CIS Fall Picnic 2013

Yesterday was the annual CIS Fall Welcome Back picnic! It seems like each year we try something a little different. A few years ago, we did an Imaging Bash-style event. Then we returned to a more laid back cookout event out in front of the building. Even that started to get a little stale (and difficult logistically since we didn't have tables or chairs), so we changed things up a bit this year and went off campus to nearby Black Creek Park. Apparently, many years ago (even before I ever got here), the picnic was always held off campus. Everybody - and I mean everybody, according to legend - went, had a great time, knew each other's names, played all sorts of games, and morale was at an all-time high. It didn't really seem to me like the last couple picnics fostered the same kind of environment... In fact, they didn't even feel like the picnics I remember as a student (oh no, am I really old enough to be reminiscing about "the good ol' days"?). So, taking things off campus was our first step towards rekindling the spirit that used to thrive.

Meanwhile, there were some grand ideas of also incorporating some sort of a field day/homecoming vibe, with teams and partners and competition and multiple events. Unfortunately, that was way too much for just li'l ol' me to organize on my own, so without any support this never really got off the ground. Phooey. Maybe another time...

Anyways, despite the change in venue, other traditions remained the same: cookout food, raffles, the trusty old PA system, and volleyball. However, now we had the benefits of expansive green lawns, places to explore, and tables and chairs! Also, we really lucked out with the weather (as it seems we almost always do) as it was a gorgeous day. I'm not sure which of these factors, or maybe it was all of them together, contributed to the overall success of the picnic; but we had upwards of 70 people in attendance, which is the most I have ever witnessed in my (million-or-so) years of being connected with CIS!

Does it get much more perfect than this?

My roles in the event were to help with the organizing, make announcements over the PA, control music, and raffle off some swag. Sounds easy enough, but this still took a surprising amount of preparation leading up to the picnic itself, and there was a fair amount of setup (and later, takedown) involved. Thankfully other people took on the responsibilities of the food and the volleyball net. Meanwhile, I may have gone a little overboard on the swag...

What was I thinking? There was enough swag there for every other person to walk out with something.

There was so much stuff to raffle off that I spent basically the entire allotted time of 4-6PM on the PA reading off ticket numbers, many of which no one claimed because they didn't actually bring their ticket, or they weren't listening, or they just didn't care. Sigh. This was one of those, "Why do I bother?" moments. It was exhausting (not to mention it prevented me from being able to eat, or chat, or participate in volleyball or kan jam). Anyways, I did things a little differently this time by having a bag full of paper slips that represented each item, so that when a winner was picked they randomly selected a prize. Seems like a lot of extra work, but it takes any blame off me when someone gets a prize they're not so excited about, so it was worth it for me. If I do any raffles next time I'll probably do them the same way. (Notice how I put that "if" in there?)

Oh yeah, and there was one other new thing for this year: the kickoff to our new microgrants campaign that I teased previously - or, well, sort of. The picnic was going to be the kickoff, but then just before Stefi was going to make the announcement, our RIT Development officer told us about ROAR day, during which all contributions between $5 and $50 are matched by five of RIT's upper administration. So... Stefi ended up announcing the campaign, but telling people not to actually pledge anything for another week, so the whole kickoff ended up being a lot less climactic than anticipated. Nonetheless, it is a secret no more: introducing, the CIS Microgrant, Major Impact Challenge. Actually, I suppose I'll tell you more about it some other time, since this post is already awfully long winded, and we don't want anyone participating yet, anyways. So... stay tuned, I guess.

At any rate, the picnic ended up being a smashing success overall. Some other highlights include Sue Chan and Roger Easton playing volleyball (have you ever seen Roger when he's had too much sugar?), running jokes about some students trying to play volleyball, and some children who ended up being better than pretty much all of us at volleyball. Also, two of this year's summer interns came, ate with the students, and joined in the games too, which was awesome!!!! Oh, and let's not forget Jeff Pelz running around the parking lot dodging moving cars and eventually driving off in his Mini. We didn't end up packing up the volleyball net until close to 8PM, and only because it was getting dark... I think that's a good indicator of how well everything went.

