Sunday, July 28, 2024
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On Tuesday, we went into the Maryland office to tour the Niels Bohr Library and Archives and answer questions as part of an SPS focus group. NBLA was so fun to tour. I listened to their podcast “Initial Conditions” after PhysCon in 2022 and was intrigued to learn more about physics history! We saw their massive physics book collection and archive, special Book Refrigerator™, and Book Vault™. We also played some archivist trivia (which as it turns out is really difficult when you know nothing about libraries or archives).
I spent Monday, Wednesday, and most of Thursday frantically working on two of my PT pieces, both of which need to be done ASAP. Thursday was Intern Appreciation Day at ACP-DC where we got free lunch and learned more about the perks of being interns. Unfortunately, lunch was salad. As a twenty-year-old adult I am still quite averse to vegetables (especially uncooked), and force-fed myself some of the lettuce.
We spent Friday touring the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The first stop was obviously the gift shop, where I bought two decks of cards (for my already ridiculously large card collection) and a shirt that has little astronaut kitties on it. We got our guest badges and headed over to the Hubble Operations Control center and learned a lot about the intricacies of Hubble maintenance throughout the years. Then we split into two groups to tour the LISA telescope and astrobiology labs. I did a project in astrophysics a few years ago about gravitational wave astronomy, so I was really excited to see something that will be used for LISA in the future. The precision required for interferometry is extremely impressive, and the ingenuity that goes into building an interferometer in space is even more so. I got to hold a real life piece of space rock that had crashed into Earth in the astrobio lab, and we also got to see some of the ways the scientists there determine if there are signs of life in a material. Finally, we got to see parts of the future Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope being tested in a clean room. I had briefly heard of this upcoming telescope, but I had no idea how much of a wider field of view it would have in comparison to Hubble and Webb. I am so excited for Roman to be launched and for the vast amounts of data it has to be accessible to everyone.
Maia and I were hungry post-NASA and went to Tonic at Quigley’s for some tater tots. I also got some BBQ pork belly mac and cheese (both of which were delicious, 10/10 would recommend).
Earlier in the week, we were given tickets to see a play at the Klein Theatre (shoutout to Paul Guinnessy). On Saturday, Maia, Collins, Reidyn, and I headed to the theater to watch a semi-modern rendition of The Rover by Aphra Behn. It was semi-modern in the sense that all of the dialogue was still in Shakespeare-era English, but there were also modern pop-culture songs interjected between scenes that translated some of the more old-timey comedy into something digestible for casual play-goers. Maia and I flipped out when the play started by blasting HOT TO GO to a theater room full of old people and four SPS interns (now everyone gets to appreciate Chappell Roan). Some critics consider The Rover to be a feminist play as its women choose their own path in love and marriage. Most of it was quite funny, although I would tell any future attendees that there should be a content warning for sexual assault. Afterwards, Maia and I went to Teaism and I got a mango lassi (mmm) and a jasmine creme brulee. We took a long walk back to the dorm and appreciated the swarms of dragonflies that scattered across the Mall.
Maia and I made plans to go shopping on Sunday. Our day started by walking to a bakery called Yellow in Georgetown (mmm very good), and we ate our breakfast watching rats and getting obliterated by bugs. We decided to stick around Georgetown and do some casual shopping among the many stores that line the streets. We found an antique store that had a weird amount of Abraham Lincoln items, including a statue that I think was supposed to be Abraham Lincoln but dressed in Roman style (might’ve also been a Roman emperor who just happened to look a lot like Abe). I got two books at The Lantern Bookshop (Asimov’s Mysteries and State of Fear). I am now trying to pawn off the books I finished this summer to the other interns as I haven’t the space to take them with me to Nashville. I also got some clothes from various stores, which I similarly do not have the space for in my luggage (a problem left for future Sonja).
Upon our arrival at the dorm on Sunday, I was quickly pulled to the Intern Olympics opening ceremony. We had four teams competing for glory in a competition to see which interns were the best at various activities that were popular this summer. My team was Jaden and Charlotte (thank goodness, because they are both athletic and like doing athletic things), so I was able to escape most of the more sporty events. I took some pretty fun action shots of the interns playing soccer, and we headed back to the dorm for the indoor portion of the olympics. My team placed third and we got bronze medals from the game master, Jenna.
Next week is our final week of being SPS interns. It doesn’t feel like I’ve been here for nine weeks already, but I’ve also packed in a year’s worth of activities, making it feel like I’ve been here longer. I have a lot of groceries I need to consume before Saturday. I have a lot of things I need to pack into not a lot of suitcase space. It's starting to feel a little bittersweet.
Until next week.
Sonja Boettcher