Playing catsup

Well our new Intersession - oh, wait, I mean, "Tiger Term™" -  has proven to be even quieter than I expected. That being the case, I have been able to check a bunch of things off my to-do list (and there was much rejoicing - yaaaaay). Among other things, I've sent in a proposal to a conference, made some headway with the designers of the new website, created a log detailing pretty much every outreach event that has taken place since I started this position (boy am I glad that I've been keeping up this blog), and finally finished backfilling the microgrants webpage.

Thankfully I got a little help with the microgrants from the student assistants in the main office, who I tasked with compiling title and PI information, converting all the files to PDF, and renaming and organizing the files according to a standardized directory structure. As with many projects, though, getting help is both a blessing and a burden. Although it saved me a notable amount of effort, the work was not quite done to my specifications; I already had to go back and ask for revisions once, and after that I kind of gave up and decided it would probably just be faster to finish it myself. So, adding everything to the webpage was partnered with confirming and updating nearly every entry. To top that off, as I mentioned before, organization was very poor to begin with. Many reports are missing (were they ever provided?), files were sorted into incorrect directories, some proposals and reports were not correctly associated, et cetera. Because of these issues, I still can't even be sure that this webpage is 100% exhaustive and accurate. But, it uses everything I've been provided, so I guess that means I'm finally done.

...Sort of. I still don't have thumbnails representing each awarded grant. Maybe I'll be able to task one of the new students in the main office with that (I originally asked the previous students to - twice). Though, I wonder how necessary that truly is? It may not add enough to the page aesthetically to make up for the amount of effort required.

Check out the webpage as it currently stands and let me know what you think.

And presenting my sidekick, Sr. Laboratory Engineer Matt!

Today was Palmyra-Macedon's 8-9-10 Career Day, and what made this event different for me was that I got to share the stage with my husband (and fellow Imaging Scientist) Matt! The format of the day was to have professionals present in groupings of similar careers. Imaging Science is so unique, however, that there wasn't really going to be anyone for me to share the spotlight with - which would have been okay, actually, but I thought it might be fun and more interesting if I upped the ante a little. I asked Matt whether he would be willing to go and talk about his job as a Sr. Lab Engineer at the UR Laboratory for Laser Energetics, and although he was a little nervous, he agreed. (I knew he'd do just fine, though - he talks about LLE all the time!)

I made us a Powerpoint presentation that we polished up last night but we also brought along the FLIR to add in a little interactive component (boy was it nice to have someone there to help me carry equipment!). We were given access to the classroom computer which allowed us to present our Powerpoint using the Smartboard, but we brought a separate projector for the FLIR (which was good thinking, because we wouldn't have been able to connect it up to the classroom projector). I wish I had remembered from my past presentations at Pal-Mac that their outlets are a little lacking (ah, yes, now I remember - I had several surge strips daisy chained together last time - sshhhhh), but we made do with what we had.

Our Powerpoint was basically an overview of Imaging Science, with our intertwined stories of how we got into it and what our experiences have been, what our subsequent careers are, and concluding with a brief demo of the FLIR. It was going to be tricky though, because the sessions were only 40 minutes, and that's a lot of material to cover. I was especially unsure what to expect since I was sharing presenting duties for the first time, and Matt admits he doesn't have a lot of practice. Still, I knew that no matter what, we'd be fine.

It's a good thing I went in with such confidence, because what do you know but our presentation froze half way through the first session. I was more glad than ever that we bothered to lug in and set up the FLIR, because while Matt fixed the classroom computer I started the demo. Although in the end it meant that our presentation was interrupted, and we didn't get to finish it, it was useful for me to see how the overall flow was impacted by breaking up the presentation with the FLIR. Despite our awkward flubs, the students were good sports and were well engaged (especially with the FLIR, of course). We did get the presentation back up and running, but like I said, we didn't have time to go over the remainder of it in as much detail as we had intended.

For session two, we sped up our delivery of the Powerpoint to make up for time constraints. Even so, we definitely hit our groove after having gotten the first one out of the way. Our presentation had a nice back-and-forth with the two of us, and told a nice story (if I do say so myself). Matt did a really great job presenting and I was proud to share with him. However, I think it was a disadvantage to put the FLIR off until the end. Just as the students were loosening up with us, our time was suddenly over. It even worked out perfectly that the student I picked to go in front of the camera because he was wearing glasses, was also wearing a knit cap, which threw the other students off on a red herring. Ha-HA! Although we got through all of our presentation and were able to spend a few minutes with the camera, ultimately we ran out of time.

It's nice that we only had two sessions, because even after that I am totally exhausted. Though, more opportunities would have been welcome too, especially since Matt and I were getting our routine down. Overall, I think it went really well. The students were all really well behaved (even without other adult supervision present! Impressive!), attentive, and engaged. I even had a number of them come up to me after it was time to leave to make sure they got brochures to take home. In the end, I'm very happy with how the event went, and I would definitely do it again (and hopefully convince Matt to join me again, too).

I would change the flow of the presentation, though - I would probably change the order to be ImSci overview, career info, FLIR demo, and then the rest of our backstories. I had thought about doing it that way (especially because I normally put the demo in the middle, for loosening-up reasons stated previously), but because of the career-focus (whereas my presentations are usually more science-lesson oriented) I decided to do something a little different. Now I know better, but even so I think things went really well and I'm glad I tried it the way I did. Here's hoping we get to do this again in the future so I can put my lessons learned to good use!

I wish I had a corresponding image for today - especially because Matt was up there with me - but unfortunately we were too busy (either presenting, or fixing the computer) and there weren't teachers in the room with us, so we didn't get any pictures :-(

42nd annual Science Exploration Days: Day 2

In my previous post I detailed Science Exploration Days (SED) and the public event. Today was the portion of SED designed for middle and high school students. We were told we would be seeing upwards of 1500 students over the 3.5-hour event, so thank goodness I was to have student volunteers helping me again. But could I trust them to show up on time and actually help me set up? Well luckily setup was less of an issue, since we were able to leave almost everything securely in the Fisher gym overnight, so all I took with me was the FLIR. There was, however, going to be food before the event again which I was counting on; and thanks to a MASSIVE traffic jam (what should have taken me 40 minutes took AN HOUR AND A HALF), I had to hope that someone would be there to help me so that I could grab my breakfast and not turn into Cranky Bethy again.

Well, by the time I got there, there was one student helper. Yep, one. And not one of the ones who had been so late helped out the day before. In fact, the two returning volunteers (who carpooled) left their car lights on overnight, so they needed a jump. And they apparently waited a long time for it. And apparently the security person helping put the leads on the wrong way. And then, since that whole debacle took so long that they missed the free breakfast, they decided to take EVEN LONGER by stopping to get Dunkies on the way. Seriously?

