Week 4: The Kom Convention

This week started out in a very routine manner. Monday was very productive since I had spent Friday reviewing my data and was more confident in the work I was doing now. The day was spent working quietly at my desk. The most dramatic event of the day was when I had a snickers bar and hot fries as lunch in an attempt to save money. This turned out to be a really good idea because I repeated it later and plan to continue it in the future. That night there were no plans to go out so I just relaxed in the apartment until bedtime came.

Tuesday was a little more eventful for me but more because this is when I realized that I would probably be travelling to New York on thursday. There was a Kom convention that weekend and I had made a commitment to attend. The Kom convention was the annual event where members of the Kom community based all over the United States would come together for a weekend. Even though I never lived in Kom myself, it is where my mother is from and so most people from her side of the family that live in America usually attend. This means it is treated as a kind of family reunion for a lot of people. The problem with having to go there on Thursday was my uncertainty with the procedure of me missing a day of work.

That day I spoke with my mentor about possibly working from home on Friday so as not to fall behind, however after some thought it was decided that I would instead make up the hours missed the following week. Later that night there was a General Assembly event that we had to attend as part of the QEM professional development. The event itself was very interesting. It was a talk from a career coach that boiled down to taking actions towards your future goals rather than just wishing for them.

Wednesday started very hard for me. For some reason I felt exhausted the whole day. While going through the day I attempted my first real visit to Dr. Sherrie Green’s office that day but unfortunately she was in a meeting with Dr. Toldson the president of QEM. She was also busy for the rest of the day so we decided to meet the next day. Lunch that day was the best of the week, partly because it was the only day I bought an actual lunch. However it was mainly because the Puerto Rican food truck was back in the area and I ate a giant sandwich called a Tripleta. After that the rest of the day was spent getting as much done as I could.

Thursday was my last day in the office that week and I was gonna spend the whole day in an interview workshop. The workshop itself was very good and interesting. The person running it had extensive experience as an interviewer herself and was able to tell us how she and her colleagues thought of the was people answered certain questions. It was very thorough from the preparatory phase to the actual interview. Unfortunately I missed a huge chunk in the middle of the workshop because of my meeting with Sherrie, however that meeting was very productive. This was the first time I had really talked to her one on one and what seemed like a quick 30 min meeting between us turned into a very interesting and informative hour and a half meeting. As a consequence of that meeting I am researching certain possible graduate school options that I didn’t know about before.

After work ended that day I rushed to grab my mostly packed bags from my apartment before meeting with my mother and sister in Baltimore. Unfortunately I stupidly got on the Marc train that goes to every stop so I was really late in getting to them, and to make matters worse I had to drive.  

Rather than describe my days at the Kom convention I am gonna put up these pictures from the cultural night we held during the convention. I believe these are the best way to represent my weekend.

Week 3

Week 3 began with me feeling amazingly relaxed. It probably helped that rather than run errands or do anything productive on Sunday I instead slept till 11am. Before then binge watching Black Lighting on Netflix, meaning I didn’t leave my bed till almost 7 pm when hunger started to really bother me. After taking care of the hunger issue and playing some video games I went to bed knowing that from Monday onwards I would have real work to do at the NSF finally.

That morning Yuen my mentor didn’t disappoint me at all. She had the first sets of data ready and waiting for me to begin. We decided on the way 2 of the tables that would be used to record the data from the IUCRC programs history. This was really easy for me and I quickly finished the work on the first year of data. It was very exciting for me to have that work and I stayed busy until it was time to go home. However we had a meetup to attend at the Washington Post museum. I didn’t know what to expect from the tech meetup but I ended up enjoying myself. They had a number of people giving presentations about their companies. There was everything from a gaming company to an app meant to help renters deal with all their problems. After the meetup ended I decided not to go to the happy hour afterwards and went home instead. That night I hung out with our two new roommates for a while.

