Week 2: A Whole New World

First off, I was finally able to get all of my equipment to start creating videos for Arif for a project of ours regarding pudding. On top of that, we also finalized which food items we wanted to look into. My top two choices were: Maja Blanca( Filipino Coconut Pudding) and Hand Pulled Noodles. These two are my favourite things to eat back home in the Philippines and whenever I get the chance to here in the U.S. Right now, I'm looking into ways I can observe rheological features in both and which has more interesting features to observe without the heavy rheology equipment needed. Im super excited to start researching (and eating) these food items!

One of the biggest highlights of this week was meeting Dr. John C. Mather! When I checked my calendar and found out that he was coming this week, I literally jumped out of my bed in excitment cause I'll be getting up close and personal with a Nobel Prize Laureate! It's always been my dream to win a Nobel Prize for any of my future work, and getting meet a Laureate and seeing how he conducts himself, got me even more inspired to continue my dream. Dr. Mather was very fun to talk to and not what I expected. I was expecting the typical scientist who was all over the place and used super complicated words in order to explain his work, but Dr. Mather was very understanding and chill throughout the time we were talking with him. He seemed very down to earth and a nice guy to have a beer with.

After Dr. Mather, we went out to a baseball game on Friday! It was the Washington Nationals vs. Michigan Brewsters, I'll be honest, I didnt know anything about MLB but I did know how to play baseball. Going to a baseball game has been on my things to do in the U.S as I've always thought of as the quintessential american sports thing to do: Baseball, Hotdogs, and Beer! It was definitely fun getting to hangout with everyone from ACP and the interns just bonding over people hitting tiny balls at 96 MPH. After the game, a few of us decided to go to this LGBTQ+ Pride Party in Spin DC. It was so much fun and something I've never experienced before in my life! Coming from a very conservative country, these things dont happen quite often (though, now its getting more popular) and thank God I was able to experience this amazing party! There were drag queens, ping pong, and good music all around! Just good vibes for everyone! I would definitely go to another even like this if ever I had the chance to.

Definitely a week to remember, and hopefully, more weeks to come just like this during the internship!