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Hello to everyone from my
favorite little pub in rainy Exeter, where both the troubles of
my Sociology of the Arts Ph.D. program and the weather are
rinsed away in a river of Guinness. Your class officers are
well: Kai Xu has sold his firstborn children to UPenn
medical school, Jeremy Schifeling is working on his
teaching certification, and Renee Willemson-Goode is
teaching in NYC.
Many of our bunch still call
Swarthmore home. Mark Angelillo and Sean Finney
founded a computer consulting start-up, Gradient Solutions. And
a big cheer goes out to Jeremy, Abram Lipman,
Chela Delgado, Jacob Hodes, Andy Meade, Liz
Brenard, and others that are at Swat getting their teaching
certificates. Outside of Swat, Chris Trucksess is
contemplating a move to Portland, and Collin Peng Sue is
working for economy.com in West Chester. Pam Lavallee is
working on Field House Lane for a Positive Psychology project.
And up in NJ, Lindsay VanSciver and Ali Furman
share a posh apartment and the company secrets of
industrial-supply firm McMaster-Karr.
Well, the Philly contingent of
good old 2003 is strong as ever. Laurel Eckhouse,
Alyssa Timin, and Amelia Hoover are all co-habitating
there. Liane Rice, who’s working for Women Organized
Against Rape, is living with Blair Cochran, who is
enjoying Ollie the commando kitten. Blair and Jenny
Lumstead are working as literacy interns for the
Philadelphia school district. Also, Neil Cavanaugh and
Chris Milla are enjoying their luxury apartment, shared with
Lea Lee ’02. Olivia Gruber just landed her dream
job at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, with benefits! Robyn
Harshaw is in a graduate program at UPenn, and Kate
Hurster is living with Amanda Parrish in University
City while working for the UPenn Depression Research Unit.
Becca Lipstein has the attention of countless Quaker
grade-schoolers, and is loving her European-décor apartment. And
Jessica Lee, who lives in NYC, came down in early August
to visit Karly Ford and Jacob Hodes in their huge
West Philly House, which is nearby to Matt Rubin’s.
Ruben Juarez ’03 is back from California and co-habitating
with Phil Garboden ’02. Adrian Daub spent his
summer taking breakdanceing classes, before starting at UPenn
this fall.
Boston, of course is another
hub for those of us that don’t fall far from the tree. After
spending my summer there with my boyfriend, Leslie Murray
’02, I ran into tons of Swatties who all tend to frequent the
same beantown establishments, shocking, I know. I glimpsed
Gabe Hankins in Inman square (which houses Christina’s, an
amazing ice cream shop), and ran into Daniel Sproul,
who’s doing computer programming, in Central Square. Laura
Zager is beginning her engineering degree at MIT, and eating
lots of pasta. If you’re down in Harvard Square, stop by
Starbucks to see Madalyn Baker. Drew Adams is
doing chemistry at Harvard, where Abram Falk is also
studying physics. Brett Klukan and Vincent Ip are
both at law school.
In the boonies
outside of Boston, EB Fortier is enjoying Tufts vet
school, and total isolation from other Swatties. Nearby,
Andrew Stout just began his Ph.D. in AI and Robotics at
UMass, Amherst. He is living with Julie Gregorio, who has
a very yummy job baking for Rao’s. And Geoff Klein,
recovering after a 12 hour vigil with me to see the Boston Pops
July 4th, is in NH, looking for engineering jobs.
In NYC, Elizabeth Nolte
has a fabulous paralegal gig breaking into buildings and
schmoozing with the CEO of MTV. Caitlin Engelhard and
Mara Gustafson are enjoying their nearby Brooklyn apartment.
Betsy Jenkins loves her engineering job in Manhattan, but
did not enjoy climbing the 36 flights to her apartment during
the blackout. Mike Camilleri is also back home in the
city, and Ben Galynker is interning in Senator Clinton’s
office and frequenting local music festivals. Emily Brown
is working in NYC and enjoying being close to her boyfriend,
Mike Stanley ’01. After basking in the LA sunshine this
summer, Andrew Fefferman has begun his Ph.D. program in
physics at Cornell, and Mike Loeb has begun the grueling
M.D at Syracuse.
Down in D.C., Nori Heikkinen
is working for StreamSage, and living with Claire Weiss,
who is just back from a summer of archeology in Italy. Feng
He was at StreamSage this summer, and is now off to Rice for
grad school in computer science. Emily Clough and
Joanne Jacobson were summer roommates in our nation’s
capital. Nearby in Maryland, Todd Gillette is convincing
is trying to convince companies that they do need another
computer engineer.
Becca Van Fleet is just
back from a cross country trip to Colorado, where she visited
Laura Hirshfield, who’s studying sociology at the University
of Michigan and supervising local cooking classes, and Jane
DeRonne, who’s in the Twin Cities. Becca is planning
to open her own studio in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
Also at UMichigan, William Tran is beginning his law and
settling in for the first frost.
Cam MacDearmid is in
Maine for a few years, doing research for a biological firm. And
Kasia Koziol-Dube is home recovering from ACL surgery
(yes, again), and the MCATS (also again), while taking classes
at UConn and being stuffed by her mother’s wonderful cooking.
And after an incredible summer studying birds on the frozen
tundra of western St. Lawrence Island, Emily Almberg is
back in Chicago with her family for a bit.
And then there are those of us
that realized that the West Coast is a lovely place to live,
where the sun shows daily and the people don’t all wear the same
black pea coat for 5 months out of the year. Sarah Stanton
is teaching in Washington State. Joan Javier is
increasing voter turnout in Denver, working as a field organizer
for the State PIRGs. Kevin Bovard is beginning his degree
at Stanford law. And, LA natives Cathy Ta, looking for a
bakery or legal job, and Anne Tantamjarik, back from a
harried summer supervising girl scouts, are both enjoying
blending in with other people wearing orange.
As far as those Swatties who
hopped the US borders, Ben Chui is off teaching English
and gallivanting around Mexico City for a year. Benjamin
Juhn is enjoying his business program in Korea. After
hanging around Philly for the summer, Haw-Ben Chai is off
enjoying China for a while with his sister. Looking for a job in
Hong Kong, Hofan Chau is considering studying movement
theatre. And showing us all that romantic spirit, Chris
Bussard has followed his fiancée back to Japan. Kudos to
Kara Levy and boyfriend Ted Alexander, who got their
international teaching certificates in Barcelona, and are off to
Prague to teach English. And Sarah Kate Selling, of whom
I am TOTALLY jealous, is teaching math at the International
school in Milan. Kate Nelson-Lee is now coaching at
Fettes College in Edinburgh Scotland, while flaunting her sexy
American accent. Southward, Katie Cloonan is teaching at
the Chigwell School in Essex, UK. Esther Bloom is
teaching at an International School in London, also inhabited by
Laura Damerville and her boyfriend Sam Sadow. I’m
looking forward to tagging along with Phil Blumenshine
and his boyfriend, both at Oxford (insert fake hoity-toity
British pronunciation here)..
Well, that’s my first spanning
the 2003 post-Swat world. If you didn’t see your name, many
apologies; I blame the Guinness. Please email me at
Sophia.Acord@alum.swarthmore.edu and update me on what
you’re doing. I’d love to hear from you! |
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