As I wave goodbye to my tearful mother, it finally dawns on me that I am actually going to live all by myself in a completely new environment, that I will have no choice but to become independent. Which means washing the dishes, grocery shopping and (gasp!) doing my laundry all for the first time. You might think I should add \u2018cooking for myself\u2019 to that list but-I am not going to lie to you- I cannot even boil water. Therefore, throughout my three weeks in London, I have depended on cereals, sandwiches and pizzas-in short the diet of a typical student.
\nSilly me, I forgot to introduce myself: Hi, I am Bayan Al Balushi, a first year Chemical Engineer student. Being 17 means I am practically a child here and, no matter how many times I point out that my birthday is next month, people still perceive that I am too young. I am from Oman (that is a country in the Arabian Gulf, you know, bordering the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia; you would be surprised that only a handful of people know where it lies) where it is warm all year long. So carrying an umbrella and zipping myself in more than 2 layers is quite unusual for me.
\nDespite the fact that I\u2019d rather stay home with a good book than go out, I tried my best to participate in most of the events. I met a few interesting people at the boat party my hall organised. We chatted the night away huddled in our coats and jumpers but somehow we were still shivering. Seeing the Tower of London and its poppy garden made me realise that I have so much to discover in this great city and I really couldn’t wait to get started. Of course that would mean I would have to take the tube for the first time of my life and perhaps get lost once or twice but that is what makes an adventure.
\nFreshers\u2019 Fair was a fantastic experience. Everybody is trying to sell you their own society and club with such hopeful faces that you cannot say no to and by the end of the day you would have signed up to some twenty societies and return home only to find that your e-mail is swamped. I was slightly more sensible; I was determined to sign up to only those that I could actually see myself committing to. In retrospect, I might just join a few more as I didn\u2019t have the chance to see every society and club. So wherever your passion lies, you best believe they\u2019ll have something for you at Imperial. And if not, you could just start your own club anyway.
\nI have to confess that it has been difficult to shake of the lethargy that swept over me during my four month break and get back to work mode. I don\u2019t think I have completely lost my laziness yet, though it was much easier to slip into a new routine than I have anticipated. Hopefully, when I get buried in work I\u2019ll be able to stop procrastinating, have a nervous breakdown and then get on with it.
\nOverall, it was an amazing start especially since I have been able to make new friendships (not an easy thing for me as I am quite awkward and shy). I know that Imperial\u2019s motto might be \u2018work hard, play hard\u2019 but right now just focus on recovering from \u2018freshers\u2019 flu\u2019!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As I wave goodbye to my tearful mother, it finally dawns on me that I am actually going to live all by myself in a completely new environment, that I will have no choice but to become independent. Which means washing the dishes, grocery shopping and (gasp!) doing my laundry all for the first time. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1047,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1047"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1531\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}