Changing focuses from the past couple of weeks, this week I want to focus more on the TA-led experiences that have happened in the past week. To begin with, last Thursday after we were done with work for the day, there was a scavenger hunt that a bunch of us took part in. I was on a team with Vanessa, Abby, and Teja and we went all out for the win. We were sprinting all over the campus and we had a pretty good strategy for it. I went and read the clues so that they could all think about what they meant since they know Rice a lot better than me. We also tried to get to most of the clues first so that we could get the coins at the clues which counted for two points each. That strategy also led to me sprinting past Shannon and Shivani’s team to try to get to a clue before them, but unfortunately it was all kinda pointless because the coin wasn’t even there. However, it did lead to us tying for the win with the team that had Shannon, Shivani, and Kaitlyn. As a reward, we got to decide the new name and photo for the Group Me we have with all of the interns and TAs. We haven’t decided on a name just yet but I’ll let you know when we do.

 

Moving on into this week, we had another activity after work on Tuesday with a group of us playing sand volleyball for a couple of hours. It was actually really fun and an insanely good workout that everyone was dying from afterwards. I was covered in sweat and sand on the drive home which was not ideal for my car but I had a good time so who cares. I think we’re going to play again this week so that should be fun. Hopefully we can get more people to play, although it was still fun last time with like 8 of us playing. We also got lunch from the TAs on Wednesday and they catered Chinese food for us. It was probably one of the most satisfying meals I’ve ever had, almost just because I was really hungry and the food was good but I liked it. I really feel like these experiences that we’re having with our teams and with everyone in the internship is making everyone a lot closer. There’s definitely a noticeable difference in the conversations everyone is having just at lunch and in general. People are getting closer so more jokes are being made and I feel like everyone is just happier in general. It was a little awkward towards the beginning of the internship but that’s just kinda how it’s gonna go with a group of people who are mostly just meeting each other for the first time. I really like the dynamic now though, and I feel like I could talk to just about anybody in the internship, TAs included, for a long time.