Sunday, July 2, 2023
By:
Week 5:
Welcome to Recess!
I told one of my friends that the house was in Recess and he wanted to know if there were playgrounds. There were, unfortunately, no playgrounds for the Science Committee, but I did see one in the U.S. Botanical Gardens. Recess meant I only worked until 5 this week, and was remote for three days instead of two. This will likely be a shorter blog because work was pretty light this week, but it’s definitely been full of other things.
I was in person on Monday with minimal work to do. The office was practically empty, and I ended up leaving early because I was the only one there and it looked like it was going to storm (it did not storm, which turned out to be a theme for the week). In the evening, I headed out to Astronomy on Tap with a bunch of the other interns of legal drinking age. Apparently there are a bunch of branches all around the world, and the goal of their events is to bring people together for a night of cool astronomers talking about their research, trivia, and just a generally fun time. This specific event was a celebration of Black Space Week, which was last week, and each of the presenters were incredible. Additionally, a whole bunch of the people in attendance were from UMD, which was cool, and I won an Astronomy on Tap glass in astronomy trivia.I really love the physics and astronomy community. I absolutely loved the event and I’ll definitely have to go back!
Tuesday was also pretty relaxed – I worked from home and then hung out with some of the other interns around dinner – we all cooked our own food and brought it to someone’s room and ate together, which was really nice after a day of no people. Because I had a light work day though, I took some time in the morning to talk to Dr. Emily Edwards. She was one of our witnesses at the Quantum hearing way back in Week 2, and she actually helped me get my first research job when she was working for the Joint Quantum Institute, a UMD/NIST partnership. I feel like so much of what I hear from professors and physics staff about potential futures is centered around academia and industry research, and it was a really wonderful experience to get to talk to someone who loves physics from outside that traditional pathway.
On Wednesday I was back in person, and it was busy! I went to an AI briefing with Microsoft’s policy director for Responsible AI, which was pretty interesting! I definitely need to do more research on some of the documents that the speaker brought up. From the briefing, I had another excursion to return a book to the Library of Congress for one of our staffers, and I got to explore Longworth House Office Building and the tunnels that connect it to Rayburn for the first time, which was exciting. After work I went to an event on offshore wind power generation hosted by the Embassy of Denmark! As an intern I was definitely out of place because I’m not in a position to make long term legislative relationships on the Hill, but it was still an interesting experience.
Thursday started remotely, where I was editing a transcript for the record of one of our Science Committee markups, but I went to the Capitol around noon to give two of my friends from UMD a tour of the Capitol. While I was waiting for them I watched the NANOGrav livestream!! It was really nice to hang out with my UMD friends, and definitely a good experience to give my first tour to two people instead of the whole SPS group of 16 other interns! I did a bit more work and then we headed across the street to the U.S. Botanical Gardens – I’ve eaten lunch in the outdoor section, but never explored inside! It was beautiful, but we were admittedly tired after walking all around Capitol Hill and headed back to grab dinner and hang out for a bit longer before they had to leave. Thanks for coming!
Friday ended up working out the same way with my big moment in the spotlight giving a tour to all the other SPS interns. I first took them to see the Science Committee Hearing rooms in Rayburn, and showed them how all the tech in the rooms worked (there’s a lot of it). We watched the Capitol orientation film called E Pluribus Unum and then headed out on the tour. Because I’m not working for a specific member office, I can say whatever I want on tours because the Committee doesn’t have specific political opinions. So in the wake of some pretty sucky Supreme Court decisions, I decided to focus my tour on the elements of the Capitol that showcased equality, the importance of individuals, and the ways that the Government is supposed to work for each and every one of its citizens. (I am the policy intern, I get to talk about politics, exercising my first amendment rights and all lol). I talked about the statues of Rosa Parks and MLK; I pointed out the monument to the suffragettes and the unfinished corner that’s supposed to represent each of us and the work yet to be done. As we walked through the halls of government, it was hard to stop comparing the past and the present, or in the words of Hadestown “to see how the world could be, in spite of the way that it is”. Though I’ve moved physically from the space outside the Supreme Court building (thanks to Jenna for organizing museum outings), my mind has stayed there for much of the weekend, thinking about the contrast between this weekend and the joy-filled experience of NYC Pride I had last weekend. Just like the experience I had talking to Dr. Edwards shows, representation matters so much: it’s so much easier to tread a path when it’s been walked on by others before. This holds true for better or for worse, and regardless of whether it’s related to education, celebrating life milestones, or something as simple as trying to find your way into science policy. We’re all better off when we support each other.
Ruthie Vogel