Katie Day 8-Mobile Meal Plan

Today I toured the other half of the Interfaith Food Shuttle building: Meals on Wheels. Cary Academy has also partnered with this organization, which delivers hot, nutritious meals to seniors who cannot safely create meals for themselves. My mentor Ms. Karkare delivers food on a route every Friday, so she was happy to give me a tour of the building. The food is prepared every weekday in a big, industrial-sized kitchen not unlike Cary Academy’s. Then, volunteers pick up the meals to be delivered on a route. The whole operation takes over 2,000 volunteers to run every month! mow

Inside the Meals on Wheels kitchen

Katie Day 7-What’s Your Day Like?

Today I sat in on a mock consultation between Ms. Karkare and my mom. I experienced the work of an outpatient dietitian firsthand and got a glimpse into the process. First the dietitian asks the client about their lifestyle and diet on a normal day, and then will give advice accordingly. I learned surprising things from the consultation, like that it’s best to eat a salad with oil and vinegar so the body can more easily absorb the nutrients of the greens. I also learned that sleep is so important to the body, even when it comes to controlling cravings and allowing the body time to naturally detox itself. So next time someone tells you about the latest juice cleanse, let them know that all they need is a good night’s rest!

Office Space-Day 6- Wednesday

Wednesday was a day spent mostly in the office. It allowed me to get some blogging done, as well as explore the ncleg website and do more bill summaries for the lobbyists. The website ncleg.com has everything on it to understand and track the state government. On the home page, you can listen to the Senate and House chambers and hear people speaking on all sorts of bills, they even have it archived so you can listen to arguments on recent bills that you are interested in. They have a calendar that shows every bill and amendment that is coming up in the next couple of days or has been done recently The bill pictured above was surprisingly controversial and important during the house session. It attempts to terminate the contract between the government and the people that built the toll roads and maintain them. This seems ok, tolls are annoying, but it would prevent any new roads from being built for a long time. With no specific revenue coming in for the construction of new roads, it would take almost thirty years under the current budget structure to set aside the amount of money necessary to build a new road. With such a sharp increase in population and thus road congestion in NC, we sort of need new roads.

Day 7- necks, necks and knee

Today I saw lots and lots of neck injuries. So, today I got to watch a lot of working on the notes in the neck in order to relive the pain. However, I did see one knee injury today. She had surgery on her knee and she already had full extension in her knee. Today the physical therapist was working on the bending of the knee. Instead of the regular extension exercises that the patient was normally doing she was instead doing exercises that worked on the flexibility in her knee when she would bend it. (Sorry there is no picture today because there was nothing I could get a picture of that didn’t have a patient in.)

Day 7: The New Reality is Virtual Reality

Today we were able to experience virtual reality! Caroline, a student from Cardinal Gibbons, also joined us today for our internship.We started off by learning about the history of virtual reality and seeing the project that John, our mentor today, was working on. He was trying to build a simulation for forensic scientists to be able to learn how to use a certain machine that would separate strands of DNA by length. We then sat in on a meeting with some very prolific people in the field of forensics from Texas where John showcased his project.

Us in the conference room for the meeting (Caroline is in the middle):

Jonathan observing the meeting with the project project behind him:

Then, we got to go experiment with the “Oculus Rift” Virtual Reality technology which was really cool. We were able to actually build a virtual world by creating blocks and moving them. It was awesome technology that we learned will soon be implemented into normal life and homes everywhere. Types of virtual reality devices are already available to the public such as “Google Cardboard”.

Jonathan with the “Oculus Rift” headset on his head, and him creating blocks in the virtual world:

A video of me using the “Oculus Rift” headset:

Being able to use the virtual reality technology was a great experience, and I hope it becomes popularized enough that we start to see more of it out in the real world soon! – Kiran W.

Day 6: The Journey of Granite

Today, Grace and I continued our ongoing battle against huge binders and papercuts, but we also got to delve even deeper into the company workings. Charlene, the accountant and right-hand woman of Vandana, explained how the granite gets from the quarries in Brazil, Italy, India, and China all the way to the warehouses at each of CRS’s four locations (Virginia Beach, Raleigh, Charleston, and Austin). First, CRS contacts suppliers in these foreign countries, who then ship the materials in containers to Norfolk, Virginia. Then, the slabs are trucked either here, to Virginia Beach, or to Charleston. There, they’re placed on display in a warehouse, where customers who have been in contact with fabricators (companies who actually install the granite into houses) come look at the slabs and tag the ones they want to buy. After Charlene explained how the granite gets to the warehouses, we took a tour around back and even got to see a bundle being unloaded with a forklift and chains. Next, we got to shadow Brittany, who was helping a customer choose slabs of soapstone. She explained that there are price ranges for each type of granite, from A-E, where A is the least expensive, and E is the most! After that, we continued our filing and invoicing jobs and called it a day!

