Sunday, July 14, 2024
By:
Up until Sunday, I was under the impression that Forest Gump was a feel-good kids’ movie. It turns out that it’s not. There’s death, drugs, and assorted scariness. I was also under the impression that as soon as we got into the ocean, my friends would not create a human torpedo to launch a water offensive at me. All my dreams and expectations were drowned on Sunday.
Monday brought work at ACP and the premier of The Bachelorette. This was my first time watching anything related to The Bachelorette, and I was thoroughly pleased. I live for the drama.
On Tuesday, Jenna and I went to NIST. I took my metro nap and had a fairly productive workday. I discovered that Jaden is not only awful at Bananagrams but is also very bad at the GamePigeon Word Games. He has yet to win a word game against me. We played trivia later that night. Not only did we lose, but my attention waned more quickly than last week (I almost fell asleep at the bar). But, at trivia, I tried an espresso martini for the first time. It was a bit too sweet for my liking, but I felt very fancy drinking it.
Wednesday, Jenna and I toured the Capitol with a few women from OAM. One of their friends works as an AAAS Fellow in the Senate, so we got a special behind-the-scenes tour that included the coveted Senate Subway. The Senate Subway is essentially a little trolley car that goes between the Senate offices and the Capitol building. It’s only a 5-minute walk between the two buildings and a minute on the trolley, but I can see the allure of a small underground government train. More importantly, this was on Jenna’s bucket list, and we crossed it off! Keeping with the theme of fun transportation, we watched Cars 2 on Wednesday night. I don’t understand why the franchise went straight to an international spy movie, but who am I to judge? It was a pretty good movie.
On Thursday, the big boss at OAM brought in donuts. The morning was spent chatting with our colleagues over coffee and donuts. I caught up on the work I missed on Wednesday and continued to dominate Jaden in all GamePigeon games. Later that evening, Charles and I went for a run and then played Mario Kart with the other interns and Jaden’s brother (Brady)—I came in last in both the run and in Mario Kart. The night ended with Charles absolutely killing it in Just Dance. Why is he so good at Just Dance? The world may never know.
Friday, I got a new task: creating social media posts for Manufacturing USA on Twitter and LinkedIn. I am thoroughly enjoying a break from my main project. Later that evening, we went to happy hour. Jenna and I spilt fried pickles; it was lovely. We went home, Jenna and I both ate bananas and peanut butter, I took a nap on her small couch, and then we geared up to go to a bar. This one was a sit-down bar in Georgetown. I enjoyed the ambiance; we sat and chatted for a few hours before it got a little too loud, and we returned home.
Saturday brought a busy morning. Jenna and I finally ventured to the Arlington post office to get my fingerprints taken for my Australian citizenship. I put my name down and then we explored George Mason Law for a few hours. It was a beautiful campus, and I could see Jenna going to law school there. A few blocks away from the school, we ran across a softball game, specifically the GMU vs Georgetown Law School softball game. For those of you who are not familiar with Jenna’s sports history, she played softball in high school—so seeing the GMU team play seems like a positive omen. The post office took my fingerprints and sent them off into the bureaucracy. We then visited the National Archives to see the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Later that day, we played more Just Dance—Charles destroyed the competition again; I’m convinced he practices secretly—and ate Jenna’s homemade buffalo chicken dip. It was delicious. It is critical that everyone knows that Jenna made the dip; one intern—I won’t name him explicitly, but know his name starts with a “K” and ends with an “Aden”—failed to mention that Jenna made the dip in their blog.
Sunday was a beach day! We packed the cars and headed to Annapolis for a day of football, sandwiches, and (unfortunately) sand. The water was lovely—despite Jenna, Jaden, Charles, and Kaden attempting to drown me at separate points throughout the day. They created a new water attack: picking Kaden up and throwing him towards me as he spins in the water. It somewhat resembles a torpedo, somewhat resembles a drowning cat. I’d like to think their actions are all because they are all intimidated by my elite word game abilities. We got Taco Bell on the ride home, and I was positively elated. There are few things that make me happier than Taco Bell.
We got home, and after winding down for the night, Jenna and I watched a few comedy specials, did some yoga (I have discovered I can put my leg above my head; I’m very proud of this), and then watched Forest Gump. It turns out Forest Gump is not a rom-com. I do not know exactly how I came to believe that Forest Gump was a lighthearted movie, but I feel as if someone should have warned me that I may get a bit spooked while watching (if you’re keeping up with my movie reviews, you know I scare very easily).
Charlotte Bimson