Work-wise, the first week was more focused on team building, tours of the lab, and learning foundational research\u00a0skills. We began reading some background papers in related\u00a0studies. I\u2019m excited for\u00a0the\u00a0weeks to\u00a0come. The NAVI team is looking at some really cool stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today I called my parents. They asked me what I\u2019ve been up to, and I realized that it\u2019s\u00a0only been one week. I\u2019ve just\u00a0been busy doing so much fun stuff. It\u2019s surprising how fast we\u2019ve all\u00a0grown to be friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I remember\u00a0trying to play volleyball once as a kid. I had no idea how to hit the ball without hurting my fingers. I barely knew how to hit the ball in general. The sand was too hot. The game was too hard. Everyone else was too good. Well, I decided volleyball just wasn\u2019t for me. And then, a few days into our internship, somehow, we end up playing volleyball. I begrudgingly joined. Then, I figured I might as well\u00a0learn something. I began asking about technique and rules. And\u00a0somehow,\u00a0I started having fun. Because it\u2019s not always about doing it perfectly. It\u2019s about improving your skills, learning from your community\/mistakes, and being happy with your progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Campus is fields of grass with patches of tree-shade. The summer is hot, but gentle in the birdsong mornings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Honorable mentions: going bowling, going to an\u00a0escape room, and going to the soap box races.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Work-wise, the first week was more focused on team building, tours of the lab, and learning foundational research\u00a0skills. We began reading some background papers in related\u00a0studies. I\u2019m excited for\u00a0the\u00a0weeks to\u00a0come. The NAVI team is looking at some really cool stuff. …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.vrac.iastate.edu\/reu2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.vrac.iastate.edu\/reu2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.vrac.iastate.edu\/reu2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.vrac.iastate.edu\/reu2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.vrac.iastate.edu\/reu2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1278"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/projects.vrac.iastate.edu\/reu2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1289,"href":"https:\/\/projects.vrac.iastate.edu\/reu2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1278\/revisions\/1289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.vrac.iastate.edu\/reu2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.vrac.iastate.edu\/reu2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.vrac.iastate.edu\/reu2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}