Sunday, July 17, 2022
By:
Welcome back!
I’ve dedicated Sundays to self-care, as it should be. On Sunday I went to the top of the Washington Monument after an eventful 15 second race of trying to get a ticket (successful, obviously). It was so beautiful, and worth the panic honestly. There are 4 panels with 2 windows on each side, and descriptions of what you can see while looking through them. The day was very cloudy, but still a beautiful morning to overview Washington, D.C.
After going to the Monument, I went to the World War II Memorial and a couple Smithsonians. The first one I visited was the American History Museum. It was really big, 3 stories I think, and I got lost so quickly. I went into the same exhibit 3 times by accident. My favorite part was seeing the First Flag, which is HUGE. There were no pictures allowed in the exhibit, and it was freezing in the room. I then walked to the Natural History Museum, and it was beautiful. Also, very big, but lots of amazing exhibits. I saw Hope Diamond and some amazing crystal exhibits. Also saw Nemo and his friends so that made me incredibly happy.
Somewhere during that journey, I also got a cheesesteak.
The interns also met up again for another potluck in consignment. We had a lot of fun and will be doing something similar to a potluck next week!
On Monday I went into the office to get some things done. I started my final presentation in preparation for the upcoming Intern Symposium. The intention of the SOCK is for chapters to be able to set up an activity table at an outreach event. I made 2 table cards that members can place on the tables for parents and kids to read. Part of my SOCK will be a pinhole viewer activity that can be made from the box, so I also made an instruction document for that. I mainly used Jacob’s (a past SOCK Intern) document and just adjusted it to fit the descriptions of the box. I also designed the tape that will close the box, which I won’t spoil just yet, but I can say this might be my best design I’ve ever done!
Monday night I went to see the new Elvis movie. The first hour of the movie moved very quickly, and honestly made me a little motion sick. I don’t think I would go see it in the theater again, but I would watch it again on a streaming service.
Working from home on Tuesday mainly consisted of revising all of my initial documents and designs from Monday.
Wednesday at work I filmed multiple videos. The first one is titled “Fireworks in a Glass” and is a demo about Properties of Matter, mainly Density. The second video is actually the main part of my SOCK, so I won’t reveal too much. Here is a photo as a sneak peek.
A lot of the interns Wednesday evening went kayaking with Potomac Conservancy. This was my second time, and it was a lot more fun as I actually knew what I was doing. We went in the direction of the monuments and made it all the way to Lincoln. Yes, my arms were jello by the end of it.
AIP Foundation hosted an Intern Meet & Greet on Thursday, so all of the interns came to lunch. Thank you so much to those wonderful people, and for giving us advice and letting us share our experiences! The rest of work I met with Brad after his trip to AAPT. We worked on a plan for the next few weeks and finalized the components of the SOCK (I realize I have said that in many of my blog posts, but things are constantly changing so things must constantly be finalized (: ). I also started editing the Fireworks in a Glass video and was able to finish that. The SOCK video is taking a little longer to edit and is a bit longer than normal, but filming went very well and a lot of great clips were taken.
Friday evening the Interns went to Jazz in the Garden that was hosted at the Sculpture Garden. I think we all had very high hopes for this, but the jazz was quiet, and the spots were limited. I don’t think I would go again, but if I had the opportunity to, I would sit closer to the stage or speakers. We left a little early and reconvened in Consignment to watch College Road Trip on Disney+.
Saturday, we went to the Asian Festival on New Hampshire Ave. I tried some Nepali dumplings that were quite delicious, though Saksham said they weren’t authentic. One day I’ll just have to visit Nepal to try the real ones! I bought a cute plant from one of the vendors just before rain started to fall. I grabbed ice cream from one of the trucks then we all scrambled to the nearest metro station. We planned to have a games and snacks night in Consignment, and it was lots of fun! Justin showed some of us how to play Poker-Uno and it’s definitely a game I will be sharing with friends at school. We played a lot of Speed, the card game, and played Exploding Kitten as well. I also figured out Saksham’s magic trick, which I made him do blindfolded to solidify how I thought he was doing it.
We finished off the night with some Karaoke, where all of the interns joined in singing Mr. Brightside and Alexander Hamilton.
Next week the last few items for the SOCK will arrive, so I’ll be able to start packing those. Chapters can begin ordering them as soon as one kit is put together!
That’s all for now, until next week.
Oh! I also just got my first publication this week. Check out the research I've been working on here : https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.06270
Janessa Slone