Sunday, July 21, 2024
By:
I swear time is going by faster these last few weeks. My projects are slowly reaching their final stages, including my slideshow for the symposium that ends our internship. Of the three pieces I am writing for PT, the statistics one is complete, the gravity one is on its second draft, and the olympiad one is waiting on more information. We submitted the abstracts for our final presentations on Monday, and I have been working on building my presentation that encompasses everything I have done during this internship.
Jenna and Charlotte organized a tour of NIST for us on Thursday. Prior to this internship, I was entirely unsure of what NIST actually does. I have a better understanding now of the extent of their work. We listened to Brad Conrad talk about the different options awaiting us after graduation (mmm grad school). We had a little potluck and then toured the forensics lab and saw the million pound deadweight. We also listened to Sarah Hörst explain why Titan is so special as opposed to other planets and moons in our solar system.
On Friday night, a bunch of us went to Ben’s Chili Bowl for chili dogs. I don’t like the idea of putting chili on a hotdog, so I got chili cheese fries and a chocolate milkshake. I was surprised by the extra kick of spice in the chili I got, but no one else was saying anything about it being spicy so I thought I was just being sensitive. When I couldn’t finish my fries, I passed them off to others and they informed me that my chili actually was spicier than theirs. So I wasn’t just being a wimp (thank goodness). Unrelated to chili, we discussed pooling all of our stipends together to franchise a Taco Bell, which apparently is only $160,000 dollars.
I stole chocolate chip pancakes from Kai and Maia on Saturday morning, then Kai, Collins, and I walked to the Old Post Office with the intent to climb 27 flights of stairs. Upon arrival, we were informed that the post office was actually closed for the weekend (probably a good thing, because Collins and I were not excited about the stairs), and we instead toured Ford’s theater. The museum beneath the theater felt more like a Civil War museum than an Abraham Lincoln museum. They also emphasize how sassy Lincoln was during his presidency throughout the exhibit. There was a little blurb about using hot air balloons in the war– apparently we had a Union Army Balloon Corps, where the balloons were capable of telegraphing information about the surroundings to leaders. The war started just as many balloonists were attempting to cross the Atlantic on hot air balloons.
We hit Whole Foods on the way back and I grabbed some rice and yeast. I proceeded to make chicken tikka masala and a small loaf of french bread. The bread turned out pretty good. I bought a bag of flour a week ago and then realized I need to use it ASAP. I need to use a lot of groceries ASAP. I don’t have a reliable way to transport messy/refrigerated/frozen foods by airplane.
My boyfriend and I played a lot of Minecraft during our free time this week. When we started the server, we found an unoccupied house and made that our temporary home base, but it quickly became too small for all of our things and wasn’t in an ideal location for farming and mining. We spent about an hour looking for a new place to build a house and then proceeded to move all of our things over to the new location. We found cantaloupe in the game (I am now a cantaloupe farmer).
I woke up nice and late on Sunday, did almost nothing the whole day, then ate pasta and meatballs made by my favorite (and only) roommate, Jenna. I then went to the mall with the spikeball gang for Mandatory Outside Time™. I am currently reading This is How You Lose the Time War, which I am really enjoying, although it takes some work to understand what is happening at times. It is written as a series of letters back and forth between agents from enemy organizations that are fighting to control the events of the past (and they fall in love, I think). It seems I will not succeed in my goal to read one book per week, but I think 7/10 is good enough for me, and I really shouldn’t buy any more books before moving.
I’m moving in less than two weeks. It's not a temporary move either. I won’t just be living in a new city for 10 weeks for an internship. I am moving myself and all of my belongings to Nashville to start graduate school. I am going to be a graduate student. It feels surreal. It feels scary. It also feels exciting. The Nashville zoo has red pandas.
Signing off (and slowly becoming enveloped in a palpable anxiety).
Sonja Boettcher