February and March in review

I forgot to write my February reflection post as I was having too much fun in Iceland #SorryNotSorry. So here goes, my reflection on the past 8 weeks or so.

Career:

• I spoke in public, in front of an audience, while stood up! I can't tell you how proud of myself I was (and still am). Public speaking was definitely my number one fear, after needles and spiders, and the feeling of overcoming something I thought of as impossible was pretty phenomenal. Ironically, I spoke about presenting confidentially. You can request access to my slides here, but I will write up a post about it in more detail soon

• I got some really awesome feedback. This is great for two reasons:

• It was spontaneous. Researcher's are the ones bugging the team to change things and to highlight problems so, spontaneous feedback is a rarity

• I made a real effort to get to know the team, to understand the varying priorities and to present my findings quickly. To find out people have noticed and appreciated the effort makes it all worth it

• I gained an intern! Wooooo - I've wanted to manage someone for ages, I think I'll be quite good at it, here's hoping anyway

Personal:

• I had an amazing time in Iceland and even saw the Northern Lights on my last night. It was an absolutely breath taking experience

• I planned my trip to Canada a bit more and added on a cheeky 48 hours in New York, which will be my first time in America

• I booked a trip to Ibiza and Cinque Terre in summer

• Celebrated my boyfriend's 25th and his mum's 60th

Getting my shit together:

• I opened up a stocks and share ISA (through Plum, which I highly recommend), a LISA, a standard savings account and some premium bonds, all with standing orders set up. As it stands they all have some money in them - wooo! I want to have bought a property by the time I move abroad in a couple of years so I best keep on top of it. I'll write a post on all of this too

• That being said, I bought an Apple Watch - it helps me track my exercise and calories, all in a bid to healthily lose weight

• Got back into daily meditation and stretching, the Apple Watch does help with that tbh as it has some cute little 'Breath' haptics

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Things I could have done without:

• Smashing my phone (twice) and replacing the screen (twice

• Having someone smash into the back of my car, leave some damage but no note

• Hay-fever making a comeback with a vengeance, here's to puffy eyes and itcy skin for the next couple months

• 3 weeks of antibiotics due to gland infections/ tonsillitis, time of work and the subsequent guilt

Book of the month:

Quote of the month

"She wanted to go to Mexico and visit the house of Frida Kahlo and climb the Andes in Peru, to live somewhere other than England, to exist elsewhere from where she had begun; she wanted to eat the world."

Ordinary people

Sums me up pretty well I'd say.