I just barely got beaten by a dog, but at least I came in ahead of the strollers.

What's the perfect remedy to make up for a night of unrestrained eating and debauchery? A 5k run, of course! Yesterday was the Brick City 5k run/walk, one of the last events of Brick City weekend. It was free, so I figured: why not? The weather even looked like it was going to cooperate: ~55º, partly sunny. The only problem was: WIND. WHOA.

Matthany, pre-race

The race was underway at 10AM. We took kind of a funny route around campus - starting at K lot, we went south around the loop, turned up the road by S-lot, past global village, turned right at engineering, ran up the quarter mile to the sundial, took a left past my old dorm (Bldg 32!), left again down the path that goes down by the field house, up the main drag by the info booth, along Andrews Mem. Drive until C lot, and then back up to Gracie's for the finish. Phew! Not a course I have ever traveled in that order before, and not even the direction I normally travel in (I do everything counter-clockwise; it's the figure skater in me). 

To add to the confusion, there were no mile markers; so even though I was keeping time on my watch I had no idea what my pace was. To throw another variable into the mix, the wind was really strong, and much of the course we were running straight into it - I felt like I was going nowhere! Okay, this sounds like a bunch of complaining, but it's really not - I liked the weather anyways, because it was nice to have moving air; and I almost liked that there were no distance markers, because the whole time I pushed myself, thinking I was behind my normal pace. There's only 1 thing that disappointed me - my shoe came untied! Right by engineering, we had finished coming up a hill and were on a downhill so I was in the middle of a nice surge of energy, and my laces went flying despite the double knot. Boooo! Next time I'm triple knotting.

The last bit of the race felt pretty horrible - as evidenced by this picture I'm in right before the finish line:

UGGGGHHHHHH

Not flattering but pretty accurate for how I was feeling. Meanwhile, where did those 2 guys come from? Right at the very end, they pushed by me (almost literally pushed) on my right. I always heard that if you had the energy left to sprint that hard to the end, then you weren't working enough during the rest of the race. Just saying.

I don't know whether there are official results anywhere, but I read the clock as 30:29 as I ran by. Which I know is not impressive to any of you real runners out there, but that is a new personal best for me! In fact, my best training time this year was 30:12 around the loop of campus; and I figure that once you factor in the time it took for me to even get to the start line (I was far back) and the time wasted re-tying my shoe, this was my best time ever. So, yeah, I was pretty happy with that.

At the finish there was a truck giving out milk - wha? I guess it makes sense, but I really didn't want milk seeing as I was struggling to regain my breath. What I did want was an Intense Milk-branded squishy moo cow, which they gave me - yay! I also scored a steel water bottle from Alumni Relations which is really nice quality. So I may not have been winning any races, but I still came away with prizes, score!

Anyways, what a fun way to close out Brick City Weekend. My spiRIT is at an all time high and I'm already looking forward to next year!

"What happens at the Ball, stays at the Ball."

Last night was the 2011 RIT Presidents' Alumni Ball, WOOOOOO!!

As the title of this post suggests, I won't get too far into details about the events which took place at the Ball. ;-) But, I can say that it is one of my favorite events all year and we always manage to outdo ourselves somehow. We had 9 alumni, 8 current undergrad and grad students, and 3 faculty at our two CIS tables. A mix-up resulted in our tables not being adjacent to each other, which was a bummer, but we all still had a ton of fun anyways.

The evening began with a cocktail reception where everyone got to mingle, snack on hors d'oeurves, and get their picture taken with Ritchie (all decked out in his bow tie!). Afterward we moved on to a 3 course, way delicious dinner - this year our main course was surf & turf, filet mignon and salmon - mmmmm. During the dinner there were presentations going on up front at the stage, and they also showed some videos - one of which had me in it! (Totally random.) After dinner the live band came out (this year the musical genre was Motown) and the "vegas-style" games began. I started out with a little dancing, but I'm not really a big fan of Motown, so I went and played some Texas Hold 'Em instead, and I was a big winner - $400k! Okay, that's an exaggeration - we had a very generous dealer - but I did win a few big hands. The dollars were exchanged for raffle tickets at the end of the night, but unfortunately none of us won anything. Though, a few of us may have made off with some of the centerpieces... My lips are sealed on that. Anyways, always an amazing time, and as usual I am now suffering Ball Withdrawal. So I'm going to go play some Hold 'Em to help cope.

A bunch of the gang with Ritchie!

More pictures are posted on the CIS Picasa site. (Psst... even more can be found on the CIS Facebook page.)

Stay tuned for my third installment of Brick City Adventures: The Brick City 5k!

Brick City, Brick Brick City

This weekend is Brick City Homecoming & Family Weekend at RIT, woooo! The event as a whole is a chance for students, alumni, and their families to spend time together, connect with RIT, and participate in some amazing events such as the Horton Distinguished Speaker Series (which this year brought in Michael J. Fox, what!), a big name comedic act (Kevin Hart), the homecoming hockey game downtown at the Blue Cross Arena, among others. There are also countless reunions and other events - to try to look through the full schedule of events practically takes hours (trust me - I tried). 

My Brick City itinerary kicked off yesterday with the the Faculty/Staff Alumni lunch. All faculty and staff from across campus who are also RIT alumni are invited to enjoy a tasty lunch, enter raffles, score some swag, get their picture taken with Ritchie, and see who wins a Golden Brick Award. The Golden Brick Awards, in their second year, are awarded to RIT Faculty/Staff Alumni whose engagement with RIT alumni has furthered the mission of the Development & Alumni Relations Division, as well as the mission of the University. So I didn't win one this year, but I doubt they award back-to-back Bricks - that's right, I won in 2010 (woo! -though I had to leave early to present at a high school class, so I never had my moment of glory :-(  ). Anyways, I didn't know a whole lot of people there but I did run into some newly-made friends from the College of Science, thanks to the retreat we had a few weeks ago. The food was fantastic and we all had a great time - especially getting our pictures taken!

