I was going to make good on my promise to give some Python tips for this blog, but after reading through all my lab python notes I realised that there are better links from the lab website (and now even pre-course material to complete before the start of labs.) Damn it. Oh well—I think that is a good idea and am glad Imperial have beat me to it 😛
You probably know this already but you can find all this lovely information on the first year laboratory and computing website and the whole of the course is actually on Blackboard, including a load of links on where to download python and places to get tutorials and everything.
So this is a non-existent blog really, except to say that you shouldn’t be worried about computing—I am by no means a natural (haha understatement), and my code is the least elegant and practical thing you will probably ever see, but I still managed to get above seventy per cent in both my python labs by basically bashing my head against it until it started to trickle in. It’s actually quite fun, as I would tell people after moaning about it constantly for the whole lab cycle. (It is though, I promise!)
As I think I have mentioned before, my year was the first to do the course, and they are very keen to get feedback and improve it, so being trial year three should be spiffing!
For my first year lab project, my lab partner and I did the Physics of slinkies, which was so much fun and involved us trying to simulate the joyful springs in Python. I still have the video we showed at the presentation so here it is as a wonderful example of what you too will be able to program by next year 😛
I am sorry for the awful slinky advert soundtrack by the way. I only have the final, recorded version of the video so I can’t take that off… I recommend turning down your sound. It’s also quite a slow video, because we were meant to be explaining to people through it 😛
The reason we got so obsessed with falling slinkies at the start of the video was because the top end falls while the bottom remains stationary right up until the top end collapses on top of it. This means if you were sitting in the bottom of the falling slinky you could levitate, for a bit (until the slinky collapsed and hit you).
The base of the slinky remains stationary until the above coils have collided simply because there is still an upward force due to the tension in the spring above acting on it, that does not change until the above coil is pushed downwards by the one above it.This continues on to the top of the slinky, and since the top coil does not fall infinitely fast, it takes time for the wave of coils falling to propagate down the slinky.
This is actually a good demonstration to do to someone who thinks that if you poked someone with a pole a light-year long you could prevent murders in the past or whatever. Well, a good if you have a camera with a high frame rate. Feel free to use that part of this video for said demonstration purposes.
Also the top of the slinky fell with a constant velocity (!) which is what you can see being tracked in the graph, though we never found out why. It even did this in our simulation, which was even weirder considering we didn’t know why.
First of all we thought that it might initially be accelerating faster than a point particle just falling under gravity as it also has the spring force acting down on it and then reach constant velocity when the spring below exerted a restoring force upwards that was equal to the strength of gravity pushing down and then we realised that duh—it’s a slinky. Slinkies aren’t like normal springs under compression—they are quite happy to sit back together. The constant velocity might be due to loss of energy with the inelastic collisions the coils make with each other as they collide, but hmm. If you have an idea, feel free to comment!
Also my sister and I just made 3D Dinosaur cookies!!
So results day has been and gone, many of you are now unconditional offer holders for Imperial College…. CONGRATULATIONS! You should all feel very proud of yourselves. I know from experience that A Levels feel like the hardest thing in life at the moment you’re taking them but your hard work has paid off so well done. You can now enjoy the rest of your summer worry-free!
My summer has been great so far. I’ve just gotten back from a week in Alsace, France where I helped out at a summer camp and I had the best time. I worked with a fantastic team of people to serve the camp by washing up, cleaning, serving food and dressing up as an evil gang for a night game so that the kids could capture and ‘arrest’ us (the theme of the week was secret agents and there was a lot of back story going on… I still don’t understand all of it myself to be honest). We also went on a couple of great day trips, one to a lake where we went swimming and ate crepes, one to an outdoor swimming pool (swimming in the rain and ultimate frisbee were both super duper fun) and one to a patisserie. French patisserie is almost my favourite thing in life to be honest, it’s so good.
The beautiful lake! Most of my team decided to swim across the whole thing but I’m not a very strong swimmer so I watched from afar insteadA selection of the cakes available at the patisserie we went to
Anyway, that’s my summer blogging done for now, time to look ahead to freshers week! I was terrified about freshers week to be honest. Prior to starting uni I had never been out drinking or clubbing and was dreading a nonstop week where everyone was expected to go out every single night, get drunk and generally be crazy. This was made worse by the fact that I’d managed to sign up to what I thought was an official Imperial facebook page but was actually one of those that are used by club promoters to try and sell you expensive wristbands to club nights. Oopsy.
