Monday, July 8, 2024
By:
Hello again!
Monday of this week I started by reviewing Midhat's comments on Deborah's profile. Then that afternoon I had an interview with Walker Steere to learn about him and his career to write a physicist profile on him. Once work was done I went to Trader Joe's for some groceries and then made some delicious chicken thoughs for dinner.
Tuesday was a very full day. It started with the part of the office where all of our desks were smelling like rotten eggs. No one could place where it was coming from and we didn't know how to put in a work order so luckily we found an employee of the building to help us. Then SPS organized an BYOL (bring your own lunch) event for us where we learned about the history of physics. There's so much history that I had no idea about, I definitely need to start looking into more of the people and intitutions that have made physics what it is today. After lunch, I continued organizing December's information and figuring out what needed to be added to her profile. Once work was over, a few of us went to a trivia night at Present Company Public House. While we didn't place very well in the rankings, I had a delicous Cuban sandwich.
On wednesday I met again with Midhat and we went through Deborah and John's profiles one more time so that we could send them to the web team for review. While Mithat and I have all of the say on what is communicated in the profile we need the webteam to make sure that we are following the APS style guide and that were are using verbiage that APS approves of. That evening we watched Superbad. I thought that I had seen it and I had always heard good things about, so I was excited to watch it. After having seen it, for what felt like the first time, I would not recomend it to anyone.
The 4th of July was this thursday, it was annother very full day. In the morning, I went with Jenna to Trader Joe's to get popcicles for the BBQ we were going to have at Jaden's Frat's house. Once I was back, I picked up the hotdogs Charlotte had ordered and we headed to the house. After grilling up 40 hotdogs and having some popcicles we headed back to the dorms to refresh ourselves. We were told by some locals and people that had been to the fireworks show on the national mall before, that we should get there around 4:00 if we wanted a good spot so we had a quick turn around after the BBQ. We ended up arriving around 4:30 to find that there were far fewer people than we expected. As it turns out, that was not only because we were not in the right place, but also because it was going to rain from around 5:00 to 6:30. Becasue we were waiting around so much Maia, Brynn, and I ended up going for a walk to look around. We happened to find where all of the people were and where we should have been. Luckily becuase of the rain the location was not nearly as full as it should have been and we got plenty of space of all os us in a place with a much better view. After waiting around for a few more hours and a few more interns arriving, the fire works began. For the past several years I haven't really enjoyed watching 4th of July fire works as much as I used to, but this year was actually very nice. I'm not sure what was different this year, but they were again, very nice.
The next morning, I began working on the Economics homework with Jenna that was due on sunday and went climbing with Reidyn. Even though this was only my second time climbing I feel like I've learned a lot! Then that evening after climbing Jenna, Charlotte, Charlotte's boyfriend, and I played a game of Catan. I had a great time, but really missed a lot of the nuances of how the game should be played and lost pretty badly.
Saturday was a very slow day compared to the rest of the week. I mostly just watched youtube and worked on my homework, but then that evening Collins' plane arrived! I'm not sure that I talked much about it in the blogs so far, but my roommate, Collins, had some issues getting to DC so I had been alone in my dorm room for the past month. While it can be nice to have a place to myself, I'm very excited to have someone to live with. Once we got the text that his plane landed Reidyn and I went to DCA to pick him up and help him get back to Shenkman. There was something weird going on with the baggage carousel so it took a bit to get his bags, but then we smoothly made it back to the the dorms.
The next morning, Collins and I took a trip to Trader Joe's and then Charlotte invited us to go with her and a couple other people to the Lincoln Memorial and a few other monuments. Collins had said that he wanted to go see some the iconic DC attractions so I was super happy that found time so quickly after his arrival. Once we got back I went with Reidyn to the climbing gym again. There was a V2 (boulder rankings go VIntro, V0, V1, ...) that I had a really hard time with on friday that I was excited to try again, but I sadly didn't make much progress on it. I did make a lot of progress on ther V2s and even some V3s though. Then we stopped by Costco on the way back to the dorms to get some cheap dinner, but I realized that I needed to get a new card with a new picture and I was very conveniently all sweaty from climbing. Then there was a huge line to get food, so we ended up waiting for I think about a half hour to get our single chicken bake and single slice of pizza. I'm not sure that the savings were worth it. For the past week we had been planning for most of us to come see Collins on Sunday evening, so I ordered some pizzas on the metro ride home and finalized some of the logistics of the supprise. Then right around 7:00 a bunch of the inerns showed up at our door to greet Collins, play some gUno, and enjoy some pizza! Then, later that evening, a group of us watched The Dark Night, but I had to leave early to put some finishing touches on economics homework.
Again, a very good week. I'm so glad that Collins could finally join us!
Charles Wszalek