I'm at over 2,000 page views!!!!

Just sayin.

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.

It's kind of like being an aunt/uncle, where you get to experience all the joys of having kids, without the actual life sentence of being a parent.

Yesterday afternoon I was invited to do a demo in one of the Imaging Science Fundamentals classes. Usually Joe is the one to do this, but this time around he asked if I wanted to give it a try; and I thought, why not?

Imaging Science Fundamentals is a general overview class that satisfies requirements in other colleges (outside College of Science) for a class + lab credit. So, the makeup of the class is mostly art, business, and IT majors who just need to put in their time and get their credit over with. It turns out that most of them are 3rd and 4th year students who put it off until now... And it's a big class, too - around 70 students! So this was a pretty different audience for me, considering I'm used to middle/high school kids and my main purpose is to encourage interest in science and/or recruit. 

On one hand, I felt more pressure - this is a college course, plus I'm being watched by a professor (who has a PhD from Cornell, I might add!); but on the other hand, I felt less pressure because the purpose was simply to teach, with no expectation that I needed to recruit these students in order to be perceived as successful. The fact that there was a very high chance that the students couldn't care less about what I had to say contributed to both sides of the equation - maybe I could say whatever I wanted, but maybe I'd have a really tough audience (which would be a real challenge considering how interactive I make my presentations).

Well, as it turned out, all my fears were unfounded - PHEW. I did my normal schtick with the FLIR, with the surrounding story of the Mars rovers (which thankfully is relevant again now that Curiosity is out there exploring). Actually this great news story JUST came out about "snow" on Mars, which they were able to identify using spectrometers, so I was able to weave that in nicely as well. The students were very active and engaged, and actually laughed at my stupid jokes and mannerisms, so that was cool. They answered many of my questions, and asked many of their own; and a variety of students contributed thoughtful and meaningful insight. A couple students even stayed after class was over to chat. Overall, I think it went really, really well.

When I was in college I always thought I'd want to be a college professor some day. Then I realized I would have to get all sorts of advanced degrees, and I wasn't so sure anymore (there are many reasons behind this; please don't get the impression that I am lazy or unmotivated). Then I discovered there were years of being a post-doc before you were really a viable candidate for becoming a professor even at the lowest entry level. THEN I found out all that actually goes into being a professor at a university like RIT, like writing grants (bleah) and dealing with a lot of competitiveness, and I was sure that being a professor was something I did NOT want anymore. Which is too bad, because I really enjoy "teaching", and I love the atmosphere in college when [most] everyone is excited to learn and takes class seriously... and today's experience only served to reinforce that. But, I guess that's why I appreciate my job so much and constantly refer to it as the best job in the world - because I do get many opportunities to do what I love and am passionate about.

Extra, extra! Summer Imaging Connection Now Available!

The latest issue of the CIS Imaging Connection newsletter is hot off the press (or whatever the modern day digital equivalent of that phrase would be). Highlights from the Summer issue include: 

• Summer Interns & REU 2012
• Awards & Recognitions 
• Incoming Class Snapshot
• New IPLER Disaster Response video
• Past Receptions & Upcoming Events 
• And, of course, your quarterly "From the Archives" photograph

Check it out!

New year, new looks (plus a SNEAK PEEK at a new t-shirt design!)

I have been hard at work throughout the past week or so with a number of design updates and creations...

The Seminar Series logo got an update with the new CIS dot logo.

And the seminar abstract and bio templates got updated accordingly. They also were modified to follow official RIT color schemes.

Fall picnic flyer is ready to go.

And you may have noticed I updated my blog banner above.

I worked on a few different designs for a new CIS t-shirt....

And ultimately went with a design featuring the CIS dot logo repeating in a Bayer pattern color scheme.
Tshirts will be available in both natural and black and should make their debut next week.

The end!

I missed you, too.

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

Intern Final Moments, Part 3: The Conclusion

Not long into the frustratingly lengthy 25 minute intermission, there was breaking news: the MIA intern was on her way and would arrive, supposedly ready to present, in about 10 minutes. Sure enough, she eventually showed up - but not so much ready to present. I did everything I could to get her mentally prepared (pep talk mode, activate!), and after getting her presentation set up told her she had 5 minutes to relax while I rounded up the audience and other interns from whatever far off places they had wandered away to. She would have 10 minutes to present, which would carry on straight through to the next group of interns scheduled to present, right on time. Ah, relief.

And the presentations carried on - though, despite making it past the major hiccup, my drama was not over. Perhaps I was still just worked up with adrenaline... but faced with another threat to the smooth operation of my event, I found myself quite upset. You see, a person (who shall remain nameless) showed up in time for the intern presentations from his research lab. However, he was apparently only interested in what one of the interns had to say, because he was typing on his laptop during the other interns' presentations. Now, this is a major pet peeve of mine; I think it is extremely rude to be on a laptop while someone is presenting, especially if you are typing (which creates noise and can be very distracting, not to mention discouraging, to the presenter). Not only that, but doing so sets a very bad example; and on top of that, I am very protective of my interns - Many of these kids were presenting for the first time in front of a major audience, especially one so distinguished, and they needed all the support and encouragement they could get. As if that in itself wasn't enough to get my goat, what do you know but a grad student (who shall also remain nameless) walks in, sits down next to noname #1, and starts whispering questions to him! They engage in a full-on whispered conversation of significant length, all while an intern was trying to present on her research. If I were a cartoon, you would have seen my face turn red and steam blowing out of my ears. At the conclusion of their whispered powwow, I shook my head in disappointment and mouthed to the grad student, "NOT. COOL.", to which he tried to whisper some excuse of "he's a hard guy to find, gotta take advantage of every opportunity." I mouthed another "not cool" and added on something like, "that behavior is unacceptable", but it was over at that point. Grrr, even a week later, I am still getting worked up about this. How disrespectful!

Anyways, from then on the presentations proceeded without any more notable hitches or disruptions, until finally it was all over. PHEW! Well, almost over - we still had one last thing to do before cutting the interns loose.

In past years, once the presentations were over, the interns all just said quick goodbyes and went their separate ways. I always thought this was kind of sad - no final celebration? No after party? Not even a real goodbye? So this year, we decided to host a final pizza lunch for everyone so we could unwind one last time and do a little celebrating. This also worked out well for the conclusion of the Intern Challenges, since we planned the last one to be a video meant to serve as somewhat of a closing credits to the whole summer. Not everyone chose to stick around, but those who did presented paper plate awards to each other, watched the final videos, and enjoyed pizza one last time together as CIS interns. A lot of the videos were really great (and practically tear-enducing), but we had to pick winners and present one intern with the final GRAND PRIZE for all the challenges (congratulations, Henry!!!!!). After that, it was time for goodbyes. Some were reluctant, others were awkward, many were sad... It was a long time before everyone was actually gone. I'm happy to say though that I did get a few hugs. We had a great group this summer, many of which I expect to go on to great things (hopefully here at RIT ;-) )... I hope they keep in touch. I already miss them.

And now we can time warp back to my original post from the last day of the summer intern program 2012, and all is back to how it chronologically should be. Poof.