Truth is, freshers week is what you make of it. I received a handy booklet from the RCSU about the events they would be throwing during freshers and also found my way to my hall facebook page which put me at ease massively. All kinds of events happened during my freshers week and once I arrived at Imperial I found that there was actually no pressure to drink every night if you didn’t want to. One of the first events that you’ll attend will most likely be the infamous boat party. Every hall goes to a boat party on the Thames and it’s a great opportunity to meet people so I would definitely reccommend going. The only downside is that you’re stuck on a boat for like three hours so you can’t leave and if you want to buy drinks it’s horrendously expensive. I also went to the Mingle (a freshers party in the Union that you’ll go to on the first or second night), an afternoon tea party put on by the RCSU, a pub crawl which was fun because I got to hang out with my biology sister and meet some others from our course, freshers ball, a CU games night and a campus tour. My hall (the mighty Fisher!) also put on loads of stuff like a trip to China Town, bowling, a games night, movie nights etc.
My point is, there is loads of stuff going on during freshers week but no one will come to your room to make you go. It’s really hard at first, but it’s so important to get along to as much as possible and just mingle and chat with people. You won’t necessarily meet your best friends immediately (although I actually met my current housemates by gatecrashing the conversation they were having when the people I thought I was hanging out with left from campus without me…) but sitting in your room feeling lonely is no way to spend your first week in London when there is so much going on!
I’m so excited to get back to London and see all my friends and move into my house! I’ve got to get down to IKEA pretty soon and buy last minute stuff for my room and I suggest you all do the same! Definitely bring stuff to make your room feel more homey, I think there’s nothing more sad than an undecorated halls room.
I’m also excited to meet my new biology children. I’d definitely reccommend signing up to the Mums and Dads scheme which is run by the IC Union. If you are lucky enough (hehehe) to get me as your mum, you will also get one of my best friends, Adam, as a dad and three siblings. Your mum and dad are there to answer your questions about student life, help you settle in and buy you drinks when you decide to skip the family scavenger hunt that the department organises wait I mean help you win the very exciting and fabulous scavenger hunt that the department organises. I’ve found it really useful having my bio family this year, my two mums were great at answering all of our questions and it was good to have my sister to hang out with in the early days where we didn’t know too many people.
That’s about all I have to say on the topic of freshers at the moment, please do comment if you have any other questions you’d like me to address more deeply! Getting comments is what makes this blog so much fun 🙂
Stay safe during the rest of your summer friends, can’t wait to see all you biology guys in October.
CONGRATULATIONS to everyone that has received A level/ AS results today (including my sister!).
And an even bigger WELCOME to everyone that is going to be joining us at Imperial School of Medicine / Imperial in general next year. You must all be super happy- I remember the pure relief i had when I saw my UCAS track update.
To those of you that missed your grades, do not give up today. Talk to relevant staff at universities and explain your circumstances clearly- fingers crossed. Remember: you always have options.
What now? Well once you have secured that place its like a month of joy and fun. Start preparing for university and buying endless amounts of cutlery and stationary. You have succeeded over the ridiculous amounts of hurdles to get into the university of your choice!! Be careful not to miss deadlines now for forms/ vaccine requests!
I am honestly really looking forward to meeting you all in October for freshers 2014. Have a fantastic night celebrating and welcome to Imperial 🙂
A lot of anticipation. There is still a month and a bit to go until freshers, so do you look at work? Do you try and contact people from your course? Do you go out and buy lots of crockery and bath mats? Do you simply try to pretend this big scary life event isn’t going to happen?
The simple answers are no, no, yes and no! Now to the more complicated questions.
Will I fit in?
Everyone you will be around is having the same unnerving experience as you. You would have to try pretty hard not to fit in. On the first night I was at Imperial, I went on a boat trip down the Thames with my hall and a boy came up to me and said ‘I’m on medication that you can’t tell anyone about because it’s illegal in England.’ That was weird. But it was freshers. Pretty much anything goes, and he turned out to be very nice (yes, slightly crazy but still very nice) and we are still friends!
Anyway, I’m trying to say is in my experience is that you can be as quiet or strange as you like and you will find some friends. We had a girl on our floor who I think I saw three times in the whole year. She never ate in the kitchen, she never talked to any of us, but if she’d come into the kitchen in the last term and sat down to say hello we’d all still have been dying to talk to her and be her BFF.
Have a celebratory chocolate cocktail!
Is London scary?
The roads are hard to cross, but it is the best place to live! The best. There is so much to do and so much to see and so many places to take people! It obviously has some downsides—there aren’t a row of clubs where you will know most people from uni like at some of my friend’s universities, but maybe that extra bit of anonymity could be a good thing too.
I am going to do another blog later on things to do around Imperial and in London, so keep your eyes peeled for that…
I am not the best at drinking/ haven’t really drunk that much before?
Well there will certainly be a lot of chances to change that! There isn’t any pressure though—if you aren’t awkward about not drinking or drinking not as much as everyone else, no-one else will be bothered. I am a terrible lightweight and get teased from all sides but no-one is actually bothered by that and it saves me money!
Will I be homesick?
