Sunday, July 30, 2023
By:
This past week at work has been the busiest week all summer. Mainly because of the preparation for the final presentation in less than a week. I do have to say I’m thankful to my mentor for it, though. He set a schedule for me in terms of the progression of my presentation, and I am very grateful for that. He had me send my first draft to him by Tuesday before I went home. Now, on Sunday night, I am currently working on draft four for tomorrow. The feedback I have gotten as I prepare my presentation has been vital for me to clear up misunderstandings I had previously. However, in the criticism I have received on my presentation, he has also given me credit for how well I have picked up the topic after having no knowledge prior to starting the internship. Which is a great morale boost as I finish the presentation. We also got to tour some of the NIST campus on Friday. That was neat because I spend my whole time in one building when there are at least a dozen others on the campus. We got to see the million-pound stack (photo below) which is used to test the limits of compressive and tensile strength of materials/products.
Outside of work, it was more of the same not that active of a week. I kept my schedule of going to the gym when I get home from work. On Tuesday, I went to dinner with some friends where I had ramen for the first time. (That isn’t 50 cents from the grocery store) I thought it was good, but not something I’d necessarily go out of my way for. Thursday, was a nightmare of a commute to and from work. On the way to work, something happened on the metro so there was a delay. I got stuck on a train between my stop and the one just before my stop. I sat there for at least 20-25 minutes before I finally got to my stop. And it was just in time to miss the shuttle to NIST which had me wait another half an hour. It doesn’t stop there either. On the way home, there were still problems. So I got to take the metro two stops then had to get off and ride a shuttle bus to connect the next three stops. Where I could finally get back on the metro and travel the rest of the way back. The commute home usually takes around an hour. Because of the detour, it took just over an hour and forty-five minutes. I was not happy about it, but water under the bridge at this point.
That’s the conclusion to my second to last week in DC for the internship. I’ll be back one more time in a week for the last installment.
Clayton Markech