Sonya Barcant
Position
Third seat Trainee
Key Facts
Read English & Philosophy at Nottingham
Joined A&O
September 2008
Happy New Year!
06 Jan 2010
Merry Christmas everyone and Happy New Year!! I’m writing this blog after a lovely long weekend indulging in food, drink, TV and shopping – holiday bliss! My family Christmas is a bit different as my mum is Polish and we celebrate Wigilia on Christmas Eve, which basically involves eating a lot of fish and Polish beetroot soup (barszcz), and drinking Polish vodka! There’s meant to be 12 courses for the 12 apostles but even with dessert we struggle to get to 5 courses – no one can eat that much!! We then have a relaxing day on Christmas Day itself, just opening presents, eating lots of chocolate and watching some “great” TV. Until this year I had never had turkey on Christmas Day (!) as we normally do ours either on Boxing Day or New Year’s Day, depending on when various family members visit. So it was very novel to visit my boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend’s (that’s a mouthful!) house this year and enjoy a traditional English Christmas
“it’s my first time doing due diligence and manoeuvring through an online data room but I’m learning a lot very quickly”
But it’s back to work for me (well at least for 3 days). This year I decided to work for the few days in between Christmas and New Year and it’s eerily quiet around the office and on the tubes (a nice change!). Although it’s not the quiet time I imagined work-wise as I’m on a new corporate transaction and currently ploughing through a data room on a tight timescale in order to put together a pensions due diligence report for the client. Having not done a corporate seat, it’s my first time doing due diligence and manoeuvring through an online data room but I’m learning a lot very quickly. We have to submit any queries to the seller today so it’s a bit manic trying to get a general overview of absolutely all the pension obligations but at least New Year’s Eve will be a bit more relaxed (*touch wood*).
Seeing as it’s coming up to 2010, I should probably attempt to make some kind of New Year’s resolutions, and perhaps if I put them into my blog it’ll incentivise me to stick to them. The main event for me is my wedding in September so I want to begin a strict gym routine and stick to it! The A&O gym is so convenient so there really is no excuse! I also want to grow a bonsai tree – a senior associate in the department has one and it’s very cool. Apparently they’re easy to kill though and pruning is a difficult art form to master but I shall give it a go! This will also be the year I stop biting my nails for good…same as last year. Work-wise, 2010 is the year I finally put my 20 odd years of studying and training behind me and make the big transition to Associate. I’ve been involved in such a variety of complex work that hopefully the transition will be smooth but it will certainly be an exciting and interesting year in many ways!
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