Not for a long time after freshers. There will be so much to do in the first few weeks you won’t have time to think about missing anything! About six or seven weeks in I had a few moments where I felt strange not having seen anyone from home, but then I didn’t visit at all in my first term—a few days away from uni and my guess is you’ll probably want to come back anyway.
Should I talk to anyone on facebook?
No. Not unless they are your roommate. Chances are you will not meet most/any of the people you talk to on facebook (at least in the first few weeks and maybe not ever—I still don’t know everyone in Physics) and even if you do what is the advantage of having had a strange, probably slightly awkward online exchange with them. Don’t do it! I’ve never known anyone it worked out particularly well for.
Will I have enough money?
Surprisingly, yes. I don’t know anyone that has actually starved at uni. You will at least survive.
If everyone hates me in freshers is that the end?
No, but it is generally harder to make new contacts outside of freshers. Sure you will never see the majority of the people you talk to again, but it is always best to make an effort to put yourself out there in freshers and get to know as many people as possible.
Will I cope with the work?
Yes, sometimes, and no others. Everyone struggles at various points, but who says first year is for working anyway? (I am literally the worst role model for sustainable first year work—I did absolutely nothing at all in term time apart from be vaguely ‘ooh that is interesting in lectures’ and then crammed and crammed and crammed but hey, I’m still here!)
Should I buy the textbooks?
If you want to. They’re not necessary. I brought both the recommended ones for first year, and to be fair, did end up revising quite a lot from them by answering the questions. Some things can be covered well and usefully, but sometimes just the notation and style of questions being different means they are far too much effort. I also brought a couple this year after I realised some of my notes were now completely unintelligible to me, but they turned out to be worse than useless. Problem sheets are enough in most cases, and textbooks will be in the library anyway.
What stuff will I forget to bring?
Individual halls websites provide a pretty comprehensive list of things you should bring. I forgot nail scissors and tweezers, but it gave me an excuse to go out and explore the shops to get some new ones, so I wouldn’t worry about it.
**Skip to the end from here if you don’t do Physics**
If you are a Physicist you might soon be getting a little Imperial USB thing through the post that you will expect to be filled with lots of exciting information, and which will give you your timetable, but unfortunately also a link to what you will be tested on in Freshers and also a long long document detailing what happens if you fail various courses. Hmm. If this still happens, try not to let it panic you! (Also the maths test will be fine—it’s just an online multiple choice one, but I suppose it is best just to check your brain hasn’t completely seized up.)
What Python do I have to learn? Should I be worried?
You will also probably be told to look at some Python (with is a programming language). I got a book on it—like a beginners guide and worked through some of it, and though it wasn’t really geared towards the mathsy things you do in labs, it did put my mind at ease a bit. If you haven’t done any programming before you will probably find it tricky, but so will most of your year—if you have done some then you basically have free lab marks while us other noobs catch up, though I think everyone finds at least some parts challenging.
Also don’t be worried, because I am going to do another blog with the basic Python things that might be useful to know to save all you cheeky Physicists from having to be worried you are wasting your time on something totally irrelevant!
University is the best. Freshers is also the best. So is Imperial (vested interests should be obvious.) In no time at all you will be here, so enjoy your last few weeks at home. 😀 Welcome to Imperial!
Hi. 🙂 This is me (finally) following up on mentioning that I was stressed and depressed in second term this year. I am not anymore!
A period when you feel like you can’t quite cope with things (or perhaps a rather more extreme version of that feeling) seems to be common at university, so I thought I would share with you what helped me when I was in a similar situation and might help you prevent some sadness.
Firstly though, two things:
1) You might be thinking: ‘lol stressed?! Why would I be stressed at uni? No parents, lots of friends and activities and university is all about having fun.’
I agree with you— but I think you should still read this. Before university, and indeed before last year, it never crossed my mind that I would be having any difficulties. If I had been in some sense prepared that I might have these feelings I don’t think they would have worried me half as much. Even if you are that wonder-person who sails through everything (and good for you!) periods of not-so-great mental health are so common among students and indeed people in general that it is always helpful to consider how people around you may be feeling.
2) You might also think eee ‘mental health’ sounds kind of serious—I might get a bit stressed around exams but I’m not mentally ill and certainly labelling myself as such won’t make me feel any better.
I agree with you too, but as my tutor said, if things you are thinking or feeling are stopping you doing the things you want to do (e.g. you feel like you can’t go out with your friends because you are feeling too low, or you feel like you can’t cope with work or a deadline) then you should do something about it.
I am going to split the rest of this blog into two parts (it is a very numbered-list-style type blog for hopeful ease of reading), the first for if you already feel stress and anxiety and the second for pre-empting these scary feelings.
Section one
If you are already stressed/depressed/anxious:
1) Remember these are incredibly common feelings. Some surveys suggest that as many as one in four people have some level of mental health problem over just one year.
