Sunday, June 23, 2024
By:
With the exceptions of Wednesday and Saturday, this week was uneventful for me as I was feeling under the weather. When I wasn’t working I was sleeping, and I think I slept enough for the next few weeks. We all had Wednesday off for Juneteenth and some of us went to Founding Farmers for brunch. I got a really big cup of coffee and a waffle (very good, would recommend)! Afterwards, we went to the nearby National Portrait Gallery, which thankfully has much better portraits than the National Gallery. Funnily enough, the portrait gallery also has a landscapes section. I wonder how they choose which paintings go in which gallery when there is so much overlap of subjects?
I think the morning excursion took whatever energy I had built up earlier in the week, so I passed out when we got back to the dorm until it was time to start cooking for the intern potluck! Kai and I made spam musubis, Maia made dumplings (and made other people make dumplings), and overall we had some very tasty food. I found out that I am truly terrible at card games that involve a quick reaction time.
Thursday and Friday were a mix of working and sleeping, and I was reminded to buy a ticket for the 32nd Annual DC Barbecue Battle on Saturday. This was a very unique event– we paid an entry fee, then got as many free samples as we could eat from dozens of businesses. I took home an apple, kiwi, and avocado, as well as some seasonings. The unfortunate part of the event was that it was 98 degrees and humid. It felt like no matter how much water I drank I wouldn’t be able to replace how much I was unwillingly sweating off. I can’t say whether or not it was worth it because afterward I felt the worst I had felt all week. I once again passed out upon arriving at the dorm until it was time to leave for the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building, which was hosting Astronomy on the Mall.
My shift started at our spacetime demo, composed of a piece of fabric stretched around a ring and weighed down at the center to create a well. We passed out marbles and bouncy balls to people so they could roll them around the well and watch as they slowly fell in. It was fun describing the concept of spacetime and gravity to kids and adults alike, and it made me reminisce a bit to my tutoring days. Some of the kids were too young to grasp such an abstract concept as “the fabric of spacetime”, but they still thoroughly enjoyed rolling balls into the gravity well. There was a person painting a large astronaut portrait/mural live, which was really cool to watch. At some point, a rave started in the room next to ours, which made it really difficult to communicate with anyone. I feel like my auditory processing capability is already a little subpar, so adding in the crowd of the room + EDM and a shouting DJ made it impossible for me to understand any words. I still had fun at the event though and enjoyed the conversations I was able to have.
It is Sunday and I slept until noon. I made some ube pancakes from Trader Joe’s for breakfast and powered through a crossword puzzle. Jenna made some chicken and pasta for our dinner, and we watched the first Tobey Maguire Spiderman (which I had never seen before and was just flabbergasted by for 2 hours).
I hope to feel better this upcoming week. It has officially been a month since I arrived in Washington DC, and living the city life feels a lot more natural than I thought it would. I don’t feel like a real adult yet but I think I’m starting to approach that.
See ya next week.
Sonja Boettcher