See more pictures (including some amusing raffle wins) here: https://picasaweb.google.com/RITImagingScience/CISWelcomeBackPicnic2013#

It may feel late, but it's still a faster turnaround than the Annual Report

So it's been a little over a year this time since I updated the site, but I finally got the Innovative Freshmen Experience webpage all current to showcase 2012-2013's project. After migrating the 2011-2012 project to its own new page, I updated pictures, names, majors, descriptions, videos, and even the list of news headlines. Doing the updating was more difficult this time than last year... This group wasn't as organized or thorough on their wiki, so I had to do a lot of extra digging and investigating. Thankfully there are a few freshmen now-2nd years around this summer that could help me get the details straight (and for the record, they readily admit that the wiki has insufficient content, I'm not just being cruel). They even captured some new images to use to help describe how the array works, so they were super helpful. Thanks, guys!!

I also finally uploaded some new banner images from the past two years - there are 25 of them in all (including the old ones), so you'll have to sit there hitting F5* for a while to see them all!

Anyways... check out all the updates!

*PCs only. I have no idea what the keystroke is on a mac.

Announcing: The CIS Class of 2013

I just completed the posters for Commencement 2013, which is THIS FRIDAY! It's so hard to believe this year is already over and we will be congratulating and wishing good luck to another class of outstanding students. (*cue feelings of wanting to graduate again.....wait for it.... now.) ConGRADulations (har har), Class of '13!!!

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!).

HUNT 2013

So this past Saturday was the annual Imaging Science HUNT! (In case you are not familiar, here are some search results to blog posts from last year, including links telling you what the Hunt actually is. No point in repeating myself...).

I was afraid that an All Stars team would not come together this year, as the weekend was looking to be a very busy one for most of us alumni - three of our main players from last year were definitely out for the day-of. But thanks to a lot of bribing and begging, we were able to assemble an alumni PLUS faculty/staff team! ...Though technically we were still an "alumni" team, since all the faculty/staff participants also happen to be alumni.

We had waaaay too much fun this year for me to be able to fit it all into a blog post, so I'll just make a list of some of the highlights:

• Carl dancing in a platypus suit... and saying he liked it
• David Long dropping a Corelle bowl in the lobby to test its claim of being "Break & Chip Resistant" (I wish we had gotten this on camera!!!)
• Ensuing scolding from kid in auditorium for making so much noise outside their "lecture"
• Taking the Huntmasters out to a Red Wings game (always fun)
• Taking faculty out to a happy hour at MacGregors (always fun)
• Making Tesla playing cards for Phil that featured pictures of Tesla cars, Tesla coils, Tesla cards, and of course, the man himself. And Phil and Kevin as the jokers.
• Seeing a member of a longboard skater gang totally wipe out a guy on a bicycle in the Infinity Quad (totally not cool) (sorry we didn't get it on camera despite having 3 on us)
• Stealing the Huntmasters' boat
• Getting caught by the Huntmasters while stealing their boat
• Matt dancing Gangnam Style in front of the RIT PEP band (why oh why did the camera have to not work for this one?!)
• Students actually thinking our trundle wheel was rolling a person down the Quarter Mile
• Students actually thinking our trundle wheel was cool
• Matt pretending to be stuck in the basement for 6 years
• That "Put your number in my phone" bit with me and Maria after discovering Matt in the basement - It is totally improv and unplanned!!!
• And, of course, the rest of the countless silly things we somehow got faculty to do for our video.

That's enough of me talking about it - how about you actually watch the videos and see for yourself? Oh and by the way - did I mention that WE WON!!!!!!

