THE HUNT 2012 THE HUNT 2012 THE HUNT 2012 THE HUNT 2012

It's also that time of year again - THE HUNT IS TWO WEEKS FROM TOMORROW!!!!11!!1!! (Wait, what the heck is the Hunt? Also see: http://youtu.be/AUDh0y3Thzo) And, I can get so excited about it this year, because there is actually an ALUMNI TEAM! Yes! I am thrilled to see this happen, because I tried 2 years ago when I was hunt mistress to get an alumni team going, and it totally fizzled. But this year, the interest was there, and now we're going strong. We have a secret Facebook group (shhhhh!) where we've been plotting and sharing ideas. There are even alumni ordering bribes on Amazon and shipping them to me to give to the hunt masters. Stay tuned - This is going to be epic.

Meanwhile, we've taken advantage of one of the huntmasters' bribes not only for advance notice of items on the list, but for our own amusement, MUAHAHA. Huntmistresses Nadya put "Wash my car" as one of her bribe items, and sent out an email to everyone saying that she was going to leave her car in 20 minute parking at 1:30 today so that any interested hunters could wash it, if they were so inclined. Well, the alumni ALL STARS★ team decided we were going to up the stakes a little and let everyone know, the game has begun:

Extra, extra! Hunt 2012! Major upset! FRESHMEN TAKE IT ALL!

Here we are for a rare Saturday posting... Why?? TODAY WAS THE HUNT!!!!11!!11!!1!!!

Why all the excitement? Only because this is one of the best days of the year. One that I have been leading up to for weeks now (in case you missed it: here, here, aaaaand here). One that, now that's basically over, I don't know what to do with myself. Hunt time is the best time.

So, how did it go? I can't even express how ecstatic I am. We had a great turnout: teams for freshmen, 2nd years, 3rd/4th years (neither classes are large, especially since most of this year's seniors already graduated, so they combined), and alumni (where were YOU, grad students?!). I'd like to think some of this is because I have been going around for weeks trash talking and trying to get everyone pumped up, but it probably doesn't really have that much to do with me. Either way, I don't care - I am just glad to see the Hunt restored to its past glory.

One thing that has broken with Hunt tradition, however - THE FRESHMEN WON. Say whaaaat! Two of the oldest rules of the Hunt are 1. The team who bribes the most wins the most and 2. Freshmen can't win. The only legends I have heard of freshmen winning was when all the other videos were SO horrible that there was no real competition. Usually, even if freshmen deserved to win, they weren't allowed to. But not this year! Since when did the competition become FAIR?

Sanctity aside... Okay, the freshmen totally deserved it. Their video was amazing!!! But there were definitely other major highlights: the 2nd years got one of their members to run through Tora Con as the sexy sax man, 3rd/4th years did an impeccable Kodak-themed parody of the angry Hitler video, alumni staged a top secret op to foil Dave Kelbe's office again... I don't envy the judges at all. What a phenomenal year - and hopefully the start of many more great Hunts to come.

Check out the complete results, awards, lists, and videos here!

2012 Interns: Day 1, Part A - The title of "Best Interns EVER" may be in jeopardy.

I know I've said a few times that last year's summer interns were our best ever (not considering my own tenure as an intern, of course), but after today I think they've got some pretty stiff competition! We had a really awesome time with the 2012 interns on their first day today, and I can't wait to see what's in store for the rest of the summer.

The day started off a little quiet and nervous, but before too long we broke the interns into three groups (The Newtons, the Edisons, and the Eastmans) to compete against each other in the third annual intern version of the Hunt. I was happy to see the groups eagerly and enthusiastically venture off into the vast space that is RIT's campus, but got a little worried when, two hours in, a lot of the interns seemed to be struggling to find much of anything. Oh boy. We all gathered back in the Reading Room at noon for pizza and to relax before the groups would get down and dirty with video processing. Similar to past years, not a single kid in there had ever used iMovie to make a video... One team thought ahead and started their processing while they waited for the pizza to arrive, and the rest followed suit once they were done chowing down. I set video viewing time for 1:30, even though I knew none of the groups would be done by then. Sure enough, 1:30 rolled around and they asked for 15 more minutes. 1:45 rolled around and, while they THOUGHT they were ready, none of the groups had actually exported their videos to transferable files - and one group even LOST their project! (They ended up resurrecting it from the Trash; don't ask me how that all happened.) We judges took the time to get started on paper plate awards for the teams, since we were already seeing categories worth recognizing, such as: the "I'm ready! Oh wait, no I'm not..." Award, the "My video got trashed :-(" Award, and the "First ones done!!! (...but still late.)" Award. Finally, around 2, it was SHOWTIME!

First up: The Edisons - Whoa. These guys set the bar pretty high. They got a ton of the mystery items and threw in a bunch of special effects - someone managed to figure out iMovie just fine (and went overboard, if you ask Joe). I appreciated that they really made use of their resources and the fact they they kept reminding us that they were good interns for doing so. 1,000 bonus points for finding Zoran, and then jokingly calling him their "NON-helper (with an accent)". You can watch the video on intern Denise's blog.

