What a great week it has been in DC! Unbelievable to think that there are only four weeks left here. This week we continued to explore, participated in an unique game night, and did more data analysis!

Last Friday after work, we went to visit the United States Botanic Garden in DC! It was so beautiful in there as we walked around different rooms to see so many different plants! We even got to try fresh honey produced by the bees from the garden and it was extremely sweet (too sweet for me)! We learned a lot about how chocolate is made into the kind we eat and also the temperature/humidity that was maintained in each room for the specific plants. Once we did that, we took a quick stop to the United States Capitol building. From the steps, you can see straight down the mall, all the way to the Lincoln Memorial. It was crazy to think of how much you can see of the city just by standing in one spot.

Although both of those places were beautiful, my favorite thing by far that we did this week was participate in ASL trivia night! This was a huge Deaf culture immersive experience for us. We got invited by other students to go to trivia night and once we arrived, it was clear that everyone knew everyone…except for us. It was as if the entire Deaf community in this area showed up to trivia night at this restaurant. It was so crowded, everyone was excited to see everyone and play trivia. In the past, we have learned about these kind of events and how they are a big deal to the community because it gives them a chance to all come together, but I never expected it to be as popular as it was. It was so amazing to see how crowded it was…we did not even get a seat! We had to rely on our knowledge of ASL to understand the trivia questions. Although it was tough, Maura and I were happy we went and even got some questions correct!

This was the ASL trivia night. As you can see, there were so many people watching the two people on the stage sign the trivia questions!

As for research, we are making great progress; creating tables, connecting literature to our variables, and beginning to write. Stay tuned for my blog next week to see how our research brief is going!