My last summer blog post from Sweden

The summer holidays are passing by so quickly, I’m kind of wishing I could stop time for a while and just continue enjoying this time with my family. My sister will be starting her first year at university on the day I’m leaving to fly to the UK. I’m really excited for her but it’s also really hard to comprehend that we will both be university students. When we’re together it’s easy to feel like we’re kids again and the thought of her starting university is something I've always thought would happen far into the future but I guess the future has arrived and I need to start getting used to the idea. I wonder if she had similar thoughts to ones I had when I first started university. Anyway, this will be my last summer blog post from Sweden because the next time you hear from me I will be back in my house in Southampton.

I’m already feeling a little sad to leave my family because I won’t be seeing them until December. I will especially miss my mum’s home cooking; I truly never appreciated how lucky I was to have my mum cook for me every day until moving out on my own. Even though my cooking skills have improved a lot since moving out, they still can’t compare; my mum is a total pro!

On the other hand, I’m also feeling excited to go back and see some of my housemates again. As I mentioned in my last blog post,  one of my housemates has been on placement for the last few weeks and because she was assigned to carry out her placement in Winchester (which is not far from Southampton), she has been able live in our house over the summer. It will be nice to catch up as well as keep her company. However, I will only be in Southampton for a week before I head off to Italy to collect data for my third year project. Before I leave for Italy, I’ll also be catching up with some of my dance friends and heading out on an adventure to the New Forest, a national park in the south of England. As always, I’m keen to explore somewhere new and I've had many people recommend I go there so I can’t wait.

My sister and I in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles during our Paris trip this summer.

As you now know, I will be collecting data for my third year project, in Italy (as well as doing further analysis back in the labs in Southampton). I've been preparing by reading up on research other scientists in the field have done. In addition to collecting data for my own project, I will also be contributing to the data collection for the project 'WATBIO', with other undergraduates participating in the Italy project. This is a huge collaboration between partners across Europe, researching into improving non-food crops to provide more biomass (which can be used for bio-energy), as well as crops with the best drought tolerance to reduce water consumption. This will not only be a great experience, but also great for my CV and as something to talk about in future interviews.

I am not the only undergraduate participating in the Italy project, but we will each have a different area which we will be specifically researching. I am also looking forward to seeing those of my coursemates who will be going to Italy and catching up on what they have been doing over the summer.

Anyway, I will continue to keep you all updated and I hope you look forward to hearing from me again once I’m back in the UK.

Kristin