First weeks of life in London

In the beginning of October, when people were telling me that in next eleven weeks I will experience more than in my entire life, and at the same time they will pass faster than any previous eleven weeks of my life, I had hard time to believe them. After seven... no actually already eight, weeks I have to agree with them.

Already the first week was unbelievably hectic and it destroyed most of my expectations and prejudices about science students. Would you think that university full of them will inevitably be boring? That we should all sit in our rooms with a pile of books?  Of course, there are few people like this, we were recommended to study at least three hours a day outside the lecture hours, however one of the advantages to live with other students of the same subject is that for instance I pass my three hours a day in the kitchen or in the library doing my problem sheets with other physicists. Studying, time spent with friends and occasionally some food mingle in strange harmony.

To be honest, studying at a science oriented university as Imperial College London, actually makes mingling and making new friends for life surprisingly easy. Probably every student here went through a time when he was considered “nerdy” and he wasn’t very successful in joining any of the school groups. As one of my friends remarked the first day, here are all the groups half-opened and they welcome every new member. It may be because we all realize how much anyone of us can offer, maybe because everyone except a surprisingly small group of UK students everyone is far from home and alone.

Another thing that impresses me at my school is the range of clubs and societies corresponding to almost every possible hobby, religion, nationality or sport. There is a chocolate society, a meat society (supposedly founded by a vegetarian), Czecho-Slovak society, at least ten different martial arts, robotics and of course countless volunteering organizations and charities. I have been warned not to take part in too many of them, but is there a way to resist all those smiling people during Fresher’s Fair, when the whole school is filled by stands of all the societies? I ended up taking an active part only in Shorinji Kempo club, one of the proposed martial arts, however even a single club offers a great range of activities. Who said that I can’t participate in a competition that brings together all the Shorinj Kempo clubs from London with a white belt? Or that I can’t perform on a Unicef Charity night? And who would guess that martial arts can lead to baking and selling cakes for charity?

If anyone asks me how is London, I always answer that it is great and expensive. Unlike some of my classmates I don’t live within a stone's throw from school but I have to walk trough Hyde Park every morning to get to lectures. On the bright side, I live in Notting Hill, one of the most beautiful parts of London, and the walk trough Hyde Park is marvellous, especially in autumn.
 

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