Ranting aside... I did make it in time for breakfast, so really I wasn't that cranky (once the traffic jam road rage cooled off). The one student and I set the booth back up just in time for the first wave of students to start trickling in. Thankfully our booth was far away from the entrance, so there wasn't too much traffic before the other volunteers showed up to help.

Day 2. Our collage of example pictures stuck onto the projector screen keeps growing.

And when it rains, it pours... before long we were in super production mode. Mobs of students passed by and wanted their pictures taken. Every one of the 4 of us was occupied trying to keep up with the crowds. While there were some students that got into it and wanted to experiment, most of them felt too rushed, or simply wanted to use our exhibit as a glorified photo booth. Then there were the students who didn't care about anything, they were just there because they wanted a day out of school. The event that seemed like it was going to be the gold mine recruitment-wise ended up not really turning out as such. As I teased in my previous post about Day 1, even though we got exposure to a great number of students today, the quality of that interaction was not nearly on the level it was last night. Because of the volume of traffic and rush of the students, there wasn't enough time to explain much about what it was they were seeing, much less anything about what Imaging Science is. But, at least our CIS stickers were on the back of the pictures they received, so maybe one day they'll see that and decide they want to look into us more.

Meanwhile, at one point early on I glanced over to my left, and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but... ANOTHER FLIR?! Someone else totally showed up just today and was stealing our show! One of the students, who is far more curious than she is shy, decided she would go and talk to the exhibitor to find out what the deal was. Apparently he has exhibited a FLIR in past years, and wasn't aware that we would be there with one, especially since he wasn't there last night. At least he admitted that our camera was better than his. Also, we had a printer and he didn't.... BUT, the way the traffic pattern was in the gym, all of the kids who followed the exhibits in order would see his before they rounded the corner to ours. Suddenly we were old hat copycats! But it didn't really matter, because with the crowds as they were there were more than enough students to go around, and it's not a competition anyways. Besides, it wasn't his fault (though maybe the organizers should have said something, so as to reduce redundancy - but maybe all they were concerned about was getting as many exhibitors as possible).

During one slow time, one of the students and I went on a little excursion and visited the creatures at the Ward's Natural Science table...

Tarantulas!

And snakes!

And millipedes - oh my!

And.... hissing cockroaches.... okay.
Just kidding, apparently they make great pets.

How could we possibly compete with living creatures that you can actually PLAY with? Oh, right, it's not a competition... And anyways I got my brief play time with them too so that's cool. (Did I ever mention that my parents' first date was to Wards?) Meanwhile, I wonder how well those animals deal with thousands of kids manhandling them all day. I hope they're okay.

When all is said and done, the official tally for the number of students in attendance was 1554. Wow! So in terms of pure volume, this was probably our largest outreach event of the year (not including Imagine, which is not strictly outreach focused).

At the end of the event, we were treated to a fancy and delicious lunch. With llamas.

Yeah!

All in all, a fun and hopefully-effective event. THANK YOU to the students who helped out, to the event organizers, and to everyone who came!

42nd annual Science Exploration Days: Day 1

Yesterday and today compromised the 42nd annual Science Exploration Days! SED is made up of exhibits and seminars all about science and technology, aimed at middle and high school students. Although Joe has participated in the past (but not recently), this year I was going to be an exhibitor for the first time! This was particularly exciting for me because I visited SED for many years when I was a kid, so I was looking forward to being on the other side of the table and giving back.

My general plan for a CIS exhibit was to set up the FLIR thermal camera and its accompanying printer, similar to what we did at the RMSC last week. Once again I lined up a few student volunteers to come and help me out (if it became busy; or to keep me company if crowds were sparse). This approach is both a blessing and a curse: students are way fun and super helpful, but they are also unreliable sometimes (sorry, students, but I've worked with you enough times to observe a pattern). Luckily I'm used to doing events alone and being self sufficient, but that doesn't help when you have tons of equipment and materials to carry and no one ends up showing up to help you load and unload your car and since you get stuck doing it by yourself it takes twice as long as expected and by the time you've just gotten everything to your table and someone finally shows up to help so you have a chance to go get dinner the food is ALL GONE. (In case you couldn't tell from that irritatingly long run-on sentence, I missed the free dinner I was counting on; and when Choate gets hungry, CHOATE GETS CRANKY.) Not cool.

Anyways, Thursday night of SED features just the exhibits and is open to the public. This is the part I went to when I was a kid. Things started off a little slow so at first it was mostly us playing in front of the camera...

...while some random guy is there. The whole place is empty, but that guy manages to be right there.

Our setup. They gave us two tables, which ended up being really handy, except for the fact that we only had one nice tablecloth.

So, a few days ago I scraped myself in a few places. Can you guess the location of one of my scabs?

Before too long, some families started showing up.

And then the guy from IS&T started taking over our shtick.

Dinosaur RAWRs in visible light...

...and in thermal IR.

Oh shoot, did I lose one of our students?
Oh no wait we found her, hiding crouched in that trash bag over there. NBD.

Then we found out what happens when you put a balloon in front of your face.
Scientific experimentation XP + 1 

Thursday night's exhibitions ran from 7-9PM, and reportedly attracted 214 children and adults. Now, we had a fabulous time (definitely better than last Saturday), but I have to admit I am disappointed by that attendance. The place should have been PACKED! Maybe I'm just remembering things differently, but I could have sworn that when I was a kid, this event was full of people and you had to wait your turn to shoulder your way in to see a table (especially a table as cool as this one was). Where was everybody?! Don't you like science??!? No wonder we have such a difficult time getting kids interested in STEM. It made me sad when I drove home past the huge "FREE SCIENCE SHOW!" signs out in the front of campus. Doesn't anybody care? (I care...)

Anyways, this isn't to say that I am disappointed in how last night went. Actually, I thought it went splendidly. The families were all genuinely interested, and the level of interaction was excellent. There were many parents encouraging their kids to interact and ask questions, and most parents got involved, themselves. We were able to explain the science behind what they were seeing, and kids experimented with the items we had at the table. I think there was a lot of value in the public display, and I'm encouraged by the learning that I witnessed taking place. There may just be hope, yet...

Meanwhile, today was promised to be the busy day, with Jr. and Sr. high schools sending in busloads of kids. But is volume enough to make an event effective? I'll discuss that in my next post, about Day 2. Stay tuned!

That day at the museum that it was so quiet, you could hear Steve's lunch chirping.