1st Place:  ALL STARS!★  2nd Place: 2nd years 3rd Place:  3rd years 4th Place:  Freshmen Huntmaster Answer Key

This is by far the best Hunt I have ever been witness to! (And definitely not just because we won, of course.) We had a phenomenal turnout, and every team was really good and the videos were hysterical. We also enjoyed extra amusement when sketchily crossing paths with the other teams throughout the day Saturday, which made things even more fun (especially when we tried to lock the Freshmen in their lab, though they didn't seem to take the joke so well). And the third years did an excellent job egging everyone else on with their Hunt-related memes in the Reading Room. My favorite part (always) is having everyone come out of their shells to do some pretty crazy stuff that we normally don't have any excuse to do, and thereby seeing different sides to people that we are normally used to taking seriously. This year's event captured the very spirit of the Hunt better than I've ever seen, and I'm so proud to have been a part of it. All in all, the Hunt is just one of the many reasons why Imaging Science is the best!

Don't forget, it's almost Pi Day!

Sorry we missed both Phi and e days. Again. Maybe next year...

Texas Roadhouse ≠ Roadhouse Grill... but the rolls are good anyways.

Last night Joe, Maria, and I took out a group of third year students to the new Texas Roadhouse restaurant. I don't really have a whole lot to say about it, but in the interest of documenting all the awesome things we get to do with our students, I figured I'd put an obligatory posting here. Plus, perhaps I can make it known that Texas Roadhouse is NOT a good place to go with a group of people. Reason A: They do not take reservations. Caveat: you can call ahead to let them know you're coming so that you can wait less time once you get there. Counter-caveat: they do not accept call ahead's for parties bigger than 7 people. (Does that seem to defeat much of the point to anyone else?) Now, Reason B: They do not have seating to accommodate groups larger than 6 adults. And 6 is even pushing it. In fact, judging by most of the clientele there, the limit in those booths is really more like 4. (Excuse the remark, I'm simply making observations...). We were lucky enough to get two booths, but they were back-to-back rather than side-by-side, so we might as well have been 2 separate groups. And of course all the students sat together while all the adults sat together. Once the other adults left and I began talking to the students in the booth behind me, we got a lot of weird looks from the people all around us... they probably had no idea that we were actually one big group and thought it was super weird that I was being so friendly with a bunch of kids. Oh well, feel free to judge me for that so long as I can openly judge you for willingly sitting on the (what must be disgusting) roll-around saddle while wearing a silly hat because it's your birthday.

Anyways, they had a jackalope there, so that was pretty silly.

The rolls were good, but other than that we were not too impressed. But the opportunity to spend some off-the-clock time with students is always worth it! And, jackalope. The end.

A second chance

Today I met with a current RIT student who actually visited CIS almost exactly one year ago thanks to a pretty random sequence of events. When my brother's health was declining, one of the visiting nurses and I struck up a conversation about what I do for work; I don't remember why. She mentioned that her son was interested in engineering at RIT but wasn't really sure what he wanted to do. I gave her my card, sent her son a folder of information, and scheduled a visit for them to CIS. Unfortunately the timing worked out such that I couldn't be there, but thankfully Joe was able to accommodate. The (prospective at the time) student sat in on the freshmen class and fit in very well. Joe was really impressed with how well he fit in and thought he would be a great asset to the program. Unfortunately, we didn't see him in the class roster in the fall.

Fast forward to this week. I heard again from the student's mother, who said he was at RIT in an undeclared major and was very unhappy. He was feeling pressure to declare a major, did not enjoy the classes he was in, and was thinking of leaving RIT altogether. I was very distressed to hear this - no student should have such a horrible experience in college. She asked if I would be willing to meet with her son, and my answer was, of course! I also set it up so that he could speak with Sue, because while I excel at talking all things Imaging Science, Sue is the wise master when it comes to figuring out what you want to do and what the best path to take to get there is.

It was an absolute pleasure to meet with this student (too bad I wasn't able to meet with him the first time around)! He was personable, intelligent, and outgoing - an all around fantastic student. He had experience working in groups, and exhibited natural leadership abilities (wish we had him in the freshmen class already....). His interests even sounded like they aligned very well with Imaging Science, though he wasn't sure about the level of math that would be involved. We chatted for a surprisingly long time, after which I dropped him off with Sue. Turns out they talked for a long time, too, because it was about an hour before he stopped by to say goodbye and to thank me again for meeting with him.

