Monday, July 8, 2024
By:
Six weeks into the summer and it seems as though I’ve established an unintentional pattern: one week cruising along on my silly little routine, immediately followed by one week where my routine flies out the window and smashes into a million (fun and exciting) little pieces. I’ve started thinking of the latter as my “chaos weeks,” so I figured it’s about time I introduce this terminology to my blogs. Is the term chaos week slightly dramatic? Perhaps. Do I always enjoy my chaos weeks? Absolutely! Do they induce slight amounts of panic as I float freely through time and space, unanchored by a routine? No comment. Since last week was a silly little routine week, I was inevitably due for a chaos week. And what better way to introduce chaos than by celebrating the 4th of July in our nation’s capital.
Because of the aforementioned independence day celebrations, I had a measly three days of work this week. Nicole is going to the AAPT conference next week, so I spent a lot of time planning out the next week and making sure I set myself up to chug along with my projects while she is busy. I did my first of two interviews for the new Careers in Physics profiles for STEP UP, and it went really well! I spoke with a woman who partners with local energy companies to implement renewable energy and energy efficiency projects. I have a lot of experience interviewing people for my science communications degree and, even though I haven’t interviewed anyone in a few months, I was pleased to feel myself slipping right back into the familiar rhythm. One of my favorite parts of our conversation was when she told me she started taking ballet classes as an adult after learning that her daughter’s ballet studio offered classes for adults. I absolutely loved this story, and thought it was a great reminder that it is never too late to start something new! In addition to working on the profiles project, I also wrapped up my project for the Women in Physics STEP UP lesson. The big report on women in physics that I read last week was actually a compilation of abstracts of longer papers on the state of women in physics in countries across the world. I sifted through all of the papers that I could access through the Vanderbilt library system and pulled statistics on women in undergraduate physics programs so that I could make an updated graphic for the Women in Physics lesson. I can’t lie, the whole thing was a little bleak. Women are consistently and considerably underrepresented in physics around the world, which is unsurprising but still a big bummer. However, reading about all the women who are pursuing physics, and the initiatives in place to encourage more female participation, made me even more determined to get my degrees. Yay women in STEM! We love them! We need more of them!
Although I have lamented the breakdown of routine that occurs during my chaos weeks, I was very excited for the four day weekend. I’ve never been that passionate about the 4th of July, but I was curious to see what it was like to celebrate it in DC. The morning of the 4th, Brynn woke up and immediately put on an America themed playlist that really got us into the holiday spirit. We went over to Jaden’s frat house to grill some hot dogs before heading over to the mall to get a good spot to watch the fireworks. I can’t lie, the mall was treacherous. We got rained on, swarmed by tiny little bugs, and sat in the hot humidity for what felt like a lifetime. The horrors truly persisted. While we were waiting for the fireworks to start, I played some Uno with Charlotte, her boyfriend who was in town, and my friend Evan. I didn’t win, but the two games did take up almost 45 minutes which was a win in my book. After several long hours of waiting, we finally got to watch the fireworks show. Was it fantastic? Yes. Did it have a fascinating and slightly confusing soundtrack? Yes. Did the extreme humidity cause the firework smoke to linger, ultimately obscuring some of the later fireworks? Also yes. All in all, it was a crazy afternoon, and I was very happy to go home, shower, and eat some food.
On Friday I went to the Natural History Museum with Ainsley, another one of my friends from school. We saw every exhibit (except for the cellphone one, which I really wasn’t that interested in) in just under three hours. Go team! We had a long and animated discussion about which animals we thought should and should not have bones (we think that it feels slightly wrong that snakes have bones) as well as which rocks looked like they would be the most fun to eat. Really scientific stuff. Then I went home and rested for a little before spending the night out and about with Jaden, Brynn, Kaden and his girlfriend who was in town, my friend Evan, and my brother’s girlfriend Maddie who lives in the DC area.
The second half of my weekend was much less eventful. I went to Call Your Mother with Evan on Saturday, and then spent the rest of the day at the climbing gym. Even in my chaos weeks, I still cling to my gym routine (see last week’s blog for an unnecessarily detailed description of why I am obsessed with my gym). On Sunday, Ainsley and I grabbed a coffee and a pastry (mine was a tasty gluten free cinnamon situation) from Baked and Wired in Georgetown, before heading over to the Georgetown Flea Market. Armed with electrolytes (and nightmares of my previous experience there), I actually had a really excellent time perusing the booths, and I even bought a cool ring!
As is inevitable with all chaos weeks, I did have a really excellent (and memorable) week. It was a treat to be able to spend so much time socializing, and to have some extra free days to explore DC!
Amanda Maeglin