Tuesday started out really good as well with another meeting with my mentor Yuen. This morning we decided that these meetings would be a daily thing since there would be constant edits and changes made to the columns we use to record the data. We also added 4 more tables to record the data. That even though I was feeling exhausted, we went to the QEM office for a professional development meeting. The meeting revolved around the completion of our IDGP reports that were due that day. Fortunately for me most of mine was already finished. So after Kendrick finished talking those that needed to use the office to complete their work remained, while I left with some others. When I got home I made a few changes to my report before going to bed.

Wednesday was without a doubt the worst day this week. It was filled with meeting throughout which I don’t know if I mentioned but I don’t do too well in them. I struggle through because I have no choice but I don’t like them. Now this is only for group meeting where the topic has little significance to me. In one on one settings, or other more focused settings I generally don’t have this problem, but those exceptions cannot be applied to general staff meetings. It doesn’t help that I don’t know most of what they were talking about. This was the Engineering group meeting that I’m talking about. In the beginning it was fine because the topic was what people had done recently that they wanted to present to the group which was interesting stuff. After that though the meeting was about the general administration stuff. I kept my eyes open throughout, but barely. After this first meeting there was another more focused one for the IIP division. This meeting while being a bit more formal feeling was a lot more interesting. Maybe it’s that I was meeting a number of people for the first time, or that they discussed some political subjects in the meeting. I’m not sure why but this one kept me enraptured throughout. Thanks to these meetings I was unable to get any real work done. I finished the reports for the second year but barely started on the third.

Thursday was definitely the best day of the week not because of the work I got done. Unfortunately I realized an at about 4pm that there were some definite errors in the data I had recorded so far. I only saw one example but that was from work I did hours earlier so there were likely more I simply hadn’t noticed yet. This meant I would need to spend at least a few hours going through everything I had done from the beginning to make sure everything was accurate before recording new data. This kinda ended my work day for me then and there because it invalidated everything I had done that day. Luckily there was a comedy show that I was going to that night. This show and the fun time had is what made this day so good for me.

While trying to get there we wanted to walk since it was only two miles away, and we were basically 200-300 yards away from it before we had to give up. The path we had taken meant there were subway tracks and dense woods blocking the way with no path we could find. So at this point we used Lyft to get there. When we got to Port City Brewery there was a great tour that we were right on time to take. Followed almost immediately by the comedy show. Most of the comedians were great too so it was a good night already. Towards the end of the show I started talking with someone named Ryan. He was a very cool guy, and I soon found out that he was the last comedian for the show. After his set ended we hung out with him and a few other comedians from the show. He even gave us a ride back to the metro station.

After such a night out Friday brought me back to reality with all the review work that I would need to get done. It also didn’t help that my mentor had noticed these errors too so that was the subject of our daily meetings. I spent the rest of the day working on that. I was able to finish up the reviewing process around 2pm. At that point I started inputting data from the 3rd year but I think by that point my work speed had slowed down too much for me to do it properly. So with that I switched to taking notes of what I had done that week, and the meetings I had attended and their purpose. This way I would be better prepared for the final report at the end of the internship. I then began work on the weekly blog, but by then it was almost 5pm and I rushed out the door. That night I didn’t go anywhere since I planned to watch my first World Cup games on Saturday and that began at 6am. So I made sure to sleep early.

On Saturday even with that early bedtime the 6am wake up was still unwelcome to me, but the France match was important enough. After the game I went to QEM for a professional development meeting while watching the Argentina match on my phone. There we did a public speaking exercise which was fun. We also got free breakfast which made the meeting worth not being able to fully concentrate on the game. After the meeting I went to Lucky Bar to watch the Peru match but they were too packed as usual and I crossed to Public bar to watch. From there I had a major change in plans and went to a pool to hangout while watching the Nigeria match on my phone. From there we went out to U street that night and missed the last train back.