Another survey indicates that up to one in ten students report suicidal feelings (I’m sure you can all think for yourselves why these numbers might be higher or lower due to survey bias or people not being honest).
The point to take away from this is that even if your situation feels like it will never improve, a quarter of students don’t drop out of university every year and ten percent certainly don’t commit suicide.
Just because you have unpleasant or unwell thoughts doesn’t mean that they are an intrinsic part of you. People get happier, and things get better in the vast majority of cases—it’s just statistics.
2) Buy ‘The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook’ by Edmund J. Bourne. This was recommended to me and it is brilliant! I haven’t really investigated the field of other self-help type books, but this covers all bases from what symptoms of anxiety disorders are to why you might have them and what you can do about it.
Again, you might think ‘But I don’t want to label myself as having anxiety problems or phobias!’ but just stick a label over the title and read it anyway. It does talk as if diagnosing you a little, but only so that you can be directed to the chapters that best help you. Like you might assume from this type of book, it sometimes states the obvious but is generally very helpful and comprehensive. (It is also quite interesting, just from a ‘oh so that’s how I think/ why I think these things’ point of view.)
I recently read it again for a friend which was also great as it meant I could offer some actual constructive help rather than just sympathy.
3) Take half an hour out of each day to do something to actively de-stress you. This could be writing or reading or walking or killing as many virtual people as you feel the need for. It sounds obvious, but certainly wasn’t something I was doing at the time!
This is what my tutor recommended and it worked really well for me. It can be difficult in a time of high pressure to do this, but really you work so much better and more efficiently when you are not stressed it is completely worth it. Letting feelings of stress and anxiety—even from small things—build up in you can lead to you wasting far, far more than just half an hour a day.
4) Talk to people! It can be hard to feel like you are a burden on your friends or family and frankly a bit embarrassing to be ‘needy’, but you will be much more of a real problem to those close to you if you let things get worse and worse. Everyone needs help sometimes!
If you feel like you can’t talk to your family or friends student counselling might be another option—from what I understand it is literally just a space to talk about your worries.
Your university tutor is also a perfect place to go—mine was so helpful once I finally got up the courage to mention it to him, but I understand many people’s may not be so approachable.
If the thought of all that completely unnerves you, I find that writing down what you are thinking can sometimes almost have the same effect.
6) Don’t believe everything you think! If you are periodically putting yourself down in your head then you may start to believe that you are not really worth much. This is obviously very counterproductive to being happy.
The one thing I found most useful for controlling periods of sadness was to start to notice when I was being mean to myself by thinking these negative thoughts and stopping to write them down.
The idea is then to come back to them and logically question them like a good little Socrates. Are they always true? Are you being too hard on yourself? What evidence is there to support this negative belief about myself I am holding? And so on.
There is a lot more on this technique in the book I recommended above by the way, but I’m sure it is all online too (if you search ‘countering negative self-talk’ or something like that)—here is the first link I found and scanned that seemed to be pretty good.
7) Consider visiting a doctor.
I did not find it useful, but I think it depends what kind of treatments you are thinking about. I was just asked to fill in a very depressing survey about how I was feeling and acting and then recommended student counselling or Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (which apparently has a very long waiting list in London). However, if you think some sort of medication may be beneficial for you, this is obviously the right way to go about it (and if you are prepared to wait for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy or are somewhere without a waiting list, I bet it is really interesting!)
Again, ‘therapy’ can sound a bit OTT but from what I’ve read it’s all pretty simple stuff really, the kind of thing you could be taught in school or take an evening class on.
8) Try not to worry if you aren’t sleeping well (or at all). This is a hard one, which I definitely didn’t listen to myself. After a few weeks of Mondays with no sleep the night before however, I realised that it was almost entirely my worry about lack of sleep making me feel bad and not actually the lack of sleep. My body didn’t seem to mind too much at all.
The Doctor I saw advised me against sleeping pills, saying that they did not produce the best quality of sleep, but that obviously depends on your circumstances. Trying relaxation techniques before bed can also help you sleep.
9) Imagine what you would say to a friend having the same problems as you.
Chances are, with a bit of outside perspective you would tell them that everything will turn out OK—that this is just a bit of a blip and that your problems are not insurmountable. Why should you tell yourself any different?
10) If you are at Imperial, consider signing up to the exam performance workshop. This is not for people who have actual exam stress i.e. they blank out in exams, but is mean to be an introduction to how to cope with feelings of depression and anxiety.
I went last term and didn’t find it particularly useful, but most of the material it covered was in the book I have already mentioned. It could be a way to ask questions to someone friendly or get a bit more information about methods to keep calm. It was also nice just to sign up, to feel like I was doing something active towards feeling better.
