Hi all!

I am a student at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow studying marketing and economics, currently in Bellingham, Washington state for the next 8 weeks. I have been given the opportunity to work in the marketing department for a non-profit organisation called SPIE who are 'an international society advancing light-based research' or in other words, they organise conferences and publications on photonics, optics and imaging.

Well, week one has been one full of ups and downs and I almost dont know where to start!

After 3 long flights, 3 movies, some quite horrible plane food and a neighbour who slept the whole way (jealous!) I finally made it to Bellingham, joined by Alex on the flight from Seattle - quite an experience to say the least! Plane is very small as the flight is only 20mins long, weird but fantastic for the views. We were met by Amy and Tim who will essentially be our managers for our internships and spent the night at Amy's having a bbq (every day is a bbq here!) and watching the 4th July fireworks, it was great to arrive on such an important day to so many Americans with the sun beaming down, which is actually abnormal for here. Weather changes daily from amazing sunshine to cloudy drizzly rain, so its quite exciting and nice to have a mixed bag!

Bellingham is an amazing city, a really hippy friendly atmosphere where fitness and environmental issues are very important to the local community. As an example, we attended yet another bbq on Friday after our first week at the office, big thanks to Tricia who hosted as a welcoming party, and when we decided to head down to the bars everyone got on their bikes - I found this pretty hilarious as can you imagine all the students of Glasgow riding around from bar to bar on a saturday night?! It would be pure mayhem and I'm pretty sure my bike wouldnt still be where I left it! As we didnt have bikes, a colleague Kevin who has this amazing bike-cart (used in most foreign countries abroad - like a golf buggy but with pedals) offered to take us - wow was that an expereince after a few (Iain, Lorraine and Rory will know what I'm talking about!). So our mission is to find some cheap bikes! As Bellingham is small in size it has made settling in easier as we can pretty much walk to all the main streets or areas in a day and all the people you meet can not do enough to help you out, especially the SPIE gang who have been a brilliant help. We needed a little assistance in the first few days sorting out flat issues which put a bit of a dampner on the first few days but I guess thats what its all about, learning from your experiences.

On the work front, my first week has been great. I have a big line of projects waiting for me to get my teeth into, the practical experience will do wonders for my CV.  Have to say a big thankyou to Lorraine and Iain at this point as I understand their feedback has meant my internship programme has alot more focus, covering different areas of the marketing department. The focus of marketing within SPIE can essentially be broken down into web, print and e-mail to promote the 'products' of exhibitions and publications.

So this week started with a tour and meet and greet of the wonderful SPIE headquarters, which is set on top of a hill that looks over Fairhaven out to the Bay, which is an area with amazing houses, much like those you would find on Wisteria Lane - Desperate Houswives style! Then for the real work - the projects. I have been working on their exhibion brochure that is a type of collateral put together to attract exhibitors to come to their event over others. This involved looking at the messaging used and ensuring it has a selling focus. Although SPIE is a non-profit organisation, it feels very much like a for-profit due to the competitive nature. Other projects include looking at social networking sites such as Twitter to assess whether these are worthwhile avenues to pursue and an ongoing Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) project which will be looking at best practices and whether SPIE is implementing these in order to be found by their target audience in search engines. It is great to finally be creative and put your own ideas into a real project - putting all that I have learnt at university into practice and so I look forward to eventually seeing the results.

Work hard, play harder refers to the non-stop week of activities we have had here. Everyone has been so welcoming so we have been out every night at pub quizzes (which was really embarrassing as there was a section on the Tudors, based on the English monarch, of which I know nothing about!), sampling Bellinghams many beers, hanging out ay the beautiful bay, sampling the many restaurants and generally getting to know the locals!

Something I just cant get used is the time of day people tend to rise here! Most people come in for work at 8 or earlier which has meant us getting up at 6am in time for the bus to work. So been really tired after an action packed week!

This has turned into a rather long blog, but I hope all the other interns are well and the crew travelling out today are settling in well. For those of you in America, let me know if you want to come visit - we would love to have you and I'm sure it will be very different to where you are!

Also big congratulations to Iain, I even heard your news from across the pond!

Until next week.....