Monday, July 1, 2024
By:
The end of week 5 marked the halfway point of our internships, which is absolutely wild. These past five weeks have been so excitingly busy, I almost haven’t noticed the time slipping by!
After the slight chaos of last week, I was happy to be back in DC and back on my routine. Don’t get me wrong, it was absolutely lovely to see my family! But I am nothing if not a creature of habit, and I was over the moon to have my silly little routine to slip back into this week. Call me crazy, but one of the things that has consistently brought me the most joy this summer has been my gym. I’ve mentioned it a couple times in my blog before, but I don’t think I’ve ever explained why I am so obsessed with this place. So, without further ado, here is a brief explanation of why Amanda spends a million hours a week in Crystal City:
First and foremost, my gym has literally everything I want. Weightlifting stuff? Check. Various cardio situations? Check. Bouldering? Also check. Yoga? Yup, you guessed it, also check! This excellent array of fitness opportunities is a HUGE part of my minor obsession with the place. I simply cannot financially justify paying for two gym memberships, and so I really like that I don’t have to pick between all of the active things I like to do. The second thing that I love about this gym is they have 6:30am yoga twice a week! Woohoo! I love waking up early, and I really like that yoga gives me even more motivation to get to the gym when I want to. I am also mildly obsessed with Susie, the yoga instructor who teaches those classes. This week she said “no one has your biology and your biography.” Absolutely profound. Long live Susie. Because I am already getting to the gym early twice a week for yoga, I’ve structured the rest of my week the same way. I usually get to the gym around 6:30am, which I love because it gives me enough time to fit in multiple things before work! Depending on the day, I usually lift then climb, do yoga then lift, or cardio then climb. I also go to yoga most Monday nights, so sometimes on those days I lift, climb, and do yoga. Go crazy go stupid! This routine brings me so much joy that I’m not even exaggerating when I say I practically skip out the door every day. And, because my mom is usually waking up around when I leave the gym, I usually call her on the walk back to the Metro. Yay! I love this place.
The gym was particularly notable for two reasons this week. The first is that I took Charles and Reidyn bouldering after work on Friday! This was an absolute blast, and the two of them were cracking me up the whole time. For two people who don’t have a ton of experience bouldering, I thought they did a great job! I had a lot of fun helping them with hand/foot placement, and getting excited with them when they finally reached the top of a route they were working on. We also befriended a really nice climbing gal, who had lots of good pointers for all three of us! She was a lot of fun - I really hope I run into her again sometime. On Saturday, I recieved a text from Reidyn that said “everything hurtsssssssss,” so I would say we had a successful evening climbing. The second notable gym moment this week is that there was a tiny goat at the gym on Saturday! They were having a little celebration for the gym’s 8th birthday, and for some reason brought in a goat and some alpacas? I obviously pet the goat, and we immediately became best friends. I still regret that I didn’t bring it home with me in my gym bag.
Besides the gym, we got up to a lot of other fun stuff this week! On Tuesday, my friend Evan’s mom was in town, and she took Evan and I to dinner at Martin’s Tavern. I had a burger on one of the best gluten free buns I have ever had. What a win! On Friday, we went to an outdoor showing of Ratatouille at the Kennedy Center, and on Saturday I got lunch with Evan and Brynn in Georgetown. I had fries and a salad (an Amanda classic), and then we had a lovely little stroll around Georgetown. On Sunday, a bunch of the interns (along with Evan and Jaden’s friend Chris) went to Cunningham State Park to do a little hike and go swimming. I stuck my head in a waterfall, read my book in the sun, and had a blast tackling the other interns while playing monkey in the middle and jackpot in the lake. It was a great end to the week! The only downside was that Muji hurt his ankle while we were there. He was an absolute champ about the whole thing though, and I really hope he feels better soon!
Work this week was a lot of reading and planning. I scheduled two interviews for the Physics Careers Profiles (exciting!!) and read an absolutely massive report about women in physics across the world. We also finished our poster for AAPT. Even though I can’t go, I am excited that something I worked on will be presented there!
It’s a little sad to think that I am already halfway through my time in DC with the other interns. I have been having such a good time here, and I’ll be bummed when it’s over. However, I am so excited that we still have another 5 weeks left to fill with work, play, and lots of shenanigans!
Amanda Maeglin