Week 2

Week 2 began in a very interesting way for me. Over the weekend I needed to go to a Bachelor party for my friend Devin. If you or Vanessa are reading this then know that I real happy for you guys. The party itself was a lot of fun though the activities were a bit more tame than advertised. The next day on Sunday while dealing with the after effects of the party I made my way home through the ridiculous amount of rain so I could get a haircut and get some food before heading back to my apartment and in Arlington. My trip home turned out to be very lucky because I was also able to get a ride to Arlington from my mom, by which I mean she was going to Virginia anyway and saw an opportunity to not have to drive herself while also helping me.

That night I made a point of going to bed much earlier than I usually do. It was helped a bit by the fact that the NBA finals were on and without the loud environment found at watching parties or bars I find it hard force myself to stay awake while watching a game tired. This was one of the longest nights I can remember going through. I woke up 3 or 4 times and everytime I would be surprised by how much time remained till I needed to actually wake up. This is very unusual for a person that usually only wakes up from the sound of an alarm.

The actual first day at the NSF started really well. Having learned from our previous trip the guys and I got there in a much shorter time and were seated and waiting by the time the planned events started. One of the first things I noticed was that we weren’t the only new interns which we had been told to expect. It was a little awkward for me to meet new people as always. During the morning session we heard from Sherrie Brown and a few other speakers. Then what I consider the main event of that morning began when 3 former interns came in to talk to us. Two already had their Phds and a third was well on her way. This panel was particularly interesting to me especially when Dr. Kendall spoke because he was giving a lot of advice on not just the internship but on life as a student. I assume his advice seemed so good to me because he was a current Professor at UMD.

When the time came for lunch it was finally time for me to meet the team member of the Industrial Innovations and Partnerships team (IIP). Unfortunately my mentor was not among them because of a conference she was attending. I would only meet her on Thursday. This was also the first interaction I would have with Carlos, an NSF intern that I met that morning. He was the only other intern that would be working on the 14th floor with me and his mentor made a point of telling us that we would be working together over the summer. This meant we would need to make an effort to build a rapport pretty quickly. The lunch itself was amazing, I’m sure this was helped by the fact that it was free. RIP to all the free meals I had been getting over the last week. This would be the last one for a long time.

The team members I met were Mary, Carl, Miki, and Kevin. They were all very nice and we talked a bit about the kind of work they did, but they couldn’t get very detailed because there was so much I just didn’t understand. Plus they didn’t know what I would be my project for the summer so they couldn’t narrow the focus of their descriptions to match what I would need. This meant that there were some long awkward pauses during the meal, but overall it was a good time. After I returned from lunch we got talks from an IT specialist and others who talked to us about the NSF systems we would be using and the general expectations people had for us.

At this point we were finished with the orientation and some interns went to meet up with their mentors. However since mine wasn’t around I didn’t have any such appointment and was free to leave. Instead of doing so however Carlos and I went up to our floor to find the our cubicles. While doing so we met a few people that Carlos had worked with last year during this internship and that I would be working with now. He helped make some introductions for me including with Hamad who was part of the IIP team.

On Tuesday morning I woke up ready for the first real day of work. I left a little bit after my other roommates because I wanted to make sure to eat breakfast, and I felt we had a bit of time to spare. Upon arriving I went to the security office to get my official NSF ID. This was awesome because it meant I no longer needed someone to take me around the building. I was also able to get a temporary computer to use thanks to Hamad. This turned out to be brilliant on his part because I would later find out that most of the other QEM interns spent the day unable to do anything because of the lack of hardware. However even though I was able to get myself set up pretty well I could only do the online training courses while trying to familiarize myself with the NSF systems. I also had a few meetings with team members throughout the day who went over rules and systems that I would be using.

At the end of the day there was a question among us interns of whether we would go out for a few hours that night, but most people didn’t really want to. So we all just went home to prepare for another day.

On Wednesday morning it was easy to tell that my roommates and I were started to get comfortable. We all left separately that morning for the first time. After getting to work it was more of just me meeting with team members like Miki and Carl so they could go over core systems I would need to know while also taking some online training modules. I was also able to get my permanent laptop. I was given a key for it, but let’s be honest I had no reason to take it home with me yet. Still no real work after all.

