My soul and my spirit will go on ..
So ..
I'm at a travelodge for the moment .. til I move to the flat on friday ..
it's nice .. still don't have a fridge or cooking facilities, so it's a pain always eeating out and trying to make "healthy choices" when all you get is take out :-) i'm spending at least £10 pounds a day on lunch and dinner. That's no good.
And so friday hopefully I will move into my official accomodation which is right near the big park on the Thames with the deer. It's a 20 minute walk to work and a 20 minute walk to the next big town
As for work, I still don't have an official project.
I'm supposed to learn uncertainty but so far .. nothing .. there's not even been a meeting schedualed with Malcom who i'm supposed to be working with.
I'm supposed to be working with Susan Pang on Protein arrays but she is super busy at the moment because she's an expert in everything and is converting ELISA and MS techniques to protein array tehniques.
I saw Chris yesterday and he's very active in being social ad things .. and is really active in trying to make you feel at home and organising things to do etc. So he's the one who's shown me around the building and has arranged for me to meet other secondees so that we can form a network ..
Other than that I enjoy being here. I love the U.K.. I reckon i'll spend until the end of the year in Oz then make my way back here.
My 2 Australian friends over here .. Remember the girl I knew from high school and her sister .. and I spent the first week of my trip with them and then this weekend that past sleeping at their house.
I bummed at their place and they well the older one would cook and me and Ron would hang out and chat and yeah .. we're uncannily similar often we'd start on the same topic at the same time. It was freaky by the end. We continuously push the boundaries and have a great time doing it. It turns out she's a scorpion too. So completely intense and insane.
AND I met up with Kevin. It's always great to see him.
Saturday I went super early to the Doctors AUSTRALIAN doctors .. I'm all sorted, the swelling is down and they booked me in with 5 physio sessions.
Which I havent used yet. NO TIME!!
Maybe this week ..
But realy I woke up early because I was very excited :-)
So at 11 I went to HMV and I know Kev too well to expect him to be on time :-P
So I bought 3 CD's from HMV and sure enough at 11.15 he waves to me from across the road!!! It was exciting!! :-)
We go to starbucks .. apparently it was the same one he's been too with other Nessaholics :-) And we chat and reminisce and stuff till about 1!!
Then we decided to go to the London eye because we both haven't been, and sadly .. my "local" needed to consult a tourist MAP! Oh the shame!! :-)
Yes I have photos.
Anyway, we figure the best bet is Waterloo and go there.
Once there, we surely get lost again :-)
Kev asks for directions in his braod english accent and another TRUE "local" replies in an equally braod accent.
He tells us the London eye is closed, but we try our luck.
(ON a side note .. I'm wearing a t-shirt and Kev - wearing a sweater is whinging about the cold!! Whoose ;-))
It's closed. We're hungry so we go to a all day breakfast cafeteria and you just know the food is going to be BAD and come up for the next 7 hours :-)
It was .. and it did :-) heheh
We chatted some more .. there was A LOT to talk about!!
And decided that we'd go catch an IMAX film - the Polar Express playing at 6.30pm.
I think we decided we had 4 hours to kill. SO since it was so easy for us to get lost, we walked and walked til we were lost :-)
We went to the Strand and Covant Gardens and I showed him Neals Yard .. we went into a comic book store for his "friend" hehehe
China town .. then found good old ever reliable star bucks and had yet another coffee :-)
We killed a bit more time before leaving to watch the movie.
It was good that it was in 3D but the Polar Express was .. well ok ..
Kev went home and I called the girls to see where they were ..
I met up with them at Leister Square ... we went to a bar .. and thanks to Ronia were invited to about 8 different clubs. I hate clubs and so we just walked home.
But not before we had some Ben and Jerries .. mmmmm B&J's ;-)
Great times indeed and they made the transition coming here just so easy .. and they were great. I really liked them. I got on great with them like they were my sisters .. And they adopted me like one.
And it was reassuring having them here. But they leave today and that's rather sad. I will no longer go into London to meet someone or have a plcae to hang out at .. or have someone there .. rather i'm just going to be a spectator. In for my day trips and business and out .. :-(
I left weirdly on monday morning. I wasn't sure what the day held and how I would feel so I left in a very childish manner. Monday night I headed back over (actually I headed over twice .. ) becuase I was feeling guilty how I left things, and spend monday night there :-)
But then .. So monday morning I was sad .. because I'd had to farewell the girls, but then Chris has introduced me to my "buddie"!! Anna is here on secondment also. She's from NMI Spain..
(THERE ARE SO MANY Spainards here!!!)
So we've buddied up and on saturday we'll explore Kingston since I haven't done that .. and Sunday she wants to go into London.
So when I went back monday night, I wasn't so aprehensive and scared and wasn't feeling like my "excellent adventure" in London had ended when the Aussies left.
Work is great. I had a 2 hour meeting with Susan, I have 10 papers in which to read by monday .. GREAT!! *rolls eyes* .. so much for being bored and not having enough work to do!!
Susan is a billion times smart. She thinks talks and works at a million miles an hour. And although i'm the same, i'm not used to being on the recieving end :-)
And it's on Protein work .. I've never worked on proteins .. only DNA .. so this is a brand new thing for me.
And of course good old MoU .. I have a meeting with Steven Elison next week sometime.
The people I work with are great.
We watched the pursuit of happ"y"ness yesterday.
