Maybe my favorite week of the year.
Although I still had a stubborn cough, the coronavirus was now gone! I went back to work in-person and it was nice to be back in the office.
I made good progress on the literature review – I had narrowed down my results to about 40-45 articles to analyze. I began reading the articles and making notes. This process was incredibly time consuming. Every article was talking about a different political scandal at a different point in time so I had to do a lot of background reading to familiarize myself with what each scandal meant for the UK at the time of the article’s publication. All this to say, I can probably list every post-Brexit major political scandal in the UK. The more articles I read, the more I started to understand and question how populism seeps into civil society. This encouraged me to start working on my other task which was to map out the cultural spread of right-wing content in the UK and determine its sources of funding. For this task, I was asked to read Liam Byrne’s book, “Why Populists are Winning and How to Beat Them.” I went to Foyles at Waterloo, bought the book, and…. I did not start reading it.
I’ve been in a reading slump for quite some time. I knew I had to finish this book by next week so I used an audiobook for the first time! Totally got me out of the slump. I’ve made it through a few chapters and I am very glad I started this book after the literature review – I understand the context and terminology in the book to a much deeper level.
Now onto the most important part: how I love the flexibility of remote work. I took a trip to Scotland with my sister later this week and it was magnificent. I worked from the cafés in Aberdeen & Glasgow, the Futures Institute at the University of Edinburgh, and even in the mountains of the Scottish Highlands! I realize these reflections are primarily meant for internship progress but my trip ended up being both insightful and meaningful, and so I wanted to include it here. The art galleries in Scotland have come to be my most favorite in the world. You know how you’re not allowed to touch objects in museums & galleries? There was a small interactive exhibition at the Aberdeen Art Gallery inviting visitors to touch and feel objects. And a small drawing studio to draw still life art with props you could move around! In the Scottish Highlands, you find Celtic and spiritual art – an insanely well-curated gateway into the life of the Highlanders. The best souvenir you take from travel truly is perspective; that’s the whole point of the Laidlaw global experience. The way I view art has been changed, and so has the way I view life.