"It's good to come to London"

"Yes it's true.."

"It's good to come to London", I said to AV this afternoon in the company that employed her, in which she was placed to do a 12 month industrial attachment. I didn't find anything "tricky" between her and her manager and thought they went fine and was quite ready to settle it that way. And then she added, "since you come this far from Loughborough to London, you must well, .......", I immediately knew what she was hinting at. Something that I increasingly learnt here is that, never gave out too much, as the more others will expect of you, even students. So I actually prepared stuff ready to tell her and as she pointed out, and so I discussed it further with her, what was expected of her for the dissertation and report, etc.

I finished the placement visit for AV in 30 minutes and then I left for The British Lending library. The library was very modern and wireless and as I took my baby laptop, I was able to go online and surf the web, and checked my emails. As it approached 4 pm, I made my way to "Pret" at St Pancras international in which I made an appointment to meet SG, my former boss. We had long chat about most things, and it looked like she quite like where she is now in Queen Mary's University of London. We also chat about research. SG is one of the few academics that I knew of, that I would consider as open minded.

She told me she is currently working on Japanese Corporate Governance with her PhD student and already there are 3 papers in the pipeline. She also has another research about post-colonial Botswana and as she spoke of this, I told her I am doing a paper about Singapore housing market and it all begins with the post-colonial Singapore, where the government was planning to re-shape the economy. My paper discussed the story of the housing market and its development. SG listened with interest and even asked to have a read about my paper, which I will definitely send her in the email.

One thing I like my job is that I get to travel to the capital for placement visits, workshop, conference, etc. In fact, I might come back again middle of June for another one-day workshop on "mutual funds industry". And then I get to meet up with friends and former colleagues and we catch up and update on latest development. I left London about 6.15 pm, felt that I had spent my time fruitfully in London. Yes, indeed, as I told AV this afternoon, it is good to come to London and it's true, not sure if she gets the irony of that, hehe. :D