Monday, August 13, 2018
By:
Me on the Tuesday after getting home from DC at 10PM at night talking to my boyfriend: “I NEED TO DO MY BLOG!” The first three days of the week went quickly with me finishing up anything I had left to do- collecting pictures of better quality of Bingham Medal winners, finishing up any edits Gareth sent me, and hitting 100 PAGES on my biography document (which is around 17,000 words, if you were wondering.) Thursday and Friday, when I would normally do my blog, were a whirlwind with practicing our presentations and writing thank you notes all day to actually presenting our final talks to a room of 50+ people. The nights of the week were filled with practicing my talk to Kristen and Amanda, trying to pack all of my clothes and supplies back up, and squeezing in final hours with my new friends who I became incredibly close with the past 10 weeks.
I was a little nervous to present in front of 50+ people (including potentially 2 Nobel laureates), but it helped to have my new close group of friends there, as well as my mentors and the SPS staff who I had become very close with over the summer. All of us interns filmed each others presentations to show our parents. I didn’t hear anything bad from anyone at the symposium- we all had done amazing jobs. Lunch was provided after and I finally got to meet my mentor, Gareth, in person. We had only talked over the phone previously! It was nice to sit and reflect about my work that summer over lunch with all of my mentors.
That Friday night, however, was a mixture of emotions. After leaving ACP for the final time in the summer of 2018, Sarah took me and a couple of other interns to ice cream at the UMD Creamery which was awesome. After getting home, I finished packing all of my stuff up and relaxed for a little bit. Later that night a group of the interns hung out for the last time and made one last walk to the monuments at night. It was amazing to sit on the steps in front of the Lincoln Memorial with a group of people I had met only ten weeks prior- and who had become some of my best friends. It seemed fitting to end our night in front of the Washington Monument- one of the most iconic locations in DC
I would like to thank SPS, my mentors (whether in the same building or in Massachusetts), the NLBA staff, and my fellow interns for making this summer so memorable. I will not easily forget my summer in DC!
Mikayla Cleaver