My roommate, Alex, is from England. As expected, people in the UK are mostly good at cold resistance. Look at the girls in stockings who stand in the freezing wind. And now look at my roommate who only wears his underwear and walk around in the bedroom whilst I am still trembling inside the duvet. You note the Superman in the movie wears not only his underwear, but also his cloak, but Alex seems to be stronger than him and only needs his under to keep warm.
I will never forget the friend from Africa who speak about his chilly room without an efficient radiator: “How can you take me out of the oven and put me into a refrigerator?”
On the morning of 12th October 2008, there was a free breakfast in the common room. In fact, every Sunday morning, at 11a.m., the hall provides a variety of cereals, jams, bread and milk. We only need to bring out crockery and cutlery with us. After the breakfast, it was almost noon. We followed Marshall to go to the Camden Market.
After taking a tube for roughly half an hour, we arrived at the Camden Town. Instead of walking alone, I followed Marshall. Then I realized that he likes wearing bizarre stuff like boots and leather clothes or t-shirts with weird pictures on. When we walked through the market, we saw many funny pictures and words painted on the clothes which made us laugh to death. For instance, they put a picture of a guy sitting on the toilet with a word “downloading”. And then on another clothes, there was a couple in the wedding ceremony, and there were two words underneath: Game Over. Getting married isn’t kind of game over, is it? We were impressed and amazed by the creative and innovative mind of those people.
After walking with Marshall for a long time, I realized that he shopped just like a lady and he sometimes liked touching the ladies’ clothes. Apart from shopping, we also went to eat some African food.
Almost at the end of the high street, there was a lot of food. You can see Japanese, African, Chinese, Italian, Indian food and so on. Before we left the station, surprisingly, an old friend and ex-classmate in Brighton, Grace gave me a surprise by jumping out to say goodbye to me. London is so big, but sometimes you find it so small as well. You will probably easily meet some people in the busiest zones in the city.
In the evening, the hall seniors took us to the China Town to have a Chinese Feast. In the feast, I continued expanding my circle of friendship. It was supposed to be around 10 people sitting at our table, but then it turned out to be five of us. As usual, the Chinese and Asian students tended to sit around a table, but as usual again, I sat in the middle of some Non-Asian students. It is not because I don’t like Asian students. It’s all because I want to get to know more people. Well, 10 to 5 had reduced the number of residents I was going to meet. But life is fair, when god takes away some of the people surrounding you, it ends up supplying more food for you.
After the dinner, the students nearby left quite soon, so I moved my chair to the next table and chat with them. As a consequence, I became the only person who could remember all the name of the people sitting around the table. Tell you what, even those sitting around the table didn’t know what the name of the person facing him is. Perhaps we could have a club or society called Face Memorizing game.
The people who organized this event had omitted something important, that was they didn’t investigate whether the students were vegetarians or not. Well, never mind. The restaurant can sort that out. Funny still is to look at the students learning to use chopsticks. During the meal, I could easily pick up the food and eat rapidly, so in order not to starve, they ought to use spoons instead to catch up with the speed of my using chopsticks. Fortunately enough, many students there found Chinese meal fantastic. So it wasn’t as embarrassing as the Comenius Trip in Brighton.
Of course, as usual, I took some lovely photos in the restaurant. And in the photos, we can’t miss the amusing senior students and wardens.
We also had a funny movie night. Crisps were offered from the hall and we sat on the sofa or chairs to watch the overhead projector movies. Movies could be chosen by the students. Moreover, the hall has got a movie library which can lend out DVDs for free as long as the students can return it within 3 days.
There were so many activities in the hall and union. During the Fresher’s Week, we had a mingle, lots of Clubbing and a Bridges and Pub Crawl for the Department of Civil Engineering. I didn’t get any alcohol until it almost ran out. After all, I don’t like drinking. Instead, a glass of juice may be much more appropriate for me. Then I got a glass of cider and spent whole night drinking it. I didn’t understand why people like drinking alcohol. It seems to be bitter to me. I tried hard to finish the glass of cider, but then until the next evening, there was still half a glass of cider left.