Section Two
Preventing stress:
1) Take care of yourself! By the time you get to university you’ve probably already been doing exams for four years. If you have been stressed about some of those, then university exams are also going to be stressful at times. Between all the partying, societies, work and dubious student cooking you can leave little time to do whatever else you need to do, be it keeping in contact with friends from home, sleeping, or playing The Sims.
2) Take a note of how you speak inwardly to yourself. If you are often putting yourself down, comparing yourself to others negatively etc etc, this could build up to an unpleasant level in your head. See point six above about negative self-talk. It can become an instinctive reaction. Don’t let it!
3) Learn to relax properly. Even when you sleep, if you haven’t given yourself permission to properly let go, you won’t. Some examples of relaxation techniques are deep breathing exercises, mediation, learning to relax your whole body and mindfulness. It might sound a bit hippyish and you might feel like an idiot doing it, but it can work!
4) Talk to people early on about any sources of stress you have when they are still small worries.
5) Try not to worry about being behind on work! Everyone is! Also if anyone gets anything constructive out of doing problem sheets the first time round then they are a better student than me. I always seem to get my first inkling of a subject what feels like half an hour before the exam, and it’s worked out well for me so far (insert superstitious action here).
University is about having fun, and it is fun! My first year at university was the best year ever (ever ever), and the second was still pretty good, despite my stress. Some of these tips above might seem overly simplistic or a make you feel a bit stupid (no-one can look cool and be timing ten minutes of deep breaths) but being happy is really a simple thing.
The one thing I always try to remember when I am caught-up in the confusion of my own scattered mind is how easy it is to simply forget that it is you that gets to decide how you react to a situation.
When I was little (well not that little) I used to dread binomial expansions (you know like (5x + 4)^6 or whatever) because I knew that I would always get panicked about how long it took to get all the numbers you had to write out and I would always always always always get a bit of it wrong in the end, no matter how simple the question.
Then one day my Aunty Lizzy (who is a maths teacher) was helping me with a question that involved one. I was sat there thinking ‘oh god here it comes, this will take ages’ but she just wrote out Pascal’s triangle neatly and then proceeded to do the expansion, working out and filling in each number calmly. I realise this is very stupid of me, but this was an actual revelation. It genuinely blew my tiny little mind.
Until that point I simply hasn’t realised that it was even possible to do a binomial expansion without panicking and getting it wrong. It had never occurred to me that there was another way to react to them!
Of course, this is rather more difficult to apply to more actually scary things then a maths problem, but it feels to me like the exact same mental stumbling point.
So, if I could loan out my Aunty Liz to everyone so they could witness her doing her supremely calm binomial expansion I would. Since I can’t, I hope some of these points can help! 😛
If you need to speak urgently to someone, or want more information about mental health check out the links below:
And lastly, all I have left over now from a period where I didn’t think things would ever get any better are some cheerful cards from my family, a little smiley-faced squeezy ball that my brother got me, and hopefully a list of things that may help some other people. Positives can come out of even the worst experiences.
Also look what came through the post today!
It’s only my british science festival programme!!!
And (as if I even need to mention) we are in orbit around a comet for the first time in history! Best few days ever!
I have just got back from a glorious week in Tenerife where I went in a submarine (!) and also found out that I did well in second year. I hope everyone reading this is having a similarly fun summer and is awaiting/has received good results too!
This week is a bit of a different blog— as you might know, I am in the process of discovering what sorts of careers are involved in science communication. To this end, I am hopefully (if I can find more willing volunteers) going to be asking a few questions to some of the people I talk to about their jobs and experiences for this blog.
First up is Dr. Joff Lacey, who is an anaesthetist and presenter on the TV Channel Al Jazeera’s medical science program ‘The Cure‘. The show covers cutting-edge health research, from wearable exoskeletons for people who are paralysed, to the effects of air pollution. Its coverage of Xtreme Everest—a huge project that is researching the effects of lack of oxygen on the body and for which Dr. Lacey was a researcher as well as presenter, won the Foreign Press Association ‘Science Story of the Year’ award.
How did you get involved in science communication?
I rather fell into media work. I’ve always enjoyed various forms of presenting, whether it was teaching medical students or talking at a conference, so the idea of being able to chat about science to a much larger audience was a very exciting prospect but a bit of a pipe dream. A good friend of mine works at Grain Media and they wanted medics to present a new show for Al Jazeera English- so I put my name forward, did a screen test and met with the executive producer…. two weeks later I was on a plane to Zambia to shoot my first film on Orbis (flying eye hospital)!
Do you have a favourite location to which you’ve travelled to film?
That’s a difficult one as I have been lucky enough to film in several fabulous locations. One that does stand out however is Norway – we travelled deep within the Arctic circle and met up with scientists trawling the depths of the fjords in search on new antibiotics. It was summer time so it was dark for only a few hours each day and I got to see the beauty of the Norwegian coastline in all its glory. Absolutely stunning.