Next up in the springtime outreach/recruitment frenzy was a Science Saturday at the RMSC (Rochester Museum and Science Center) today! I was first invited to participate in Science Saturdays last fall, and it was actually by mistake. A new coordinator had taken over organizing the series, and for some reason had my contact info on behalf of CIS. I had actually never presented as part of the series before (at least not in my current role; I did help out at one when I was an undergrad about a million years ago...), so once I passed on the e-mail to the Insight Lab (who I assume the e-mail was intended for, as I know they participate regularly) I seized my chance. The dates they were hoping to have me in were either May 4 or May 11, and since the 4th was ImagineRIT, I gladly accepted 5/11. Well... you know what else is 5/11? The first Saturday of the Lilac Festival. Oh.

Now, I didn't realize the significance of this until, oh, 1 o'clock this afternoon. Why? Well, to put it plainly: RMSC was a ghost town. I couldn't believe it. You mean there is a SATURDAY that you can go to a science museum and have the place to yourself?! Under any other circumstances, this would have been a dream come true - but given that I was there for outreach, well, this dream turned out to be a nightmare. Okay, that's being way over dramatic; actually, today was pretty awesome. I just wish we could have shared it with more people.

Anyways, the plan was to set up a table with the FLIR, some objects to interact with in front of the camera, and the printer so that people could take pictures of their IR-selves back home. I asked for a screen to project onto and instead was given a huge plasma TV, which made me nervous because I wasn't sure whether I would have the right connections, but it ended up working just fine and looking superb. (Now I just wish I didn't bother lugging the projector around.)

For a while it was just me and Phil. And by that, I mean, JUST me and Phil. After a half hour or so the rest of the students who had volunteered to help showed up. Thank goodness, because if we didn't have any general public wandering by to entertain, we could at least entertain each other...

...which then at least started attracting some other people who wanted to see what all the cool kids (I'm referring to us, obviously) were doing.

a-HA! She's gonna bite.

More takers!

Then things died down again, so Chris and Phil went off exploring while Jess, Jon, and I held up the fort. Then we got a txt saying that Chris and Phil were stuck in an obstacle course...

..so I took this picture of them, then left them to perish.

I came back and the same group was still there, but this time they put one of their kids in a trash bag.

Classic.

Then there was a squirrel.

Then it was Jess's and my turn to go off on an adventure while the boys (who did safely make it out of the obstacle course eventually) manned the table. First we found a FLIR hidden up in a quiet corner on the top floor.... awwwwwo. Our display wasn't even unique anymore. (Why didn't anyone tell me?) Then we wandered into the Carlson Inquiry Room (obviously we should go there, Carlson being CIS's namesake and all) and inadvertently ran into Lauren from Alumni Relations, who also works at the museum. She gave us a special personal mini-tour and introduced us to the animals that kids who do birthday parties there get to play with. (WAIT - kids can do birthday parties there??!? Is there an age limit?)

This is Steve.

Jess with the corn snake (sorry I can't remember her name), who I caught with her tongue out.

Corny getting fresh.

When we got back to the table, there was only a half an hour or so left before our time was up. I was hoping for a mad last-minute rush, but it never came - especially because the weather was ever-improving, meaning even more people would go to the Lilac Festival instead. All in all, we probably saw around a dozen groups/families throughout the day. Unfortunately, the kids that were there for birthday parties were only interested in presents and cake, so they never even stopped by; and many other people just passed us by without even looking on their way from the mastodon to the rock climbing wall. I was shocked that the attendance was so light (note to self: in future, patronize museum on first Saturday of Lilac Festival), but I am still glad that we participated. At least WE had a lot of fun! And the fact that I had a bunch of students help out and that they didn't feel like they wasted their Saturday sets a really good precedent. Hopefully when they share their experiences it will encourage more students to get involved in outreach, and with any luck we'll foster a culture of giving back to CIS (and actually being a part of the Ambassador Program!).

HOT or NOT?

Today was the annual Science Fun Day at Hilton QUEST Elementary School! This was my second time participating, the last time being two years ago. (For a description of everything Science Fun Day entails, click that link.) Since I presented to students from two grade levels previously, I took a year off so that I wouldn't be a repeat show to any kids.

This time around, I had a better idea of what to expect out of such young students. I dumped the ipad presentation I included last time that showed other examples of thermal imaging (why did I ever think that was a good idea?), but added a space blanket to play in front of the camera with. Also, I didn't bring the printer, because it is a pain to lug around and takes up too much time to print pictures. I also took more precaution ahead of time with regards to my location - last time I was in a small library room that had no chairs, so kids just sat on the floor. Not only was this awkward, but they didn't want to get up to get in front of the camera, and the room layout was dangerous because they were forced to step over cords. So when I saw that I was going to be in the same room as last time, I politely asked that I be assigned a different room that had chairs and more room to move around in. It seems like a trivial detail, but I think it made a huge difference in the overall dynamics of the presentation. And as a bonus, the room had a sink and paper towels, which came in very handy (you'll find out why). I don't remember what I did as a workshop description last time, but somehow I inadvertently scored a home run with this year's title: "Hot or Not? See the Invisible! Scientists can use special cameras to be able to see what's invisible. You can find people in burning buildings, injuries in animals, and maybe even ghosts! Find out what you look like in infrared!" - For some reason, the kids thought the name was really awesome. Your guess is as good as mine as to why this was so popular, but I'm just glad it got the kids excited before they even knew what they were in for.

I started off my presentation with a question: "Who knows how rainbows are made?" After briefly discussing that, complete with kids proudly reciting their ROY G. BIV's, I tried to get kids to think "outside the rainbow". In an effort to get them to make a connection between rainbows and infrared/ultraviolet (which at least have parts of their names that sound like colors), I asked, "Does anyone know the names of some colors we can't see?" The answers to this question were hilarious - Green! Pink! Brown!? CLEAR! Okay, I admit it's kind of a misleading and inaccurate question, but most times someone would eventually get to IR or UV, or if they didn't I would get a bunch of "OHHHHHHH YEEEAAAAAHHH"s when I gave the answer. Although the scientific accuracy of my segue into teaching about thermal infrared could be disputed, it seemed to make a useful connection for the young students (much better than my old ipad slideshow ever did).

This time around, practically ALL of the kids wanted a chance in front of the camera. We played with ice (with no whiny complaints like last time, I might add), looked at mixing hot and cold water, saw the difference between plastic and metal as heat conductors, and of course checked out the space blanket, a trash bag, and glass in front of the camera. In every session, the students were so interactive that we easily filled the entire 35 minutes (so it's a good thing I didn't bring my printer, anyways). This time around I totally resonated with the students as if I actually knew what I was doing. Not only were the kids engaged, but they were quite intelligent, too; it's funny, often times I am disappointed in high school kids when it comes to their scientific knowledge and reasoning, whereas these 5th and 6th graders really impressed me with theirs. To be honest, there wasn't a huge difference in the types of answers I was getting to the questions I posed... But then these kids would remind you how young they are when they'd do things like lift up the garbage bag they're in so they could see, and would then say, "Oh yeah! I can see myself!"

