Those are the words that greeted me as the doors to the train opened this morning to reveal a conductor I barely recognized smiling down at me.

 ‘It’s the girl with the red tennis shoes’ …….  I did a quick check of my fellow passengers shoes, but as the only rouge-shodden-rider, he was talking about me. [changing out of heels is a must when you're cycling]

You know that you have become a fixture when almost-strangers know funny details about you. It’s only been 6 weeks, but I’m familiar with many of my fellow travelers (and their bikes), where they’ll be getting off, and consequently where to put my bike. I’m going to miss these guys when I leave. Many of them have been pretty chatty; either to pass the time of day, or to offer advice about where we should be going on our weekends.  One even invited us out for a drink.

They’ve passed in a second, but six weeks is quite a long time. Looking back, I have learned so much; databases that I had never heard of are the order of the day, I have discovered tricks on Excel that I could never have imagined and there’s been plenty of semiconductor physics. Meetings overflowing with three letter acronyms no longer phase me. I’m reaching a point on my project where I’m trying to tie everything together and focus on specifics that I can present when I leave. I would love to be able to stay on longer and in some ways I really feel like I’m just getting to grips with how everything here works, and in another month I’d be able to make a much more significant contribution, but as they keep reminding me, this too is significant, and it is the learning curve that makes you feel this way.

Hope you’re all doing well

a.

xx