Deirdre

Name: Deirdre Clark
Age: 27
Country of origin: United States/Canada

I am a Canadian-American PhD student. I work at the University of Iceland. I guess I’m an early stage researcher. I have been here in Iceland for about a year and a half. For my masters I studied at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. And for my bachelor education I was in Washington DC.

What’s the most frustrating thing here? The weather can be pretty bad. And in winter time the sun rises pretty late, so it’s hard to get going in the morning. But the nature is beautiful, you have gorgeous sunsets, so this offsets it at least.

What do you miss most? I guess, at home I would often go out to restaurants to meet with friends or family. I guess also being able to go see my family; they are a bit far away now. And also having the option to go to a larger city, I miss that, although Reykjavik is a good size. 

When you go out on the field you often have snacks. It depends how busy the day is. The food is like slightly upgraded camp food.

Does it get boring up here? No not really, because you are always active and trying to get stuff done. And you’re always with other people, not by yourself. I guess sometimes it can be monotonous up here though.