In what seems to be a new trend, I had TWO students dump full containers of ice water over their heads! Hence why the paper towels came in handy.
This time I finally got a picture.

Does this picture terrify anyone else as much as it does me?

All in all, today was a blast. And apparently the kids loved it, too - I've been told I was voted a "fan favorite"! And here I thought Bubble Mania was a shoo-in.

Greece Career Exploration Day 2013

Today was the 5th annual Greece Apollo Athena Career Exploration Day! See what I did there? Well, things were a little different this year, since Greece has restructured its schools and Apollo no longer exists. Since one of our principal players is now at Athena, this year's event was planned for 8th graders from that school. On my end of things, the shift represented little more than a name change, except for one other significant difference - we were up to 100 students attending! (Meaning: each of my two groups would be around 50, versus last year's ~25.) This is great since we're reaching more students, but would groups so big turn out to be too hard to handle? Well, I wasn't too worried since historically this event has always been one of the smoothest.

This was my fourth year leading the Imaging Science workshop (omg, have I really been here that long?), and each year I wonder how the kids can possibly outdo the class from the year before. This event consistently brings me the most enthusiastic and engaged groups, who always surprise and impress me with one thing or another - one year there were kids asking me for autographs, one year the kids were so excited to interact with the camera that I couldn't even finish my presentation, and last year brought a whole new level of interaction with the integration of Twitter into the presentation. What could possibly happen this year to top all that?!

As usual, the kids did not disappoint. Both of my groups were incredibly interactive, relaxed, and FUN. They intelligently answered questions, and were raucous without being disruptive or disrespectful. I think part of the success of the event is due to the fact that the teachers get into it, too. (Even though one teacher got so into it that he spoiled part of my routine... but that's okay, I gave him a hard time for it and the students liked that.) In fact, when I got to the part where I hypothetically suggest that I dump my entire vessel of ice water all over whichever student is in the hot seat, one of the teachers said, "Go ahead!" I responded with, "I'm not sure what this says about your school, that your teachers are suggesting I drench one of your classmates with ice water..." which was met with boisterous laughter, but then the kid actually goes, "Yeah, I'll do it." Well, alright then.... and he ACTUALLY DID. (Why didn't I get any pictures of this?? I guess I was just too shocked.) I have never had anyone do that before!!! So, way to go, Athena 8th graders 2013 - you have managed to outdo all of the previous classes. (Except maybe the one that asked me for autographs... that was pretty exceptional.)

Just look at the faces on these kids.

Another highlight from this year was this one student in the front row who was obviously the class brain. He would raise his hand for EVERYTHING - to answer every question, to volunteer at every opportunity, literally everything. After the first couple times he proudly answered my questions, I started to say, "Okay, can anyone else answer besides him?" and he would anxiously sit there waving his hand, wanting me to call on him. When it came to the FLIR, I promised him I'd give him a chance, but I told him he had to wait because I had a plan for him. Even so, his hand would shoot up every time I asked for a volunteer - so every time I'd have to say, "Anyone besides him?" and he'd let out a little disappointed, "Awwo." It became a running joke after a while, and he was a really good sport. I wish I could get kids like that all the time... we had a good schtick going.

Anyways, the day overall went better than I can even possibly describe here. Because of their energy, enthusiasm, willingness to interact, and impressive intelligence, the Greece 8th graders hands down are my favorite group to host all year. They represent the ideal audience - they are smart, fun, respectful - and my presentations to them always go smoothly and exactly how I would hope them to. Actually, scratch that - these presentations usually exceed my expectations. My first presentation went so perfectly that one of the teachers told me that I "have a gift", and suggested that if my job ever falls through that I should seriously consider being a teacher. Wow,

Thanks to things going so well this year even with the school change, we have another whole group of teachers and administrators that are now convinced of the value in offering these important opportunities to students. In fact, a school board member was there and made sure to come up to me after the presentation to tell me how much he enjoyed it. What wonderful feedback! I look forward to hosting Greece Athena again next year, and with any luck, having more events such as this one in the future.

UPDATE 5/7/13: Survey results are IN! I will let them speak for themselves:

# of students who completed survey = 93

Imaging Science Workshop:

• 92 out of 93 rated the workshop as either good or excellent
• Common suggestions: Most said it was great and/or their favorite part, the content was easy to understand for most, and they especially loved the infrared camera experiment, a few said that would have liked even more "hands-on" activities

Information Technologies Workshop:

• 72 out of 93 students rated the workshop as either good or excellent
• Common suggestions: Really liked seeing the drone, would have liked more "hands-on" interactions such as using computers, more specific examples of how this science could be applied

Tour of campus:

• 92 out of 93 students surveyed rated the campus tour as good or excellent
• Comments: Would have liked a drink/snack/bathroom stop before tour, would have liked to see more of the sports facilities, liked seeing the art, statues, and fountains, really enjoyed waling around and seeing the students and campus

Lunch at Gracie's:

• All 93 students surveyed rated the lunch as excellent
• Comments: Many said the lunch was their favorite part and that the food was amazing, they enjoyed the experience and would have liked even more time in the dining hall

Overall rating of the experience:

• 92 out of 93 students rated their experience as either good or excellent
• Other suggestions: Some students said they would have liked a chance to "buy stuff", to make college students more involved in the experience, and to see a college class
• Comments: Students said it was "fun and educational", they were "thoroughly impressed", and they wished they could have stayed longer, 91% of students surveyed said either "yes" or "maybe" when asked if the experience had opened their eyes to potential job opportunities

What wonderful feedback from the students! Except for that one kid - there is always that one kid that wants to rate everything but lunch as bad...

UPDATE 5/21/2013: We just received the following wonderful note from one of the organizers in Greece (please excuse the impending shameless plug - to be fair, it's not a shameless SELF plug, since I did not write it...):

"For the past four years Greece Central School District has been sending a group of eighth grade students to RIT for a Career Exploration Day. The purpose of the program is to expose our accelerated Math/Science students to potential careers in the STEM fields. 

