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class notes : january 2002
by mimi yang, alumni class secretary
Despite the events of the last few months, it is comforting to know that Class of 2000 alumni/ae are caring about each other and the well-being of their fellow classmates. Although the events of September 11, 2001 have claimed some lives of MIT alumni, we must remember to treasure our friends and family who are still with us. We have not yet heard of any Class of 2000 casualties, and we are thankful. So without much further ado, here are your class notes:
Laurie Leong has finally come out of her job-seeking daze and settled upon a job at Lockheed Martin in Sunnyvale, CA, working as a responsible product engineer. Her new commute is over two hours a day(!), so she is going to move into a house in Sunnyvale with Gilbert Cheung '97, Kelvin Cheung '98 and Bob Yang '97. She has also acquired her driver's license (even though the DMV tried to issue her
a provisional license), so she's happily adding to the congested Bay Area traffic. Much of her social time has been spent with Eric Liu and Lily Cheng, and at the same time she is sadistically enjoying prodding Bay Area people to come to Class of 2000 events. James Chen (who affectionately refers to himself as "The Chenman") wants to say "Hi" to the rest of the Class of 2000 from the wonderful city of Boston. He is currently working as the manager of development for a software company that delivers software and Internet applications for higher education. For those who want to contact him, you can e-mail him at chenman@alum.mit.edu or go to www.chenman.com. Ozge Gozum is moving to New York City and will live with Natasha Iliouchina. Ozge will be starting at McKinsey's Business Technology Office in Stamford, CT, and Natasha is starting with Deutsche Bank. Stephanie Soohoo had been working at Vertex Pharmaceuticals where she had been researching some novel gene targets and creating knockout mice for the Genomic Pharmacology department. Other than work, she has been able to get in some traveling with a weekend trip out to Iceland last January and a two-week whirlwind tour of Japan in July. She traveled with Ryunosuke Konishi '97 and his three high school friends and they kicked off the trip with a hike to the summit of Mount Fuji and witnessed the first sunrise of the climbing season. Stephanie exclaims that it was magnificent! Apparently, it was broadcast on national television as the clearest sunrise the summit has seen in years. They then hit an onsen hotel (she highly recommends it if you don't mind that getting "nekkid"), visited the temples and karaoke bars of Kyoto, went rafting and drank beer in Sapporo, and stayed in a shogun castle in Akita, all in a week! (Phew!) They spent the second week in Tokyo checking out the sites, trying good eats, and shopping like mad. Then she quit her job, and she's now currently at New York Medical College in Valhalla, NY. Turns out another one of our classmates, Zareena Hussain is a fellow first-year as well! Stephanie says that the campus is gorgeous, the peeps are intense, and the experience is incredible. Talk about study hard, play hard! Class of 2000 Latin veterans Walter Aldana, Hugo Barra, Ricky Monte and Jerry Rivera are moving together into a voluptuous, spacious new house by Porter Square in Somerville. Tropical spices and rhythms await fellow classmates, friends and friends of friends, 24 hours a day. They had a delectable, grandiose house-warming in October and plan to have a series of other steamy shindigs in the sequence. For potential stalkers, the address is 45 Charnwood Road, Somerville, MA.
And of course, what would Class Notes be without more weddings? Congratulations to Bhuvana Kulkarni, who got married this summer! Her lucky husband is Hyder Husain '97. They got married on July 8, 2001, at the Charles Hotel in Harvard Square. The wedding had about 75 guests, at least 40 of whom were MIT alumni. Bhuvana says that it was a great weekend - they had a barbeque the day before the wedding on the PBE roof deck where Hyder is a brother. Jocelyn Nelson (formerly Jocelyn Wiese) finished her SM in Course III in June. She took the summer off and celebrated while three other MIT couples tied the knot before she got married to Eric Nelson '98 on Aug. 4, 2001. About 40 folks from the classes of 1996 through 2002 partied with them in Syracuse, NY. While the photographer was taking the MIT picture, one of Eric's aunts got them to sing a verse of the Engineers' Drinking Song. They spent almost two weeks in Hawaii before returning to Houston, TX. Jocelyn is getting used to Houston, but she misses the fall foliage of the Northeast. Now she works as engineer at Exxon Mobil Upstream Research Company.
On behalf of the Class of 2000 Alumni Officers, I hope that everyone find themselves and their family safe and well. For those that have lost someone during the September 11 tragedy, please know that you are in our hearts and prayers.
Mimi Yang, secretary
240 Mercer St., #518B, New York, NY 10012
e-mail: galaxie@alum.mit.edu
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