All change

So. After ten years (with a nine month break in the middle) I'm finally leaving Durham. No, I've finally left Durham. How did this happen? Where am I now? Let me explain. For the past 2 years and 9 months I've been employed by Thorn Lighting and their parent company Zumtobel. The employment was on a fixed contract for the duration of the TOPLESS project (a 3 year project to develop white light-emitting polymer materials for lighting applications). Until Christmas last year I wasn't really thinking about the end of my contract. I was vaguely confident that more money would be forthcoming - either from Thorn or from Durham University to continue our promising work in the field of high-triplet hosts and novel soluble blue phosphorescent emitters. However, no such money materialised and although it looks like a Thorn-led follow-up to TOPLESS will gain public funding, it will most likely be mostly engineering-based with the chemistry/materials development handled outside the project. This situation meant that all the Durham-based workers (a total of 5) were facing the dole. Thankfully just about everyone manage to find alternate employment. I was fortunate that a job opened up at CDT in January and this time, after a 4 hour interview (with no breaks!) I was offered the job (3rd time's the charm). Of course this meant I was suddenly facing 3 weeks until I was due to start in Cambridge. This meant I had to tie up (or try to tie up) and hand over my work in Durham (i.e. lumping it onto other chemists), find somewhere to live in an unfamiliar city, pack up and move south. In the end I got a lucky break with packing the stuff up as we were able to negotiate a much cheaper extra months extension to our rent. This means I've still got a lot of stuff up in Durham for now.

It was pretty surreal packing up and coming home for Easter as it felt just like any other Easter, but I wouldn't be going back north to Durham, but east to Cambridge. Finding somewhere to live was interesting as Cambridge seems to be a city full of shared houses where you rent rooms rather than finding a flat between a few of you. This is in complete contrast to Durham where the onus is on renting out complete properties. Anyway I found a nice laid back house just off Chesterton Road which is a nice 35 minutes walk to work and 15 minute walk to the town centre. Hopefully these numbers will drop substantially once I bring my bike from home (assuming it hasn't fallen apart).

Having been in Durham for so long (and 6 years in the same lab/department) going into CDT was a complete change. Bigger fumehoods, different protocols, not knowing where anything is or how to submit samples for analysis. And this is just the chemistry - the meetings are a blur of acronyms - even for someone with 6 years OLED experience it's been a struggle to adapt, but I'm getting the hang of it. The work load started off light and has now ramped up to a level I'm still comfortable with - several targets and regular meetings/updates and polymers to be made. It's hard to believe I've just finished my third week. There are several other new starters on the chemistry side and there will likely be a few more in the next few months, but even so the company (at least the Cambridge office) is a lot smaller than I realised. This is mainly down to a lack of physical space of both desks and lab space. Everyone's really friendly and helpful and I'm sure before long I'll feel like I've been there for years.

Cambridge is really nice (it helps that I've arrived just as the weather is getting warmer). The tourists can be a bit much, but they tend to congregate around the town centre and the colleges in particular where everything is pedestrianised so it never feels too cramped. I haven't been punting yet, but I'm assured there will be company trips down the river to Grantchester over the summer and some evening punting sessions. I've just about figured out how to navigate around the different parts of the city (Google maps helps a lot), now I just have to remember where everything is!

I guess it still hasn't really sunk in that I've left Durham - it's all happened so quickly. I really miss everyone there and hopefully I'll be able to go back up for some weekends to see everyone and find out how they're all doing. It's always interesting to see how people get on when you leave - most of the time they don't even notice after a few weeks!

Anyway, my job is a permanent position (unless it turns out that I'm rubbish and get fired!) so hopefully there shouldn't be any more sudden changes unless I instigate them. And finally I have a pension (how grown up). The dental insurance means I might actually see a dentist for the first time in ages and I have the option of private health care too. Not too shabby.

Hopefully I'll start to feel the photography vibe again in my new surroundings which will enable to post some pictures of my new surroundings.

It's also a bit weird without most of my gadgets - my TV and other AV stuff will likely spend the next few months at my parents and once again I am living the minimalist lifestyle.

Anyway - till next time (and I'll try and update a bit more often!)