I know I'm being made fun of, but I can take it. Let me explain.
As colloquium organizer for the department, I have a lot to do. It gets even more hectic when one is trying to enhance one of the week's colloquia into a campus-wide event. This is what will be happening with Monday's. So I'll be shopping on the weekend for extra refreshment goodies, and have spent the whole day so far (which was supposed to be a research day) exchanging hundreds of emails in an attempt to coordinate meetings, refreshments, and dinner companions for my distinguished guest. (Just managed to snag two Deans, so I am very pleased). In addition to the standard poster which the Departmental Administration Czar, Lisa Swanson, has enhanced with some colour touches for the special occasion, I -control freak that I am- have decided to do another poster which will be lighter on the eye and more attractive to the younger set, who are not likely to come to a departmental colloquium, and even less likely to come to a dry-sounding physics event. So I slapped together the poster (above right), and because I was supposed to be dealing with all the other stuff I already mentioned (no! no! I was supposed to be writing a paper!), Lisa volunteered to go around campus and put some up in some of the places where we don't usually bother advertising. Now, I spent rather a lot of time yesterday and today explaining why the posters had to be put here, here and here, and especially there, because the students congregate here, here, and here...etc.....(yep, you say "control freak", and I say "I like things done effectively") and I think I must have ticked Lisa off a bit - and not without justification. Anyway, in response to my email just now with subject line: "How's the campus looking?" (genuinely wondering how the USC 125th anniversary celebrations were getting on), I got three photos. I think she's trying to tell me something. Anyway, I think that they're rather good and unintentionally rather nicely fit my "got energy?" campaign (riffing on the "got milk?" campaign of the Milk moustache people.) And they show you a little of the USC campus sights. So here goes: "got energy?" and Lisa in front of some footballing thing or other. I suppose those guys are famous in the sports world and you can all identify them:
"got energy?" and Lisa in front of that interesting sculpture I pass a lot when I go hang out in that favourite nice shady spot near the Cinema-Television School and Thornton School of Music:
"got energy?" on a posterboard advertising lots of (other) interesting and fun things on campus (I'm taking my mum - who's visiting - to that Ransey Lewis concert in a couple of hours):
The students are sure to come to it now. Right? So anyway, as it says on the poster, if you are "interested in the energy future of your planet", come along to Caltech's Nathan Lewis' excellent presentation entitled "Scientific Challenges in Sustainable Energy Technology" at 4:15pm in SAL 101. Refreshments (including nibbles and energy bars) on the lawn outside at 3:30pm. -cvj
