Sunday, June 16, 2024
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Hello all! My week started with conducting my first interview regarding a future article on the International Physics Olympiad. I had to commute out to the University of Maryland, and by some miracle I made it on time (my poor navigation skills pulled through). The Physics Olympiads are competitions where 5 high schoolers from each participating country work through theory and experimental physics problems in hopes to bring home the gold for their country. The students who participate in these olympiads are some of the best and brightest from their countries and are dedicated to learning. I wish the best of luck to the US Physics Team at their competition this summer!
Another article topic I am looking into involves recent statistics published by the AIP Statistics department. They have some very interesting data on the influences for choosing physics majors, and on high school physics and physics teachers. I also got to take a peek at the editing process for actually compiling an issue of PT. The staff are so multi-skilled. They have to find topics, write compelling stories, and format them in a way that is appealing to the reader. And they do all of this in a very short period of time, every month!
My plan is to read primarily science fiction this year, as I would really like to try my hand at writing some in the future. The last two weeks I took a break from reading sci-fi , but I will be back this week starting with The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. I read The War of the Worlds (also by H.G. Wells) last summer, and despite being a bit dated, I truly believe this book set the stage for many of the sci-fi novels that came after. The Time Machine is less than 100 pages long, so I will probably read that and another short sci-fi novel this week. I also got some great recommendations from Maia that I will need to look into.
On Friday night, many of the interns went to Jazz in the Garden. The band played some jazzy covers of some popular songs, which I found very enjoyable. I was largely clueless as to what “jazz” as a genre entails, but after a short explanation from Jaden I think I kind of get it now? We also made Charlotte watch Spy Kids earlier this week, which she rated as “worse than crystal skull Indiana Jones”. We found out that post-release of the first movie, someone made the executive decision to go back and add a scene where the kids swim through a cave of sleeping sharks. Apparently they didn’t have the budget for this scene the first time through (we think all of the budget went towards Floop’s crazy filming room).
On Saturday, we planned on going to a food festival near the Smithsonians, but realized there was an entry fee when we arrived, so we changed plans. We ended up spending the day in the National Gallery (which is still not enough time to look at everything there). I learned firsthand that it is so much more fun to go to an art museum with friends so that you can make fun of all the weird paintings and sculptures. Maia and I specifically sought out older paintings with dogs in them, as 90% of the time the dogs look really messed up. Honestly, I think some of the artists had never seen a dog before (or a horse, or a cow, or a cat, or a human child). I was really captivated by the painting “Mount Corcoran” by Albert Bierstadt, which is said to be inspired by his visit to the Sierra Nevada mountains. It reminded me of home, as Nevada has some scenery that is really unique, especially in the high desert mountainous regions. The caption for this painting was hysteric– apparently the painting was originally called “Mountain Lake”, but the artist changed it to “Mount Corcoran” to get an art collector, William Wilson Corcoran, to buy it. He even gave him a map to where the painting was supposedly located. This painting is also just massive and has a very eye-catching composition, so it is hard to miss in the Corcoran gallery. I am excited for the fall when I have more permanent housing, as I will bring my painting supplies and hopefully have a little time to spare for art.
Today I woke up late and made blueberry pancakes. Jenna and I tried to do a Dunkin Donuts run, but it was closed when we arrived, so we did a Starbucks run instead. I will probably be lazy for the rest of the day and play video games, and I think the interns may do a movie night tonight.
Stay tuned for next week as we may do a potluck!
Signing off.
Sonja Boettcher