Week 2: Singing Acapella

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Friday, June 14, 2013

By:

Jamie Garrett

Time is flying by here in DC! Often I’ve thought to myself, I can’t believe I’ve only known these people for two weeks now! It’s nice that we all, the interns, get along so well. It feels like I already have great friends here. So let us begin where I left off last week…

On Saturday morning we decided to get up and go grocery shopping. We were gone for most of the day and we decided to just hang out in the dorms that evening. Sunday we had our first outreach project at the HoCo Stem Festival at Howard Community College. Caleb and Nicole, the SOCK interns, prepared a couple of demonstrations and wrote discussions about each activity. It was a lot of fun! We left there, had dinner together and spent the rest of the day resting up.

Nicole, Darren, Caleb, Alec and I went to visit the Air and Space Museum on Monday afternoon! We had to do a quick run through before it closed but it was spectacular. We will definitely have to go back and see more! Darren and Alec are interns at NASA this summer and it was even more fun to walk through with them because they could tell us fun facts that aren’t mentioned in the museum.

The work week put me back to brainstorming for new ideas for activities for the PhysicsQuest kits. I downloaded the SpectraSnapp app and browsed the internet for ideas related to spectroscopy. It’s been a lot of fun coming up with new demonstrations and writing the instructions. Work at ACP is thrilling! I’ve had so much fun and I’ve been doing some really cool demos. The annual ACP Picnic was Wednesday. There was great food, karaoke, and an egg race. Some people even did the wobble! I didn’t join in that one, but I should have.

Thursday, I tried a new project. I get to play with some of the coolest things here! The SOCK interns are doing a neat project downstairs. I don’t want to give out too many details; I’ll let them write about it themselves.

The weather has been pretty crazy this week between heat waves, thunderstorms, and tornado warnings. Who knows what will be next. We’ve spent a lot of time inside this week because of the weather. We watched Pitch Perfect, even though all of us a Friday we are planning to go to the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center. Our new intern friend, Katherine, is going to join us. My roommate, Fiona, gets here on Sunday from London. I am elated to meet her. We’re already making plans for next week to go on boat tours and sing karaoke at a Chinese restaurant!

Jamie Garrett