First Day of Class

Today marks my first class: Control Systems lecture at the Strand Campus of King's College.  The class was about 50 large.  The first topic: Laplace Transforms.  To the Mudders: it was a very VERY elementary lesson on Laplace Transforms.  The class sounds like it'll be a very elementary course.  The exam also sounds very easy as compared to what we're used to.  The lecturer mentioned that we will have two Matlab tutorials to do (they're like simple labs).  Most of the students haven't even touched Matlab yet.

I felt like I was back in high school again.  People talking in class, notes passing around, lecturer not really caring, etc.  I have to remember that this is no longer the cream-of-the-crop students.  Also, the best students seem to go into dentistry or medicine around here.  Engineering isn't regarded as very important like it is at Mudd where all majors are really important. 

Anyway, I got back to the apartments as quickly as possible.  Today is the first day for me to train with the King's College football team.  Unfortunately, Sacha isn't feeling well.  He's having some coughing problems.  I went with Hao and Savvas (a Greek guy here).  We had to catch the train (cost us 1.60 pounds) to the field and back.  The field was located in East Dulwich...about a 15-20 minute train ride west of London.  There were three pitches: one for the 1st and 2nd men's team, one for the 3rd/4th/5th men's team, and one for the women's team.  I trained with the 3's 4's and 5's.  We did some light sprinting (I was huffing and puffing but it was lighter than I thought) and then immediately went into a scrimmage.  I played sweeper and played well.  The team captain for the 3rd team, Luke, recruited me and we have our first game this coming Wednesday.  I'm really excited! 

After practice, Melissa (my flatmate) and I went to Hing Loong, a Chinese restaurant nearby.  We had rice, sweet & sour chicken, and grilled garlic prawns.  It was very tasty and good service/ambiance as well.  However, it cost us 10 pounds each.  Oh well, good to know at least. 

I cam back and played some video games with Hao and Savvas and then did my nightly rituals to go to sleep.  Savvas has started me watching "Prison Break" and it's a really good television series thus far.  I have only finished 1.5 episodes so far and I like it/recommend it.  Anyway, no pictures today so take care all.  Class tomorrow as well.