Friday, July 13, 2018
By:
Last weekend was amazing- Peter came to visit me again! On Friday, we stayed in because it was slightly rainy here in DC. We watched the World Cup game and then cooked dinner together (one of our favorite things to do). On Saturday, we went to the zoo! It was Peter's only requirement of visiting me this summer and probably one of the most fun things I've done so far. The zoo is just big enough that it has a lot to see, but small enough that you don't need to spend the whole day there. We were able to see otters (Sam's favorite), reptiles, elephants, and the pandas! ( I mean, come on, that 's the real draw of the DC Zoo.) They were so cute and so lazy. That night we stayed in and chilled, watching movies and Netflix. On Sunday, Peter and I went to lunch with our friend from Gettysburg, Rikard, who was in DC visiting another friend from his hometown. We had some delicious chicken sandwiches that had doughnuts as the bun! I then sadly had to sad goodbye that afternoon, as Peter was off to a job interview in Frederick and then home.
This week at work was interesting- I only came in every other day. On Tuesday and Thursday, we had tours and workshops at the Optical Society of America (OSA) and Capitol Hill. At OSA, we started out with a workshop on professional development from Danielle. It was very helpful, especially since I will be applying for jobs within the next year. We specifically talked about CV’s and resumes, the differences, and how to craft successful ones. Danielle showed us her resume that got her the job she has now at SPS and even color-coded it in correspondence with the job ad to show how important it is to use the correct language and emphasize the right points within the resume you hand in. We then worked off of actual job postings she printed out to create a resume for practice. I have to say it will definitely help me in the future because I have never had such an in-depth opportunity to learn about these things. After the workshop, we had the chance to meet the CEO of OSA and tell her about our summer. Brigette then showed us all around her building (which is super fancy and nice by the way!) and we made our way to the top floor for pizza! OSA has a beautiful balcony overlooking DC that we ate on and had some nice conversations with everyone.
On Thursday, we went on a tour of Capitol Hill with Sarah and Sam as our tour guides. Sam had a very specific timetable for us to follow, which I loved because I like knowing what and when we are going to do things. We promptly met at his and Sarah’s room at 8:15 AM to make our way to the metro station and to Sarah’s office in the Ford building first- the Minority Office for The Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. She showed us around her office and introduced us to a couple of people that work there. After that, we made our way to another building where we would be sitting in on a hearing about artificial intelligence (AI) held by the committee. The hearing was probably my favorite part of the day, as the distinguished witnesses were so knowledgeable in the topic and could answer any question asked by the congressmen and women with ease. During the hearing we all snuck out the back to go and meet Dr. Bill Foster, a representative from the state of Illinois who holds a PhD in physics! He was so nice and we all had the chance to introduce ourselves. He made sure to specifically have a small interaction with each of us about how important the work we are doing is. (He was also wearing a periodic table tie which was awesome.)
After the hearing, we headed to lunch where I had the chance to sit down and eat with a AAAS Fellow that works in Sarah’s office. She was very easy to talk to and had some great insights for me. I am very interested in outreach and policy, which she also was, and she was able to give me some tips for the future. After lunch, we made our way over to the Hart building where Senator Duckworth’s office is and where Sam works. We weren’t able to see his office because we did not want to bother the Senator as she was doing work, but we did get to see Senator Bernie Sanders' office! Even though we didn’t get to meet him, seeing where he works was amazing. We then had the opportunity to take the underground shuttles from Hart to the Capitol Building where we were able to be a little more “touristy”. While there, we watched a movie about the Capitol, toured the building with Sam as our amazing tour guide, and even sat in on a Senate meeting where a senator from Ohio was discussing Trump’s Supreme Court nomination and national parks funding. When we were finished, we decided to head home even though we all really wanted to go to the Library of Congress because of how exhausted we were from walking around all day.
That night when we got back, after nursing my bleeding ankles from walking around in flats all day, I had the urge to watch National Treasure because, come on, we had just toured the Capitol! Some of the interns had never seen it (how????!!) and we all thoroughly enjoyed the ridiculousness, but awesomeness, of Nicolas Cage stealing the Declaration of Independence.
Mikayla Cleaver