Looks like someone sacrificed video quality for a quicker export time... No wonder they won the "First ones done!!!" award.

Next up: The Eastmans - They led their video by saying it was dedicated to me, so that right there earned them 2,000 bonus points. And then their video totally delivered - tons of hunt items (which they interacted with/presented incredibly well), great production value, and interspersed clips of me awkwardly waving which obviously made it that much better. You can watch Team Eastman on intern Kyle's blog.

Taking advantage of traditional Hunt bribery and appealing to my vanity.

And lastly: The Newtons - A.K.A. the Kaila show, because she seemed to be the only one willing to get in front of the camera. Bonus points for team member introductions at the start of the video and for Kaila dropping the dictionary thesaurus. This team got a ton of hunt items too! I'll post a link when I get one.

Final verdict, after much deliberation: Eastmans take #1 (overall best production value), and Edisons and Newtons tie for second/last (losing points for extraneous FX, and not enough team member representation, respectively). We also awarded a Crowd Favorite AKA "Biggest Mouth" Award to one of the teams (since they won basically by cheering most loudly for themselves).

Overall, the videos TOTALLY blew us away! I couldn't believe how many items all the teams got and how well produced their videos were. Sorry, 2010 and 2011 interns, but these guys totally owned you!

Next up, Part B- Scandal!

Hunt 2012: Bring It On

Nuff said.

This video covers almost 10 years worth of various Hunt highlights from members of the Alumni ALL STARS★. I'm getting excited - 1 week (and a day) left!

Hunt 2012: Call me, maybe?

Speaking of Huntmisstress Nadya's bribes, another one was to make a version of Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" music video (though she didn't specify whether it should be the official video or the Justin Bieber/Selena Gomez one). Using a combination of new videos we quickly shot yesterday afternoon and a bunch of clips from Hunt years past, the Alumni ALL STARS★ are pleased to present this masterpiece:

And with that gem, I'm off - I'm on vacation for a few days! See you on the other side.

2012 Interns: Day 1, Part B - The party's oooooverrrrr...

So after the great fun of the videos it was time to actually get to work, RRRRR rrrrrrrrr (sad trombone noise, obviously). So we took the group around and dropped them with their respective labs - so long as there was someone there. Although a few labs were ready and waiting, a few others were unprepared, or didn't tell us where to find them, or just plain weren't there. This was really frustrating for me, because it was a lousy first impression to make on fresh interns, and made the Center as a whole look pretty unorganized and just plain bad. The interns who didn't have anyone to meet with ended up going home, and it was only 2:45. And the interns didn't appreciate this much either - a few of them noted in their blogs that they were annoyed or disappointed. In all fairness, in the case of one lab, one person had to leave early while the other was stuck in a meeting; so that was totally understandable, and some of that lab's interns stuck around until they could meet. Though, there were two interns who stuck around for another reason... they had no lab to meet with anymore.

You know I don't hold back, so here's the basic truth: One lab asked for two interns, and at the end of last week decided they actually could not take them anymore. They were too busy with other projects to be as hands on as they would like, and they didn't want the two interns to suffer with a poor experience because of it. (To be fair, this lab typically does go above and beyond to provide an excellent summer for its interns, which has definitely made for great experiences in the past and is much appreciated by everyone; and it would indeed be a shame to only provide a portion of such an experience.) So basically, we had to see if we could figure out something else for these two interns to do all summer, with pretty much one day to figure it out.

Although we were able to come up with one opportunity over the weekend, I didn't feel satisfied that it would give these two interns what they wanted to get out of their summer. A lot of kids are just looking for a fun experience and some coin, but I got the impression that these two in particular were also looking for something to give them a head start on their future career; and I didn't feel certain that what we had in mind would do it for them. So, while the interns were all out on the Hunt, we were scrambling behind the scenes trying to find more research options. Surprisingly, there were a number of people eager to take on interns even at the eleventh hour, and they were downright excited at the prospect! It was a lot of work to get everything coordinated, but in the end we had three options to present to our two lost interns.

I was really really worried about how the two would react - Would they be really upset with us? Would they accuse us of a bait and switch? And, worst case scenario, would they end up wishing they had done something else for the summer? Luckily, none of these were the case. While the two interns looked a bit worried and uncomfortable at first, after some discussion (and strong assurances that this was not a reflection on them in any way) they each picked new projects that they were both very interested in. We told them they could sleep on it, but they were both confident about which new projects they wanted to do, and in fact seemed pretty excited to get started (or maybe that was just relief that they weren't fired or in trouble for some reason). Either way, they each got to meet with their new labs, who were likewise excited to get started with them. And we breathed a big (but still nervous) sigh of relief.

This was all super stressful, but I think it's all going to be okay. We are committed to doing everything we can to make sure ALL of our interns have a fun and meaningful summer, and doggone it we will make it happen!