Avoiding Adulthood

A day I thought would be spent studying has turned out otherwise; I woke up intending to revise (or learn) biological chemistry, and ended up watching my newly-bought Spiderman 3, then reading a short chapter of 'Learning Medicine', followed by playing a bit of Mirror's Edge, watching a couple of videos on youtube, streaming Star Wars episode IV, and just as I picked up my book of biochemistry, I realised that the special Christmas episode of Doctor Who was about to start. And as a last resort to not doing any work, I'm here once more.

I was thinking about all the things I do on a daily basis, and how I seem to be going backwards (or staying where I am) in terms of 'growing up'; I still play video games, I'm into lame jokes and funny pranks, I don't hate pokemon, I eat sweets, I take photos of weird stuff, I am a proud owner of a Spongebob mug! The other day I bought copies of Resident Evil 4 and Bully for the Wii; I still find pleasure in killing zombies and bullying schoolkids (in virtual reality of course), I still feel content when I finish games, but I feel different when I do; like I'm not supposed to be having this much fun at my age. I can't imagine myself reading newspapers like there's no tomorrow, or collecting ornaments, or browsing through the DIY sections of shops early on sunday mornings. I associate maturity with lack of happiness; someone who doesn't smile, and does 'mature' things, like gardening or arranging stamp collections. The question is... do we all hold on to the things we loved in our youth? I can't imagine 90 year-olds in the future listening to rap and playing the latest version of GTA. But something I am sure of, is that I'll continue to laugh at stuff like this for a long time...

Happy Holidays

Well, what a term it's been! I started off hating my time at uni, and ended thinking it's kind of alright. I haven't bonded with one specific person, but with lots; I think I'm trying to find one person who's exactly like me, but can't, so I end up attracted to lots of different personal qualities in different people that end up making an overall person like me. Some people have a dry sense of humour, others like to enjoy the silence, whilst some have an empathetic side, and so on; and these are all qualities that I feel attracted to. The kind of people that I've met on my course are pretty cool, others are just complete bookworms, but something that I've found common amongst all Imperial students is the competitive streak. There are loads of competitions and tournaments available to enter, such as Halo 3, Super smash bros. (which I got to the final in, Pit rules!), Quran recitation and dodgeball which I never played before but found extremely fun! Apart from that, lectures are still boring enough for me to fall shamelessly asleep in, so the only thing I can do to keep me awake is get out my newly-bought laser pointer and start annoying people. And a guy from yorkshire does the same across the lecture theatre, so I don't feel alone in the thought that I'm the only guy failing this year :)


My medical interview is coming up on January the 13th inshaallah, and I'm really hoping that my 'mature' approach will come across well with the interviewers this time. I'm done with trying to make them laugh, or saying such unique things that make me sound like a Nazi; I'm going to be normal; no orange ties, no funky glasses, no sweat!

Time at university has made me think about how different people can be; being exposed to so many people in one place has made me realise that no one person is the same, and I don't mean only personality-wise, but physically. It's amazing how everyone (or most people) all has a nose, eyes, ears, but they all combine to make something different, so it's extremely difficult to find two people alike, it's weird. Not even making mii's on the Wii could make me understand how different people can be. Even names; it's weird how we all have one, and people ask "What's your name?" So yeah, I find the concept of names quite weird when I think about it. In fact alot of things become weird when we think too deeply about them; like walking. Putting one leg in front of the other, and then pulling yourself forward. Or sitting down the way we do, or even speech; how we make a noise and then shape our mouths to make the noise sound differently, yeah, weird.

But one thing that I don't find weird is that Manchester United are world champions... finally! :D

My Favourite Place

I was walking through the unattractive dump that is South Kensington (where Imperial is, unfortunately) that made me think of all the other universities in London, pretty much the same; buildings, noise, and not much nature. Then I thought of my favourite place (in London)... Southwick Mews. It's a small residential sort of road near Edgware Road, untouched by Arab tourists, DVD salesmen and pollution. It's so peaceful during both the day and night, as if time stops when you walk through it. It's beautiful even when it rains, and the cobbled ground compliments the greenery growing on the sides. When I'm with my friends in the area, I make sure we walk through here to get where we want to, and I'm not ashamed to tell them that it's my favourite place. I stop, look around, and take in the atmosphere; all the worries of my life seem to to just disappear as I bathe in the calmness and security. One day I intend to bring all my friends here and have a picnic, and just relax... In fact, I think lots of 'Mews' around London have a similar sort of atmosphere.

I don't want to spoil this moment by mentioning the event where George Bush had shoes thrown at him... there I've gone and done it. But hats off to the journalist who had the courage to do it!

Plain Annoying

Well here I am again; blogspot seems top be the best place to be after you've done everything else to avoid your work. The dares have been wearing thin this week, the most memorable one being when I found a MASSIVE piece of paper in the lecture theatre and instead of listening to the lecture, I mustered up all my strength to try and fold the paper into an aeroplane. Then I threw it across the theatre, which quite annoyed one person it hit, but I didn't like them anyway.

I was pretty happy today after finding that the letter of complaint I wrote to the university paper had been published, and instead of using a picture of a mis-spelt roadsign I provided, they enlarged my picture and stuck it right in the middle! So now probably everyone at Imperial knows that Yasin Fatine likes sleeping on beds of flowers.

