Slush Fund
Going back to school at nearly 40 years old seems crazy to me at times. Making a career change at my age is nearly impossible without it though. I'm really enjoying the Radiography program. It's a rather interesting extension of my photography hobby. There are some similarities between photography and radiography, but there are also some very significant differences. One of the most difficult concepts to grasp in radiography when looking at it from a photographer's viewpoint is what you are actually seeing when you look at an x-ray. The x-ray tube is not the 'camera' as we would imagine. It's the source of 'light' if you want to look at it that way. The actual 'camera' is the film cassette or digital image receptor on the wall or inside the table. If a patient is face up on the table, the actual image that you see in the finished x-ray is as if you were looking at their back rather than their front. The x-ray tube produces the radiation, some of which passes through the patient, and strikes the film screen or digital image receptor. Those x-ray photons that strike the image receptor are what creates the image. It's really challenging sometimes to grasp this concept when looking at the x-ray images...
I have been blogging my experiences in Radiography school here:
http://www.setzler.net/radiography
Anyway...
This photo represents my graduation slush fund. I think this ceramic piggy bank will probably hold somewhere between $400 and $500 in pocket change... maybe even more... That, along with some additional stashes hidden here and there, is going to provide me with some sort of really nice vacation when I graduate from this program in May of 2009. I'll be sure to take my camera wherever I decide to go...