First news from JSC

Hello from Johnson Space Center,

We get the honor of having one of the first blogs. Even though we only arrived earlier this evening and afternoon, friendship has already begun its root-growing process. Some started the process of traveling Friday as they drove(a whole long nine hours) to the hotel. Others had an early morning flight sporting the wide-awake time of 4 am. This brought them to a layover and a divine message of needing a frappacino from Starbucks. This is because as one of them walked through one terminal, she saw 8 of the coffee shops. Short turbulent flights later lead them to a heat wave of humidity. The bonding between the six high school students started immediately as the numbers grew with arriving flight.  After a brief walk through the heavy air and an interesting tollbooth, we were off and riding toward the hotel. Everyone can attest to the fact that the navigator is always right and never loses service or makes up roads and turns. The hour drive from the airport to the Staybridge Suites Hotel only helped this bonding.

When we got to the hotel, everybody was in for a big surprise! We were treated to very nice suites with awesome views. After we unpacked and got settled in, we rushed down to the Orion room for some pizza! (The boys took more than a couple of leftovers back to their room for midnight snacks).  We had orientation where we were introduced to the people that are very vital to our success in the INSPIRE program. We have 6 residential interns and 16 pre-college interns participating at the Johnson Space Center this summer. We were split into the residential intern group where we went over all the rules, regulations, and schedule. Highlights include working at the best NASA Facility in existence, watching a Major League Baseball game, visiting museums, and many other fun educational activities. We are now prepared and know the manual from front to back. We spent several hours socializing and having a blast. This includes going swimming, playing putt-putt, getting attacked with beach balls from 6 year-olds and figuring out that we needed a few items from Wal-Mart. Some picked up several items to stock our kitchenettes while others searched for the hiding detergent. Everyone finally found their needed items and we embarked on the journey back to the hotel. Luckily, we are very subtle and planted the idea of SONIC into our driver's heads. We purchased some cherry limeades, watermelon slushes and ice cream while baking in the heat of the night.   

We agreed to be ahead of the game and write our wonderful blog on every Sunday night to ensure its timely posting each Monday. This blog finds us intellectually talking about current events, badges of identification, and politics, all of this, leading to more bonding. None of this is a problem because we are becoming pretty good friends. The only thing left is to get ready for tomorrow and get a good night's rest to ensure our full attention so we can squeeze the most out of this great opportunity. We wish everyone all the best where they are right now and in whatever endeavor they are doing. So, at this point in time, we can safely say, "Houston, we DO NOT have a problem."