Sept./Oct. 2009 Notes

Hello Class of 2003! There is a great deal of happy news to report. Of particular note is the number of MIT babies we're welcoming into the world this month. It seems the class of 2003 is reproducing exponentially...actually that's not mathematically accurate, but biologically, we are becoming top breeders. Strong work.  Now, on with the news!

Amanda Beeson* is finishing up grad school at UC San Diego and she was planning on working for MEET (meet.mit.edu) this summer in Israel. After, she hoped to travel around the Middle East and would love travel companions and/or advice, so send Amanda an e-mail. After her adventures conclude, Amanda planned to teach for a year at Williams in Western Mass. Amanda would like to play in the MIT glass shop from time to time, so if you have an in, let her know.

On a similar travel note, Kathryn Chen* graduated from the Wharton MBA program and she was travelling around Israel (Jerusalem to Eilat to Dead Sea to Galilee) with a bunch of other Wharton students this summer. Danielle Guez* wrote to let me know that she was getting married on June 2nd in Israel with Jessy Baker*, Kay Tye*, and Libby Wayman* in attendance.

Back stateside, Jonathan Sheffi* stopped working at Amgen in April, and he planned on spending the summer in Washington DC interning for the FDA. He was living with Tyler Bronder* and had the chance to see lots of classmates, including Richard Hu*, Caitlin Marlow*, Jen Berk '01, Roger Ford '01, Clint Lohse '05, Ashleigh Sanders '04, and Monica Linden '02. In August, Jon was bound for Boston to start at Harvard Business School.

Christine Robson* visited MIT in May to catch up with friends and see the changes around campus. Christine and several other alums, including Josh Weaver '01, Justin Paluska*, Trisha Montalbo '02, and Jeremy Wong '02 took Anne Hunter out to dinner- she is doing well and still acting mom to all the undergrads. Christine was delighted to see the changes around campus and reports the new Sloan Building is huge. Christine and Josh Weaver '00 bought a house together in San Jose, and they are enjoying Silicon Valley. 

 

Emily (Oliphant) Perry* moved with her husband Justin Perry and daughter Makayla to San Diego last October. They both graduated with their master's in the bioengineering program at the University of Utah (where they met) and decided to try out being adults. Their daughter turned 1 on May 8th. Emily gets to be a full time mom (although she's still working on the major revisions for her paper she submitted to JBMR B that addresses key points from her thesis) and Justin works in the biotech industry.

Colin Galbraith* and his wife had their first child, a healthy little boy, on March 22nd. His name is Quentin Carlysle Galbraith, and he weighed 7 lbs 13 ounces and was 20.5 inches long. Colin and his wife love being parents but can't wait for when Quentin to sleep through the night.

Matthew Neave* and his wife embarked on the adventure of raising two children. Their daughter, Charis Ruth Neave, was born on April 13.

Georgette Charles* is recently engaged to Christopher Jones, whom she met at UCSF. She is working on finishing up her PhD by 2010 and will be moving to North Carolina for continued research, where Christopher is doing his residency.

Diana (Bolton) Welmerink* and her husband, Adam, will be moving to Ann Arbor, MI this summer where he will begin his residency in orthodontics. Diana is looking for a job there, and has been reminded how nice people in the midwest are because everyone there is helping her find something. 

Alan McConnell* and Ling Bao* wrote to update us on their start-up swingvine.com, which was featured on KillerStartups and at the MIT Enterprise Forum. The site helps users discover new music, movies, fashion, wines, and more. Visit it!

Dr. Alex Wissner-Gross* was named the youngest member of the International Telecommunication Union's Dynamic Coalition on Internet and Climate Change in that organization's history for his work with CO2Stats (www.co2stats.com), the world's largest environmental certifier of websites.

Christy Keenan Remucal* recently finished her PhD at UC Berkeley in Environmental Engineering, got married to Jonathan Remucal (a Carleton and Duke alum), and she was looking forward to starting a postdoc at ETH Zurich in the fall.

While doing graduate work at Duke University, Vincent Chen* met the love of his life, Stefanie Hartman (Virginia Tech '05), also a student in the Biochemistry program. The two married on September 27th, 2008 in Durham, NC and honeymooned in the Bahamas.