Are you familiar with most of the stories reported on, or are they sometimes things you have only just found out about?
I am normally aware of the overarching scientific issue that the story covers, but the specific project is always new which is what makes the process so exciting. Before embarking on making a film there is, of course, substantial preparation and communication with the scientists involved in the project, but the filming itself is very much a method of discovery.
Do you have to stick to a script or are some bits (I’m thinking of the dancing that you did in the Flying Eye hospital!) spontaneous?
There is definitely no script! Which is great – I think it gives the films a fresh and real feel. As I have said, there is a lot of preparatory work and we will devise a general format to the film and what details we want cover but that can often change significantly once we’re on the ground making the film. And yes – the dancing was definitely spontaneous, otherwise I would have made sure it was a song I could dance to!!
I have heard some people say that they consider science communication a bit of a soft option and not really necessary. Do you think that making the public aware of their research is something that all scientists should think about?
Absolutely. In fact I believe that communicating with the public is an essential part to being a scientist. There will obviously be varying degrees of engagement depending on the science and the scientist but I feel every effort should be made to involve as many people in our work as possible. Science if fascinating and instilling interest in people is the first step to scientific exploration and advancement.
So there you go 🙂 Thank you Dr.Lacey if you are reading this—I am hopefully going to be doing some work experience for his film company Grain Media this autumn which I am really looking forward to!
I’m about a month in to my long summer holiday and to be quite honest, I don’t know what I’ve been doing all this time O_o I feel like I should be as busy as I usually am at uni but to be honest it’s been nice to kick back a bit and chill at home. The novelty of free food and laundry is starting to wear off a little but once I move in to my new place in September I expect I will sorely miss it! More on that a bit later though.
This might sound a bit sad but I decided I needed to start a new hobby over the summer since now I’m not thinking solely about biology and CU committee 24/7 and my life seems to have lost it’s meaning. SO I’ve started knitting again (don’t judge me). My first project is this Gryffindor scarf:
And y’know, you can think I’m ridiculous for knitting Harry Potter themed clothing buuuut I get a super awesome scarf out of it so LOOK WHO’S LAUGHING NOW. I also went on a yarn buying spree with one of my friends who can knit a thousand times better than I can (we enable eachother’s yarn-buying habits, it’s not healthy) and I have stuff coming in the post to make a beanie hat.
I think the knitting habit will come in handy when my flatmates and I move in to our new flat in September and are too broke to have the heating on over winter. I am sooo excited to move in, it’s such a nice place and it fulfils all my criteria for where I want to live. Finding a place to live in London has been a steep learning curve to say the least. It’s very strange to think that less than a year ago I was living at home, almost entirely financially dependent on my parents and oblivious to the workings of running a household. Rent? Bills? Naaah. But now I have been to house viewings, made an offer on a property, signed a contract, almost ended up in a contract race (that was a stressful 48 hours), paid an insane amount of money (they’re really not lying when they tell you it’s expensive to rent in this city!) and begun to set up house bank accounts. WHAT. It’s fun though. I can’t wait to live with my flatmates and decorate our flat and have like, Mexican nights. Ok we haven’t discussed Mexican nights. Guys if you’re reading this, please can we do this.
BUT there is still about two months until I move in, so what am I doing in the meantime. In a couple of weeks I am flying out to the East of France to be an animateur en formation at a bilingual Christian summer camp for a week. An animateur en formation (animef for short) is like an assistant leader and we help facilitate the camp, so washing up, cooking, cleaning, organising games etc. We also do Bible studies together and generally have fun. I’ve not been to this camp before but I’mvery excited! It’s an opportunity to practice my francais and travel abroad without my parents… another adult experience that I need to get over!
When I get back from camp I have a couple of weeks and then I’m off again to Oswestry in Shropshire for a five day conference for Christian students who are going to be serving in Christian Unions at their universities. SO EXCITED FOR THIS. I went to the regional weekend version of this conference back in February and it was unbelivably fun so I can’t imagine how great it’s gonna be spending a week with all the other regions and also getting to see my Imperial friendlies again after a long time apart.
Not long till results day for all you Year 13s! My tip for results day is to check track before you go in to collect your paper results and to take the phone number for the admissions office along with you in case there’s any problems. I actually missed my Imperial offer by a grade (happens to the best of us) but had already seen on track before opening my results that I’d been accepted, which I was able to verify when I called the admissions office.
This March, the media was sparked into a frenzy by reports of the first sightings of gravitational waves in the cosmic microwave background. There was talk of ‘breakthroughs’, ‘new frontiers of Physics’, ‘smoking guns’ and, of course, Nobel Prizes. The announcement was made by a team working on data from the BICEP2 telescope, who claimed to have discovered signals in the first ever light emitted in the universe. These signals hint at a time even earlier than that, a time that we will never be able to measure directly and that has teased scientists since its proposal in 1980: inflation.
