Friday, July 20, 2018
By:
It’s hard to believe that there’s only three weeks left here in DC. My major accomplishement this week has been hitting 11,111 words on my biogrpahy document!
While this has probably been my most relaxing week thus far, I still did a decent amount of stuff. Last weekend, I went to my second Jazz in the Garden with Amanda and her friend, Ryan, who was visiting this weekend. There we walked around the sculpture garden, drank some yummy sangria, and listened to some funky jazz music. When I got back to my room that night, I hung with Elon, her boyfriend, and Daniel for a round of Egyptian Ratscrew (ERS). Now, if you’ve ever played ERS, you know it can get… intense. It ended up being a back and forth between Daniel and me for about an hour. Daniel eventually won, but I still say it’s because I was getting extremely tired! The next day, I met MY friend Ryan (who knew both Amanda and I would have Ryan’s in on the same weekend?!) for lunch at Burger, Tap, and Shake. It was nice to see someone from Gettysburg about halfway through my summer break. Ryan is also my SPS Co-President, so we were able to talk a little bit about what we wanted to do with the chapter next year.
Sunday was a very chill day that involved sleeping in pretty late, a great meal, and relaxing at night. Around 1, a group of about 8 of us headed to get Ethiopian food near the Mt. Vernon Convention Center. It was amazing! The food came out on two large platters for all of us to share family style and you eat it with your hands- pick up some bread, pick up some meat, and eat! Everything was very good. Afterward, we stopped at a fancy gelati place to grab some ice cream before heading home and relaxing the rest of the night.
During work this week, I have been not only working on my biographies and social media outreach, I have been preparing for our presentations at the end of the summer. It is coming up sooner that I realize, and I want to be ready for it. This also involves creating a poster for the Society of Rheology which the creative team is helping me on. I have information and pictures that I will provide to them and they’re going to help me create an eye-catching and fun poster! By preparing for this, I am also preparing for my presentation because the same information needs to be on both. I also met with James this week for a mid-summer intern check in. I was able to give him some feedback I hope was helpful and he was able to ease some of the concerns I was feeling about the last couple weeks of work.
On Wednesday, my friend Hallie, who works for the FDA here in College Park this summer, picked me up from work and we grabbed dinner together before heading to a Gettysburg College Sendoff. These sendoffs are a tradition at Gettysburg, where alumni, current students, and incoming first-years gather to meet and mingle before school starts back up at the end of the summer. It’s a great way to welcome in new students before the beginning of the school year. This was the first time I have been to one and I will definitely be going to more! I had an amazing time hanging out with Hallie and other people I knew from Gettysburg as well as answering questions the incoming first-years had. (I also made some connections with alumni that will hopefully pay off later!)
Tonight, I’m headed to see Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again with Kristen, Amanda, and Kristen’s cousin for Kristen’s birthday! I am very excited because I’ve heard it’s really good and, come on, can you really go wrong with ABBA? Tomorrow, my friend Trish is coming down for the weekend and I’m excited to spend some time with her as I think I haven’t seen her since winter break! I will keep you updated (well, three more times) about my summer here as it comes to a close.
Mikayla Cleaver