Sunday, June 23, 2024
By:
Hi everyone!
Yet annother great week!
On Monday I started my day with a quick leg day at the gym in the morning. When I got back to the dorm to make my eggs, one of them had a double yolk. I'm not sure what that means, but I am sure that someone thinks that means something so read into it as you will. The rest of the day I worked on Deborah's profile and worked with Maia and the other interns to make sure we could explain the demos we were going to use later this week. After work that day a group of us went down to the mall and played some spike ball and hung out. I was convnced to try to do a headstand while we were there and by the end I had someone pulled some muscles in my core, a very scary sensation.
Tuesday Maia and I went to the gym in the building with the ACP office. I defintiely want to go to the gym in the morning more frequently because while it is a little busy, it is much less busy than the gym near the dorm. After we had some left over Panera from whatever event was going on at ACP, I had Demeber's interview for her profile. Not only was she was great to talk to, I feel like I was much more confisdent in the questions I wanted to ask and the way I asked them. It's interesting to watch myself learn something like this because there is a decent amount of quick thinking that needs to be done for follow up questions, but I also need to be thinking about how the answers are going to fit into a narrative of their life. This evening we went back to the mall to hang out and got back to and a few rounds of bananagrams.
We started our Wednesday with a brunch at Founding Farmers because most of us had the day off for Juneteenth. After that, we went to the National Portrait Gallery for a few hours. Once we left the gallery we started preparing for the dumpling potluck that night. Maia thought it would be fun to get everyone together to make dumpings and also have people bring things so we had more than just dumplings. I was a great time. I brought some pizza I made, but I think it tasted a little like lunchables. I think the sauce being too processed, the oven not being hot enough, and the dough being premade from Trader Joe's all came together to make a giant lunchable. Late in the evening after we had all eaten, everyone suprised me with a cake and card for my birthday. It was great to have everyone in the same place and be able to spend some time together.
On the morning of my 21st birhtday, my girlfriend, Maddie, arrived in DC off of her red eye from Phoenix. Later that day I had my now third interview with John. This was a particualrly important one because this was the first person I've interviewed that didn't already have a profile. I think I did a good job, but I'm curious to see if I have enough information on him to made a good profile. That evening we went out to a 18+ club to celebrate my birthday. A few of the interns, including myself until a few days ago, aren't 21 yet and I wanted to make sure that everyone that wanted to go, could go. Supposedly, this lead us to go to a place that wasn't the best, but I don't have much to compare it to. Luckily we also called the night at around 12 so it was pretty each to get back on schedule for Friday.
Friday was a typical day. I worked on the profiles that I had started and started to near the end for a couple. After work that day, some of us went to the French Embasy for a French culture night. It was a great time. Some of the live music was a little weird, others were very impactful, and some later in the night got everyone there up dacing.
A lot of Saturday was taken over by the Giant BBQ Battle. Every year the grocery store chain Giant hosts a BBQ battle to decide who has the best BBQ in the US. As you can probably guess this was a great time, but it was CRAZY hot. While in Phoenix it gets into the 120s, it was only around 100 and if felt so much worse. we ended up leaving sooner than I would have hoped, but we did get a lof of free stuff. I am now the proud owner of an umbrella hat. Once we had all made it back to the dorms we started getting ready fot Astronomy on the Mall. This was a crazy event. It was supposed to be outside, but because of the heat it was moving into one of the smithsonian buildings. There was a catch though, there was already an event in that building and it just so happened to be, what I think was an EDM concert, but we may never know what it really was. All in all, there was a crazy combo of small children and families and 20-somethings coming to dance at this wild concert. I taught a lot of unsuspecting dancers trying to get to the dance floor about the types of waves and space time. Over all, a great time. That night a few of us went out to some bars to celebrate my 21st birthday again.
Sunday morning, Maddie and I went to Tatte for breakfast. I had never been, but I had gotten some Tatte leftovers from annther ACP event, so I was really looking forward to it. After that, Maddie and I just hung out together for a bit and packed up her stuff for her flight that afternoon. I'm so happy that she was able to come out to see me. We already don't see eachother very often over the school year, so having gaps isn't unusual, but its always sad and a month and a half can be a lot of any realtionship.
It's so great to have a group of friends here who will go out of their way to make sure that I have a good birthday and that Maddie could make it out for even just a few days.
Charles Wszalek