Through the generosity of RIT and the School of Imaging Science we have been able to bring over 300 students to RIT to learn about the field of Imaging Science, as well as a couple other programs. Throughout this time our follow up surveys overwhelmingly show that the Imaging Science presentation is their favorite part of our day at RIT, with the exception of lunch at Gracies of course! I wanted to be sure to let you know how invaluable Bethany Choate has been to the success of this program. Her ability to interact with our kids has been key in getting our kids involved in the presentation. It's not easy to hold the attention of up to 50 eighth graders in one room. Every year our teachers comment on her ability to keep them interested and participating. This year we had a member of our school board attend and he sought her out to thank her for the terrific job she did. I also wanted to let you know that without Joe Pow's help this program up may not have gotten off the ground. He was at our initial meetings and has given us tremendous support. 

I also want to share some very good news with you. The first group to go through the Career Exploration Day at RIT is now graduating high school. There were 72 students that attended the first program and eleven of them have applied to RIT, with seven of those kids applying to either a Math or Science program. 

Thank you for your terrific staff!"

I am particularly excited that we are able to start measuring the impact this program has had on these students, now that they are getting old enough to graduate high school! Perhaps I should make it a goal this coming academic year to reconnect with the students I saw back in 2010 (note to self)...

The day I put up a picture of a Mars Rover and someone excitedly yelled, "It's Wall-E!!!"

Today I participated in a college visit for a group of kids from Pennsylvania, whose day also included an admissions overview, tour of campus, and presentations on engineering, liberal arts, and art options here at RIT. Imaging Science was their last stop for a 45 minute demo with the FLIR. Having just done Workforce Innovations a week ago, I was all warmed up and ready to go today. Unfortunately, today was just not destined to be a slam dunk.

First of all, the group was supposed to consist of 50 tenth graders; however, we got an email notice that only 15 showed up. Everything was still to go on as planned, just with a diminished capacity. This didn't really have much of a negative impact on me (in fact 15 students are much easier to handle than 50, although they are not the best ROI effort-wise) other than that presenting the in huge Carlson Auditorium was going to look pretty silly now. The auditorium is exactly what you want for 50 kids, and exactly what you DON'T want for 15. But, no biggie.

I have no idea how the day went for them before getting here, though I can guess that they were pretty tired and worn out by the time I got them. They slowly and reluctantly filed into the auditorium, and were hesitant to sit near the front without some encouragement from who I can only assume was a chaperon. (In fact I couldn't tell who the chaperons or people in charge actually were, which always makes me very uncomfortable. I am happy to give presentations, but I can not fill the role of being the authoritative figure. I do not have the power to control kids when they are misbehaving, which luckily is not usually a problem... [spoiler alert!])

I started out by trying to make some small talk and ask some questions to better understand my audience. Turns out they were from grades 9-12, not just 10th grade. They were from the same school, however. They had ridden in to Rochester on a bus that morning, and were driving back down after my presentation (sounds like a long day). The chaperon-ish guy thought he was really funny by saying they had "walked" when I asked how they got there. Thanks, man.

And with that encouraging start (though I didn't let it get me down!), I went ahead with my presentation. It wasn't long before some girls in the front thought it would be okay to get chatty. The stare down technique didn't work, nor did cleverly hiding the fact that I knew what they were doing within the context of my presentation work. Finally I had to completely stop what I was doing and ask the girls to please stop talking, it's really not cool. The chaperon-ish guy then kind of took note and reminded everyone there to be respectful.

Clearly this was effective, as after a few minutes one of the girls shifted gears to texting on her phone. So, when I needed a volunteer to get in front of the camera, I called up "my texting girl here in the front," to which she replied, "What? Who's texting?", and tried to cleverly slip her phone into her sweatshirt pocket. Seriously? "You, I watched you texting and see you slipping your phone into your pocket right now. Come on, don't try to pull one over on me like that." And she just giggled as if the whole thing were just silly and she wasn't actually guilty of anything. I wasn't angry, but I did want her to feel a little embarrassed about acting rude and childish. I think it worked... Either way, I was able to at least embarrass her (harmlessly) in front of the thermal camera. So, win.

After this the chaperon-ish guy was more vigilant about observing the kids' behavior. He tried to call out another girl for texting but she said she was taking pictures of the thermal camera on her phone. Well.... okay. Some of the kids were interactive and good players, but for the most part I wasn't feeling much interest from them. Still, I will give them the benefit of the doubt and assume their lack of enthusiasm had to do with being tired and it having been a long day. I got through the rest of the presentation cheery as can be, but inside I was struggling. Most of the time my job is an absolute joy, but this time it was more like hard work. I put my heart and soul into every one of these presentations, so it stings a little when I can't get through to a crowd. Am I to blame? Is there something I could have done differently? How much of it is my fault?

The strangest part came at the very end, when it was time for them to leave and I quickly wrapped up. I gave concluding remarks, told them how to get in touch with me, and even announced, "The end!" And they all just sat there... Was I so good that they all wanted to stick around and hear more, or was I so bad that they were all more or less unconscious? Never mind, don't answer that.

Don't get me wrong - I will never give up, and sometimes the toughest audiences are the ones who need this the most, or really appreciate it just without expressing as much. Also, I truly appreciate every opportunity I get to speak with high school students, and I'm still very glad I was invited to participate in this visit. If anything I said today inspires someone, amazes someone, surprises someone, or excites someone about science, then my work was a success. Bring it on.

Workforce Innovations 2013

Today was the 7th annual Workforce Innovations conference here at RIT (and my 4th - wait, really?! - time participating). The format was like any other year: upwards of 100 high school students descend upon RIT for a keynote, two workshops, and lunch at Gracie's. This year's Imaging Science workshop had a pretty good number of students signed up, with 16 in my first group and 19 in my second (second greatest numbers of any workshop, only behind Hospitality). I'll take it.

This year I went back to my usual presentation with the FLIR minus the twitter component I introduced last year. Even though it kind of worked, to be honest, I didn't have the energy for it this year; nor did I have a helper to monitor the tweets like I've had in the past. While it is unfortunate that our Twitter account didn't get as much attention this year, I don't think the lack of Twitter negatively influenced the experience had by the audience. Not only that, but I don't think that last year's inclusion of it had any lasting impact beyond the day-of. The students never interacted again, save for the one bright spot we had by way of a student saying he was going to apply for the summer internship - which in the end never panned out.

So, back to the normal routine. And that's pretty much how the whole thing went - entirely normal. Just like in past years, I had a mixed experience. My first group was meh, alright; my second group was fantastic. It is strange how two completely different experiences can be had in the span of one morning. But like I've said before, the makeup of the audience presents a challenge (if you're not sure what I mean, check out some past posts). Although, I did enjoy seeing the niece of a good friend of mine, who had no idea what I do and it was total coincidence that we crossed paths today.

The good news is I didn't have anyone blatantly talking, texting, or sleeping (except for one of the chaperons... way to set an example) during my presentations. And the even better news is I did have one student who said he is already coming to RIT in the fall for Engineering Exploration, and he really liked what he heard today. I strongly encouraged him to ask about the freshmen class and he seemed excited about that, so hopefully we'll see him in the fall!