My last port of call before this was nintendowiifanboy.com, where I am kept up-to-date about how amazingly successful the Nintendo Wii is. And amidst the multiple posts on the new Animal Crossing (which I think is going to be very similar to the Gamecube/DS versions), I spotted an article on how a boxing company is making some new gloves to cater for Wii Sports fans. Along with the other Wii 'accessories', this is probably the most pointless thing after lollipop ladies at pelican crossings! They don't enhance the gameplay experience in any way, and don't allow the player to use their imagination... just gloves with a wiimote-shaped space to fill. It just annoys me to think about how people over-exploit good ideas just to make money, and what annoys me even more is that it will probably become a best-seller! I hate the general public!

Oh, and Microsoft have just ripped-off one of Nintendo's ideas by making Mii-like characters, and although I hate anyone who copies Nintendo, I have to say that they're pretty good! And I guess that everyone will notice they were copied from the Wii and start loving Nintendo even more because of this. But I still hate Sony for their 'motion-sensing' controller!

Two Decades

Well I've been twenty years old for about six days now and I don't feel any different. I've just been engaged in a week full of dares; playing thomas the tank engine ringtone in lecture, flying paper aeroplanes absolutely everywhere, coming in to lecture with lab equipment on, popping that balloon in the crowded lift. But the best dares were the ones i made my friends do; wearing a tie around one's head and walking around campus, another coming in wearing his dressing gown (and keeping it on the whole day, even in labs!), and i did get one girl to put a tissue up her nose and keep it there, but that was only for around 2 minutes. I was dared to go up to a chinese person and shout "Oh my God! It's Jackie Chan!", which I did consider doing, but thought it could be a little racist. Such is the empty atmosphere here at Imperial that it must be filled with random outbursts of insanity. I'm still recovering from when I had to dress up as a chicken/panda and supposedly collect money for charity, but ending up terrorising random uni-goers instead. The legend himself! (and the guy in the dressing gown :P)

I finally finished my essay (on deadline day), and after finding that another piece of coursework was due today and handing it in on time, I'm starting my new piece of coursework right now, and yes, more pointlessness. Which leads me to my journeys on the bus every day; the long, boring intervals between arriving home and isolating myself in my room, and the dull day at university, or vice versa. I was just randomly looking out of the bus window, as you do, and noticed the ultimate pointlessness of all pointlessnesses; a lollipop man at a pelican crossing. Surely cars stop at red lights, so why the need for a guy in fluorescent clothing to hold his lollipop in front of traffic that's already stopped??! If /when I run my own nation (which I do on facebook), getting rid of lollipop people would be right up there on my list of priorities, beside ending wars, famine and poverty... oh and not forgetting making it compulsory to own a nintendo product in every household. There is so much more pointlessness in the world that is so obvious that we don't give it a second glance... so obvious that I can't actually think of any at the moment, apart from the annoying 10-metre-apart london lite distributors ¬_¬

Anyway I'm off to write an article of complaint at the imperial newspaper 'felix'... too many grammatical and spelling mistakes for my liking!

A Waste of Life

Well, I've been set my first essay of the year, and I've put it off until now. This blogpost is the only obstacle between myself and starting this random, pointless essay. It's supposed to be about the significance of some loser called Carl Woese deciding to make Archaea a new taxonomic group. I mean, what in the world has changed because of this guy's contribution? Has famine stopped, has a disease been cured, has anyone actually benefited from this person?

So currently, whilst waiting for my 8pm football to start, I've decided to make a start on this essay, meaning that I go straight to Wikipedia and paraphrase from there. What is Arachaea? I don't know, but all I know is that like my presentation I had to give on wonderful DNA blotting techniques, I have to sound convincing and interested in the subject. So this is how my last few days have turned out:

Day one: Think about essay.
Day two: Read essay title.
Day three: Think about starting essay.
Day four: Take a rest from all this thinking.
Day five (today): Sincerely promise to yourself that you will start this essay.

Who knows, maybe I will stumble on my own discovery in the process of writing this essay, and then the lecturer will say "Oh well done Yasin! I'm going to promote you to a medical degree!". I will call my new discovery after myself, naturally... "Yasinium" (if it's a group one metal), or simply "Fatine" if it's a group seven element. Or if I discover a new enzyme... AlllllrightyThen Oxidase, just because I can. Ha.

Uni Schmuni

Well, it's about a month since I started at Imperial, and to be honest, I'm not really enjoying it. The people are mostly all geeks (geekier than me!), there's nothing to do apart from study, and the course is SO boring! Biochemistry is probably the most boring subject after... the history of textiles, or even physics! The only excitement that I generated during one of the lectures was when I decided to take a picture of the lecturer (who incidentally looks like the "Mock the Week" presenter), and the flash went off as well as the loud sound my camera phone made, "SNAP!". Everyone looked round at me and burst out laughing. There I sat, proud that I got a photo of the lecturer doing something funny with his hands. He was trying to explain something about the supercoiling of DNA in bacteria, but I wasn't very interested.

Anyway the only plus side of going to university is the opportunity to make new friends, and at the moment, the people I'm hanging around most with is the Greek lot, they're pretty nice. Apart from that, I'm trying to get involved in various societies like kickboxing and tennis (I've practically given up on the football team since my new football boots started to rub). I also attended the "Doctors Without Borders" meeting but was pretty disappointed that they didn't actually do any travelling with the doctors, and it's just a gathering of medical students feeling good about themselves. I also went to the Arabic Society freshers' dinner and found that I was practically the only arab-related guy there!

Overall I just find Imperial pretty despressing as I pass the medical building full of pretentious little medical students chatting away about how successful they're going to be. To be honest, I've spoken to quite a few and I really don't know how they got past the interview stage! Yes, I'm jealous, and why shouldn't I be?