Whether or not this student ultimately decides to choose Imaging Science, I hope we helped him to explore his options and not feel so boxed in in his current situation. Ultimately, our true goal is to make sure that every student enjoys their experience at RIT - and I think our conversations today really made a positive difference.

One does not simply close the Reading Room

Hey so it's actually been a while since I outlined that big bad to-do list, which of course is still getting longer despite the items on it that actually get completed.  One of those omnipresent items is coordinating and overseeing the development of an IFE video produced by RIT Production Services (known to most as ETC, but that "isn't their name anymore"). For the past couple weeks I have struggled to establish a shooting schedule for 11(!) undergrad student interviews over two afternoons. As you can imagine, this is no small feat, as not only are students' schedules unpredictable but college students aren't the best at reading/responding to e-mails. And then even once it's all scheduled, you have to keep your fingers crossed that everyone actually shows up when they are supposed to, and is wearing what they are supposed to (no pure black/white, or saturated colors, or patterns), and bothered to comb their hair that day. I honestly don't know why anyone dreams of being in video production, but I guess that just goes to show why it isn't for me (and how they can charge so much for it). 

Well anyways, I am happy to say that everything actually seemingly went very smoothly. I wasn't present for most (read: any) of the shooting, but I have been told that everyone showed up when they were supposed to (or arranged it among themselves that they be there at one of the allotted time slots), and I've heard that some of the interviews were really, really, REALLY good. For once, scheduling and communication did NOT break down, and maybe I can actually take some of the credit for successfully organizing it all. But I can't brag too much really, because the real work was done by the film crew, the students, and of course Joe who had to do all the interviewing of all 11 students. 

I felt bad that shooting was scheduled for the last two days before break, although that was strategic because theoretically students wouldn't be super busy, pre-break tests would be completed, the Reading Room (the chosen shooting location) shouldn't be in strong demand, and things overall should be generally quiet. Well, some of these things were true: obviously we were able to get scheduling to work out, without complaints of being too busy; and there weren't any tests left that were demanding students' attention. But although things were generally quiet, the building was still lively enough to interfere with the shooting - what with people making noise in the hallway, using the hand blowers in the bathroom, etc. And, it turns out students were getting majorly offended that they couldn't use the Reading Room - "They can't take the Reading Room away from us!" "How dare they monopolize the Reading Room!" "What is THIS?!" And then the ultimate passive aggressive maneuver - anonymously leaving a sign on the closed door:

Know your meme

Although I am really annoyed by the sense of entitlement displayed by our spoiled rotten students (I can call them that because I was once one of these students that thought I was entitled to 24 hour ownership of the Reading Room), I have to really give credit to whoever left that, because I thought it was hilarious.

Anyways, I brought in homemade cookies as a show of appreciation for the film crew and students that had to be here, since I figured most of them probably would have blown off early for break (like so many of the students in Imaging Science Fundamentals did) if it were not for the shooting. But it turns out no one even touched them, so I'll just enjoy my amazingly delicious cookies by myself, thankyouverymuch. And with this perfectly baked up splendor of butter and sugar, I bid you HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!!

I don't even like hockey.

So just to add to the insanity of my to-do list, about 10 days ago it was brought to my attention that some students were asking about going to an Amerks game, and I was asked whether it should be opened up to all of CIS as a chance to get out together. And since I said yes, it became another event for me to have to organize. Why on earth did I say yes??? I wasn't even going to go; I have no interest in hockey games. (Plus I had to write a paper.) 

Anyways, it wasn't all that big of a deal. A few mass e-mails (which I've sent out way too many of this week... I hope people haven't started blocking my e-mail address...), plus some flyers around the building, and we had a nice healthy group of 22 staff and students who wanted to go. It probably helped that CIS was covering part of the cost of the tickets so that seats were only 5 bucks. And by a Christmas miracle, everyone had their payment in before noon on Friday. The Amerks group sales guy was dropping by at lunch (what service!) to take care of the payment and drop off the tickets, and by yet another xmas miracle, everyone picked up their tickets prior to the game. 

