Sunday, June 11, 2023
By:
Welcome to the second installment of my weekly blog. This week was not as action-packed as the first week. I have yet to receive my ID badge from NIST; meanwhile, some other NIST interns have gotten their badges, even though I had my fingerprinting appointment over a month ago. At least one other intern, so far, has done their fingerprinting appointment at NIST when they arrived but got their ID before me.
The highlights of my week at work include moving into a new office, attending a division meeting for the first time, and finishing all my safety training. The office switch has both good and bad outcomes. I got moved to a meeting room instead of a real office because there was a new SURF intern that started this week that is working with one of the people I was sharing the office with. The benefit of the move is that I have my own office, but there is also a giant TV in the meeting room that I can use if necessary. The downside is that I no longer have my own phone extension which I was kinda bummed about. Although I don’t think I was going to use it much anyways. The other thing is that I lost most of the social interactions that I would’ve had in the shared office. I don’t think I have spoken a word while in the office for a few days this week. That kind of bummed me out, but so is life.
I am happy that I finished my safety training. I finished that on Wednesday during a three-hour in-person training on the importance and awareness of using lasers safely. That was fun, and the instructor was pretty funny. Plus, he brought in cookies for us. I checked out the NIST giftshop on my way back to my office after the training, and I will definitely be stopping back at some point this summer. The division meeting was neat, as it was my first one. I saw all the knowledgeable people in my division talk about the happenings in their work. Although, it was mainly administrative, as I was expecting.
Another significant happening this week was the forest fires in Canada. It made the air quality quite terrible. When I left to go to work one morning, I could feel the particles in the air when breathing. Luckily, when I got to work, my mentor had a couple of extra masks that he gave me until the air quality improved. Thankfully, it has, and I no longer need the masks.
On the more non-work-related side, we walked down to the National Mall one night and tossed a frisbee around for a while. I officially found a gym that I could use, although it’s a national chain that happened to have a location near me. Either way, I’m happy to be working out consistently again. A group of us also went to an event on Friday evening called Jazz in the Garden, which is a neat event. You must enter a raffle to get tickets, and I won this week. Every Friday evening, the National Gallery of Art hosts a musician(s) that perform in the sculpture garden. So we brought a blanket, sat in the grass, and listened to music for a while. They also sold sangria which was quite tasty. I would definitely recommend the event, and the sangria, if you get the chance.
That concludes the week two update for the blog. Let’s do the same time next week for installment three. That’s all, folks.
Clayton Markech