Sunday, June 25, 2023
By:
This week started Italian.
Monday afternoon, the interns came together for an Italian-themed potluck dinner, complete with tiramisu for dessert and more garlic bread than I thought we could reasonably eat. We divided up who would bring what and gathered in Clay and Colin's dorm to partake in the feast. It was a great opportunity to get to slow down together and just be, instead of always running to the next place (or to catch the next Metro train).
Tuesday flipped to English—British English. The work day was spent working to complete the written components of my Teaching Guide on Charles E. Anderson, adding in as much biographical information as I could find with help from my mentor, Corinne. She taught me the wonders of Find-a-Grave.com, which I'd only used once before, and I got tons more detail to add to my piece.
That night, Janessa, Ruthie, Jenna, Julia, and I got together to watch the Netflix series Heartstopper, based on the graphic novels of the same name by Alice Oseman that follow a love story at an all-boys British school. We ate cookies and sang along to the soundtrack for the first three episodes, before planning to get back together and finish the series.
Wednesday I left the planet for a night in Klingon, as I got together with friends from my university to watch a few episodes of Star Trek. It's important to remind myself that just because I'm immersed in my internship, I still have great friends back at my other homes—though I miss them like crazy, now.
On Thursday, we met Nobel Prize winner John Mather to hear a talk from him at ACP, where we enjoyed lunch with members of the AIP Foundation (including Dr. Mather, and yes, I'm still starstruck). That day was Greek twofold, with falafel gyros for lunch and a reminder that so much of physics is, still, all Greek to me, even when explained as well as Dr. Mather explained it.
Friday I finally finished my Teaching Guide, complete with student handout, sky-themed PowerPoint, and instructions for students to create their own weather maps. It's not published on AIP's site yet, but I can't wait to see how it looks published.
Yesterday, Saturday, was the highlight of my week, as we got to spend four hours at the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building for Astronomy on the Mall. It wrapped the week up in my favorite language—space nerdery. All in all, we gave away 21 pounds of candy, hundreds of stickers, and taught kids, teenagers, and adults alike some cool trivia. Did you know Jupiter is up to ninety-five confirmed moons? I didn't, until I wrote the trivia question and found out just how out-of-date my knowledge was.
With Astronomy on the Mall and my first Teaching Guide in the past, I feel like I'm leaving the first phase of this internship—outreach, learning, and just exploring the resources I can access—and entering the second, where I'm both becoming more knowledgeable at what I'm doing and starting to think about the end of the summer. It's coming too quickly, but that just gives me all the more reason to seize every opportunity that crosses my path while I'm here. Until next week!
MJ Keller