Things could not have been going better, and as it turns out, the positive trend continued through the game! Amerks were going to win! Oh, that is, until 10 seconds before the end of the game, when the opponents tied up the game, and then won in a subsequent shootout. Whoops.

Anyways, like I said, I wasn't there, but here are some pics taken by someone who WAS there:

Now that's a motley crew... 

IMSCI REPRESENT

Okay, I guess I'm a little sad I didn't get to go, especially after being the one to organize the whole thing. But either way I still had to write that paper that was due today (which I'm sure I enjoyed even less than watching hockey).

Of course you know what remoulade is.

Last night there was an OSA lecture at the George Eastman House about Kodak's contribution to Cold War surveillance. Well it just so happens that the third year undergrads were planning a CIS-sponsored outing for the same evening, so I ran the idea past them that we all hit up the talk before heading out to dinner. I know I was interested in attending, and organizing a group to see the talk gave more relevancy to the outing overall. Lo and behold, they agreed! So around 5:30 we gathered in the lobby of Carlson and caravaned over to the Eastman House. (For the record, I got there first by taking a well planned route and driving the appropriate speed limits, despite SOME student's attempt to beat me with the bright idea of taking a "shortcut" and driving like a banshee at unsafe speeds. NOT well played, sir. Not well played. This time you put the STUD in STUpiD - oohhh, I got you there. You know who you are.) (PS> I'm just kidding but the adult in me still must scold you for acting irresponsibly.)

We arrived early enough to - oh wait, stop everything, there's a photo booth.

We arrived early enough to tour the Eastman House and museum (and Sam of course b-lined for the food, which he says was really good). While we really enjoyed browsing around, there seemed to be quite a crowd forming so we made sure to get to the Curtis Theater in time to all get seats together. So many people showed up that it ended up being standing-room-only, and there were people sitting on the floor. 

The lecture began with a Kodak retiree detailing his time as an optical engineer at Kodak after graduating from the U of R Institute of Optics in the 1950's(!). He was actually Kodak's first employee to hold the title of "Optical Engineer". He showed a bunch of old draft drawings for lenses that were used in the Gambit and Gambit-3 reconnaissance satellites, and had old pictures of Kodak's Hawkeye building and labs. It was fascinating to see the "old way" of doing things, before easy computer models or even simple calculators. I really enjoyed seeing this perspective.

This was then followed up by a Corning optical engineer who had voluntarily gone about a quantitative comparison between the Gambit and Gambit-3 systems. He also detailed a bit more about how the systems worked and compared their layouts, and also explained how imagery was actually delivered back to the ground. This, too, was very interesting. Ah, it felt so good to be wearing my science hat again. Meanwhile, this speaker actually graduated from the U of R Institute of Optics a year after my dad, so I wonder whether they knew each other. (I tried discreetly texting my mom, asking her to ask my dad whether he recognized the name; to which I received the response, "He's asleep." Bear in mind, this was about 7:30PM....)

Overall, I thought the talk was fascinating. I'm not too sure the students felt the same way... Then again I'm not sure I would have felt the same way back when I was a student, either. Interesting how things change.

Anyways, after that it was on to the Distillery for - what's that place with all the goofy stuff on their walls and the mozzarella sticks? Oh yeah,

Basically we ate some tasty food, made fun of what was on the TVs (Summer 2012 flashback with Olympic gymnastics and Kobe Bryant in the NBA playoffs - Why?), blew off steam, and took silly pictures, like this gem:

Aww, all my widdle students, all tuckered out.

And with our bellies too full, we called it a night. Sure, I got thanked because I had the credit card - but really the appreciation should go to our awesome students, because it's thanks to them that I have the best job in the world.

