This week begins to wrap up our 10 week REU experience here in Ames, Iowa, in the VRAC of the Aerospace building. I’m going to really miss it.
Over the weekend, we celebrated @Eli’s birthday by going to Adventureland. It was a bunch of fun, though hot. I learned a couple of things that day.
1) You can not win a battle again the sun….not matter how hard you try. I have never burnt my calves before but I guess 4 hours in the pool does that. No Bueno.
2) I have learned many things about myself this summer and here is another one to add to that list: I do not. like. drop. waterslides. I don’t know what they are actually called, but those ones where you push off and go WEEEEEEEEEEE in free fall. yeah no. no bueno.
3) I did, however, learn that roller coasters are enjoyable. All except those upside down ones. I don’t know if I will ever try those.
We got Macubana for dinner and then surprised @Eli for his birthday. It took some coordination but he seemed really happy and that made me really happy to see someone else that happy.
On Sunday…what did I do Sunday….I put together a mini Soundwalk for @Thomas to try out. It wasn’t the best because the music didn’t exactly match the landscape but it still works. I made One Dish Wonder (rice and beans / crushed tomatoes / ground beef Family Dish) and I thought it was to acidic….so me being a science kid, I made it more basic by adding a pinch of baking soda. Bad Idea. It got way too basic and it ended up fizzing in my mouth. I learned my lesson. Later in the evening, I took a walk and sat outside for a while, contemplating the summer. When I came back inside, I played Overcooked 2 and it Takes Two with @Thomas and @Eli. Another thing I learned this summer: video games are harder than they look and I have no idea how to press more than 2 buttons at a time on a game controller.
Monday rolled around and brought with it the bittersweet emotions of the beginning of the end. We worked hard on our poster to get it ready to be printed. Aligning text boxes, making text boxes bigger, editing text, re-aligning everything, adding a screenshot, editing the graph and re-adding that screenshot, taking out a whole section then putting it back in, “can you move it like a millimeter that way?”, changing the order of bullet points, proofreading…you get the idea. I like this kind of design though so I enjoyed it. Monday evening, I went to check out the Vintage Vinyl store in the mall! It was so cool! and I am contemplating getting a record player. Records sound so cool. I got home, had a virtual dance lesson (gym member ships expired and thy wouldn’t let us in 🙁 ), then worked with @Thomas and @Eli to keep improving our poster until 11pm when I called it quits because I couldn’t keep my eyes open.
Yesterday, Tuesday, was a good day. I sat in the JB conference room for hours trying to get my speech delivery down. I am still self conscious of how much I am talking and get worried about all the details I think I throw out there when I speak. I am using this poster session as an opportunity to improve my speaking and conversation skills and I am very excited. Public speaking doesn’t intimidate me and I won’t let it. As I was practicing, I was going through each section, finding the most important processes, results or data to mention and wrote down a very short list for each section. After a while, @Jack encouraged me to go to the Hub with everyone and I am glad I did.
P.S. best wishes to those who are trying to figure out these photo things on wordpress. I couldn’t explain it if my life depended on it and it doesn’t seem to be working too well.😂
Bye for now
–Emma 🙂