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.