Sunday, June 30, 2024
By:
We are halfway through the internship and work is really starting to pick up for me. I spent most of this week writing and rewriting a paragraph that should be in the August edition of PT. It may not sound like much, but since the piece was supposed to be really short, it also needed to be extremely concise. Each sentence needed to fulfill a specific purpose in a way that was readable and intriguing, and also factually correct. I also got my first physics update topic! When a topic is deemed noteworthy, it will be categorized as a full length article or as an update article. Full length articles are for topics that PT really wants to focus on, or topics that require lots of background to understand, or that have a really intriguing story. Update articles are shorter, and are released more frequently (generally close to when the academic paper came out). The paper I am writing about was published on Wednesday (7/26). Without going into too much detail, it is on precision gravity measurements using an atomic interferometer. I had never heard of this type of interferometer prior to looking into this paper so I have already learned quite a bit on the scientific side. I have a meeting with two of the paper’s authors on Monday to discuss the details and make sure I have a strong understanding of the topic.
Construction outside of the Maryland office is pretty hectic right now. It probably doesn’t seem like much for a driver, but it can be quite inconvenient for me as I walk through and around the construction zones. I found out where the coffee maker is at the Maryland office this week (and the hot chocolate packets). Maybe it is because there weren’t that many people in the office, but we kept most of the lights off or dimmed in the area. I felt more relaxed and ready to take in information with the darker ambiance. No fluorescents can be nice, especially when sitting in one room for 8 hours straight. However, I did feel like a little cave goblin, typing away at my computer and blissfully unaware of the outside world. I was pretty productive in this environment so I might try it again in the future.
On Tuesday we went to trivia night in Arlington. Upon arrival, we were made aware of another trivia group wearing Shrek ears and tiaras. I thought, “Well, they must really like Shrek I guess.” They did, in fact, really like Shrek. They also were aware that the second round of trivia that night was going to be Shrek themed. Our group was not aware of this fact. It was a pleasant surprise, really. During general and Shrek themed trivia, every person in our group pulled an answer from the most obscure corner of their memory. My contribution was remembering one (1) of Shrek’s kids' names: Farkle.
This was my boyfriend’s first week of work at his first Real Job™, so I tried to offer moral support from the other side of the country. He also brought a kitten home (more moral support)! I haven’t met this cat yet (obviously) but I am convinced that he is the cutest cat I’ve ever seen. We haven’t decided on a name yet. I am visiting him this upcoming week for the Fourth of July, so hopefully we will be able to come up with a creative and cute name for the most perfect cat in the world (I love this cat so much already, I really hope he likes me).
Jenna went home over the weekend to visit family, so I was alone in our dorm. This is when my second cave goblin era began. On Saturday, I woke up with a wicked headache. I thought it was just a regular headache and waited for it to go away, but it was still there an hour later. At this point, I realized that it was a migraine, not a headache. I proceeded to sit in my room in the dark with the lights off and the blinds closed (light makes my migraines like 10x worse) and popped some ibuprofen. The rest of my Saturday continued in a similar fashion. The migraine was mostly gone by Sunday (thank goodness). While Jenna was gone, I discovered for the third time since moving to DC that the small pint of milk I had bought had gone bad. Each time, it has been within a week of opening, and well before the expiration date. After three milks had an untimely demise, I realized that it probably wasn’t a me problem, and it was probably a fridge problem. I don’t think our refrigerator door (where I was storing the milk) stays cold enough to store milk. I proceeded to throw the milk away (again) and I put Jenna’s unopened milk in the very back of the fridge (results inconclusive).
See y’all next week!
Sonja Boettcher