One Month On...

As I approach the one month mark of my experiences here in the USA, I thought it appropriate to take a brief retrospective on life here so far. This is mainly to assure the many folks reading back home in the UK (okay, the couple of people) that both the USA and the Americans are not nearly as bad as it may seem from my posts so far. As everywhere, there are the good and the bad, the positives and negatives and i'm very lucky moving in the scientific circles in that most, if not all, of the natives i've met are cultured, well-travelled and absolutely fantastic people - who i am enjoying getting to know. If my rantings have seemed to be rather close to the mark (apologies to my Mum), then it's all good-natured - and the Americans i know who've read it find it just as entertaining as everyone else.

Anyway, on to the rest of the post - the first month here. It has generally gone very smoothly indeed (aside from the whole Magic Number issue) and i'm settling in nicely. Both work and my new workmates are great - and i'm now getting my experiments up to full flow (within four weeks of arriving in the country. Not bad going, eh?). My apartment is feeling very homely - although admittedly still a bit spartan but when i get paid for the first time (today I think), that will change - a desk is top of the list, followed by a sofe-bed or fouton for those many visitors that i am bracing myself for. The bottom line is that i'm all well and good, and enjoying myself immensely. And having received my laptop today (this is the inaugural post!), i will hopefully get round to setting up a proper webpage and putting some photos online (some of the party last weekend for example). This also means that i shall be popping up on MSN again too. So if i'm here for a full three years, i guess it's One Month Down, Thirty Five to go!