Sorry, no, this food is not for sale... What do we look like, a restaurant?

The CIS Welcome / Welcome Back picnic was last night! We had a great turnout and feedback I've received so far has been really positive. Unfortunately the weather was a bit chilly and it was breezy, but the sun held out at least. Food was ready by 5 and we had a huge crowd of empty stomachs eagerly waiting. I could tell that a bunch of them were completely random people, though, which is super annoying to me. I know that's always apt to happen, but it doesn't help that a class let out right when we started serving food, so students that just happened to be leaving the building thought they would step right up and take advantage. Well since it was my job to emcee, I decided to go ahead and use my little soapbox to not-so-inconspicuously call out the offenders with an introduction that went a little something like...

"Welcome to the Center for Imaging Science Fall Picnic! If you followed instructions and did things the way you were supposed to, you donated a can of food in return for the food you will be enjoying tonight, and also received a raffle ticket for which I will begin doing raffles shortly. For those of you who did not do follow instructions, well, you should be very VERY grateful to the Center for Imaging Science who is giving you food for apparently no reason tonight." 

Yeah, those unrecognized faces definitely had guilty looks on them. Later on into the picnic I got a little more direct with even saying a semi-facetious "Shame on yooouuuuu," but anyways, it's all good I guess... We had way more food than we could possibly eat, anyways.

Unfortunately I barely got enjoy the picnic myself, since I was busy DJing, emceeing, taking pictures, and doing raffles... I had to scarf my food and didn't really get to chat with anyone. I think much of it was the same way with other staff people at CIS... Take a wild guess at who all had to set up, cook, break down, clean up, et cetera... Luckily IS&T is taking on the job of delivering all the donated food to a local food pantry.

BUT ANYWAYS, not to get all downer, because really it was a great picnic. You can see for yourself via the Fall Picnic photo gallery. As for that random picture of me with another girl with fabulously pink everything, that was probably the highlight of the day for me. This girl went walking by, and one of our students said, "Bethany, you should go ask her for a picture together! Here I'll take your camera!" And goofy me thought that was a great idea, so actually I went running after her. After mutual compliments on glorious hairstyles, we got an awesome picture.... And the fact that I actually did such a ridiculous thing prompted the student to admit, "Most people think my suggestions are stupid, but you actually do them. That's why I love you, Bethany." Awwww.

I want to be friends with this girl because clearly she is super awesome. Too bad I didn't even ask what her name was.

I missed you, too.

Need I even mention that I have the best job in the world?

Big fish in a big pond

So after writing my last post (which may be one of my favorites, I've decided), I went out for what was supposed to be a little stroll so I could stretch my legs and enjoy the beautiful day outside (about 20º cooler than my move-in day, which if you'll recall was TEN YEARS AGO wah). Campus was abuzz with activity but at the same time seemed very quiet, probably because all the bumpin is really going on on the residential side. Sure enough as I got down towards the res halls I could hear the bass, smell the grills, and spot the pole sit, but instead of heading right into the belly of the beast I chickened out (probably because I didn't want to feel out of place, what with how OLD I am) and veered off the quarter mile down past the field house, and started heading back towards CIS. 

Turns out this detour was rather serendipitous - as I passed the ice rink I looked ahead and thought I recognized one of our incoming students with his mom. Sure enough, they had already spotted me (go figure, I mean, pink hair is so hard to spot from long distances) and were waving. HOW, out of the THOUSANDS of freshmen and their family on campus today, do I happen to run into one of our 15 freshmen? It turns out they had actually been looking for me, and were disappointed to find I was out of my office - and then just so happened to take the same walkway (not the main one) as I, so it ended up working out perfectly. 

We chatted excitedly for a bit, and then before you know it, along came ANOTHER parent of one of our freshmen - so he joined the conversation. And then ANOTHER freshman showed up - and then HIS mom appeared and joined. As if this didn't seem to be beating the odds enough, to top it all off along came another seemingly random guy, who as it turned out was actually the parent of the roommate of the first freshman I bumped into, and had already heard all about the pink haired girl. And this all happened during my random 2:15PM stroll off the beaten path...Again, I ask, how? It just goes to show how huge and how tiny RIT can be all at the same time. Pretty awesome.

