Written Friday 7^th August: Just when I thought I would have a week of winding down and preparing myself for America everything/one seemed to come along at once!

Throughout the weekend, which I spent in Brighton, I received calls from three different groups of friends saying there were visiting the London that week. Because nobody knew London very well I ended up with three plans to meet different friends on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday outside St. Pauls Cathedral; on my 3^rd consecutive tea time meal at St. Pauls Pizza Express I received a few odd looks from the staff, this nicely summed up how hectic my week had become- while at the same time has really encouraged me to put more research into finding a reasonably priced central London restaurant! Despite this flurry of unexpected activity it was lovely to see everyone and felt very appropriate that I should spend my last week in the UK with my friends.

Work was certainly not rest bite from social activities, I know it generally isn’t meant to be, but because my finished report been approved the plan was for me to tie up any lose ends, help out on any operational tasks being done, and continue learning about the different areas of the company. However at the start of the week, I received the great news that someone in the IT department had been freed up in order to build the database based on my report and recommendations. Having this opportunity to see my report’s recommendations ‘come to live’ is brilliant; I’ve learnt a lot at university about report writing but now I’m learning how reports are use within a corporate setting- who’d of thought your manager doesn’t just graded it and handed back to you!

I meet with Mary, the IT lady who will be building the system, and she has truly made me understand want is meant by ‘computerwiz’. After talking through my report together she send me a Software Specification Document, it took me the best part of the morning, and a good number of Google searches, till I finally understood that it is really just my report translated to computer langue. I was actually a little surprised how similar the Software Specification was to my report as my initial reaction to the meeting between Mary and myself was that it was going to be bit challenging communicating with each other over my needs and the capabilities of the database system- my impression was that our thought process were very different thus the way in which we found understanding in somethings were poles apart.

I’ve always been interested in why some people find some subjects easy and why other find the same one hard. At school I always found maths and science far easier than English and lanagues however since entering higher education my keen interest in theory and research surrounding my subjects has resulted in, I’m believe, the pattern based, left side of my brain, being ‘overtaken’ by my analytical/ philosophical right side, hence the initial issues surrounding my communication to, the clearly very left-brain-sided thinker, Mary. As it is; the Specification document matched what I had outlined and I am successful studying accountancy (a logic based discipline), therefore I’ve concluded that my left side hasn’t completely given up; due to my right sided interests I have developed better writing and arts based skills however these interests are developed from left sided logic and understanding- I’m a middle thinker! This conclusion gives me a superb platform on which to base my future career path on and will definitely be in the front (or middle!) of my mind during my search for graduate positions next year.