Aside from the homeless bits (though I have been moving around a LOT!!) I could really empathise with Will Smith. I really feel that I'm pursuing my happiness and that even though i'm not rich, it's everything i've ever wanted and I have "made it" too.
xo
- Z
I'm at a travelodge for the moment .. til I move to the flat on friday ..
it's nice .. still don't have a fridge or cooking facilities, so it's a pain always eeating out and trying to make "healthy choices" when all you get is take out :-) i'm spending at least £10 pounds a day on lunch and dinner. That's no good.
And so friday hopefully I will move into my official accomodation which is right near the big park on the Thames with the deer. It's a 20 minute walk to work and a 20 minute walk to the next big town
As for work, I still don't have an official project.
I'm supposed to learn uncertainty but so far .. nothing .. there's not even been a meeting schedualed with Malcom who i'm supposed to be working with.
I'm supposed to be working with Susan Pang on Protein arrays but she is super busy at the moment because she's an expert in everything and is converting ELISA and MS techniques to protein array tehniques.
I saw Chris yesterday and he's very active in being social ad things .. and is really active in trying to make you feel at home and organising things to do etc. So he's the one who's shown me around the building and has arranged for me to meet other secondees so that we can form a network ..
Other than that I enjoy being here. I love the U.K.. I reckon i'll spend until the end of the year in Oz then make my way back here.
My 2 Australian friends over here .. Remember the girl I knew from high school and her sister .. and I spent the first week of my trip with them and then this weekend that past sleeping at their house.
I bummed at their place and they well the older one would cook and me and Ron would hang out and chat and yeah .. we're uncannily similar often we'd start on the same topic at the same time. It was freaky by the end. We continuously push the boundaries and have a great time doing it. It turns out she's a scorpion too. So completely intense and insane.
AND I met up with Kevin. It's always great to see him.
Saturday I went super early to the Doctors AUSTRALIAN doctors .. I'm all sorted, the swelling is down and they booked me in with 5 physio sessions.
Which I havent used yet. NO TIME!!
Maybe this week ..
But realy I woke up early because I was very excited :-)
So at 11 I went to HMV and I know Kev too well to expect him to be on time :-P
So I bought 3 CD's from HMV and sure enough at 11.15 he waves to me from across the road!!! It was exciting!! :-)
We go to starbucks .. apparently it was the same one he's been too with other Nessaholics :-) And we chat and reminisce and stuff till about 1!!
Then we decided to go to the London eye because we both haven't been, and sadly .. my "local" needed to consult a tourist MAP! Oh the shame!! :-)
Yes I have photos.
Anyway, we figure the best bet is Waterloo and go there.
Once there, we surely get lost again :-)
Kev asks for directions in his braod english accent and another TRUE "local" replies in an equally braod accent.
He tells us the London eye is closed, but we try our luck.
(ON a side note .. I'm wearing a t-shirt and Kev - wearing a sweater is whinging about the cold!! Whoose ;-))
It's closed. We're hungry so we go to a all day breakfast cafeteria and you just know the food is going to be BAD and come up for the next 7 hours :-)
It was .. and it did :-) heheh
We chatted some more .. there was A LOT to talk about!!
And decided that we'd go catch an IMAX film - the Polar Express playing at 6.30pm.
I think we decided we had 4 hours to kill. SO since it was so easy for us to get lost, we walked and walked til we were lost :-)
We went to the Strand and Covant Gardens and I showed him Neals Yard .. we went into a comic book store for his "friend" hehehe
China town .. then found good old ever reliable star bucks and had yet another coffee :-)
We killed a bit more time before leaving to watch the movie.
It was good that it was in 3D but the Polar Express was .. well ok ..
Kev went home and I called the girls to see where they were ..
I met up with them at Leister Square ... we went to a bar .. and thanks to Ronia were invited to about 8 different clubs. I hate clubs and so we just walked home.
But not before we had some Ben and Jerries .. mmmmm B&J's ;-)
Great times indeed and they made the transition coming here just so easy .. and they were great. I really liked them. I got on great with them like they were my sisters .. And they adopted me like one.
And it was reassuring having them here. But they leave today and that's rather sad. I will no longer go into London to meet someone or have a plcae to hang out at .. or have someone there .. rather i'm just going to be a spectator. In for my day trips and business and out .. :-(
I left weirdly on monday morning. I wasn't sure what the day held and how I would feel so I left in a very childish manner. Monday night I headed back over (actually I headed over twice .. ) becuase I was feeling guilty how I left things, and spend monday night there :-)
But then .. So monday morning I was sad .. because I'd had to farewell the girls, but then Chris has introduced me to my "buddie"!! Anna is here on secondment also. She's from NMI Spain..
(THERE ARE SO MANY Spainards here!!!)
So we've buddied up and on saturday we'll explore Kingston since I haven't done that .. and Sunday she wants to go into London.
So when I went back monday night, I wasn't so aprehensive and scared and wasn't feeling like my "excellent adventure" in London had ended when the Aussies left.
Work is great. I had a 2 hour meeting with Susan, I have 10 papers in which to read by monday .. GREAT!! *rolls eyes* .. so much for being bored and not having enough work to do!!
Susan is a billion times smart. She thinks talks and works at a million miles an hour. And although i'm the same, i'm not used to being on the recieving end :-)
And it's on Protein work .. I've never worked on proteins .. only DNA .. so this is a brand new thing for me.
And of course good old MoU .. I have a meeting with Steven Elison next week sometime.
The people I work with are great.
We watched the pursuit of happ"y"ness yesterday.
Aside from the homeless bits (though I have been moving around a LOT!!) I could really empathise with Will Smith. I really feel that I'm pursuing my happiness and that even though i'm not rich, it's everything i've ever wanted and I have "made it" too.
xo
- Z