Week Three! (Can't think of a creative title)

This is the rundown of my third week in DC!

 

On Monday I struggled to wake up, but made it to work on time-ish. Work was fine, I mostly practiced using this graphing software called Origin. There’s a lot you can do on that program, so it took some time getting used to.

After I did that, I also made some simple circuits (measuring capacitance once again) using a waveform generator and an oscilloscope, then scaling it so it looked nice on the display screen :)

After work I just went home and relaxed for the rest of the night.

 

Tuesday was pretty average, just went to work and then also went to Trader Joe’s to get some groceries. I think I just chilled the rest of that night, since the walk to the store (and back, for that matter) kinda took the energy outta me.

 

Wednesday was a lot more eventful! At work, I made circuits once again, but instead of using the capacitors I usually do, I used capacitors that are connected to some complicated machine that I don’t really know how to explain that was connected to a break out box (or BOB). With the help of my mentor, I made a plan to measure the capacitance of these capacitors in room temperature and then, with the machine thing, in cryogenic temperature (4 Kelvin) and measure the difference! I was told that I am probably gonna have to present my findings next Wednesday, so hopefully everything goes according to plan and I have data to present!

After work, me and a few other interns went to a reggae concert that was basically on a boat dock!! I don’t usually listen to reggae, but I love live music, not to mention it was free to go see. We stopped by Shake Shack after that, and I got a root beer float!! Haven’t had one of those in a while, and it was really yummy.

 

Thursday was also really eventful! At work, I started on the first part of my plan. I spent pretty much the whole time saving data sets of discharging capacitors at different resistances. There’s 10 capacitors in the chip thingie- and I used 4 different resistors for each of them, so believe me when I say it took me quite a long while to collect all of the data I needed.

After work though, all of us interns went to a super fun networking/dinner event hosted by SPS! The food was great. They had these chips called “PC Chips” and they were chocolate chip cookies with plain potato chips sprinkled on top. They were surprisingly good so I brought like four more of them home with me. I also got to talk to a lot of new people! A lot of them have very different and equally interesting jobs involving physics. It’s so interesting to me how you can really go anywhere you want with physics!

 

Friday was so tiring for some reason. I think I was just looking forward to the end of the week. I feel like I haven’t done that much compared to previous weeks, yet I’m so exhausted!! “Exhausted” in a good way though, I think this is the most active (socially, physically, work-wise.. etc) I’ve been in a looooong time. I’m really glad we are writing these journals, because I for sure would not be able to keep track of what I’ve been doing otherwise. Anyways, I went to work as per usual, then went home and a few of us interns went to a boba place!!! Guys, when I say this is the best boba I’ve had here I mean it. There’s a really good boba place in North Carolina called Milklab, where I was a regular customer. I looooove their matcha latte, and so obviously I ordered that same thing in DC. It tasted exactly like how Milklab makes their matcha latte. I will definitely be going back!

 

Soooo I woke up at 1pm on Saturday (I told y’all I was tired) and I made myself the delicious meal of bagels with cream cheese and smoked salmon. Then got ready and went to the NOIF Orchestra concert! We had some yummy pizza and got to meet with and talk to the director of the program and a couple of the performers! Tbh, I was a little scared I’d find the program boring, since the last time I went to an orchestra I was almost falling asleep, BUT every song they played was beautiful, I got goosebumps at least 70 times throughout the whole thing. Needless to say I will definitely be going to more of those.

 

Yet again a super fun week! I’m really happy to be able to experience such cool events here in DC. There is so much stuff to go do and go see, and I can’t wait to see where next week takes me!