I can't believe I only have two weeks left in the UK. My time here really flew by. On Monday my replacement arrived and I began training her (Lucy). She graduated from Oxford last spring and she has a job with the government in London, but that doesn't start until October. She had my PI as a professor and had asked him if she could work in his lab, which he agreed to. What's really exciting is that I am training her on everything - the post docs and the PI have handed her over to me. It seems so strange because I remember being trained, just over two months ago, on how to work in the lab and now I am the one with all this experience. It's a little sad too that I am leaving just as Lucy came, because she is the only one at lab who is my age (Oxford undergrad is 3 years, not 4) and we have already started hanging out.
Most of my lab is presenting at a psychology conference in Reading, which is about 30 minutes away from Oxford. They each have a talk, explaining their research, on powerpoint slides that they present in front of many individuals in the psycho-linguistic world. They all had mock presentations in front of each other this week and I found out that my two post docs had put my name on their last slide of their presentations, acknowledging all the work I have done - I thought that was really sweet of them!
Within the last two weeks, the town of Oxford has dramatically changed. All of a sudden, wherever I go, I hear Americans. A lot of the exchange programs are here now, including Emory at Oxford. I spent some time with friends this past week who are over here. They are staying in one of the central colleges, which is only a 15-20 minute walk from my accomodation. I must admit, I preferred Oxford when all the Brits where here. Now, all I see are tourists and I feel more like a local than most of the people here. I've learned to save my Oxford University sweatshirt for when I return to the States - no real Oxfordians advertise for their school. Only the tourists wear them.
My lab is going clubbing tomorrow night - I really cannot wait to see that! =)
I really am not ready to leave yet. Even though I still have 2 weeks, I know it will all be ending too soon. There is still so much of Oxford and London I have yet to see! I will certainly have to return here!