Sunday, August 7, 2022
By:
Well, this is week 10. Our last blog for this internship. Can’t believe it is over now. What a summer it was! This was the best summer I have had since I came to the US. Talking about this week, it was all about preparing ourself for the final presentation. I had a practice presentation with the APS team and with our fellow interns. I also presented it to my university professor Dr. Sonya Bahar. I don’t think I have mentioned this before but I have always been meeting with her every week during this internship period. She is an amazing person.
Monday I showed Phoebe how to work with the program. As we discussed we needed some change with my program so I worked on that for the week. On Monday night, we had our final DnD session. We did this at the Lincoln Memorial watching the sunset. As the sun went down, we ended our DnD session.
And then on Friday was our final day. We all presented our 10 weeks of work in less than 10 mins. I was nervous as I had never given a presentation in front of a big audience. Also, my turn was almost at the end and my heartbeat was exponentially increasing as the time passed. After the presentation was over, we all went for one last Quigley’s happy hour and Brad joined us on that day.
The last day felt like the big bang. The big bang where we were the particles moving apart from a point in space, DC. All scattering towards different directions. We all went our own way with a final goodbye. We had all those shared memories packed with us along with our baggage.
On Saturday my flight was delayed until 5pm. I was supposed to fly at 2 pm from DC to NY and then NY to STL. But somehow they decided to change my flight and this time it was a straight flight to Saint Louis but at 5 pm. Emma and Lucy were with me at the airport. Lucy flew at around 2 while Emma’s flight was delayed until 5 as well. Then it was 4:30 and we had to say goodbye to each other. Even though I boarded my flight at 5, it didn’t fly until the next hour. Felt like DC didn’t want me to leave. All those memories we made together will forever be with me.
As I end this final blog, I would like to thank my awesome APS Public Engagement team: Allie, Claudia, Nicole and Phoebe. Thank you all for having so much patience with me during this project. At first I was scared that I would not be able to finish what I planned for. Wasn’t even sure if this would work or not. Thank you for trusting me. Hope the program will work for our upcoming PTG session. Also, thanks to the team of SPS for this amazing opportunity. This was my first internship and I enjoyed every second of it. Having a community around while working was the best thing. This has helped me at a professional level a lot. I got to know more about American culture more closely which I had been missing for the last 3 years because of COVID. It was a wonderful experience.
And to all my amazing friends I made this summer, I will be remembering you all for the rest of my life. All those nights we hung out, movies we watched together, potlucks we had, jokes we made with each other and many more. Had the bestest time with the bestest friends I made this summer. Can’t wait to see you all once again! :)
PS: Talked with Dr. Bahar (also our club advisor at UMSL) about our involvement with SPS and hopefully we will be involving more in the future.
Saksham Prajapati