My Placement: A Halfway Review
Making it halfway through my placement came with very mixed emotions, the pinnacle of which was booking my flight home. It was difficult to reconcile the feeling of freedom I had in America with the feeling of familiarity I would get if I was at home. I concluded that nobody wants to feel on edge everyday, being in a new place and having to navigate the world almost totally alone. On the other side there is nothing more scary to me than monotony or getting stuck in a rut. I know myself and I will easily sink into a routine and rinse and repeat that routine until I am uninspired and unhappy. I feel like the familiarity of home could lead to that but maybe being away has meant that I am aware enough to notice it and capable of doing something different.
Inner turmoil aside making it halfway through this placement is definitely a turning point in my attitude towards my placement. Before this point it was about learning as many practical skills as possible, developing my network and enjoying the new adventure. As I crested the peak that was halfway, the assessments I have to submit to Surrey have begun to weigh on my mind and other deadlines for project have started to loom. Now this feeling isn’t new, in fact it is common at University with its repeated exam seasons and assessments but when I arrived here in the US it felt like I had forever before going home and at this point it is very clear that there is an end date to this adventure. So for all the skills I’ve learned I am hoping to learn a few more before I am fully evicted. I have a new confidence in the lab and a full appreciation of the hard work that being a research associate entails and it makes me excited for the future.
Alongside all the skills I’ve learned I’ve also met a crazy number of really amazing people. Not just at work but outside too. These friendships have allowed me to explore and have fun in all sorts of places and I will continue to have amazing adventures with these people for the remainder of my placement, including a couple of trips outside of North Carolina to come. I have also had the opportunity to sing at some events with two people who are absolutely brilliant. Lyndy Bleu Duo are the kindest and most talented people I have met and they were kind enough to ask me to sing with them on a number of occasions, with more in the future just because they thought it would be a fun opportunity and something that not many people get to do. So, I went to America and ended up singing in a brewery and a coffee shop, more than once! Click this Link to view the video so that if you want to cringe though my performance like I did, you can at your leisure.
One of the most relieving realisations was that I did miss my family and friends, but not as much as I thought I would. The use of Skype and Snapchat and Messenger and Whatsapp all meant that I got to speak to everyone. In fact I think I spoke to people more than I did when I was away at university. It seems to have strengthened the relationships I had made at university because I am still in contact with the people that actually want to speak to me. Secondly, if I don’t want to speak to people all I have to do is ignore the messages and pretend it was because of the time difference, total avoidance!
Something I learned while in America and maybe one of the greatest annoyances that I found was that the public transport sucks. I am managing to cope with the transport systems but as time has gone on it has become more of an inconvenience and the transport appears more and more unreliable and restricted. Equally driving long distances as a passenger isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Sitting on a Greyhound Bus is not as dodgy as I am told it would be and travelling several hours in a passenger seat means you feel like your muscles are beginning to atrophy but if you have good music you’ll probably survive.
Finally, I will close this halfway review off in a very British way, by talking about the weather. North Carolina has a variety of weather and from what I have experienced it can give you whiplash. Snow gives way to sun gives way to rain gives way to freezing winds. The main thing that separates England from North Carolina in Autumn and Spring is the humidity. Summer is hot with highs of 35 degrees Celsius and a humidity of 99%, lovely summer nights and if you’re lucky, a cool breeze. Winter on the other hand is cold with -5-degree temperatures and a foot of snow. In the spring, I am currently experiencing regular rain, probably once a week or so of rain followed by warm, breezy days. The humidity is not very high, and the sun is strong. So, I’m lucky enough to experience all the seasons and go outside enough to make it look like I don’t live in a cave.
