Week 7 has flown by far too fast and I am sad to say that we are officially in the 5 day countdown to leaving Boston for the summer. Work has reached a steady state, whereby I am comfortable in the areas that I am trained on, and know my daily tasks that lie before me when I come in each day. Time management and changing priorities were two required assets listed on the initial project introduction by Saltire, and I can see why this was. Often I will be setting about my daily routine and a member of management will need over 100 plates, samples or containers prepared for the environmental monitoring team with a casual deadline of 30 minutes, which requires immediate prioritising of tasks, whilst leaving my current task in an appropriate place to be picked up later! When this first happened here at Genzyme, a small flurry of panic would swamp me as I try to work out how on earth I will get this done, however over the course of the internship I have mastered the art of changing tasks suddenly whilst working at top speed and accurately. The whole lab is extremely fast paced and I definately need somewhere like that in wherever I end up, as anybody who has spent time with me will know, I don't like to hang around! I managed to shadow bioburdens and some more water chemistry (nitrate testing) during week 7 and I spent a couple of hours researching ELISAs and Total Organic Carbon (TOC) tests, as both these techniques are started around 4am with the night team, so it's hard to pick it up when i get in at 7.50am and really understand what is going on! This week we are having another audit, so my job will mostly be checking that there is appropriate stock in the lab, all the paper is reviewed appropriately and in the correct place/sent out to the other buildings at Framingham, that everyone is wearing the appropriate safety equipment and providing the lab members with the standard operating procedures that they will need for the day. I like the fact that every week my work focus changes and I sample a different aspect of life in a lab. Everyone in the lab works different shifts so I am going to have to start saying my goodbyes to the weekend team today..and this is certainly not something that I am ready to do. It never occurred to me that I would meet such lovely people and build such good relations with every member of the lab, and then have to say goodbye to them for what could be a very long time! People here have made such an effort to make me feel comfortable, take me out for lunch and get to know me from day one..and this is certainly something that I will bring back to Scotland, as it really is invaluable and makes such a difference. The team and I are trying to organise a goodbye lunch for me where most people can attend so I don't miss anyone out, but I will be sending emails to the lab regularly to keep in touch!

Outside of work has been busybusy, and part of me is going to welcome the relatively slow paced life of Scotland for the 2 weeks before university starts up again! On Friday we went to a 'Drive In' in true American style and ate nachos, 'fries' and everything else healthy whilst watching 'Up' on the Big Screen whilst hiding from the midges/mosquitos that were attempting to eat us all alive. Luckily Camilla has suffered enough and came armed with some toxic spray that prevented me being eaten to death. It was so nice to be able to sit out and watch the film with so many people in such a relaxed atmosphere, so it was a perfect Friday evening. On Saturday I took a trip back over to Cohasset where I spent my first weekend, to visit my flatmate at her home. It was a great day and we went out on her boat to sunbathe, I even decided to swim which was even more of an error than at the beginning of July, due to the freezing water and increased shark warnings.... We then sunbathed on the beach and her dad taught us how to play some crazy American card games I had never even heard of, but I was the winner so naturally I loved them! After a ''cook out'' or BBQ to the Scottish ear, we headed to bed and got up early on Sunday morning to go sailing and have a large American breakfast. I then took an interesting journey on the commuter rail back into the centre of Boston to meet Alison and Camilla on the beach for some last minute sunbathing. The man who gave me my (free) ticket enjoyed my Scottish accent and subsequently let me drive the train for a (small) amount of time! It was very exciting, although I have since told many people who have not believed me! Yesterday evening we took a very expensive shopping trip to the mall and went out for dinner before another early night! It's upsetting that 9.30pm is now genuinly too late for me to go to sleep!

Have a great last week everybody,

Steph x