One about cooking

I really wish that there was something more exciting to say about my lectures, but it seems like most of the material so far is just providing mathematical tools for concept that we already looked at before. After two years, solving the simple pendulum and deriving the wave equation for the n+1th time gets a bit boring. It does definitely provide a feeling of continuity and the maths is occasionally quite interesting, but it’s not something I would talk about to my non-physicist friends. Most of them would probably have a reaction similar to the one I got from anybody I tried to talk about an article about measurements of Newton’s constant – a rapid change of subject.

The greatest thing about this year, something I can actually passionately talk about to everybody, is moving into a new house. Physics is more or less still the same after two years (and honestly, it would be a bit mean to change the course now that people started to get used to it). But this is the first time after two years of living in London and effectively five year of living away from home, when I share a kitchen with less than five people. My grandparents can finally stop worrying about my eating habits. I actually started cooking pretty much every day (not just pasta & pesto), bake at least once a month and I have space to put some fruits and veggies too. It feels kind of bad that I am celebrating becoming a self-sufficient human being on a normal diet as such an achievement, but it took me way too long to get to this point.

There are few more reasons why food is my preferred conversation topic. I started reading the book Cooking for Geeks and I am continuing with my summer job in a newly open shop on campus. Somehow it feels like I’m doing my first year in the cooking labs: with the practical sessions at home, mild theoretico-practical lectures at work and some very interesting reading. And instead of having to write reports, I get to have a pretty good meal at the end of it all.

This makes me think about a TED talk I saw few years ago. Apparently, it takes about twenty hours to learn a new skill to a reasonable level. Maybe I just needed my twenty hours of cooking to get started properly. I would definitely conform the twenty hour rule when it comes to cycling around London, another thing I started with this year (this one would probably slightly worry my grandparents, but my parents would be proud of me). It is still a bit scary, but twenty hours is definitely enough to learn about turning right, using space and being reasonably safe.

I wish I had more to say about studying abroad, physics or university in general, but it seems like for the moment, becoming a grown up and living in a house instead of halls is way more exciting than any of those things. Maybe next time, there is the whole Universe left to explore.