Birthdays and Boats

 

 

I wasn't sure what was going to happen Monday with my birthday, but it ended up being very exciting. It was the first real time I was able to meet with my mentor, Greg Good, as he has been out of town on vacation. I worried about the teaching guides I was working on were wrong. When I started the job, I was told the average amount of teaching guides an intern finishes a summer was 4-6. So far I have completed 4, and it is only week 3. So I was very concerned I was missing something, but it turns out I have done them a lot quicker! I have gotten so much done in such a short time my mentor is giving me more diverse assignments! This week I was allowed to clean the shared drive up on the computer, which I desperately wanted to do. It was bad guys, the other interns were told not to touch their shared drives. I also did some of my first Archival work!

 

When I started, Greg asked me to make lesson plans on Latinx and Native American physicists.  J.V. Martinez made a directory of Latinx and Native American surnamed physicists back in 1972. It was a good starting point. Greg asked me to go through the APS records to find what meeting was responsible for its creation. Who wanted to put this into play? What caused people back in 1972 to start caring about keeping this type of record? how did this evolve into the committee on minorities? It was all very interesting to see that start on some other programs in the meeting notes around this time. I read about the creation of the Committee of Women in physics in 1971, and saw the first changes it influenced. And I saw the first SPS chapters asking for access to journals, like Physics Today, from APS. Unfortunately, though, I could not find the start of the committee. It shows up with an interim report in 1972 out of nowhere! With no mention of the Directory! But! J.V. Martinez loves in Silver Spring M.D.! My hometown, which is only around 15 minutes away! Greg said we may be able to schedule an oral history interview with Martinez! Then we can ask about his involvement in creating the directory! Which would be exciting,  but it is still very much in the air. I was also invited to present with my mentor at the APPT conference and got my registration waived from SPS! I am excited to go! This will be my 6th conference since my first last October! I love conferences!

 

After talking with my mentor, I went to see Amanda. Amanda decided to work on some demo videos for her internship, and made Liquid Nitrogen Ice cream! So I got to take a break and talk with people about their work and eat ice cream for a while. After the day ended I went back home to the apartment and relaxed for a while. Then Elon surprised me by making dinner for my birthday! And a cake! Phoebe got everyone together to sign a card, and Nathan made guacamole! People brought tons of stuff and we had a little party and played board games. It was relaxing, and everything I wanted for my birthday. My friend Emma came to and I had a very good time. :)

 

Tuesday I did a couple interesting things at work. In the morning the ACP interns were all invited to model for the new Grad School Shopper Posters! anyone of us could be on the newest poster distributed all across the country! Besides that, I started on a new teaching guide, the 4th one I recently finished.  Wednesday was relaxing. We had an AIP meeting to go to, and we dressed up to take a picture for LGBT pride month! It was interesting to see behind the scenes work of AIP, and all the effort that goes into making it run. After we had an amazing barbeque lunch with ice cream from UMD dairy ( my heart, I love UMD dairy ice cream). It was great to see the effort AIP puts into building the community and how they care about their employees. After work, I went home and relaxed for the first time in a while. I starting watching the new season of Queer Eye on Netflix, and it is amazing!

 

Yesterday I finished my recent lesson plan about Victor Blanco and after work there was the cruise! It was so much fun getting ready with Mikayla and Elon and driving in my car with all the ACP people. We got to sing together in the car and hype Michael up for his birthday! He turned 21 on the cruise! We all ended up doing photo shoots and walking around the boat a million times. The food was AMAZING (Kudos to the chef of the Odyssey boat cruise, you're killin it). I had lobster soup, Crab cakes, and a killer chocolate cake. Everyone was so excited to be there we all tried each other's food and got to taste a little of everything though! We drank and danced, and learned how to do the wobble from the DJ. It was all such a great time bonding and connecting with everyone.

 

 

Today Corrine brought the AIP interns Donuts for breakfast! Yet, Friday morning is always free bagels from Mike from IT. Later we have a lunch with the executive board of SPS, which is more free food and networking. Then we have finished week three. Already wishing there were more.