Besides this kind of “drinking sports”, there are still more interesting things. You could say it is exciting or even irritating. For example, my roommate often stays out until late. He usually comes back after 2 a.m. especially for the first week. And there were two nights when two girls ran into our rooms and laughed loudly. Every time I woke up and attempted to look around, the girls would dodge or hide and then left the room. And at the same time, I saw my Alex who just came back from outside. He told me it was already 4:30 in the morning when the drunken gals jumped into our rooms.
If you think this isn’t chaotic enough, I think the fire alarm might activate you. Sometimes when you are just in bed or even having a shower, the fire alarm went off and it was your time to run. Many students went as fast as a rocket, but I just woke up and put on my jacket carefully and then socks and shoes. Walked slowly outside the room and then opened the door for the girl running after me following which I said hello to the warden teacher standing at the corner to help students evacuate. What a wicked life! Now that I am living in hall, just try to experience as much as you can. That means try not only the parties and balls, but also the fire alarm dancing.
In Imperial, we meet too many people whose English is really English, not Chinglish. I couldn’t even find anyone whose pronunciation was terribly appalling. Everyone is so brilliant and so many left-handed geniuses have appeared in our daily life. In our dorm, people had a Rubik’s Cube competition. They tried to solve the scrambled Rubik’s Cube. And amazingly, a Malaysian student only used 39 seconds to tackle any kind of problem. Although the fastest record in the world is 7 seconds, the student I had already impressed us so much. His hands and fingers moved pretty rapidly in front of us and we couldn’t tell what he was doing, but only a few seconds later, it is just like a magic show, you can see the cube has returned to its original combination. I couldn’t tell how many geniuses are there in this college or even this hall since everyone here seems to be so intelligent.
On the Friday afternoon which was the 10th, we got our first coursework which was to design two posters for the things we were going to see. I am in the Group IstructureE-12, and our task is to go to the Hub and the Regents Park to find out more about it and take some photos. Well, we all find it hard to start. Come on! It’s just the 1st and 2nd weeks! We got our coursework already! Hooray! IC is so nice to us… On the second Tuesday, we had lectures and tutorials from 9 a.m. all day way to 6 p.m. with two hours break in the middle. But then we used half an hour discussing the issue about the posters. It was such a long day which made me sleepy. That’s only the start of the game, man! It seems that I had returned to the life in my senior high school in China, the advanced teaching style but with harsh days.
Cooking is fun here. Mrs. Chris was quite right. When we feel down or upset or even homesick, look around and talk to the people next to you. You will find that they may also be lonely and feel grateful that you make a start in this friendship. When you feel lonely, don’t hide yourself in the corner as you have my place to stay and the sun will shine everyday.
Honestly speaking, I thought I was crappy in cooking. But they when I looked around, there were so many students who cook at the similar level as me or even worse. But it is such a fabulous thing to see how different people cook their dinner they like. I swore to cook for myself, and then I made it. Although in my maiden cooking work I’ve made my dish into crisps, I’ve succeeded in cooking rice without using an electronic cooker. And then from the 2nd job onwards, I started cooking something healthy and look good. It tastes OK. The most crucial thing for me isn’t the taste or flavor of the dish, but whether it is nutritious and can full me up. But then I realized that just after a few days of my cooking, although I don’t feel satisfied about my own masterpiece, I began to have some followers or even apprentices. It may sound a bit ridiculous, but it is true. A green-hand chef like me SHOULD have some students. Haha!
When the Fresher’s Fair just began, I started signing up for many many of the 200+ clubs and societies in IC. As signing up means I’ve been adding to their mailing list. Not long after that, I found that my mailbox was flooded by mails. And there were so many mails that I couldn’t tell which one is from which club and what that club does.
There is another interesting thing here. Everyday I walk on the road between our hall and the college, I would hear many passers-by speaking French. As I am eager to learn French, it has seriously surprised me. It seems that London is just like a Mini France. Compared with Brighton, London seems to be more international and we can meet more people from all around the world.
Life in London is a bit boring and it still costs a fortune, but I do like it and hate it at the same time!