Tilke Judd* planned to intern at Industrial Light and Magic, LucasFilm in San Francisco for the summer and to catch up with MIT friends who participated in the mass exodus to the West Coast. 

Edny Gula* got married on June 13th in Newport, RI to Tazo Inui. Teresa (Shyr) Jones '05 introduced them when Edny visited her in Cleveland. WILG classmates in attendance at the wedding included Margaret Shyr*, Catherine (Goff) Percher*, Christine Thai*, Marissa Raymond-Flesch*, Lauren Owens*, Rebecca Smith*, Karissa (Patterson) Laughter* and her husband, Mark Laughter '02. After the wedding, Edny was finishing her PhD in neuroscience at the University of Michigan then joining Tazo in San Diego where he'll be starting his surgical residency at UCSD. Edny also wanted to give a shout out to Teresa for her fabulous Cancun bachelorette party and Montana wedding. WILG was also in full attendance there, including Margaret Shyr* (sister of the bride), Christine Thai*, Rebecca Smith*, Lesley Frame '04, Laura Chidozie '05, Jessica Karnis '05, Alisa Lehman '05, and Christen Gray '05. It was a picturesque wedding on an island in a lake, and Edny is still recovering from all the whiskey and monkey-on-a-stick.

Joanne Chang*spent spring break in March in Oahu and Kauai. She graduated in June from HBS along with other alums including Jyoti Agarwal*. This summer, Joanne was working at a anti-obesity medical device startup in Boston before returning to MIT in the fall to finish up the last year of the Biomedical Enterprise Program.

Finally, I had the pleasure of seeing several of our classmates in May in San Francisco. I walked around the city with Brett Lockyer* who is working at Intuitive Surgical building robots. I consulted on prom dress issues with Kristen Quinn and her friends at the Stanford business school prom. I shared a fruit smoothie with Cat Ng '01 and David Yin* who continues to work at Clorox in marketing and who had just returned from a trip to Greece. I even went to California Superior Court with Will DelHagen* to do battle against the City and County of San Francisco over a parking ticket. Mr. DelHagen won his case, giving him his first legal victory before me even though I went to the trouble of going to law school. Fortunately, I will have more opportunities to go to court. I accepted a job with a small litigation defense firm in Reno, and I start in September. I hope you're all doing well, and I look forward to getting more updates from you soon!

-Kristie A. Tappan,Secretary

Class Notes - Flip Flop Edition

Dear Classmates,

I hope you are all enjoying the weekend, and for those of you here in the U.S., I hope you are especially enjoying the unofficial kick-off of summer and that you are engaged in a squirt gun fight RIGHT NOW.

You're probably wondering why I'm writing...maybe I'm inviting you all over for a calculus-themed BBQ, maybe I've come across a really adorable picture of a puppy licking an ice cream cone, and I just had to share.  It's all possible.  I'm unpredictable like that, yet I am, in fact, e-mailing you for updates for class notes. My article is due on Thursday, so e-mail me before then.  Between now and Thursday I look forward to being regaled with tales of your adventures and your thoughts on whether a calculus-themed BBQ could ever work.

Secretarily yours,
Kristie

July/August 2009 Class Notes

written April 3, 2009

Hello Class of 2003! I hope this column finds you all doing well and excited to read the news below. I recommend taking a deep breath before hopping on the roller coaster ride of geeky updates that follows. Breathe in. Breathe out. Read on!

We begin with updates I neglected to put in the last column. I know this is a shameful dereliction of my secretarial duties, but as I am your secretary, you are required to love me anyway.

First, Richard Watson* wrote in October to share that he was busy in his second year of graduate school in the applied mathematics PhD program at UC Davis after several years working at NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. Watson's plan at UC Davis is to apply his newly honed mathematical/analytical techniques to examining relationships between structure and function in simulated neurobiological circuits and related networks. Mmm...simulated neurobiological circuits. Sorry, I digress. When Watson is not studying he finds time time to visit friends in San Francisco as well as get out of town to go camping, surfing, and snowboarding.

In entrepreneurial news, after toiling at their computers for months, Alan McConnell* and Ling Bao* launched swingvine.com. As featured on KillerStartups, the site helps users discover new music, movies, fashion, wines, and more. Go visit.

