Day 13 (counting skills on point)

My previous assertion to finish analyzing the 15 Gough Map chips today was not fulfilled. Regardless, it was not a completely unproductive day, considering that I had spent the majority of the morning as a test subject for an RU's music experiment. John (the RU), Cici, Emily, Allyse, and I had trekked out into the oppressively warm outdoors to seek out a rare, piano-containing room far, far away. Once we reached our destination, we spent a few minutes (or maybe an hour) tuning the violins and picking out the best violin/player combo for the experiment. John recorded us playing different notes on the violin and piano simultaneously. Later, he will attempt to separate the instruments in the recording and determine the notes played by each using some complicated method of his. This experiment also doubled as a start to our internship orchestra. Next stop: Carnegie Hall.

The lunch cookout was quite a messy experience. First, we found ourselves lacking a proper watermelon-cutting knife and had to resort to plastic knives and Cici's Swiss knife. Barely hindered by our lack of resources, I skillfully cut the watermelon with the Swiss knife and have decided to pursue a career in the food industry (McDonald's?) Meanwhile, the watermelon soaked through about 80 thin paper plates. The lunch mess continued with a frenzied scenario in which a giant bug dropped into the ketchup on my plate and only moments later, a gust of wind blew the plate of ketchup right into Cici and me, covering our arms in ketchup. The mess was unbearable, and maybe kind of funny, but we figured it was a good enough excuse to skip volleyball practice for the day.

And now I will talk about actual important things, like the Gough Map. I got to chip 14 out of 15, and I am making an achievable goal for myself to truly finish all 15 chips on Monday. I also look forward to separating the different inks (original/revised) on the entire map, which is our next project, along with the Mexican codex.

At the end of the day, we began to speculate on each of the intern's future. I will be interested to see which of our predictions come true.