NRL
The never ending joys of working at the Naval Research Lab always amaze me. Strategically placed on the Potomac River, it is sandwitched between two of the most charming of the District's landmarks... National Airport and Blue Plains. Blue Plains is not a wildlife refuge with miles of bluegrass or anything like that.
It's a sewage treatment plant
So as I complete the ten minute walk to my lab from the NRL main gate (they don't recognize my ID at the North Gate and that's a whole other story) I can be seranaded by the planes flying low overhead and be charmed by the delightful odor emenating from the sewage tanks next door. Admittedly this isn't so bad, it could be worse. I could be interning at Blue Plains instead of beside it and to be honest, my building is nearly the farthest away from the plant of all the buildings on the grounds. However, when the stench permeates even into our windowless third-floor office it's hard to convince myself that I'm exactly lucky.

The only thing to do is to keep repeating my mantra of the summer:

It's going to get me into a good college
It's going to be a good line on my resume
They pay's not that bad
It'll be over soon

And best:

I don't have to come back next year
I don't have to come back next year

Just another day
The other intern in my office has fallen asleep. This has become a twice-daily ritual for him especially after lunch. Sometimes it takes over half an hour for one of the researchers to realize that he's asleep. sometimes they wake him up and tease him other times they just roll their eyes and continue on with whatever teir doing. I for one don't mind at all. It makes me look like a better intern, not that it really matters. Oh well, at least he doesn't snore.

Silence is suffocating at times. Time hangs like lead round your neck as you slowly trudge towards the end of the day.
Tick
Minutes feel like hours. Hours feel like eons.
Tick
The hands of the clock move at a snail's pace around the clock's face. No, slower. You wonder how anything can possible go that slow.
Tick
You sigh and try to drum up some enthusiasm. But it's hard when you're in a beige fantasy office where everything is carefully neutral and inoffensive and totally bland and there's yet another task to work on sitting on your desk. A task that's far from exciting.
Tick
Ever notice how tasks can s t e t c h to fill the time alloted. How you can drag them out so that you don't have to find out what the next one is?

To the Void
You may be wondering why exactly I called this what I did. I think of it as a modern version of a message in a bottle. When you throw the bottle out into the water you don't know where it's going or who will read it once it's there, but you're sending something out and, maybe, somewhere, someone will read it. It doesn't matter if anyone ever does read it, all that really matters is that you've sent it out and there's a chance that someone will. And so, I write here not for anyone who might be reading, in fact, no one probably is, but for myself. So I send my messages out to the void.

My completely frustrating, entirely aggrivating internship
Actually, let me rephrase that. It's not the internship itself that is completely frustrating and entirely aggrivating, in theory it's a fabulous opportunity to expand my horizons, earn a little cash and get a nice line added to my resume. However there is one insey-weensy tiny problem with this truly wonderful staple of summer activity, MY MENTOR. In theory your mentor is a kind, benovelent sage who bestows wisdom to you from on high on whatever project you happen to be working on. They know all the answers to all of your questions and are always there to answer them. That's why they're called a mentor right?

I'm not naive. I don't think that the ideal actually happens to nayone, or at least anyone I know. But couldn't I have gotten a better one? Does anyone (well, aside from Bush) really deserve this sort of punnishment?

I come in on time. I'm not rude or obnoxious. I don't chew gum with my mouth open making loud smacking sounds or continously drum dagger-like fake nails on my desk. I don't even have dagger-like fake nails to drum! So why does he torture me so?!

I'm sick of his assignments. I'm sick of the way he seems totally incapable of conveying what he wants me to do in a way that I can follow what he's planning. I'm sick of his constant badgering to join his beloved Toastmasters Club. And I'm sick of feeling guilty over being sick of his faults becuase underneath it all he's a sweet guy who is just very inept at handling interns.