Hello everyone,

It has been another brilliant and busy week here in Boston. The week started off with a trip to Salem on Sunday with my parents and Christine where the Salem witch trials that are the basis of Arthur Miller’s ‘The Crucible’ took place. It was a lot of fun and the day mostly consisted of getting a picture taken next to every witch hanging near every shop entrance and we even got the chance to buy some sweets that were made using the same recipe from Colonial times. Whether they had chocolate witch lollypops, marshmallows and apple rings in the Colonial times is a little shady but it was fun all the same.

On Monday it was back to work for week three at Genzyme. This week has seen me get even closer to signing off on all my training that I must do before I can go alone in the lab! I am mostly on plate counting and plate streaking, where swabs are taken from various places around each building here at Framingham and we analyse how many bacteria and the type of bacteria present in the area, and what action should be taken in light of the results. The Quality control team ensures that correct aseptic techniques and measures are in place by checking there is not any organisms growing where there shouldn’t be. Everybody here works so hard and have made me feel so welcome, so I am definitely going to bring back some of the work ethic back to Scotland! Most of the people I work with come in for 6.30am and leave work after I do at 4.30pm, so it’s always a long day but nobody ever complains. The early starts are slowly becoming less shocking, however I am still having to go to bed very early in order to wake up on time! Hopefully by the end of this week I will be signed off on my training in plate streaking and plate counting and can do some independent work starting next week! As Genzyme is a GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) regulated environment, nobody can perform a technique on their own until they have read every SOP (standard operating procedure) and observed/performed the technique three times. The environmental monitoring group has been working around the clock the past couple of weeks, so it has been difficult to find colleagues with enough time to train me, but I’m almost there! I also help out a lot around the lab with everyday filing and organizing in order to help it run smoother at this busy time. I am still learning everyday and just being around the lab is giving me a good feel for how life in a biotechnology company is. Over the past three weeks I have made up my mind that I am going to apply for pharmaceutical companies upon graduation just like Genzyme, so it feels very satisfying to have finally worked out an area I want to spend the next couple of years at least working in!

Outside of work has been busy as usual, 8 weeks is not enough time to see everything in Boston but we’re all trying! On Wednesday it was the last night that my parents were out here on holiday, so we went for a nice dinner down at Boston Harbour where the famous Boston Tea Party took place and we stayed until it got dark and all the lights along the skyline came on which was lovely, I definitely love this city far too much! Last week also saw our first outing to The Cheesecake Factory which unsurprisingly had the best cheesecake I have ever had so I will definitely be back there again before we leave. This weekend it was very hot which resulted in a rather sunburnt me after I made the unwise decision on Saturday morning that I no longer needed suncream, but I have learnt my lesson now! We took a boat trip along the Charles River that divides Boston and Cambridge (where we live) from the city harbour to Harvard and learnt about many of the buildings and history of Boston along the way which was really interesting, and a nice change to seeing things up close whilst walking around the city. We then took a quick stop on the beach for a couple of hours and I even managed to swim in the sea even though it was far from warm. On Saturday night the Saltire interns from New York came across to Boston and we all went for dinner at Fire and Ice, a restaurant where it’s all you can eat and they cook all your food fresh right in front of you! All the other interns were really lovely so it was great to meet them, we are all going to go down to New York in two weekends time so that they can show us around! Yesterday we got up early and went to Chris and David’s flat, the other Boston interns, and took a trip around the city before going on Codzilla, a 60 person speed boat. They warned us we were going to get wet, however this was a serious understatement. We had water in our eyes, were absolutely drenched and could hardly breath from how fast the boat was going, but it was so much fun. A less fun aspect however was travelling home across 2 different trains, a bus, and a long walk where we quite literally left a puddle everywhere that we stood. Last night we had a quick dinner, got our clothes ready for the week ahead and went to sleep to try and recover from another great weekend!

Hope everyone is still having fun,

Steph x