O Lord’s!

It is the dream of every cricketer to get an opportunity to take that walk down the stairs from the dressing room, through the luxurious long room where distinguished guests are seated, on to the pitch amid cheers from the crowd and perform on a ground which is called the Home of Cricket. No surprises, I’m talking about the Lord’s Cricket Ground.

Similarly it is also the dream of every cricket-lover to make a pilgrimage to the Home of Cricket at least once in his life to witness the game in a true gentleman’s environment. Unfortunately, getting hold of the tickets for a match at Lord’s is an uphill task for a number of reasons. There are very few international matches played at Lord’s and the tickets are sold-out rather quickly. Secondly, the tickets are pricey. However, the dream of visiting Lord’s doesn’t shatter because the place offers a guided tour at very reasonable price, which goes even lower for students. For eight quids, one can see even those parts of the ground, which are inaccessible during match days.

Coming from a region where every child is born with an innate ability to stroke the ball with a cricketing bat and/or roll the arms to produce some fast and furious deliveries, it was only a matter of time before I made my way to Lord’s.

First and foremost, let me shower some praises for the man who led the tour of about 20-odd people. The old man was an eloquent speaker and impeccably dressed to present the true image of the game. He was very well versed in the history of not only Lord’s but also cricket in general.

The tour began sharply at noon. The immediate turn-off was the prohibition of photography during the first half of the tour which was limited to the museum and other historical locations. But this was outweighed by the opportunities to click during the next part of the tour. (Keeping in sync, I have added quite a lot of pictures in the second half of this post)

The first leg of the guided tour began in a historical building, which is known to the world as Pavilion. The first place we went to was a huge room, known famously as the Long Room, which at that point was ready for some dinner party (huh!). Anyway, this room is a cricketing art gallery, and the place where most distinguished MCC members sit to enjoy the game. Obviously, it provides one of the best view to watch the game. This is also the room through which the players of the away team have to walk through in order to make their way to the center (!!). It is indeed a long walk from the dressing room upstairs, through the Long Room on to the pitch; and even longer if the batsmen has to return after facing just one ball. (more…)

My Highs & Lows of 2008

What’s good about a new year? To be honest, nothing is good about it given the extra effort needed at the time of speech delivery to make sure you don’t say next year to things which are suddenly going to happen in this year and the added mental effort of making sure you jot the correct digit when writing down the date. However, the new year, or end of an year can serve as a benchmark to have a look at the things and events that happened in the past year. Looking back myself, I can say with certainty that this year had events that will remain ingrained in my memories forever.

The beginning of year 2008 was a good time for me. I was done with my final semester exams looking at various options to shape my career. As soon as the year started I knew the next two-and-a-half months would be extremely busy. Being the sole driver in my family (with my dad in UAE), only son, and only brother of my dear sister it was me who had to make sure all her wedding arrangements were meticulously handled. I didn’t apply for jobs at that time, hoping to secure an admission in some MSc course. I also knew the next few days would be spent shopping with my mom. This wasn’t all that bad: shopping at Tariq Road with ladies around (more…)

Settling In…

My first ever class at Imperial was of an optional subject called Synthesis of Digital Architectures. It was sleep-inducing at first, but the professor managed to steer it on an unknown awesome track in the midst of two-hour slot. This is a subject which I’m unclear about, at least from the first class. Another class scheduled after a 4 hour gap was of Instrumentation. From these two, and other three of my subjects, and their teachers I’ve noticed that we’re studying the future of technology, not its history. The course contents include matter from the latest research in respective fields. The teachers, all of whom are highly respected in their fields and obviously experienced, combine humour to make it memorable for the students. Talking of students, there’s a nice blend of people from different countries (did I mention this in any earlier post?). Coming to the point of teachers, their profiles indicate their involvements in many of technologies we’re using today!!! So, the people teaching here are those who have invented or played a part in different inventions and innovations of our age. There’s a huge difference of teaching standard compared to what I’ve been used to. Naturally, there is a great amount of expectations from the students as well, due to which I’m drowned in shitload of work. I’ve been forced to reinforce some of my basic concepts which were covered perfunctorily or not covered at all!!

This week also included a career talk on the subject ‘What will you do at the end of your MSc?’ The focus was mainly on how to secure jobs, when to apply, and introduce other services from the Career Advisory Office of Imperial. Honestly, I was dreaming after 10 minutes of its start.

Out of the 5 (4 mandatory and 1 optional) subjects in this term, my favourite so far has been VHDL and Logic Synthesis.