Photographic evidence of the random rendezvous outside Ritter.

Anyways, we all had a great chat about RIT, Rochester, Charlotte and the LDR Char Pit, and local cuisine, as well as how excited the freshmen are to be here and how much they love it already. (I also remember parts of the conversation that included, "We really didn't want to like RIT, but then we came here and we knew it was the one!" - quote of the day right there. Oh, and it also included a few "Thank you"s, for the record.) The air is ripe will all kinds of excitement and anticipation for the new school year, and I can't help but be really excited for all of our incoming and returning students. Even if they do make me feel old.

A better picture of the Reading Room lounge area!

How inviting.

And now for the Reading Room BIG REVEAL!

So in between all the intern happenings of this week, Bob and I have been hard at work finishing up the Reading Room redesign, and I think (with exception of future A/V additions, and a coffee table we're waiting on from Joe) we are DONE! Yeah!!! 

Much of our mornings were spent getting everything while our afternoons were spent assembling and decorating. It has been a LOT of work but the results are staggering. Take a look (via my lousy cell phone camera... Maybe I will take some better pictures tomorrow:

Tuesday's progress: We bought a rug, two lamps (& 10 CFL light bulbs), 4 leather chairs, a couch cover (bet you didn't even recognize the ol' couch), some appliances (see below), removable/restickable Angry Birds decals (as a joke, but most people don't seem to get it) and an RIT felt banner.

A new mini fridge and microwave!! But they better be kept clean, because NINJOE POW IS WATCHING...

These are the leather chairs we got. Nice, huh?

Wednesdays' progress: Got a cord so we could actually plug the lamps in....

and removed the vertical blinds (YES!!!) and replaced them with curtains...

and applied some lovely wall decorations...

and since we were so pleased with the outcome of the couch cover, we got one for the ugly (and gross) random wing back chair, too (bet you didn't recognize this guy, either!). We also got a cork board and mounted it above the printer in the front corner, but I didn't bother to take a picture.

Thursday's progress: We bought and assembled a small kitchen cart for next to the fridge/microwave to create a small prep area. We also got some fake plants for on top of the credenza, and hung up some posters, and....

VOILA!!!!!!

Looks pretty darn good, if I do say so myself! I hope the students love it when they get back in the fall (and appreciate it enough to keep it clean). It feels like a nice cozy space; I know I want to hang out in there, now! It's hard to believe that it's even the same room. The people who have seen it so far have had very nice things to say, so I think it's safe to assume that all of Bob's and my hard work has not been in haste. In the future we hope to also install a projector, speakers, and another screen, and maybe (probably?) even a huge LCD TV - But those are things I can't do myself, so they're not going to happen as quickly as all my impatience-driven updates did this past week.

Enjoy!!!!

365 days later

Oddly enough, today I have finished updating something I did exactly 365 days ago! If it weren't for that pesky leap day this year, I could have more simply said "one year ago", but it was actually June 23 of last year whereas today happens to be the 22nd, so now things are complicated. (In fact right now I'm still not entirely sure I've gotten it right, but I think so. Feel free to correct me, I really only devoted 5 seconds to checking myself.) And the only reason I noticed this at all is because I looked back through the archives to link to my original post about this wonderful thing which I have updated, and happened to notice it was from almost the exact same time last year. Wowie wow wow wow!

Anyways, what I'm actually talking about is the webpage I made for the Innovative Freshmen Experience / Freshman Imaging Project class. I've updated it to now contain all of the information about 2011-2012's project. This includes new videos, pictures and contact info for the students, information on this year's imaging system, et cetera - AND a call for ideas for next year's project! Go check it out and see all the amazing things our freshmen had been up to all year!

Eventually I will get around to adding updated pictures for the IFE pages' banners, but that will have to be another day.