-Khushi

A type of granite called “Fusion” which falls under the E price range and can cost as much as $80 per square foot!

The company mascot, Fedo, looking a little sleepy after a long walk around the building!

Quail Ridge Books, Music, and Interns

Today I was at Quail Ridge, a somewhat famous regional independent bookstore known for music, literary fiction, and good Southern writing! I spent a lot of time talking with the store’s owners and employees about what goes into book ordering, point-of-sale systems, and shelving. I also got to talk with their children’s manager, Nancy, about the store’s Teen Advisory Board: a group of teens who review and read YA titles, meet YA authors, and do all sorts of cool stuff!

Day 6: 112 Liters of Smelly Pee

Today was disgusting… all we did was transfer human urine from gallon milk jugs to graduated cylinders to giant containers so that the urine could be filtered and sterilized. Eventually we had transferred and poured 112 liters of pee from place to place. It was utterly gross. Personally, I thought the pee smelled like wet dog food; however, some of the donor’s pee smelled way worse than that. At least we could pass the time and get our minds off of the scent with jokes made by the lab workers. It was reassuring to know that the lab workers weren’t super serious about human urine and could be quite humorous about the subject. It was also very humorous when the lab manager spilled pee all over Jonathan’s lab coat on accident, which down his leg and into his shoe a bit. It was very funny how comfortable they all were dealing with human urine

Me pouring urine from a gallon jug to a 4 L graduated cylinder:

Jonathan pouring urine from the graduated cylinder into the big jug (it is evident from his face that he is not enjoying it):

A total of 112 L of human urine:

I wouldn’t consider today really fun or informative, but I guess it was cool to witness how the dirty work gets done, and how essential it actually is to forensics. I will definitely not take this kind of stuff for granted again! – Kiran W.

Day 5: Using Drugs at Work?

Today we our first day at RTI working with the forensic science department. We started the day with a brief presentation on “Mass Spectrometry”, which is using a machine to identify drugs by separating them out of a substance by analyzing the unknown drug compound using its known molecular mass. We then got a tour of the labs and were able to actually use a mass spectrometer to identify certain drugs. We were able to identify drugs such as cocaine and codeine.

Jonathan pipetting a solution containing an unknown drug onto a transfer sheet to place into the mass spectrometer:

Then, we were able to go and use a very powerful microscope that was able to zoom in on individual molecules so that we could analyze their crystal lattice structures.

Me using the microscope to examine grains of salt (NaCl):

The enlarged grains of salt on a computer screen:

Overall today was a pretty interesting day and I got to learn some neat things about chemistry that I didn’t even learn in my ADV Chemistry class this year! – Kiran W.

Day 4: It made a lasting “impression” on us

Today was a very interesting day because we got to learn about different patients’ backstories, and one backstory in particular amazed us. Referred to as Carolina Ear and Hearing Clinic’s most interesting patients (at least by us), this patient came in for her hearing aid upgrade to a newer model, and we learned a lot about her during her visit. She was born fairly deaf – so much so that the first time that she heard birds chirping was when she was 45 years old! Thus, when she was younger, learned how to speak fluent English without ever hearing her own voice! She also passed nursing school only by reading lips! Jonathan and I were amazed. This patient was a very cool person to have been able to meet. After this patient, it was time for our lunch break, and the staff surprised us with pizza to celebrate our last day at the clinic! It was really generous of them to do that, which made us even sadder to leave when the workday ended. Before we left however, we were able to play around with some of the impression substance that the audiologists put in people’s ears if they need to have a custom hearing aid built to fit their ear.

Nicolle, one of the audiologists, demonstrating how to fill y ear canal with the impression putty:

Jonathan attempting to fill my other ear with the putty:

My ear canal with the impression putty filling it:

Me filling Nicolle’s ear with impression putty:

At the end of the day we were really sad to leave the office as we had such an amazing week interning at Carolina Ear and Hearing Clinic. It was one of my most influential experiences up to date, and I am so grateful that we had this opportunity! – Kiran W.

CA Work Experience Program 2016

DICE-ing in the Real World

cawep2016