This week is probably the settling stage of my life in London. I got my bank account details, the debit card will take another week (arghh!), got my student travel card (Oyster 18+) and I’m loving the new residence, despite the sound of Circular Line train which runs just at the back of this building and I’m able to recognize the monetary worth of numerous annoying coins.

The new neighbourhood is fantastic. The previous one was dominated by desis, but there is large concentration of Arabs here which means easy availibility of eatables like Shawarma, Falafel and Hummus

The weather is unpredictable, but that is exactly what makes it good, although the majority hates that.

The only thing yet to settle is a study routine, which I hope to devise tonight and implement for the next few days/weeks. Wish me luck!

Say NO to buses

The end of last week, precisely Sunday the 12th of October, we shifted from East to West London, from Walthamstow to Hammersmith (I think :S). The whole process was tiring, as is the case of any shifting event. But we did make it by about 9 p.m in the night. The next day was supposed to be important for me, as it marked my first official class at Imperial. I was made aware that a certain bus (number 70) goes from our place to Imperial directly, door-to-door. The tube stations (there are two nearby) are both at a walking distance of about 10 minutes, and then the additional walk of few minutes at South Kensington station to Imperial. So, I decided to take the bus which was supposed to reach the destination in about 45 minutes. I completely forgot the fact that the class was scheduled for 10 a.m and hence I was riding in rush hour. And every so often Murphy’s Law of things going wrong prove so true, when my bus got stuck in the London traffic jams at numberous places. I managed to get in the class, precisely 5 mintues late. No, there are no attendance rules but I wanted to be there on time. A lesson well learnt of not using buses in the mornings!

The First Week

The first week at Imperial College has been largely festive. Various welcome sessions were arranged to acclimatise the students with the structure, functioning, services, facilities and administration of Imperial. Something amusingly strange about Imperial College is its name! In fact, it’s a university but they still call it college. The word ‘college’ is embedded in its name. However saying Imperial is more than enough for the purpose of recognition.

Coming back to the events in the first week, the first welcome session I attended was for the International students where the rector (SIR Roy Anderson) spoke to the students together with other representatives of different departments of Imperial including the International Office. The next welcome session was for all the postgraduate freshers in engineering and physical sciences courses, where more or less, same group of people spoke with special emphasis on the changes to expect as a postgraduate student and the expectations of Imperial from us. The Imperial College Union (ICU) President also spoke on both of these occasions and highlighted how the union (run by students for students) helps the students all along. Another welcome session that I attended was by the department for all the MSc students and the final event was speicifically for my course. So in a way they addressed the whole group first, then the department took over and then the specific course. Attendance of a mandatory safety induction programme (boring, to say the least) then allowed us to pick up our cards which is to be used at the ubiquitious card readers at the campus. The card is used in printers, scanners, copiers, library doors, gym doors, praryer room doors, department doors, and what not!

The limelight of the first week throughout Imperial was the events organized by the ICU. At this stage it is important to mention that ICU gets the largest funding in the UK for any student body. It has over 300 clubs and societies! You can find everything you can imagine (YES!) and even those that you can’t. The Union runs shops, cafes and pubs as well. The main event was the freshers’ fair. They also arranged various parties every night during the first week none of which did I attend.

Realizing that there was nothing much to do in the first week I took the opportunity to register myself with the local GP at the Imperial College Health Center. I also applied for the opening of a bank account which I heard is a pain in the ass in UK. Natwest Bank didn’t bother me much, but they did say it takes a week for the opening of account. I guess I’ll have to keep my fingers crossed.

I’ve been overwhelmed by the sort of facilities available at the campus. The central library which remains open 24 hours is awesome. It has multiple floors (levels), a big cafe, group study areas, silent study areas, etc etc. and its beautiful too. It houses books for the NHS and some museums too. Then there is a departmental library in our EEE department building which houses very specific titled. A special MSc room which is quite large is the place where most of the MSc students from all three MSc programmes meet up quite often. Its a study room as well as a leisure room. It has lockers for us and computers with ultra high speed internet. Wireless access is everywhere. The room has armchairs and tables as well and a microwave oven as well. One day it smelt badly of fish! (arghhh). This particular room is usually locked with a digital code.

Other facilities within the department building include a cafeteria below. Eating isn’t a problem. There is a main dining hall and other very large common rooms too. These places do serve Halal food as well.

I’ll be covering the stuff in greater detail as time permits, and try to add pictures as well. There’s a lot more I wish I could key in now but I’m just unable to formulate proper sentences these days out of sheer tiredness.

Note: Although I wrote this post a while ago, I wasn’t able to post it up due to some odd reason. I’m almost at the end of week two which has been very interesting, so I’ll write about it over the weekend, hopefully.