TGIF'in it up

Today was the first intern cookout of 2012! Things were off to a bit of a slow start, with only a few interns making their way out around 11:45. You know what else was missing? The GRILL. Whoops! Joe realized around 10:30 that he never ordered the grill to be delivered thought he meant to. He called in a favor (and also requested a grill for the remainder of the weeks of the internship) and we were supposed to be good to go. 11:30 ticks by....11:45...12:00.... no grill! Around 11:50 Joe had called to ask where it was, and according to records it had been delivered at 11AM. This obviously was not the case, so they said they'd rush another one over and in the meantime everyone snacked on chips and pretzels. The volleyball net was up but it was so hot out no one was playing, until I asked the interns who were present to pretend to play something so I could get some good promotional pictures. Well they came up with something - it definitely was not volleyball - but I was able to get a few shots nonetheless:

And you can see the rest of them here.

The interns also started planning a game of Assassin to play amongst themselves. I'm not familiar with the logistics, but it involves Nerf guns and assigned targets. They all sounded pretty excited about it, so I'm willing to help make it happen (so long as it doesn't terribly interfere with them actually getting work done). I'm all about getting these kids invested in their summer and having a great experience that they'll want to talk about and look back on fondly, so why not? I know my favorite aspects of my high school internship here were the people, the laid back atmosphere, and the weekly volleyball, so if I can pass along and perpetuate some of those positive experiences with future interns, I think I've done my job.

The grill finally showed up around 12:10 - perfect timing for the fire to get hot just in time for me to leave. I am taking a half day today - so I'm out of here! (Sorry to have to miss the rest of the cookout!)

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!!!!

No dice were harmed in the making of this blog post.

We found a game die in one of the corner conference rooms, so I pocketed it and left this note.

And then later I got this e-mail... So I dropped off the die to the main office.

It turns out there had been a clever response waiting. (Thanks for playing!)
Dicey was safely returned.

I <3 my job.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next up, Part B- Scandal!

Whistle while you work, do-de-do do do do do

If anyone actually reads this blog regularly you may have noticed I have been absent for some time. As my twitter would hint at, I spent last week (June 24 - July 1) in Disney World! But I've been back this whole week, which anyone else who works can tell you was a very odd week what with Independence Day vacation right in the middle. Most people avoided suffering through two Mondays by taking the whole week off, which made for a very quiet return to work for me. Even so, I've been busy with catching up on my regular goings on from last week and also getting ready for the interns, who START ON MONDAY, yippie! While most of that prep work is not interesting enough to warrant mentioning here (besides getting to walk all around campus collecting fresh images for the intern scavenger hunt, and "performing a dry run" for the upcoming weekly BBQs, booyah my job is awesome!!!), there is one time consuming albeit incredibly satisfying manual labor project that has given my week a very exciting conclusion:

CLEANING UP THE READING ROOM!!!!!!!!

I have been saying for years now that I was going to redesign the Reading Room, and with a little help and elbow grease we have finally made some significant progress. Anyone who has seen the room anytime in the past forever would recognize that the somewhat-lousy-yet-surprisingly-sohpisticated panoramic image above from my phone looks TOTALLY different. At this point we've really only cleaned out clutter and rearranged some furniture - it's like those tv shows where they stage houses to help get them sold. So we're still not done, but the progress we've made is totally impressive and you can imagine so much more with the space now. I'm really excited to see everything coming together! I wonder how confused the interns will be when they arrive on Monday to a totally different room than they were expecting?