Inflation is an idea put forward to explain why the universe appears to be at such an even temperature. It suggests that the tiny early universe underwent a period of expansion faster than the speed of light, allowing it to preserve its uniform characteristics.
Since this occurred when the universe was still too hot to emit energy as light for us to detect, it has been impossible to put any more constraints on exactly what kind of inflation happened, which is of key importance to many, very different, competing theories, some of which require infinite other universes. BICEP2’s team claim to have discovered evidence of gravitational waves—often described as ripples in space-time—left over from inflation and imprinted onto the cosmic microwave background, the well-measured radiation permeating our universe from when it had cooled enough to emit light. If true, this could not only add to the body of proof that inflation certainly must have happened, but also determine what energy the field that caused the inflation had, vastly cutting down the array of possible theories.
Recently though, other independent scientists have published their own analysis of the results, and have claimed that they could instead have been caused by dust in our own galaxy. Despite calls to do so, the BICEP team have not retracted their claim of discovery. They have also received criticism for publicising their result too soon, but even if the results do turn out to be false, is that really such a bad thing?
Scientists, when in the media at all, are often presented as lofty individuals already with all the answers, the infallible experts. This possible result has given people who would not normally know or be interested in, an insight into the world of scientific research, with big international teams both competing and working together for results.
Later this year, the team working on the Planck satellite that is also studying the cosmic microwave background will release its results, which could demolish or lend strength to BICEP2’s claims. This is as well as other telescopes and even two balloon-carried detectors that are also currently scanning the skies for the elusive waves. These results will now be reported around the world, even if they themselves do not claim a discovery. Before March this year even people interested in Physics may not have heard about these experiments—now they are so widespread that the Daily Mail recently wrote an article on Loop Quantum Gravity simply because it may validate BICEP2’s results.
Gravitational waves in the cosmic microwave background suddenly becoming ‘fashionable’ benefits scientists as well— the BICEP2 team’s paper was only published on the 19th of June and has already been cited over a hundred times in other papers. Other scientists are checking the results or applying them to their own theories, leading to a wealth of discussion.
These possible results have not only introduced people to one of the great mysteries in modern physics, but also given them a glimpse into the process of solving the mystery, which all detective fans know is often as impressive as the mystery itself. Is gravity waving at us from the early universe? Is it simply dust? The one thing we know for sure is that the game is still afoot.
I wrote blithely a couple of weeks ago about ‘how much of an expert’ at renting and moving houses in London I should be by about now. It is now now, however, and that was very very very very wrong. To demonstrate how much of a non-expert I am here is a list of some things that you should NOT do when moving house:
(If I sound exasperated [by which I mean I definitely do sound exasperated], that is because I AM. Brush off the sarcasm and my obvious inability to let things go and hopefully there are some genuinely helpful points here somewhere…)
1) Don’t wait until right at the end of term when everyone has gone back to their actual homes or their actual other countries. Effective communication with five people is difficult enough when they are in the same city, without everyone dispersing, one of them having broken their phone and another two retreating to holes on the Earth without any signal.
2) If this happens, don’t be the only one left behind thinking you are going to have a peaceful two weeks seeing the sights of London with your boyfriend.
3) Don’t think you can get away with cleaning the house yourself if the contract says ‘must be professionally cleaned’ or maybe even if it doesn’t. The person who checked our contract in Imperial told us that this usually means ‘cleaned to a professional standard’ but this wasn’t the case with us—the landlord actually wanted a receipt from the cleaners and we have heard from other students this seems to be standard practice.
4) Don’t not take pictures of every teeny tiny little stain. We took pretty thorough pictures of the faults in our house when we moved in, or so we thought, though we may now be charged for a stained sink that we are pretty sure we didn’t stain. I’m not sure how viable this point is, to be honest. It is hard to spot every little thing when you move in.
For the next house, we have actually sent emails later on about the problems we are having and will continue to do so. Yes, this makes me feel like a horrible person for moaning so much about how the workers haven’t left the floor clean or the wardrobe is broken, but at least the owner can then not claim the house was pristine when you moved in (as happened to us).
5) Don’t use blu-tack (even at all, even if the walls are stained by other things, even if you swear you can’t see the marks) unless you want to pay to re-paint the room. This is a sad one for me. I love to stick things on the walls!
6) Don’t end up being the only one sending emails to landlords and estate agents. If you are the one emailing, always cc everyone in so that you don’t have to update them all separately afterwards.
7) Double check any payments you are not sure about—we almost ended up paying an extra month’s rent because of a very badly worded/ deliberately fraudulent email from our estate agent.
