Life Algorithm

Week 10… wait, what?! July 18, 2012

This is the 10th week of my internship – where’d the past 70 days go?!

As most people are in the same boat, it seems we’ve all kind of dedicated ourselves to finishing up our projects so this past week has had more casual events with people. I think this is also in part because a lot of us won’t be back until more than a year from now, so we want to spend as much time just relaxing with the friends we’ve made in our time here.

This past Thursday was intern day of caring. I’m guessing about 900 interns participated in the event across 6-8 different locations. My group decided to go to Mountains to Sound and clear up blackberry plants from the area. It turns out that the area we were clearing up used to be farmland – when it was given to the state it fell out of care and invasive blackberry plants started growing all over the land. The plants themselves aren’t so much a problem, but rather the fact that they prevent trees from growing close to the edges of the river. When trees grow near the edge of the river they provide shade which keeps the river at a much cooler temperature, which is suitable for salmon to swim in and thus promotes the preservation of wild salmon. It’s crazy to think of how the most seemingly far-removed things can be connected!

On Saturday a big group of interns headed to Golden Gardens beach for a bonfire. There were smores, guitars, volleyball, frisbee, awesome people, and an absolutely gorgeous backdrop surrounding us. I tried taking pictures, but they didn’t quite capture the gradient formed by the layers of mountains fading behind mist and the tinted flares of the sun reflected on the ocean.

That night I had to go to bed early, however, because the following day was the intern Mt. Rainier hike! Even though it’s July, there was still a lot of snow accumulated – the snow literally started at the beginning of the trail we followed.

I had never before in my life seen that much snow – considering the most northern place I’ve lived in during the winter is Atlanta! I also got to sled down hills for the first time in my life, which was ridiculously fun – almost makes me wish I’d grown up in a place with snowy winters until I remember that

• I was wearing two sweaters during the hike and I was still cold
• I spent half the hike trying to figure out how to walk in the snow; the other half was spent trying to figure out how to slide with my feet on the snow.

Pictures to come soon!