Sunday, June 4, 2023
By:
After a few months of anticipating the start of the internship, we are all finally here in DC! This week has been a lot of juggling around with the internship, making new friends, and doing school. The joys of being on the quarter system meant my classes do not end until mid-June. Throughout this week, I have been finding the best ways to balance out my work-life schedule. Honestly, this mainly involved cafe-hopping and indulging in my coffee obsession for motivation. On a sidenote, some of us have discovered the wonders that is For Five Coffee Roasters. I would 10/10 recommend their iced lavender matcha latte! But anyways, back to the main agenda:
On Monday, I spent the morning at Tatte romantizing my quantum mechanics homework with a side of a pistachio latte. I didn't realize how quick DC weather can change, as it went from sunny, to windy, to rainy, and back to sunny all within two hours. After hours of hard work, I was finally able to meet the other interns for the first time for dinner at Tonic. It was such a fun time at dinner, and we even got to sing happy birthday to Hannah! Then, after dinner, we met up to play card games, which was perfect to get to know each other and everyone's fun personalities.
On Tuesday, the interns and I all woke up bright and early to attend orientation at the American Center of Physics. Arriving at ACP and getting to meet Brad, Kayla, and Mikayla was such a fun experience, and I got to learn all about the purposes and goals of the program. The best part of orientation, though, was the spaghetti tower competition. My team were not confident in winning at all due to our very smooshed marshmallows. To our suprise, we got first place (and a coupon to Captain Cookies)!
I got the chance to meet with my mentor Dr. Nimisha Kumari from STScI for the first time on Wednesday. We discussed about our weekly project goals and I cannot wait to get started. This project is the perfect avenue to challenge myself on observational data and learn about reading spectra. I truly appreciate getting this opporunity to expand my scope of research. Throughout the rest of the week, I spent a lot of time both catching up on school work and indulging myself in research papers assigned by Dr. Kumari. There was certainly a learning curve when reading these papers, but I am prepared to ask a lot of questions!
All the work aside, I also spent some good times with the interns. Some nights, we gather to hang out and play board games. This week I have learned how to play the colored tile game, Azul. I also went to Union Market with MJ, Emily, Julia, and Eva! There were so many good food options that it was difficult to choose which food stand to buy from. After getting our food, we sat outside and just enjoyed the atmosphere. There was a moment when the sun peeked through the clouds just perfectly, and that was the best ending to the afternoon.
The first week of this internship has been an absolute blast, and I cannot wait for what is next to come. See you next week!
Tiffany Liou