Alex being scary…
8) This is a big one! Don’t be alone when you hand the keys back to your landlord. If possible, in fact, don’t deal with them face-to-face at all. If I could re-live the last couple of weeks I would drop the keys at the estate agents and say we were all out of London, or at least stand at the door and insist that I had to leave immediately when the landlord arrived.
Unpleasant things are much better dealt with by email.
I’m sure—or at least I hope— that I had a particularly bad experience with this landlord, but better safe than sorry. I won’t go too much more into what was a horrible experience, but if you are going to be criticised, insulted, patronised and talked-over by your landlord and another very rude person that she has brought along, bring reinforcements who are either your parents or your flatmates. Alex very kindly agreed to come along as all my flatmates were back at home, but despite him being quite scary (see picture I asked him to provide below demonstrating how scary) my landlord refused to talk to him as he was not a tenant. Ironic, considering she brought a miscellaneous lady with her.
9) Also, look around the house before you buy it! That is unless you want to end up next to a noisy pub in a house where everyone upstairs can see into the downstairs shower. (!)
I am completely joking about this—my new house is pretty awesome but that shower thing is weird.
In other moans, obviously changing utilities and council tax accounts is terribly boring and time-consuming. 😛 After nearly an hour on the phone this morning I am still not entirely sure if NPower have got the message that we don’t want their gas or not. Honestly.
In better news here is a list of happier tricks to renting houses:
1) Imperial have a good contract checking team who will check your contract thoroughly and give you lots of tips on how to not get taken advantage of.
2) The genius cleaners who have a 48 hour window to sort things out in the house for free if the landlord makes a completely unreasonable fuss.
3) Finding new landlords who are laid back. They are actually so laid-back that there is a broken mirror and various other broken bits of furniture scattered around the house that we will have to remove, but I will gladly take this over our current situation.
4) The fact your deposit has to be kept with a third party so scheming landlords can’t grab at it at whim. Thank you, the government.
5) Remembering to take gas and electricity readings.
6) Having a different joint bank account for house related payments.
Believe me, it is hard enough to track who has not paid what bill and why they haven’t paid the right amounts in a dedicated bank account. Add that on top of your own transactions and you will be internet banking for far too many hours of your splendid life.
Anyway, that is my moving house situation. It has all been fairly depressing and is unfortunately not over yet.
Now to the non-house section!
You’ve probably all heard that the longitude prize got awarded to antibiotic drug resistance which is a double win for me as it is the one I voted for and media coverage of this topic is the potential topic for an essay I am doing next year! Haha the British Media. I have you in my control.
Imperial have also picked me to go to the British Science Festival in September! I am so excited about this— they are paying for my accommodation and food and I get to go to panels and see science shows and science comedy! Much excite!
It has been all hush hush and rumours for a while about the Teddington situation. For those of you that don’t know, Teddington is the home of the Imperial Medical School’s sports teams for almost a century. It is a sports ground that is historic and means a great deal to the Imperial Medics past and present.
Having talked to many alumni and students it seems that everyone has been devastated by the news that all student activity will be suspended at Teddington after Imperial purchased a new sports site.
Dariush Hassanzadeh-Baboli – President of the Imperial Medics Union (ICSMSU) and Maredudd Harris the Clubs and Socs Officer sent the entire medical school an email earlier in the week …”The first time ICSMSU heard about the news was the same time as the rest of the students at Imperial College. Both the Faculty of Medicine and ICSMSU are unhappy and disappointed at the lack of warning, let alone consultation, with regards to moving ICSM Sports from their home ground of over 80 years. Such big decisions, that disrupt the history and traditions of our medical school, should not be made without the students being consulted.”
Since then, surveys and petitions have been abundant. My news feed on Facebook and twitter is covered with alumni and students standing up for the history of our medical school sports teams.
Teddington is wrapped in tradition and pride. Lord Beaverbrook, a consultant, bought the land in 1935 and gave it to St Marys (which later merged with other med schools to form Imperial). This was bought at the request of Lord Moran (the Dean of Medicine at the time!). Since then thousands of students have played on the land and have created memories that have been passed on through generations of sports teams. Even on the first day I went to Teddington in freshers I already began to get a sense of the homely feel of the grounds.
The prospect of travelling up to 2 hours from clinical sites in future years to get to a new sports ground seems like a bit too much. Doing sports already is a big ask for me, but when a massive commute (and thus expenditure on travel) is involved it’s just not going to happen. And this is probably true for a lot of students sadly. We should be doing everything we can to encourage sports not discouraging…surely!?
So now it seems everyone, old and new, is coming together to support the cause. Alumni from Imperial and Marys that are now located around the world are getting in touch to show their support. Everyone is coming together to keep a bit of Imperial that we all love and want to hold on to.
Imperial Medical School is full of an incredible heritage and history that doesn’t deserve to be destroyed. I really believe that the traditions of Imperial should be embraced and celebrated for ages to come.
