Week 4: Patience is a virtue

Waiting: an apt theme for this week. As I write this, I am currently waiting in the Boston airport trying to get back to DC after a wonderful weekend at my cousin’s wedding in New Hampshire. However, my flight is delayed, so I must wait at the airport for five hours now. That’s just how life is though — you never know what to expect, and you must make the most out of your situation. Thus, I am writing this at the early, early hour of 3:00 PM instead of my usual 11:00 PM.

This past week was one of a lot of waiting and trying to figure out how to pivot with the unplanned time I found myself with. As you know, the week before last, I finished up my research on Frank Kameny, and I am waiting to hear back on what form my final write-up on him will take. Likewise, when I tried to move on to my research on James Pollack, I needed to wait for permission to access certain archives before I could dive into the meat and potatoes of this project. I’ll probably need to wait a bit more on both fronts, as I still haven’t heard back from various people. Faced with this predicament, I turned my attention to another valuable form of history research: oral histories. If you didn’t know, the Niels Bohr Library & Archives is home to an Oral History collection of more than 1,500 oral histories. However, most of these interviews focus on the histories of older, White, male scientists (to no one’s fault). As a result, I realized there was an opening for increasing representation of various minority identities. Thus, I turned my focus on researching accomplished physicists and astronomers who have also dedicated their lives to making the field more diverse. Pen in hand, I began researching scientists anddrafting emails, and slowly, I started to hear back from people. Honestly, this project is something I’m very excited about, as there are so many modern scientists that people don’t know about but who are some of the most interesting people I’ve read about.

This week, AIP interns also had Juneteenth off, as it’s a federal holiday. A normal person probably would have slept in late, rested, and restored their energy. Am I a normal person though? Most would say no. Instead, my roommate (Maia) and Piper accompanied me on a 50-minute car ride to Sugarloaf Mountain in Maryland at 8:00 AM for a 7-mile hike. To be fair, I was only planning on hiking 4 or 5 miles, but carpe diem, you know? The mountain and trails were great (even if my hiking buddies are speed demons), and we had a nice lunch of PB&Js afterward. When we got back, it was time for the Dumpling Feast. Okay, it was really just a potluck basically, but Maia made probably 50 dumplings. Sonja and I made spam musubi, a Hawaiian staple. Since we both have roots in Hawaii, we are somewhat addicted to them. And let me tell you, they are delicious. I know you, my reader, might be like, “Spam? Eww, that’s disgusting.” Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it (unless you can’t eat pork or meat, in which case, that’s valid). We also celebrated Charles’s 21st birthday, so I made him an olive oil lemon cake, and we continued celebrating with him on Thursday (his actual birthday). I then left for New Hampshire on Friday, as I said earlier, it was my cousin’s wedding. I think I would like to live in Vermont or New Hampshire; there’s so much nature everywhere, and it’s so calming to me. Even though it rained all weekend, it was a blast, and I’m glad I made the trek all the way up there. I also FINALLY completed the book I was trying to finish reading for months, so I'm glad I can move on to another one now.

Until next week!

Recommended Activities: Sugarloaf Mountain, potlucks, and New Hampshire :)