This week I have managed to live out two American dreams. Big statement I hear you say. One of them is pretty obvious, the other is purely reliant on my (some may say bad) taste in television shows. The former came in the form of a trip to Fenway Park to see the Boston Red Sox play baseball and the latter was a trip to the Jersey Shore to see where the Situation, Pauly D and Snooki play. Both were met with equal levels of excitement.

The Red Sox game was everything I hoped it would be. Home runs, strike outs, Mexican waves, expensive beer, marriage proposals on the jumbo screen. Sean, Stu, Alex and I really enjoyed the evening at the game and despite the loss, got fully into the experience, even singing Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond when it was played over the PA system, adding our own Scottish lyrics to the song. For those of you who don’t know what I mean, its adding in the name of a popular wine after Neil Diamond sings “Sweet Caroline”.

The Jersey Shore trip was part of a great weekend in New Jersey. I went down on Friday night with our American friend Alexandra and her two friends and met her family. She and her family were very kind to host me and her friend Jen and they put on a great spread Saturday and Sunday. Her mum is Italian and the fact I was eating home cooked traditional Italian food, I was literally in heaven. The trip to Seaside Heights, the actual place where the infamous MTV show is filmed, was brilliant. Even managed to get a few t-shirts from the shop where the cast worked.  I know the show is not everyone’s taste, but I loved it. Thanks Alex!

Work has been very busy this week and I had several meetings within the department. One of which was a brainstorming session for marketing ideas and projects for 2012. It was a great experience to see everyone coming up with unique and interesting ideas and then seeing Nazneen, my department boss, leading us through each one and discussing them. I managed to make a good few contributions, despite my lack of experience and was met with some nice praise, massive relief as I was nervous going into the meeting. I was also asked by Nazneen to create a document that stored all the ideas and put them into different categories, and have everyone who was at the meeting write a brief description on their ideas. This was a great team exercise and I really enjoyed the responsibility.

My internet project also took some steps forward when I hosted my own meeting this week with Erin, Eric and Megan from the department. I had the idea of creating an online library to help clean up all the resources on the site. The meeting went well, but I realized I may not have enough time left in my internship to complete it, so the main focus at the moment is getting my content for the site up online. Megan showed me how to post my content, so all I need now is my content checked and verified by the legal department.

I am starting to become very settled in Boston. It is easy when you have a close group of people to be around but even the friends we have made through work and play have been very welcoming.  It saddens me to think I am past the half way stage but also exciting because I know so much is still to happen, in and out of work. I have the Liberty Mutual Senior Forum this week which is shaping up to be a busy few days and my cousin Alex is down until Wednesday.

I hope everyone else in the Saltire Universe is having as much fun as I am.

Until next time,

Stay classy

Mack