Week 1: Return of the Jedi

To kick it all off, we had a game night on Monday hosted by my old pal Jaden and his new roommate Reiden (yes they rhyme and yes it is oh so confusing). It was a lovely little introduction to most of the group. For those of us that couldn’t make it that night, we met the following morning in the entrance of our dorm and made the treck over as a group to the new ACP headquarters. Speaking of which, last year everyone made it seem as if they were downgrading from the old campus in College Park. That is NOT the case. The new place downtown is absolutely gorgeous and even includes a mini golf course on the roof. This year, though, I won’t be spending as much time there. As you can hopefully see on my profile, I will be working from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) campus in Gaithersburg, Maryland. I’ll get to that in a second. To finish off the weeks leisure events, on Tuesday a group of us walked over to the mall and played spikeball before getting poured on. Wednesday brought us to Astronomy on Tap where the word “dollarita” could have won you a sick NASA poster. And finally, Thursday brought me home because I was incredibly tired. Twas’ a grand old time.

Ok, now NIST! Wednesday was my first day and I spent it mostly doing miscellaneous IT and onboarding tasks which included getting an awesome photo taken for my ID picture. I also met a few of my office mates and explored the campus. For those of you wondering, the geese are not friendlier on the East coast. Thursday was when we really got into it. Because my mentor was away for conference this week, Christian, one of the post-docs in our group, showed me the lab and taught me all about his research. We spent the rest of the week taking measurements in haunted basement lab. I’ll provide more details next week once things are more in swing.

The weekend came with a few surprise visits. My old roommate and her family are in town! The other interns and I went to an art exhibit on Friday and then played a few games. Saturday brought Georgetown with Amanda and her friend Evan. Saturday night brought Gizem and Aoguzi and all of the gang back together again. We ended up hanging out with interns, going out for a bit, and then spending some quality time together Sunday before Aoguzi had to go back home. All in all, FANTASTIC weekend.

Oh and my youngest sister got her driver's permit and is now legally allowed to terrorize the streets with a legal guardian by her side. Awesome!!

I think that’s all I have to say for now. Until next time!

Brynn