ImagingRIT - oh wait, I mean ImagineRIT

Am I the only person so accustomed to typing "Imaging" that I can't spell "Imagine" anymore? Maybe? Oh well.

Unless you live under a rock, you probably know that ImagineRIT was Saturday!!! (And hopefully, if you live in Rochester, you were there - and if not, WHY THE HECK NOT?!?!) Seeing as how this was the 5th year for the event, everyone should hopefully know what it is by now so that I don't have to get in to a whole bunch of background. Basically ImagineRIT is like one great big huge sci-tech-art fair open house with all kinds of exhibits, most of them student projects, on display, all free and open to the public. And there is food and music and live entertainment... It is kind of a big deal, and if you didn't know this already, then you should probably just leave my blog right now because you must be lost. 

Blue sky, sun light... Hey wait, what's that? Why, it's a weather balloon with cameras strapped to it!

Anyways, the best of RIT was on display, the weather was beautiful, and let's face it I was there, so there's no wonder we had a record 35,000 attendees!!! If you have ever been to Imagine then you know how big and overwhelming it is, so I am not even going to try to summarize in a blog post. But, you can see some of the day's happenings as they happened over on the CIS Twitter feed as well as my own twitter (which you may have noticed suddenly come into existence just a few days ago), since I was busy running around all day keeping them both updated. I tried to hit up as many of the CIS-related booths as possible and tweet pictures of them (one example being the weather balloon above), so don't let all my walking and effort go to waste - check it out! 

So much Imaging Science going on in this picture.
Craniofacial Phenotyper structured light face scanner - built by imsci FRESHMEN.

Social media butterfly was just one of the hats I wore on Saturday, as well as auxiliary freshman support/booth greeter, traveling CIS rep, alumni relations person, summer internship coordinator lady, recruiter, nerd in last place, and general pal to the gazillion friends and colleagues past and present that I ran into throughout the day. Which, while I'm on the topic, holy crap I had no idea how many people I know!!! Spend almost 10 years at RIT as a student, alumnus, and staff person, and you'd be surprised how many people you are connected with. I ran into old friends, new colleagues, kids I had just presented to the day before (!!!!!), interns from last year, interns for this year, other intern applicants, accepted students for fall, Staff Council members, senior administrators.... the list goes on and on. Things really got ridiculous when even my dad was getting spotted by people he used to work with (he's been retired about 8 years). The whole day was non stop, "Hey!!!! How ya doin?!" Who needs reunions anymore? It was awesome.

Obligatory picture proving I was there.
Also a fair illustration of the most excellent coincidental coordination of my purple chunk of hair with the shirts designed by the freshmen. holla

Some major highlights of my day included:

• Having a conversation with some of the Greece Apollo kids on twitter (It's working!!!)
• Seeing said Greece Apollo kids actually come visit!
• ImSci swag machine
• Meeting/catching up with students' parents (no wonder so many of them are so awesome)
• Catching up with Steve Schultz & family (and getting a head start on recruiting the next generation of Imaging Scientists) 
• Seeing all the amazing exhibits across campus - one of my favs was the under the sea balloon world, even though it was kinda silly. It was way cool.
• Strolling around campus with my parents!
• & finding my brother's brick on the Legacy Walk, which was just installed last Thursday.

Some lowlights:

• Photo Tech Science stealing imsci thunder and making things uber confusing in the process (sorry to be uncooperative, but this really was upsetting to me, sorry)
• Finding a poster that basically rips off one I already made??!? THEY EVEN USE THE SAME FONT.
• Strollers. SO. MANY. STROLLERS.
• Losing my voice again, aw man! And I had just finally gotten it back!

But those lowlights hardly count, I merely posted them here for posterity.

Oh man, ImagineRIT was so awesome!!! Even just thinking back to it to write this post is getting me all excited again. Good thing I have next year to look forward to. Hope you'll be joining us May 4, 2013! (The awesomeness of this blog post is enough to convince you you want to go, right?)

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!

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.