Looking forward, I think I will make the suggestion that we shorten the length of the workshops. One hour just seems to be too long for these kids... No matter how enthusiastic they start out, they seem to fizzle around 40-45 minutes. This makes sense, considering that most schools have class periods of about that length. I don't blame the kids at all. I wish I could stretch out the interactive portion of my workshop to fill more of the hour, but it too would get boring after a while. So I'm not sure what the ideal solution is, but I think shortening up the workshops would be great (for us at least). If you have any ideas, please, leave them in the comments!

All in all, I think the conference went well. (Oh, except for the one student volunteer who didn't show up to guide my first group to me from the keynote...)

Planning and Preparation FTW

Wow, today was one of those crazy hectic days that really call for a huge sigh of relief when they are over. But thanks to some careful planning, I am happy to blog that everything went smoothly.

The day began with an accepted student coming in. This student has actually visited before at about this same time last year, but wanted to visit again so that he could sit in on some upper-level classes. I planned out a whole day for him that included meeting with students, sitting in on two upper level courses (DIP and radiometry), meeting with someone to discuss military and intelligence applications of imaging science (his particular interest), lunch on campus with a group of students, participating in the Freshmen Imaging Project, and a tour of the dorms with one of our students who happens to be an RA. Phew! It took a bit of coordination but I am happy to report that we showed him a fantastic day. He is a great student with a lot of potential, and his interests and personality are a perfect fit for Imaging Science. I really hope he decides to come here, as he would be a great addition!

Concurrent to this visit, we also had our first intern interview. I had mentioned in a previous post that one of our out-of-state applicants expressed interest in interviewing in person, so I wanted to make sure I planned a day's worth of interesting activities to help make the long drive worth it. After meeting with me for a bit first, this intern applicant met with the first of his two preferred labs. Afterward he too sat in on the freshmen class, and I hear the students put him to work. What better way to get involved than to actually get hands on? Following class he had his second interview, after which I gave him a personal tour of the whole building. After the tour his dad came to pick him up, and as it turns out he is an imaging science alumnus! Roger Easton (with the office across from mine) happened to walk by and was was excited to run into him, so he then took the applicant and his dad down to his lab to talk about what he does. I hear this ended up being a great impromptu meeting and resulted in heightened interest from the applicant in yet a third lab! This is a little extra treatment and attention than most intern applicants get, but then again he put in some extra effort to come here, and we wanted to make sure his day was fulfilling - plus this helped us to reconnect with an alumnus. Although there's no telling yet how this whole thing will fare for the applicant regarding the internship (since he is the very first interview), I hope that overall he enjoyed his visit regardless. And now I will refrain from commenting any further, since I don't want to introduce any possible bias into the intern selection process that I try my absolute best to remain independent from. (Although I will go ahead and independently point out that this potential intern had a totally rockin NASA jacket that was covered in Apollo mission patches. Yeah, I'm way jealous.)

In the end, a great day! I hope to see more of both of these visitors in the future (hopefully as students)!

Good times with the freshmen class.

I thought I was the Big Shot around here.

I have just returned from the first official CIS participation in the RIT Big Shot! For those who are unfamiliar, each year the RIT School of Photographic Arts and Sciences coordinates and produces a long-exposure photograph whose only source of illumination is handheld light (flashlights, camera flashes, etc.) provided by volunteers. The process is called "painting with light", since volunteers move their lights around like paintbrushes to illuminate the whole object evenly over the length of the exposure. The resulting photo is striking and rather eerie, and achieves and effect otherwise not possible at night or with a typical long exposure. You can view a few past examples and read more of the history here.

Although the Center for Imaging Science (now housed in the College of Science) grew out of the school of Graphic Arts and Photography (now Photographic Arts and Sciences) way back when, there has never been an "official" CIS component to the annual Big Shot tradition. Various CIS'ers have participated as volunteers, sure; but the show really belongs to CIAS. This year, it was decided to get more involved - and so CIS was going to add a 3-D reconstruction to the Big Shot repertoire, something that (to our knowledge) had never been attempted before. And what a year to do it, as Big Shot #28 was to be of the biggest subject yet attempted by RIT: Cowboys Stadium!!

I first heard about this a few months ago when I was asked whether I thought there would be value in going for outreach purposes. There was the potential for interaction with high schools, presenting to a photo society filled with high school-age photographers, and other various avenues to reach out to prospective students in an area not very familiar with RIT. Besides, there is always a huge media machine surrounding the Big Shot, especially for #28 since it was to be in an unfamiliar area yet would require the greatest number of volunteers so far. With all this press for photography at RIT, we could hope to attract those science and math-minded photogs through the Imaging Science 3-D component. That sounded good to me, and hey it was worth a try (it was about time, in fact), so I was on board.

So, how did it turn out? Well, I have to say I have mixed feelings about my personal participation. I flew down last Thursday morning, in preparation for a seminar to be given to high school students. The presentation was to consist of history and information about the Big Shot, with a brief introduction to the 3-D reconstruction theory and an even briefer introduction to CIS. I must admit, I was hoping for a little more stage time than that, but it didn't matter anyways. Why? Because nobody. showed. up. Nobody. Letters were sent out to 150 schools. Arlington Camera (a store that apparently has a lot of pull in the area schools) also had an announcement to help promote the talk. Plus whatever other media whirlwind the organizers had going on.... Nobody showed. Wow. This was a major blow to me, as this seminar seemed like the most relevant event for me to be there for. This was the only educational component that ended up materializing, out of all the outreach I was hoping for, and even it didn't actually materialize. (Maybe because it was buried in an auditorium that was difficult to find on a college campus within what seemed to be their athletic center? But that's besides the point.) At this point I started to feel an overwhelming sense of guilt - why was I there? What useful function would I be serving? I couldn't help feeling like I was going to result in a disappointing return on investment, and I started blaming myself. Maybe I should have looked up some schools to try to visit on my own (though getting into schools is hard enough to do around here with schools I actually have a relationship with). Maybe I should have tried to help with the organization and promotion of the talk (though I have no idea how I could have done that - but maybe if I pushed the organizers harder?).

At this low point, I decided it would be my role to promote the heck out of CIS's participation in the Big Shot. The remainder of my week/end was to be spent following the 360 Team (as the 3D CIS folks dubbed themselves) around and documenting their every relevant move. The CIS Twitter and Facebook were going to see a rate of updates unlike any they had ever experienced. Anybody who cared to follow would get a detailed play-by-play as if they were there and part of the action. And that is what I, Senior Associate of Outreach and Communications, was going to bring to the table. That's enough to make the expense of sending me to Texas all worth it.... Right....? :-\

You never would have known no one was at our talk. Unlike my brutally honest blog, I make sure to only highlight the positive when I'm posing as CIS online.

