Tuesday, June 18, 2019
By:
Intern’s Log
Stardate 72923
I think I could live on a boat—I might even choose it, if such a choice were to arise. There’s something about being on the water that’s unlike anything else—like floating on silver. Or mercury. Or Chris Columbus’ imagining of J.K. Rowling’s imagining of unicorn blood from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Water is inexplicable; beautiful or terrible or calm or cold, it goes where it goes like a kite or a dumb bear. The rules that describe its motion are incredible, but there’s a draw to its unpredictability. A boat is drawn by the currents and the winds, and I think that’s a pretty good life. Once again this week I found myself on the water, as I think I might every week from here on out. SPS / AIP gifted all the interns (and a number of the SPS National staff) with a night out on the Anacosta River, complete with a lobster-creme soup appetizer, a picturesque sunset, and a kick-line reminiscent of the far-outdated Rockettes. Added treat, I got to sit near the All-Father Brad Conrad and contemplate scenarios involving possible murder clowns. Who’s to say that we were being ridiculous at a fancy venue? It was fun! It was a time unlike any other—and I think there’s a certain jazz to keeping a certain amount of ridiculous hanging around.
Speaking of ridiculous, let’s talk about the piano virtuoso Kevin Cole, who performed in Gerschwin’s Concerto in F at the National Orchestral Institute + Festival event at the University of Maryland which SPS / AIP generously invited us to. Of all the songs played by the orchestra that night, none could match the bouncing, flaming energy that Kevin Cole channeled through the piano in the finale. The music was inspiring! My fingers itched for my trumpet, for ‘50s Big Band bananzas and the high-rising orchestral lines of Dvorak’s New World Symphony. I couldn’t keep a smile off my face the entire performance—and my disbelief was only grown after looking up a little history on Kevin Cole: within the last few years, he had a golf-ball sized brain tumor removed and was back on the piano before he had two months of recovery under his belt. Take a break from what you love doing? Never. That’s grit, and it’s pretty incredible. It reminds me to never stop working at what I want to do or accomplish. To choose to be diligent and persevere.
A little hard work payed off for me too—week three (“Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out.”) at NASA was tossed forward at leaps and bounds and bounces! The test fixture that wasn’t working? Works now. The software I didn’t have access to? Accessed. The data analysis program I was writing? It’s beautiful. Round two of clean room training? Under way. My work at Goddard has only gotten more exciting. The days fly by as I’m fully engaged and excited by the work I’m doing. I learn so much each and every day, meet new people, and push myself to the reach a little higher. Talk more. Ask more questions, challenge myself. Find new solutions to old problems.
And never turn down the opportunity for a new memory! Shout your heart out at a karaoke bar, then when you go home, bring the karaoke with you. Go for a 1 a.m. jog to the Lincoln Memorial. Crash an HBO TV shoot. Smile big smiles! Be like a boat—go where the water goes.
Battlestar Galactica? Battlestar Galactica is a second-rate re-imagining of Star Trek.
Nolan Roth