Ritchie & I made the cover of Geek Weekly.

A bunch of us COS gals, exhibiting some model behavior in an attempt to further RIT & Alumni Relations' missions. *cough cough* 2012 Golden Bricks *cough*

We had a lot more pictures taken with a lot of funny poses, but they haven't been posted online. I'm hoping I can contact the photographer directly to get them... If so, you know I'll be posting them here!

Stay tuned, further updates of Brick City shenanigans are to come. Up next, the event we've all been waiting for: The RIT Presidents' Alumni Ball!

sniff sniff

So the Staff Recognition Awards were today! Yay! But I didn't win. Boo.

Haha - Just kidding. It's not all about winning! Anyways, what a great day. As if the anticipation leading up to the awards wasn't enough, the excitement in the Fireside Lounge in the minutes leading up to the ceremony was so energizing, I felt like I was getting ready for a wedding or something. It was great to see the faces of the other nominees, especially people whom I actually know but did not realize were nominated! I was so happy for so many of my fellow staff members, but let's face it - that room was full of some stiff competition! ;-)

We all filed into Ingle Auditorium and waited for the ceremony to begin. Everyone was so excited and happy, it felt wonderful to be surrounded with such positive spirits. After the usual pomp and circumstance and introductions, professional images of all of the nominees were projected and we each had our names and positions read aloud. Despite there being around 50 nominees, this was a surprisingly smooth and efficient presentation - though I felt kind of bad for the interpreter, who was probably suffering from arthritis by the end of it. 

As the winners were announced one by one, I felt like I was in some kind of winner's circle - first someone right behind me won, then Michelle on my left won, then Jenn right behind me won, and the person next to her won! Unfortunately their luck did not rub off on me, but I was so proud to see people that I have worked closely with get recognized for all they do for RIT. Well, and especially Jenn - since I'm the one who nominated her :-). I felt like a mommy watching her child graduate Kindergarten, or something - knowing I helped get her up there! YAY!

At the end of the ceremony everyone went back into Fireside for the reception and socializing, and all the nominees received certificates. It was such an honor just to be nominated and to be involved in such a phenomenal event. All of the winners and nominees are all such wonderful and devoted people, and to be included with them is a distinction in its own right. Also I loved seeing the campus community come together in celebration. It's too bad we don't have reasons to do events like this more often. Well, at least I have Brick City to look forward to next week, hooray! Can I get a shout out for the ALUMNI BALL, WOO WOO!

Go meat!

Oh yeah, so pictures from last Wednesday's Welcome/Welcome Back Cookout have been posted! >Click here to check them out<

matthany wuz here

The picnic was a huge success, if I do say so. We tried to go a little more bare-bones/organic this year, by really just hosting a good old fashioned cookout; no presentations, no formalities, no catering, just a chance to all get together and have fun. And, the weather cooperated! The entire front hallway of Carlson was set up with side dishes, cookies, snacks, and buns to precondimentize, and then outside we had drinks on ice and two grills firing up some hot dogs and hamburgers. We had the volleyball net set up, which (once people had a chance to stuff their bellies) got some heavy use. I also brought ladderball, and speakers connected to my iPod to play streaming XM radio. Throughout the evening we held raffles, giving away t-shirts, sunglasses, water bottles, and plenty other CIS goodies. Oh, and the GRAND PRIZE of two seats at the CIS Alumni Ball tables! Woo hoo! (Which, on a side note - I think this is the first time we have been so far ahead of the game for filling our tables. For some reason, it was really easy this year. SO excited.)

So it seemed the cookout went really well! There were still plenty of folks left over at the end (which made for easy clean up - thank you so so much to those of you who helped). And I haven't heard a single negative complaint. The only thing that I could think of as being a downside was that we did not have tables and chairs outside, so some people chose to stay inside to eat instead. On the other hand, not having tables and chairs made for a much more free flowing group of people, and it was easy to mingle about. So, if we do it this way again next year, I would suggest taking some of the tall tables from the lobby and putting them outside - but without the chairs. That way people would have a surface to place their drink while eating, or their plate while drinking, or whatever - but it wouldn't have the formalities of sitting together at a table. It would have more of a happy hour about it. Also if we do it this way again, we'll have to hope we have as good of weather! In Rochester, you never know...

Oh yeah, and I should point out, we ended up with two overflowing boxes of cans and non-perishable items to donate :-)

"All dentist's offices have lava lamps"

Yay! I just got a visit from two of our interns from this past summer! Sarah and Elaine were on campus to work on their research poster so they stopped by. It was so great to catch up with them and hear how their school years are going. It feels like they have been gone for so long, even though it's only been a month. Oh, and I got to show them their gifted lava lamp in action, yeah! Elaine took a picture of it to send to Halle - I love that this year's interns have continued to keep in touch with each other. And I especially love it when they keep in touch with us. (Though it's a weird realization that I'm now playing the part of the older figure happy to hear updates from the young'ns.) Have I ever mentioned how awesome my job is? I should make a new label on here called "awesomeness".

I've got my fingers crossed.

I just posted my first entry to the Staff Council blog! Check it out!

This was my idea. :-)

 Staff Recognition Awards: And the Award Goes to...