Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Are you kidding me?


Fall orientation is just 31 days away. Basically one month until new students arrive. Student-athletes and residence life staff will be moving back onto campus before that. Really? What happened to the summer?

The cicadas started singing a couple weeks ago. Growing up we called them katydids and their song meant six weeks until frost. That’s just freaking ridiculous. Good thing no one is going to ask me to write a “what I did on my summer vacation” essay.

Now some of Bluffton’s students and recent graduates, they would have no trouble writing such an essay. Prestigious internships, Preparations for the 2012 IronMan, Weddings, and those are just the ones I know about.

Senior Meron Dibia was selected by the National Computational Science Institute as a Blue Waters Undergraduate Petascale intern. She spent two weeks training in high-performance computing at Illinois’ National Center for Supercomputing Applications then worked full-time this summer with Bluffton professor Steve Harnish on molecular dynamics simulations at the Ohio Supercomputer Center. She will continue her work in mathematical physics during the academic year, preparing a report to be published in the Journal of Computational Science Education in May 2012. Impressive.

Senior Andy Chaffee has competed in local triathlons this summer. Last weekend he and a few friends traveled to Lake Placid to the IronMan competition. Andy volunteered at an aid station during the race and was in line at 5 a.m. Sunday morning to sign up for next year’s race. One of Bluffton’s own will be competing in the 2012 IronMan in Lake Placid on July 22. Be watching for more about his adventure.

Speaking of adventure, four alumni from the PR student staff began the ultimate journey this summer with the words “I will.” Congratulations to newlyweds Drea (Ressler ‘09) and Chris Bauman ‘09, Sara (Richer ’10) and Corey Conn ‘09, Phil '09 and Shannon (Grieser ’11) Keeler, and Mike ’08 and Lindsey Koch.

So what have you done this summer?

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