#interailing

Hey guys!

I’m back to tumblr and I know it has been ages but I’m going to give you a run down of where I’m at in my life because I have crazy busy these past few months.

So I finished my dissertation and sat my exams. Results weren’t too shabby, I got a 1st in my dissertation and a good 2:1 overall this year. My viva was funny because they picked at loads of mistakes and me being me just chatted shit the way I do under pressure. I called the distorted shape of my perovskite structure “wonky” and said that I liked perovskites because they are “sensible”. Something must have worked though because my grades are good and one of the professors asked me to work with him next year. My work was presented at the microscopy symposium in Manchester although I don’t know much more than that. After uni I went home with my briefly to see my mum and that went as well as can be expected (terrible) and then we went on holiday.

So my only holiday this summer was 10 days and it was named “the Brexit farewell tour”. We went interailing through Germany, the Czech republic and France as a group of friends and I loved it although there were some slight differences in preferences of what to do we got through it nonetheless.

Immediately when I got back I moved straight to Cambridge in with my host family (I’m lodging) to start my internship. I don’t think I ever said on here but I actually got that internship I was doing all of the interviews for and it turns out it is basically the best internship I could have hoped for. I have spent the summer working for Illumina in an incredibly high tech lab with some of the brightest and loveliest people imaginable. I can’t say anything about what I was working on but it was in the surface science department and I am incredibly lucky to have got the opportunity. It has improved my CV and my skills no end and I only have 2 weeks left. If you ever have the opportunity to apply for their iAspire internship program I wholeheartedly recommend it. Also Cambridge is a beautiful place to spend a summer and although the people I am living with are rather alternative they are really lovely people. Barefoot walks in nature and recycling used toilet paper are experiences I will never forget.

Oh my god the colours… The turquoise water, the blinding green grass, it’s almost unsettling how pretty it is. Almost artificial. Houses stand on top of hills, lonely and unafraid, comfortable even. Phone lines hang down in lazy curves between the mountains, and stay static in the wind, which suggests to me there isn’t any.  A flash of brown from outside catches my attention, and I press my face…