Hunt 2012: Bring It On

Nuff said.

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

Lucky Number 7

Today was RIT's second Accepted Student Open House for 2012. As opposed to the big fat zero accepted students we had signed up for the first one two weeks ago, we had 7 today! Yes, SEVEN! I don't know if we've ever had that many signups for any one open house - this was almost more than we could even handle. But, it was great. The format for Accepted Student Open Houses is a little different from the fall events, in that there is no general College of Science session; students proceed directly from the opening session in the field house to their programs, where we then have about an hour with them before lunch. With 7 accepted students in attendance, all of them bringing 1-2 parents, along with the 3 of us who walked with them from the Field House, and 4-5 current students helping out, the Freshman Lab was full up to the brim with people. During the session we talked with the freshmen about what they're working on and what their experiences as students have been, answered questions about the Imaging Science program, and all went around and introduced ourselves. One of my favorite parts of meeting applicants is finding out where they heard about us - this group spanned "a current student visited my school and told me about it" to "I saw the video profile on Monica Cook" to "I met Bethany at a college fair" to "I was an intern" to "I visited during Fall Open House", and of course the ever-present random outlier, "I was looking around online and found it". This was more than enough to fill an hour, so then we headed over to COS for lunch where we all got to nibble on noms and chat for a while. After that, the accepted students and their families headed out on their own for various activities, presentations, and financial aid appointments.

I have got to say, we have a phenomenal set of accepted students this year. The group today covered the whole range of still-not-quite-sure to paid deposits, and everything in between; hopefully today's experience was enough to convince them to take the plunge. Everyone sounded like really great fits for the program, and today was a fantastic opportunity for the accepted students to meet each other and get a head start on possible future friendships. There was not a single applicant present that I would not want to see next fall. I got a really good vibe, so hopefully the feeling's mutual :-)

Hand over the Dayquil.

After 4 days of skiing and adventures, I'm back! And I've brought a cold with me - ugh. But I refuse to be "that guy" who takes a sick day after vacation. Either I caught my husband's bug from last week or I am experiencing ill effects from BEING SPLASHED BY AN ICEWATER TIDAL WAVE THANKS TO A SNOWBOARDER OVER 25 FEET AWAY. Yes that's right. Smart guy went across a huge puddle at the base of the hill next to the ski lift and sent an unavoidable 7ft tall wave right at me, soaking my entire body. He might have attempted an apology, but seeing as how this occurred at Mont Tremblant in Quebec whatever he said was in French - and for the record, I did not hear a "Je suis desole". I have no words. 

Anyways, it's time for final preparations before intern interviews next week - AND, there's an Accepted Student Open House tomorrow, which we have 7(!) prospective students signed up for!

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.

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

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

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

It's almost time for our annual pilgrimmage to DC(ish)!

After weeks of planning, I can finally announce our plans for this year's DC-area alumni reception. This is the 6th year we will have hosted a reception for DC, VA, and MD alumni, but this time we are holding it in Baltimore to coincide with the SPIE Defense, Security, & Sensing conference (which many of our DC area alum attend). This makes me a little nervous, since I'm not sure what to expect attendance-wise with the change in location... But in the past, we had a reception in DC in April and then a small get together for alumni at DSS less than a week later, and it only made sense to combine the two what with DSS being in Baltimore this year.

This time around, Joe and I are attending as well as one student. Our plan is to fly down that Sunday morning, visit the Baltimore Aquarium, eat lunch, attend the reception, have dinner with the student's parents, and then fly home. It will be a long day, but if it's half as fun as last year I'm in for a really awesome trip!! 

Sunday, April 22, 2-4 PM
Baltimore, MD
Tir Na Nog
201 E Pratt St.
The Gallery at Harborplace

Register Here

Now that I'm a brochure designing MASTER, maybe I'll make a flashy new one for ImSci.

I've been working on a brochure for Staff Council for some time, and I am happy to report that as of today it is now DONE! I even asked President Destler to approve a quote for the back, and he got back to me within 5 minutes with a positive response. Way cool.

You can check out the brochure below (note, there are marks and bleeds around the edges):