paving the way to success otherwise known as college registration, and the booming music which may or may not have led me to subconsciously swagger across the courtyard to meet people in other halls. I will let you in on a little secret now, despite my middle-class upbringing and my choice to study physics, I have harboured a longing to be gangsta. You can only imagine how I felt walking around London with hip hop blaring to the beat of my step! Yep I may have embarrassed myself but I was doing it somewhere that I belonged!

When night came (and I had finally gotten some of my stuff out of boxes) one of my room-mates and I were unfortunately too tired to go party with some of the people we had just met. Instead we piled up all our pillows on my bed and discovered we shared a love for mature and intellectual films such as Ice Age. Just in case you were interested, if I had to pick a character I was like it would definitely be Sid.

For the rest of welcome week lots of socialising took place for those who were up for it. This is where relief started to sink in about the people I will be living with for the next year. As I mentioned earlier I had already bonded with one room-mate over similar film tastes and not much bonding seemed necessary with the other after seeing her Buzz light-year sheets and learning she not only had but could use a unicycle! Fun times ensued with events like a big free BBQ and a boat trip down the Thames, courtesy of my halls. There was also ice skating , bowling, a trip to china town, clubbing and all sorts for when the fun of watching people’s clueless expressions in the kitchen while we tried to fashion some sort of edible substances for ourselves just wasn’t enough.

The next week lectures started for real and, at least in the Physics department, the lecturers are nothing like the dusty old fogies you hear about, in fact next time you over hear someone is chillin’ wid da homies I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t their local physics department. Everyone should do Physics. Physicists are doing the coolest stuff out there and anyone who says otherwise is just jealous! Plus if you think reading this was a total waste of time, it appears at the moment that the physics of neutrinos is the only way to go to get that time back