And the Tweeting frenzy begins.

Friday was basically a free day (thus intensifying my guilt even more), though I had been told we were invited to tour Cowboys Stadium in the afternoon along with the RIT CIAS crew that was arriving that morning. Matt and I (oh yeah, did I mention Matt was there too? He tagged along- on our own dime, for the record) went off and did our own thing, but around 4:30 I cleverly posted a status about being a part of the tour, since I assumed the rest of the 360 team did go....

The infamous update... You'll see why.

6:30PM rolls around and there is a "planning dinner" scheduled that we were definitely supposed to be a part of, so we rendezvous there but no one had shown up yet. A bus-load of who was obviously RIT art students (no, I'm not reinforcing stereotypes... they were all wearing matching shirts) started spilling in, but I still didn't see my fellow CIS'ers. Eventually they showed, and the first thing I hear is, "Well, we hope you enjoyed the stadium!" To which I scoffed because I didn't want to go, anyways. Turns out they saw the status update and thought that Matt and I were there (a-ha! My plan worked!) - and they were jealous because they were told that they were not actually allowed to go due to space constraints, and they were wondering how I weaseled my way in. Now, this story is different depending on who tells it, and I have no idea what the real story is since I was not a part of it nor was I very privy to any of the organization - I am only repeating what I heard. But that was pretty awkward. Are we welcomed to be a part of this, or not? I already felt like enough of an outsider, since my role had been reduced to following the 360 team around; but now they were feeling like outsiders, too. Were we even supposed to be at this dinner? Jury's still out on that one, since it did turn out there weren't enough seats for everyone...

Anyways, at this dinner they had something like 50 or 100 or what seemed like an endless stack of posters, which we were supposed to each sign and pass along assembly line-style so that at the end of the Big Shot we'd all receive a souvenir poster with everyone's signature on it. This made me feel like even more of an outsider - nobody knows who I am, or why I'm there, and why would they care about my signature? I'm not a part of their crew... I can only imagine how Matt felt. We started out each only signing every other one and using the name "Mathany" to encompass us both - who would know the difference, anyways - and that way we each only had to do half as much work. The exercise was tedious, and the insignificance of our participation did not escape us, so our signatures dwindled down to instead saying "That Guy", and then eventually to nothing as we stopped signing altogether. So if you happen to see one of these posters and wonder who "Mathany" or "That Guy" was, the secret's out. I can tell you, though, one place you will not be seeing one of those posters is in my office. I never ended up receiving one. Guess that serves me right.

At any rate, the dinner was delicious, and the venue was interesting and seemingly authentic. There was a cowboy band that would play at regular intervals, and people would go out on the dance floor. The Big Shot crew of course took advantage of this many times, and also made sure to publicly embarrass various CIAS heavy-hitters as often as possible. They also snagged the microphone at one point to promote the Big Shot and encourage everyone to come out the next day. (I don't think the wedding reception also present was very happy about having to share the spotlight.) Meanwhile, Carl went down a slide.

On top of feeling like a loser outsider, I was disconnected from pretty much everything as I was trying to keep the tweets coming and also to get the video of Carl on the slide posted to the Facebook page (which you would think would be easy, but it's not. How many Imaging Scientists does it take....). I found a respite from my discomfort in that the 360 team was peacing out to go do a final nighttime test shot, so obviously I had to go with them to document this on social media. However, I was presented with a new discomfort in that, despite being in Texas, it was only like 45º and none of us had brought appropriate clothing for the surprisingly chilly weather. Not only that, but I didn't have a whole lot to contribute besides the status updates, which was killing me inside because I wanted to be a more useful part of the team. I am an imaging scientist too, of course.... Sigh. Is this what it feels like to be a Roadie?

Saturday was to be the big day. There was some promo event in the morning at Arlington Camera, but although I was told about it I wasn't really invited... so I guess it was just a Big Shot show, and I didn't want to step on anyone's toes. In the afternoon I was slated to man a booth at the Art on the Greene festival, who had donated table space to us. The weather this day was particularly unattractive... Misty rain in the morning, chilly temperatures, and incessant wind to boot. Oh, and did I mention that Art on the Greene is an outdoor festival? Great...

At least our booth had a wind screen.

Throughout my 3 hour shift, I was only visited by a handful of people, and they weren't really that interested in hearing what I had to say about the Big Shot, much less RIT and even less so Imaging Science. Whenever I asked, "So, will we see you tonight?" every single person said no. Every. One. Excuses ranged from blaming the weather to saying they already had plans. We did at least get some attention from a well-intended, seemingly homeless guy who kept bringing various vendors from the food trucks over to the booth to tell them about how cool the Big Shot was; but they were all working the festival until 9PM so they couldn't come out to participate anyways (but they did keep offering us discounts on their food....). Adding to my frustration was the fact that a plea for help had been sent out to many people to volunteer for this event, and only three people (and that's including me) stepped up. So not only did we not have multiple people at the booth at once, we had to each take longer shifts. And the most miserable part of all was that it was SO COLD. Thank goodness there was a U2 cover band that seemed to play endlessly so that I could dance around in place to keep myself warm without looking totally insane. Meanwhile, could you really blame people for not wanting to come out for the festival (or the Big Shot that night, for that matter)?

At the conclusion of my shift, I went to rendezvous with the 360 team in case they needed anything. They didn't, so I took what spare time was left to go to a store and pick up some leggings to wear under my jeans and a blanket to snuggle in for later. After sitting out in the cold wind at the festival for three hours, I was chilled to the bone and didn't want to take any chances later when we were going to have to be outside again. I tried to also buy gloves (which seems so silly, coming from the cold white north... I should have brought some with me to begin with) but apparently no one in the entire state of Texas sells any (why would they need them?). We returned to Cowboys stadium with a bag stocked full of flashlights, blankets, cameras, and various gear (including a solar-charged battery that did indeed end up coming in handy when my phone started dying - Can't let the tweeting stop!!!!) and headed in for the Alumni Reception.

