Week 4 Journal Entry - June 20th - June 26th
Monday
Today I did some more typical organization tasks at my job. A storage space with my office is going to get remodeled soon after I’m gone, and I’ve been tasked with reorganizing the whole room and making empty space. It’s a bit tedious because I have to double-check everything to see if it’s important or not to throw away. But it’s nice to turn off your brain and tidy up something, despite it being my job it’s ironically a stress reliever. I also did some more exploring within the headquarters, which was a bit intimidating because it starts to all look the same if you don’t remember your route. Fortunately, I was paying attention to where I was going! Other than that, on the first day of the week, I was a bit tired from the weekend before, so I just headed straight home to relax with some coffee and reading.
Tuesday - Thursday
For most of this week, I stayed home and did telework because I came down with a cold. I went to testing and did at-home testing for COVID and I came back negative, but I still mostly relegated myself to my room. It was a bit of a scary experience waking up sick on Tuesday, thinking my internship is going to get essentially ruined by having to stay in my dorm doing my work, but I made sure to get some warm drinks in me, take some medicine, and keep cleaning my surfaces. And by Thursday, I was feeling back at 100%.
Friday
Today I had my CHCI programming instead of on Monday because we had the day off for Juneteenth. It was regular programming until we heard about Roe v Wade being overturned today. It was a hard blow to us as an intern class, full of progressive people, shocked by such a heartbreaking display of a lack of empathy towards the women of this country by the Supreme Court. We temporarily delayed our seminar to have a small talk between all of us. Once again, it was just pure shock. Everyone planned to go protest in front of the Supreme Court that afternoon, as did many other interns in the city. Later in the night, I went walking to clear my mind and noticed how empty the streets were, usually busy celebrating the weekend were practically lifeless. An eerie day to live in.