I have now officially relocated to London. One of the things you can’t fail to notice when you’re studying Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College is just how much is sponsored by oil companies. The fresher’s barbecue was sponsored by BP, the maths formula booklet is sponsored by Shell. On the first day of lectures, we were given a book of 112 pages to read called, “The insider’s guide to the energy industry”. The book contains 21 pages of oil related advertising.

Now, maybe I’m just a cynic, but I think there’s more to this than just the benevolence of Shell, BP and ExxonMobil. Perhaps Imperial all want us to graduate and become oil billionaires so we can donate millions to them. Maybe they want a ‘Roberts Engineering School’ to go with the imposing ‘Tanaka Business School’ that greets you on entering the building.

Well, unfortunately for Imperial, I have no such intension. On leaving Imperial and making my billions, I plan on donating £27m to Imperial for them to create a large, and very imposing, Film and Media Studies department. One wonders if they would turn me down.

Things seem to have turned out as well as they could’ve here. One thing I hadn’t thought of on going to Imperial would be that the Christian Union would be full of Christian scientists, engineers and
medics. It’s quite exciting actually, because all the people I meet will have at some time grappled with the issues of modern science as it relates or doesn’t relate to Christianity.

I was expecting that it would be easiest sharing with someone likeminded to me in accomodation. Preferably a Christian, and one who got to bed early. Now I’ve realised that all those years sharing with Mark have in fact prepared me for this. Most nights my roomate comes in past 1, except I don’t notice, because I’m used to sleeping through that. It does however mean that I usually get the vast majority of the afternoon and evening to myself, which is brilliant.

I’ve visited three different churches since I came here. The first church was HTB, which, although it was large and very impressive, did not suit me very well. There were simply too many people there, and the day after moving in, I didn’t have that much patience for learning the names of dozens of people I’d probably never meet again. Last Sunday, I visited TBT and CCM, which both meet in the same premises in Mayfair. This was much more positive, since I knew quite a few people from CU there already, and wasn’t simply landing in the middle of a church I had no way of understanding. TBT and CCM are about a 45 minutes walk from where I live, and next week I’ll be visiting a small local plant of theirs which meets about 15 minutes away. I found out about this place on Sunday, and it should be very much more suitable.

That’s it from me for now.