Tim Sutherland* recently finished his master's degrees in aero/astro & TPP. Tim reports he got a little bored with space travel, so now he's working as an energy efficiency consultant in Boston at Navigant Consulting. I suppose if saving the planet doesn't work out for Tim, he can revert to space travel and help us escape Earth Wall-E style. Tim was also looking forward to visiting Scotland where his great great ancestors were sheep herders in the northern highlands. I am hoping Tim has the opportunity to herd some sheep and reports back with several tales of feisty rams and mischevious lambs.

Daniel Turek* wrote to share that he and Jennifer Wallace were getting married on April 11th, in Peru. Erin Conwell* and Ben Balas '02 welcomed their first child, Blaise Ursula Conwell Balas, into the world on New Year's Day 2009. Erin writes that the baby keeps them busy, but she's also a lot of fun.

Will Fournier* also had baby MIT engineer news. Will and his wife, Wendy, were married on December 31, 2007 and they had their first son, Nathan, in October. He is beautiful, healthy and never ceases to amaze Will. Will separated from the Navy in August, and started his first year at Georgetown Law.

Kelli (Griffin) Roberts* finished her PhD at the University of Washington in Seattle in 2007, and spent the summer with her husband, Mike Roberts '02, hiking around the Pacific Northwest. In their cross country move, Kelli and Mike took a two month trip hiking and camping at lots of national parks in the southwest. Their trip included a 3 week work-exchange at an egalitarian intentional community (aka commune) in Missouri, and a visit with Becky Clinton* in Baltimore. Kelli and Mike then spent a few weeks traveling around the countryside of Argentina in December of 2007. In 2008 they apprenticed on an organic farm in mid-coast Maine and became certified permaculture designers. Now Kelli is a postdoc at Cornell University in the department of crop and soil sciences using life cycle assessment to look at biochar production. Ithaca is nice but the winters are cold!

Noramay J. Cadena* and daughter Chassitty (now 10 years old!) are in the midst of packing for a return to MIT as members of the LFM/LGO Sloan community. Look them up if you happen to be in the area!

Jonathan Sheffi* is concluding his time with Amgen in order to pursue an internship with the FDA in Washington DC for the summer. Then he will head back to Boston in August to begin his MBA at Harvard Business School. Jon is very excited and looks forward to returning to Boston after five years away.

MIT wrote to let me know that our former class president, Sina Kevin Nazemi*, was awarded a 2009 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship to pursue his joint degree in business and public policy at Harvard University. Strong work Kevin. Kevin was one of 750 applicants nationwide.

Alexander D. Wissner-Gross, Ph.D.* and Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates spoke at the Hertz Symposium about technologies for addressing planetary challenges. Wissner-Gross's company, CO2Stats (www.co2stats.com), is the world's largest environmental certifier of websites, and helps make websites green.

Emie Okorafor* is working as a freelance animator and thanks to the wonders of our beloved internet Emie is working on an animated music video for a European director he's never met. Emie also makes music, and as mentioned in a previous column, he released an album called "Superstar?" (under the name Emezie) available for download on Amazon.com and iTunes (http://emezie.com).

Finally, Lauren Killian* is still enjoying working at the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and she just got a new assignment. She started as a Congressional Fellow working on the Senate Environment and Public Work's Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety. She is really enjoying the neat experience, including the fun of organizing a nuclear recycling related event at MIT for the Senator chairing the subcommittee. She looks forward to seeing MIT & friends still in the Boston area again when she goes out for the MIT event in May.

That concludes the news for this column. You may now release your death grip on your issue of Technology Review or on your mouse and keyboard if you are reading this online. I will have more thrills and nerdy delights for you in two months. Until then!

Kristie A. Tappan, Class Secretary

Class Notes, brought to you by the letter C

Collegial Classmates from College,

I correspond to collect communications for our Class Notes column. Have you made any conjugal commitments, commenced child-bearing, or created a company? Have you conquered Cambodia or have you been charmed by a cougar? Curiousity and an April 2nd deadline compels me to inquire.

Correspondence chronicling countless subjects can come in, so send me an e-mail with or without ridiculous alliterations, and I will dutifully create our column for your note-reading pleasure!

