fresher citations and other geeky tendencies

For the second year running I am a fresher. No, I didn't fail my freshman year in the States, but I am officially a dropout; a fact I somehow failed to tell my new university - Imperial College. Once again I am living the highs and the lows of the fresher experience, although the fact that I've already "been there, and done that" and that I am older than everyone else; I am purposefully experiencing a bit less than some of my fellow classmates. During my freshman year in the States I had to go through the painstaking ordeal of learning how to make citations in different formats under the perfectionistic, eagle-like Dr Leatherman. Now, at Imperial College in London, I have discovered the joys of Endnote. Endnote is a lifesaver, a grade-saver at the very least. It automatically imports sources from online journals, saves them in databases, and exports them to Microsoft Word in the format of you choice, amazing. Though my second freshman year may be more challenging in some ways, wrestling with citations will be the least of my worries.

Alright, so I guess it is about time I admitted that I am a geek. As I was sitting in lab today drawing this molecule (and enjoying it) I realised that most people probably wouldn't be fascinated by chemdraw to the extent that I was. Now, having said that, I wasn't exactly jumbing up and down in my seat, but I did enjoy it none the less. Also, I must make it entirely clear that I am far from being among the worst. Since I began studying at Imperial College I have seen my fair share of science geeks. After all, a university of 13000 undergraduates, which only offers degrees in science, technology and medicine, is bound to have an unusually high proportion of nutcases. In fact one might argue that the atmosphere resembles that of the TV-show Eureka. Once again, I feel the need to reassure both myself and my readers that I do not follow Eureka, however hard you might find that to believe. The reason why I decided to write about this in the first place is that I tend to distance myself from the average geek. Usually I am annoyed by people who are overly fascinated by a subject to the extent that they are unable not to talk about it. Please don't misunderstand, I still do find this annoying. I still find myself shaking my head at some of my fellow students' questions and topics of conversation; not to mention "extracurricular activities." Yet my fascination with Chemdraw was a wake up call nonetheless. To some extent I guess I am a geek; I am OK with that. Yet despite this I must be careful, lest my personality should slip and slide - just like my accent.