Sunday, June 26, 2022
By:
Buckle in. This week was long.
Starting with Sunday—The interns walked to the Dupont Farmers Market where Ben and I discovered the most amazing delicacy since being in DC. Spicy Chicken Empandas. Now, I’ve had my fair share of empanadas, but these are stuffed with the perfect amount of meat and cheese and are wonderful pillows of pure goodness. We have dubbed Sundays, ‘Empanada Domingos’. Find out next week if we try more flavors.
Ben, Emma, and I also made the impulsive yet correct decision to get a couple piercings. Ben and I got our nostrils pierced while Emma added another piercing to her ear. It hurt, but I do like it a lot. I have multiple tattoos as well and I can confidently say that piercing my nose hurt more than some of my tattoos. The rest of Sunday was relaxing in Consignment with some of the other interns while watching nostalgic youtube videos.
On Monday a couple of the interns decided to head to Sandy Point State Park Beach. It was a very small beach compared to those in California, so it seemed very crowded. But laying in the Sun and enjoying the water and the views was much needed.
We listened to Fleetwood Mac, ate snacks, watched ‘Tay Tay’ have a photoshoot, and swam in the water. There were also many chili cheese items bought including hot dogs and fries. One weekend we would like to have all the interns go to the beach so we can have a bbq and enjoy the time together. It was so fun, and an amazing experience to see the Atlantic Ocean.
Monday evening the interns got together to go enjoy some bowling and arcade games at ‘Bowlero’. Bowlero is probably one of the most high-tech bowling alleys I’ve ever seen. You can order food electronically at your lane and it’s no issue to pay separately. They bring your food/drinks straight to you and the screens above show you how to complete a spare. Coding that must’ve been a nightmare! My bowling lane had Saksham, Emma, Ben, and Matangi. I worked at a bowling alley in high school but never got any good at it. I tried but didn’t secure any wins. Our second game that we played we all turned bumpers on, and we tried to see who could get the lowest score! It was more difficult than it seems, and Matangi was able to show us all up.
We ended up playing 3 games but could have done another, it was getting late, so we all decided to go home.
Tuesday at work I worked on building a Chladni Plate. I haven’t built a circuit since my sophomore year, so this wasn’t easy. I needed the circuit for the audio amplifier that completes the Chladni Plate demo. (Check out the 2018-19 SOCK!). Brad helped me out with a couple of things including how to read circuit diagrams. I still didn’t feel as confident in this as I wanted to, so I decided it was better to just remove it from the line up for Astronomy on the Mall. I was able to learn how to solder some small wires, though. The rest of my demo supplies delivered, and I was finally able to perform the other demos I wanted to take to Astronomy on the Mall. Most of them worked very well and I was relieved to find that out.
Tuesday night after work, Emma and I went to the Wallows Concert. Wallows’ lead singer, Dylan Minnette, is the main character in Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why. I honestly hadn’t listened to much of their music before buying a ticket to the show, but I figured another concert would start the week off right. Wallows was amazing. Emma and I got fairly close to the front of the barricade (…after a fake phone call that got us through the crowd) and we had so much fun. I wish I had more water that day, people were passing out even before the opener came out. It was getting so bad that security had to hand out water bottles to people in the crowd. I think people passing out just gave me anxiety and made me feel like I was going to too, but once Wallows did come out, I felt a lot better. There is one song that I know 95% of the words to and I was so nervous it wouldn’t be on the setlist. Come to find out, it wasn’t. But then they came out for 3 encore songs! It ended up being the last song they performed, and it was so fun.
Wednesday, SPS held a picnic at Mikayla’s apartment complex. There were thunderstorms so the picnic was moved inside rather than it being on the rooftop, but it was so nice and amazing! The food was delicious and the company even more enjoyable. While eating, we – well, I – talked about the Kardashians as reruns of Keeping Up with the Kardashians played in the background. The interns all sat together and played ‘Heads Up’ on my phone, which is always a go-to with my friends at school. We were able to go to the rooftop for a few minutes, and the view was awesome. Thank you to SPS and Mikayla again for putting the picnic together.
Thursday at work I finalized everything for Astronomy on the Mall and distributed the various demos across the interns. Anthony and I also tried ‘District Taco’ and I could positively say that is somewhere I will be ordering from again.
Thursday night, Taylor Colaizzi put together a Character-Building session for the interns to play Dungeons and Dragons. I’ve never played before, but I think it’s going to be tons of fun. Taylor’s enthusiasm about the game inspired me to want to start! I am also a huge Stranger Things fan, so that helped too. The full campaign hasn’t been revealed but Taylor dropped some hints about it. There are about 10 interns playing so the session took a little bit of time, but it was nice to learn about how the game works. So far, I like the freedom that we have when creating our characters.
Then there was June 24, 2022.
Saturday was Astronomy on the Mall. I’ve held events like this at school and around Prescott, but this was much bigger than any of those. I had to put on a brave and strong face regardless of what I was feeling, and as Emma said, ‘[I] did the damn thing’. AoTM went great. The interns had so much fun talking to young students and teaching them new physics.
Thank you to all of the interns who put a lot of work in and helped me out when I needed it. Some of us even got to meet Bill Nye the Science Guy, who was a role model for us in elementary school. Astronomy on the Mall is a great event, and I know we made an impact on many young kids’ lives. If I had the opportunity to run this event again, I would take it without hesitation. Though I stressed about a few things, everything came together like it always does. Thank you to Brad and Mikayla for being the best mentors and friends and supporting me through this event.
Come back next week!
Janessa Slone