The clock is ticking

Mesdames et messieurs, meine damen und herren, ladies and gentlemen, bienvenue, wilkommen and of course, welcome – to Imperial College.

Please wipe your feet.

I am addressing the Freshers amongst you. To returning second years and above, welcome back. We can reminisce about our summers in the Union Bar later but first let’s offer a warm invitation of friendship to those whom this is their first Felix. Just look at them, so bright-eyed and fresh-faced!

Like chipmunks with graphical calculators.

I find it hard to believe this is the start of my fourth year here at Imperial. It seems like only yesterday I dressed in an ill-fitting suit, marvelling at the Queen’s Tower as I waited for my admissions interview. But that was such a long time ago. Age and time are creeping up on me with cudgels in their hands.

I do feel like I’ve been mugged, or at least short-changed. I left school four years ago and I’m now halfway through my degree after three years of sleep, tequila and supposedly some study, as well as a gap year (an unavoidable machination of curious fate). All that time, those memories and experiences, feels as if it’s passed with a snap of the fingers. Four years for the price of seconds.

But when I think of all I’ve seen and done and accomplished in that time, maybe I haven’t been cheated. I’ve made friends (more than I’ve lost) and I’ve learned things (more than I’ve forgotten). If I had really made that kind of progress in mere seconds, it would be nothing short of miraculous. Tempus fugit, truly*.

If my time is filled with the kind of adventures that I’ve had and hope to have more of, I don’t mind if they seem to pass with the speed and cunning of a leopard with a grudge. My real problem is when I stop and think how fast time has flown. It makes me feel old. That makes me feel uncomfortable – I feel I should start being sensible and buy a Ford Mondeo. Being sensible is worse than being dead.

Join a club, learn to unicycle, punch a bear in the face

It doesn’t help that all around me my friends are growing up. Most have graduated now – those that went to university. One friend is a teacher now when just a short while ago she was but a student. Another one of my friends has come to London to practice law. He also has a beard, another hallmark of maturity. Meanwhile, here I am, cocooning myself in academia as a bubble against the outside world. Each new wave of freshers is the universe’s way to dragging me from my shell and shoving my face in grim reality. But my cocoon can take a few more waves yet.

Freshers make me feel old as well but I handle them. They add new breath to Imperial, infuse it with a fresh joie de vivre. Freshers are the antidote to living sensibly. So then, welcome Freshers, welcome! I hope you enjoy your time here and that you thoroughly make the most of it. Imperial has given you three years of carte blanche. Join a club, learn to unicycle, punch a bear in the face. You may be here for years but don’t squander them.

They may be the best the seconds of your life.

• Tempus fugit is actually the species name of the Time Fly. It flies around in circles of Thursday mornings and feeds on the seeds of what will be rotten fruit. It is usually eaten by the Carp Diem.