Now, in non-alliterative news, you should visit our class notes blog (http://mit2003classnotes.blogspot.com/) and subscribe to the feed because then you'll get your 2003 news fix well before Technology Review comes out. Also, send me pictures with your updates so I can make our column come alive with character and color.

Additionally, MIT has requested I inform you of two things:
1. Baker is having a 60 year reunion July 2-5, 2009. If you're interested in helping with it, contact Henry Houh '89 and Lola Ball '91.
2. The MIT Museum would like you to nominate your favorite pieces of Institute history for the MIT 150 Exhibition, which can be done most easily at the exhibition website, http://museum.mit.edu/150.

Finally, I would like to list several fantastic words that start with the letter "c" that I was unable to integrate into my news solicitation: cookie, conviction, conniption, combustion, capitalize, corrupt, cipher, calculator and several suggestive "c" words that I omit with great restraint.

Secretarily yours,
Kristie

May/June Class Notes

written January 29, 2009

Hello classmates! This column was written in January while the nation was held by the icy grip of winter and you offered advice on how to construct the most spectacularly awesome snow fort ever constructed. Lori Eich wisely suggested the fort include a series of tubes. Naomi Schmelzer, writing from the ER where she was on call, packed the fort with blankets and good friends because what fun is a snow fort if you don't have a companion to knock over and throw snow at? Then, Josh Neubert pointed out the obvious, and said that I needed a rocket-launching system in the fort. Truer words were never written.

My fort advisers also wrote in with updates, Josh is working as the executive director of the Conrad Foundation. On February 1, the foundation's Pete Conrad Spirit of Innovation Awards will be open for public voting to select the most innovative high school students. Whether you visit in time to vote or not, check out their website conradawards.org. It is the stuff of rocket-launching snow forts.

Lori Eich, our snow-tube aficionado, wrote with a death-defying tale. She recently woke to find her cat running around her bedroom and across her face. Lori then heard a hissing, squealing noise and saw a lump of brown on the floor. It was a bat, and not just any bat, a rabid bat. Lori and her bat-trapping husband, JJ, were vaccinated and will soon be available to defend you from any rabid animals you may encounter. They're basically going to be super heroes, which is the kind of news that makes the 2003 class notes worth reading. Lori also quit her job as a geologist and is interning with a trading firm in Chicago. I hope she adds "immune to rabies" to her resume when she's done with her internship.

Thomas Becker wrote to share that he and his fiance, Mari, and are getting married over Patriots Day weekend in Boston. Collins Ward and Matt Waldon will be groomsmen in the ceremony. Mari and Tom have enjoyed being back in Boston and are excited to be married.

Dr. Alex Wissner-Gross's company, CO2Stats (co2stats.com), was named one of the top 6 start-ups "most likely to make the world a better place" in the 2008 Crunchies Tech Startup Awards. CO2Stats is the world's largest environmental certifier of websites, and helps make websites green.

Alison Wong moved to Shanghai for a work rotation with her company, IDEO. Alison is helping design new products for the Chinese market. She is considering introducing the fortune cookie, and seeing how it fares. Alison has already had two MIT visitors, Teresa Zhang and Rick Sheridan, and she is hoping for more!

Jessy Baker is in the second year of her PhD in mechanical engineering and chemistry, working on nanoparticle solar cells and spending time with undergraduate buddies Libby Wayman '04, Kay Tye, Chris Rivest '06, and Abe Schneider '02. She was told that after passing quals, all that is needed to graduate is to maintain a pulse, but she's been working harder since her quals than she ever has in her life!

Irna Hutabarat wrote from the Southern Highlands of Tanzania where she is developing strategy on how to market and distribute solar and green energy products to the most remote parts of Tanzania. The cost of distribution to rural areas can be so high that by the time a product reaches the rural consumer, it's unaffordable. Irna finds it troubling to see the poorest people in the world spending a high percentage of their income on polluting and expensive energy sources like kerosene and batteries, and she loves seeing faces light up when they see the simple power of solar energy. Unfortunately, the best solar companies have difficulty penetrating these markets without adding significantly to their cost; finding a way to solve that distribution issue is a rewarding challenge for Irna. If you're interested in bringing green technology to rural areas, get in touch with Irna. She'd love to hear from you!

Irna with a giant and edible mushroomthat grows only on certains weeks of the year in the Southern Highlands.

