It’s Been a Minute

Like so many things in 2020, my plans to regularly post on this blog didn’t end up going as planned. Between spending some of my first months in a new country in lockdown to spending three extra months back at home after Christmas, my UK experience up to this point certainly hasn’t been what I expected. So for those of you who were kept awake at night wondering when I would publish my next blog post, I am here with good news: I’m back in England, out of quarantine, and optimistic about potentially being able to travel around the United Kingdom this summer! I also took my last test yesterday, which means that from now until September, I will be solely focused on my dissertation work. With all of this in mind, I am rededicated to sharing tales of my adventures to this site once more!

So, let’s take a moment to catch up on all of the things that I’ve been doing since my last blog post in October. I had the opportunity to go on one day trip before England locked down for the month of November. That trip took me to Salisbury (which is where a 10-month clean-up operation took place after Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were targeted with Novichok nerve agent in March 2018). While on this trip, I visited the Salisbury Cathedral and Old Sarum with two other 2020 Marshall Scholars.

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We definitely got our steps in that day! While touring the Salisbury Cathedral, we saw everything from the world’s oldest surviving working clock (which dates back to 1386) to one of the four surviving copies of the Magna Carta. (You can see a picture I took of the clock up above, but for obvious reasons I didn’t take any pictures of the Magna Carta!) We then walked to Old Sarum, which was once the site of both the Cathedral and a castle.

After this day trip, I spent most of the month of November in isolation due to the national lockdown. Fortunately, I still had weekly interactive sessions (some of which were held in person) for each of my classes. As a result of the lockdown, I had a lot of time to dive deeper into the topics being covered in each of my classes. One of the academic highlights of the fall term was conducting virtual focus groups on consumer acceptance of GMO chocolate as part of my qualitative research methods course. After finishing my last test of the term in the middle of December, I flew back home for the winter break!

While I had originally bought my plane ticket to spend only one month at home, my stay was extended as a result of England going into a third national lockdown at the start of January. This meant that I started the spring term while still in the United States, but fortunately my professors all worked with me so that I didn’t have to attend virtual lectures as early as 3 AM. This term, I was enrolled in the following modules:

• Resource and Environmental Economics
• Consumers, Producers, Markets and Trade
• Econometrics
• Food Policy
• Microfinance
• Global Issues in Nutrition and Health
• European Food Systems Education and Training Programme (EFSET)
• Research and Study Skills for Independent Learning
• Personal and Professional Development Programme for International Students

I also began to start working on my dissertation, as I was formally assigned a supervisor and began the process of developing my dissertation topic. While I spent a lot of time typing away at my laptop while seated at the kitchen table, I was also able to spend a lot of valuable time with my immediate family, Bryce, and (of course) Kaiser.

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Time flew by while I was at home, and it was April before I knew it! After getting all of the logistics figured out (including taking a COVID-19 test within three days of my flight and ordering a testing package so that I could test myself for COVID-19 on the second and eighth days of my quarantine), I landed back in England on April 19th. My quarantine was a lot easier this time around, and I spent most of my waking hours working on end-of-term assignments. Yesterday marked both my last test of the term and my first day out of quarantine, which I celebrated with a late night Friends marathon (because yes, Friends is still on Netflix in the UK!). I’m looking forward to further rewarding myself by ordering food from Five Guy’s this evening during my weekly virtual date with Bryce.

To sum it all up, the last seven months haven’t gone as planned, but I’ve learned a lot and I am really looking forward to the coming months! So stay tuned for updates, and be sure to “follow” my blog if you don’t want to miss any new posts!