 |
class notes : november 2001
by mimi yang, alumni class secretary
My fellow alumni/ae, it seems that so many people are coming to that turning point in the road, so don't forget what Green Day said! (Don't you just love VH1's Behind the Music? Isn't it tragic what happened to MC Hammer?) Well, before I take up all the column space, here are this month's class notes:
Intrepidly tooling her way across the East Coast, our nefarious Class President has been searching for a post BoozAllen & Hamilton "employment opportunity." Anna Benefiel is happy to have had a great paid summer vacation, but would like some of these "job leads" to actually lead to something before the severance fountain runs dry. If any of you are currently looking for that next career, you should email Anna to commiserate and check out eProNet, MIT's for-alumni job database. All you rich alumni out there, if you need any promising new talent, feel free to add positions to the eProNet listings! Anna promises to work for knowledge and enough money to pay back the Department of Education. Unlike Anna, Ben Chun still has his job and is working for Macromedia on Flash 6. He recently formed a limited liability corporation called False Profit with some friends. The basic idea is to circumvent the problem of capital by paying their investors directly with cultural advancements and life-quality enhancements. Ten of them live together in a converted warehouse in SOMA in San Francisco. Their first party was attended by almost 500 investors and their first art show was attended by over 200. In the works are a fashion show, a play, an after-school program for high school kids, an underground supper club and, of course, more parties. Check out http://false-profit.com for more information. James Tanabe (who is quite fond of not using capital letters, as is Ben Chun and your wonderful secretary) is moving up to Montreal to study at the world renowned Ecole Nationale de Cirque, which is closely associated with the world famous Cirque du Soleil. The three-year program is designed to develop artistic and athletic potential in its students, many of whom go on to perform with Cirque du Soleil. James is one of 15 students admitted every year. There is no science or engineering involved. How confusing! Daniel Hartley, on the other hand, is writing knowledge management software and enjoying Chicago.
Joshua Rheinbolt finished his first year of medical school at Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons. Joshua spent this past summer living in Caracas, Venezuela, where he founded a non-profit organization for the needy of Caracas, worked with a surgeon in a local hospital, and worked as a student counselor at the main university there. Kaoru Aou met up with Tomoko Akiba and Sawaka Kawashima '01 in Tokyo. During the Tokyo Municipal Elections, he did what little he could to help this independent candidate who was short on cash but armed with a militia of volunteers. The candidate earned her re-election. After finishing his research at IBM Japan, Darrell Drake has now taken a position as a development engineer for JENS Corporation (http://www.jens.co.jp/index_e.html), a mid-sized telecommunications firm which until last year was a subsidiary of AT&T. Darrell's work still focuses on middle-tier web services. However, since JENS is not a software company, the emphasis is on application. He absolutely loves working with the Japanese and in Japanese, and he looks forward to at least a few more years of living out there on the edge! Eli Hopson, Andrew Glenn, and Wesley Chao recently finished their M.Eng. degrees and celebrated by touring Europe (London, Amsterdam, Rome, South of France, Barcelona and Paris in 22 days) before going off to work in D.C., New York City, and the San Francisco Bay Area, respectively. In Washington, Eli will work for the Department of Energy and continue to share an apartment with Elsie Huang. Elsie, who was left alone for 22 days while her three roommates galavanted around Europe, will be teaching math and advising the yearbook kids at the Field School in D.C. Andrew is going to be working for Doubleclick (click) in the big city, and Wes will be working near San Francisco for Oracle.
Berta Liao finally realized that she did have something to contribute for class notes, after she kept running into people who asked her, "What are you still doing here?" She is officially affiliated with Class of 2000, now that she has a degree in her hands. She finished her Masters thesis in Political Science, and will be in Taiwan starting in September at the American Chamber of Commerce. Donna Wrublewski received her SM degree in May and is currently a PhD student at UMass Amherst in the polymer science & engineering department and will be there for four more years. She is currently doing impact testing on army polymers and enjoying driving past cattle and corn for 10 miles to get to school. For more information on what Donna does and who Donna is, visit http://www.pse.umass.edu/lesser/, http://sub-zero.mit.edu/missdw/, or write missdw@alum.mit.edu.
Many other alumni seemed enthralled by my adventures and either moved to New York or started law school. Brandy Karl finally graduated this June with her bachelor's in Political Science and will be attending Boston University School of Law next year. She recently visited New York City (Eric Plosky '99 drove) and stayed with Illyce Suarez '99. Yours Truly (yes, me! me!), Bernard Levin, Ilya Kaplun, and Jordan Moore met them for drinks in the Village and had a fabulous time despite the incredibly hot weather. Brandy sent Jennifer Frank off to New Orleans in style with a good-bye party at Sacco's Bowl Haven and a wild house party the next day. Frank Dabek, Mary Obelnicki '99, J.C. Olsson, Samuel Schaevitz, Jennifer Warner, Kristen Raven and Benjamin O'Connor all made guest appearances. Jen is fulfilling her dream of an incredibly low-paying, high-stress job as Area Director at Tulane University. She'll be in charge of three residence halls, a lot of money, and 500 rowdy students. Incidentally, Dan Collarini will be at Tulane Law School. Dan and Jen deep-fried a turkey for the Fourth of July. Gillian Deutch just finished her first year of law school at Cardozo in New York and worked this summer as a Summer Associate for for the Intellectual Property Legal Department of EMC Corporation in Hopkinton, MA. She was happy to be back in Boston for the summer and to see all of her friends who stayed out there after graduating. Vicki Chen visited Gillian after her first year of medical school in California and they had a nice mini-reunion. Gillian is really excited being part of a program at her school called the Innocence Project. They help inmates challenge their convictions based on DNA testing of evidence. They work with the prisoners, crime labs, prosecutors, defense lawyers, review case histories, and litigate in trial and appellate courts across the country on procedural and constitutional issues that arise when getting access to evidence, testing and proving innocence. For more information on this project, check out http://www.cardozo.yu.edu/innocence_project/index.html. And as always, keep those class notes coming!
Mimi Yang, secretary
240 Mercer St., #518B, New York, NY 10012
e-mail: galaxie@alum.mit.edu
|
|
