a wake up call

I just had three of the worst hours in quite a while. Three hours filled by frustration, rage and humiliation. The spectroscopy workshop began well enough, untill one of the instructors led me down a path that brought on my foul mood. He suggested I use a formula which turned out to be pretty useless with regard to the question I was working on. Then, almost one hour later, still working on the same problem, I began repeatedly keying in the wrong numbers on my calculator. By this point the satisfactory sensation brought on by being way ahead of the people across the table from me had vanished entirely, not only because of my frustration, but because I was in fact no longer ahead. I had spent almost two hours solving four problems, out of a total of twelve. My professor kindly pointed out that an equivalent question to the one I had been struggling with would have been allotted approximately fifteen minutes for my exam. Clearly there was a problem. To add insult to injury, upon returning later he casually remarked that question six was in fact really easy, on a second glance he remarked "I don't know why I included that question, it is so easy." I'm sure he didn't realise that I had been staring at the question at loss for how to begin; at least I did as well as I could to make sure I was emitting an aura of confidence.

It is in fact incredible, how stupid and inferior a professor like Andrew de Mello can make you feel; one might almost assume his PhD was in intimidatory tactics. Despite my disheartening experience, I find myself upbeat. After all, one of my reasons for coming to Imperial was to discover that I'm not the most intelligent person around. It also reminds me that though my Christmas may not be white, it will most certainly be intellectually enriching...

catching up

Wow, it is far too long since I last wrote! So much has happened, I don't know where to start. Most importantly my trip to Austria was a great success, other than the fact that I picked up some bug and had to tour Salzburg with a fever. I've also moved in to my new room in London. London is both amazing and intimidating, as is my new university.

Before I forget, or decide not to write this after all, I must confess that despite my ridiculously high self-esteem, I am an idiot. If I ever try to tell you that I am really intelligent, or if I go rambling on about how great I am at pretty much everything, then remind me of this. Today I got lost, I mean really lost. Having bragged about my sense of direction yesterday, my ego got a well deserved slap as I blindly walked in circles trying to find my way back to my hall. To make matters worse I couldn't ask anyone for help either, obviously, that would simply be too embarrassing. The two times I did get my act together and ask for help I was told that I was heading in the opposite direction of where I wanted to go, and red-faced forced to turn around and try again. In order for both you and I to understand which way I should go next time I am posting a street map of the area ;p





















My hall is at location A, you can see Imperial College at the top of the map. How hard can it be, right?