Irna with Radio Sales Guys in the Southern Highlands excited to replace thebatteries with a solar panel. The radio you see here is a regular radiosold on the street stand that is playing music with a small 2Watt panel.

Also in Africa, Will DelHagen survived four and a half months and 25,000 km driving around Southern Africa in his Land Rover, and finally decided to tear himself away from Cape Town in the summer and return to the USA in the winter. Will is moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in February to find a job, a place to live, and the good surfing and kite boarding spots.

Joanne Chang traveled to Australia and New Zealand over her winter break and then started her last semester at Harvard Business School. She was looking forward to taking academic whining and slacking off to a whole new level. This won't be easy. Joanne and I lived together while I was in law school, and I made sure she knew all about THE MILLION ZILLION QUADRILLION pages of reading I had to do. It is going to take hard work and focus to take academic melodrama to another level.

Maggie Sullivan wrote from her cozy new home in Aurora, CO where she was unpacking, reformatting a computer, fixing stereo equipment, baking cookies, and drinking hot chocolate! (Mmm... hot chocolate...oh yes, class notes, back to business.) Maggie is still in the air force. She graduated in December from the Space Systems Engineering curriculum at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA with M.S. degrees in electrical engineering and astronautical engineering. Her thesis was on fault tolerance methods in FPGAs (I am guessing that stands for Fast Powered Gadgets for Astronauts, but I may be wrong) against radiation effects. Her capstone design project was on small, modular, responsive imaging spacecraft. She moved to the Denver, CO area in January to start her assignment at Buckley Air Force Base with Air Force Space Command. Maggie just bought her second motorcycle, a 2003 Triumph Bonneville (British twin) to contrast with her 2006 Hyosung GT650R (Korean sportbike). If there are any other riders or people with ski gear to spare in Denver, let her know!

Also in the armed services, Minna Oh is now in charge of her installation's tax center. She says law school did not teach her anything about filing taxes or managing soldiers or Dept of Defense civilians, but it's fun. Minna loves being a captain and reported on the amazing phenomenon of telling people to do things, and then seeing those things get done!

Stefanos Marnerides wrote to bond with me over the fact that we were both spending a wintry Sunday not getting out of bed, dreaming of hot chocolate being delivered from our kitchens. Stefanos is working on his PhD at Columbia with Brian Green..

Finally, Kristie Tappan (that's me!) spent the first week of 2009 at Lake Tahoe seeing several MIT alums including Cat Ng '01, Erik Deutsch PhD '02, Julie Hong '02, Trisha McAndrew*, Brett Lockyer*, and Rick Sheridan*. We built a snowman, snowshoed, skied, snowboarded, played Rockband on the Wii, and drank a great deal of hot chocolate (with whipped cream AND marshmallows). Winter fun was had by all. Then I returned to Reno and found a job as a law clerk. On my third week of work, I witnessed a defendant stab his attorney in court with a maliciously sharpened pencil. Legal work is dangerous business in Nevada, and I am keeping my eyes peeled for dangerous writing utensils at every turn.

-Kristie A. Tappan, Class Secretary

Class Notes and Reno Snow Report

Dear Classmates,  

I write you all from bed, not because I am sick or dying, but because it is Sunday morning and it is (finally) snowing in the Reno/Tahoe area. This is the place to be. If I could arrange some kind of hot chocolate delivery service that would run from my kitchen to my bed, I would be all set for the day.  

If you are similarly cuddled up in bed with your laptop, send me an e-mail! I am looking for updates for class notes, and I am curious about what features should be included in the most spectacular snow fort ever constructed. I'm not sure if it's going to snow enough for me to build this immeasurably awesome snow fort, but I would like to have plans prepared.  

Your Secretary, Kristie

March/April 2009 Class Notes

written December 1, 2008

Hello classmates! This edition of class notes is packed with news of your accomplishments and adventures. We begin with international news, starting with me. I am writing from an internet cafe in Moshi, Tanzania where I am teaching English to fourth graders and eating lots of pineapple. I have been here for a month, and I am looking forward to visiting our classmate, Will DelHagen* in South Africa in a few weeks. Hopefully, he will show me some lions... or a least a few ferocious wharthogs!