Sherrie had talked up an ice cream social taking place from noon to 1pm that day and I thought it would be a good way to spend my lunch time. Then I found out it was just an ice cream stand on the corner of the road that would give you one free ice cream of your choice. That was disappointing, but on the bright side I finally opened my eyes and realized that there was a cvs next door to the NSF. This meant I could finally get myself some coffee pods and fix one of the major problems I had been having so far. With the coffee pods in hand I returned to my desk a happy man and worked the rest of the day without any worries. I even began watching tutorials on using learning SQL since it seemed like something that would definitely be needed in the project to come.

That night a member of the HACU interns was having a birthday celebration. A number of us QEM interns joined her. The happy hour special was nice but I was really there for the free Salsa lessons afterwards. The lessons were fun and probably something I will do again, maybe not regularly but once in a while, you never know I may get good one day.

Thursday was the first time I was to meet my Mentor Yuen Lau. She had just arrived from a conference in Atlanta the night before and we were scheduled for an hour long meeting that morning. The first thing I did when I arrived that morning was to go and greet her. It was great to finally put a face to the name. She was a little busy trying to respond to a number of emails and other things that needed her immediate attention so we couldn’t really talk at the time. However we did get the time to later during the meeting. It was very interesting because we spent the time talking about the projects that I would be working on for the next 8 weeks. The main impression I got concerning the projects was that they seemed very hard. Interesting, but hard. After going over what I would be doing she told me to take the rest of the week as preparation time for the project. The plan was for me to get used to using Tableau, a data manipulation application similar but more modern than excel and access, to play with the data. Unfortunately this was when we realized that I still didn’t have access to the data that I would need to work on the projects we had just talked about. So instead of using that data to play around with Tableau with, I spent the day watching videos about Tableau.

That night after a meeting at QEM to review the progress of our IGDP reports. I went to a bar nearby for the happy hour specials with some other interns. While there I remembered that the Stanley Cup Final had a Game 5 that night. Normally I wouldn’t care because it was hockey, but like most residents of the DMV area I wanted the Capitals to win. So while others went home I stayed and watched the game. I even went to Chinatown where it seemed everybody from the DC and beyond had decided to go for the game. While I was unable to meet up with friends in the area, the crowd didn’t allow for much movement, I did get to enjoy the general festivities that ensued when the Capitals won. However no matter how festive the mood was it was still a thursday night so I had to rush home and get rested for the next day at work.

I won’t lie, Friday was hard for me. Mainly because I went to bed later than usual thanks to the special circumstances of the night before. I was tired but still needed to pay attention and watch the tutorials. Unfortunately I found out only after I got to the office that the IIP division is a believer in casual fridays. So with a mental note to participate next time I went about my day. It did get a little better when some interns found out that we could eat lunch on the rooftop. It was a hot but beautiful day to be out there for our meal. From there I also had a meeting with the Deputy Division Director Graciela Narcho. It was another really good meeting. It was also great to find out that she has worked in a number of divisions around the NSF over the years and offered to set me up in meeting with computer scientist from different parts of the industry.

That night I didn’t want to go anywhere because I was still feeling very tired and I had a workshop to attend the next day. However my brother reached out for us to go see a movie instead. So at 1 am I got home from the theatre and went to bed.



The workshop on Saturday was very interesting for the first few hours. This was because during that time while I was learning new things, they were also still generally basic things. So I could understand most of what we were doing. However as the day went on and the coding got more complicated that changed. Regardless it was still a very good experience because now I at least understood what the code was doing and how it was structured when I looked at it, rather than just a random mass of numbers and letters it made sense.

When I returned home afterwards I was surprised to find the apartment was missing some furniture. After making a few calls I found out that this was because the housing company were preparing to move us to a better/bigger place. Later when we did move the new apartment was bigger. It has 2 bedrooms and 2 bathroom instead of 1 and a much bigger living room. However the 3 of us will be in 1 room while 2 other people that seem nice enough are in the other. I'll let you guys know whether this is better or not later, but first impressions are not good.