Welcome to the STAR CLUB

The Reception was pretty cool - we had the whole stadium to ourselves, and the main event was in the swanky "AT&T Star Club". I realize this is probably the only opportunity I will ever have to be in such a place, especially with no one else around, but... meh. I don't care about football in the least, so, this wasn't really my bag. (Apologies to all the football fans out there who are no doubt infuriated about my lack of appreciation.) The food was very, very excellent, though. To my knowledge there were no ImSci alumni there; in fact, the reception seemed to be mostly the groups who came down from RIT, with just a few TX alumni sprinkled here and there... So the 360 team sat at a table by ourselves in the back like the high school outcasts at lunch, and just like the night before I made my escape by joining them for early setup. However I again felt awkward as I did not have much to do, so I spent my time posting pictures and wandering around looking for something interesting to take pictures of. I spotted this guy walking in with a ridiculously over-the-top setup, so I followed him in to take his picture. Well, turns out he wasn't all set up yet, and since I was polite enough to ask if I could take his picture he roped me in to helping him get all his rigging together and equipment hooked up and on and on, which took upwards of 20 minutes or more. You're welcome... Finally, I snapped a picture -

What can I possibly even say about this.

- and although it was blurry, someone else started asking him about his setup so I had to seize my chance to skeedaddle out of there. At this point it wasn't long before the first shot was supposed to go off, so I headed over to, well somewhere; really I wandered around among the select 12 photographers helping out the 360 team like a lost puppy, in case someone wanted me. I settled near one who used to be an imsci student (hooray! someone I know!) and readied for the first shot. I already gave a pretty detailed play-by-play on Facebook/Twitter, so I won't bother repeating myself...

For complete coverage, visit https://www.facebook.com/RITimagingsci

During the first shot, I hid behind a transformer in the parking lot and took pictures backwards of the crowd painting the stadium with light. These pictures didn't come out that well, though, so for the remainder of the shots I joined the crowd and did my part to illuminate. This was a pretty funny experience - we had to wave our flashlights around while shuffling to the left throughout the duration of the exposure. It was a little disorganized, and not everyone was successful at waving their lights around randomly enough while avoiding the 360 team photographers in front of us and while shuffling, but whatever. There would be more chances to get it right, and in the digital age, there isn't really any possibility of failure...

During one of the shots, we left a camera standing to capture video of the stadium being painted with light - you can watch it here. (By the way, those 2-3 bright lights you see going perfectly vertically straight up and down the side of the stadium? Yeah, they're doing it wrong. Not to mention they kept going well after the "Lights off!" command was yelled several times...)

After 5 attempts, we were done! Or, at least, I was. The Big Shot team and 360 team all went to the Cowboys press room to scramble to get the images processed, while I went back to my hotel room to relax before catching my early morning flight home and to catch my breath after orchestrating the CIS social media frenzy. You wouldn't think it would be that hard, but it was exhausting. And, a little annoying - I was so distracted by constantly having to take and post pictures and updates, and felt so frazzled having to constantly predict and think of what to post next, that I hardly felt like I got to experience and enjoy the whole event. Anybody reading my updates was experiencing it just as much as I was, regardless of their geographical location.

Anyways, let's cut to the chase: without further ado, here they are, Big Shot 2013 and its 3-D reconstruction!

Addendum (May 8, 2013): Check out this article by RIT News all about CIS's involvement in the Big Shot!

"Nice ears"

So you may have noticed things have been a little quiet on here lately; I definitely don't have the number of posts in February as I typically do in a given month. That can partially be blamed on the fact that February is a short month, though the main reason is that I spent a week in Disney World! What! (If you follow me on Twitter, you probably know this already, since I tweeted about Howie Mandel complimenting me on my sparkly Minnie ears. It's a true story.) If you know me at all, you would know that I'm actually not a very big Disney fan (despite this being my second trip there in one year - but that other trip was technically a scouting trip for this trip... trip trip trip) but I was there to be in a wedding at the Grand Floridian resort, and there were several other events planned around it that stretched our trip into a full week. Okay, and I added on a day at the beginning to go to Kennedy Space Center (which was my absolute FAVORITE), and a day at the end to go to Universal Studios. Anyways, I'm not here to talk about my vacation but to give excuses as to my absence, so I move on.

Since returning, my time has been monopolized by all things interns. This Friday is the application due date, and what do you know - the applications are pouring in. As are the e-mails, phone calls, and personal visits... Right now, I basically serve to accept applications, answer questions, and give people directions how to find me. We don't have that many applications as of this moment, but with the amount of communication I've been getting, I expect a lot more to come flooding in in the next 48 hours.

Amongst the chaos, I've also been helping coordinate more shooting for the freshmen class video, planning upcoming alumni events for DC and Boston, prepping for the Big Shot in Texas in less than a month (which a small group of us is participating in this year), wrapping up a new undergraduate promotional brochure, and coordinating with the folks behind Science Exploration Days so that I may participate this year. Sooo, if you don't hear from me for a while.... I'm just a little busy multitasking. And while I'm still dishing out excuses, I might as well admit right now that the winter issue of the Imaging Connection which would normally be out right around now definitely won't be ready in time, or even anytime soon. Oh no! So that's enough blogging out of me; I've got a lot to do and better get to it!

The longest run-on sentence ever, caught on tape

Well, not on tape really, but "caught on card" doesn't have the same ring to it. But anyways, I'M ON TV!!! I haven't been home yet to actually witness it (since I've been here since 6AM) but the video has been posted online. CHECK IT OUT!!!11!11!1

So why have I been here since 6AM? The interview was scheduled to take place at 6:30, I guess so that the video can get the most exposure. Needless to say, I am exhausted. But it was so worth it! Apparently I was originally going to be interviewed live, but the reporter's baby sitter fell through so she couldn't actually come in. So, the cameraman did the basic interviewing, with questions like, "What are we here to talk about today," and, "What do the interns do," and, "So you were an intern yourself, right?" I got asked probably 7 or 8 questions in all, and I'm glad it didn't end up being live because it probably took me 3 takes just to answer the first question correctly and get comfortable in front of the camera. For all the experience I have from my years in radio, video is way different than just hearing my voice (and besides, no one was listening to my show back then anyways).

Anyways, from the whole interview they used one answer, which I think might have been one of my longest stream-of-consciousness statements EVER. But hey, it sounds okay. And the segment overall was really, really good - they said the Center's full name nice and clearly, and included all the important details without leaving anything out. I'm really happy with how the piece turned out and am excited to witness the buzz it will generate.

Man do I make doofy faces. It's like when The Soup features a clip, and then displays an incredibly unattractive single frame image from said clip in the background while they make fun of it.

Meanwhile, I've enjoyed my little taste of stardom. I always loved being on the radio and those videos I did for ETC (Remember when this happened? Maybe not. I didn't have the blog back when filming occurred and I don't think I ever posted about it once the videos came online... whoops) were way fun to be a part of. I love doing this kind of stuff! (moar plz) Some people say I'm pretty good at it, too, but hey I'm not one to brag... very much. Just doin' my job (the best job ever!)