Moving east, Rick Sheridan* is doing product development in Shenzhen, China, enjoying coordinating engineers in Chinese. He claimss that sometimes his fellow engineers actually understand what he is saying. I look forward to testing his Chinese when he gets back. While not developing products, Rick found a remote beach a few hours away from Shenzhen which has surfable waves and boards to rent! Alums should call Rick if they're in Shenzen looking to surf or otherwise enjoy China with Rick.

Katie Maurer* returned from Afghanistan in August (where she was working with Afghans designing and overseeing construction work), and she is now living near Cambridge, England. Katie is still in the Air Force for another 9 months and hopes to separate and pursue a career teaching after that. Currently, she is traveling in the Middle East with Malena Stiteler*. Malena is on an 18 month trip around the world researching candy (which sounds exceedingly awesome to your class secretary), and Katie met up with Malena for the Jordan, Israel and Egypt portion of her trip.

On the home front, Dwan (Riddick) Thomas* and Anthony Thomas II* send greetings from Houston, TX, and they would like to announce the birth of their first child, Anthony Henry Thomas III, on September 23. In the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, they went without power for 11 days before little Tony decided he couldn't take the heat and was born 3 weeks early. Fortunately, the power came back the day he came home from the hospital. Tony is doing well and enjoying life with electricity!

Also from Houston, Angelique Dousis* graduated from law school in May, and took (and passed!) the Texas Bar in July. She is currently working in Houston at Dewey & LeBoeuf where she's doing work that is completely unrelated to her MIT degree. Angelique also survived Hurricane Ike despite a tornado actually touching down about 100 yards from her. Luckily, the worst of the storm for her was living without power for about 15 days, and I'm sure she is also enjoying life with the electricity back on in Texas!

Vicki (Schubert) Williamson* joined the working world again after a year of full-time mommy duties. She started a position with Raytheon in Woburn, MA at their Missile Defense Center (where Amanda Leckman* also works). Vicki's daughter, Fiona, began day care and recently came home with a shirt splattered in paint, making Vicki think day care is more fun than working all day.

Dr. Alex Wissner-Gross* (alexwg.org) wrote in with the news that he was named the 2008 HertzDoctoral Thesis Prize Winner by the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation. The award recognizes the Ph.D. dissertations completed by HertzFellows during the preceding academic year for their overall excellence and pertinence to high-impact applications of the physical sciences.

Lyci Hillman* wrote to share that she and Marc Dagenais* got engaged while in Napa in April. Despite having been together for 8 years, Marc managed to surprise Lyci! Now, Lyci is finishing up her last semester of grad school at the University of Michigan and greatly looking forward to being back in Chicago again with Marc full time. Marc and Lyci were also hable to spend time with Mallory Briggs* while attending Melinda Wilson's* wedding this past summer.

Preeti Chadha* graduated from Wharton in June and now picks stocks for a mutual fund (American Century). And, a few weeks ago at the time of writing in November, Preeti got engaged to Amar Doshi. He proposed in Central Park and then they had a romantic dinner and celebrated with friends including Priya Verma*, Rumman Chowdury ('02), and Sheila Viswanathan ('04).

Hareesh V. Nair* also graduated from Wharton this year. He spent the summer traveling through Eastern and Western Europe, and moved to Minneapolis to start his job in Medtronic's corporate merger and acquisition group. The meltdown in the financial industry has been like a holiday shopping spree in his line of work, and it has been keeping him on his toes. Hareesh would love to hear from anybody visiting Minneapolis or interested in med devices - shoot him an email at hvnair@alum.mit.edu if that applies to you!

Crystal Shih* graduated with her PhD in chemistry from Caltech this past June and moved back across the country to good ol' MIT, where she is doing postdoctoral research in the chemistry department with Prof. JoAnne Stubbe. Crystal's five years in Southern California have completely undone her upbringing; she is now a "wuss" in the cold.

In equally impressive doctoral news, Lauren Frick* finished her PhD in Molecular Pharmacology and Toxicology in the BE department at MIT in August 2007 and is now working at BioTrove, Inc in Woburn, MA doing high-throughput mass spectrometry and loving the working life.

In holiday news, over Thanksgiving, Christine Robson* gathered a group of MIT and CMU alums to spend the weekend digging a traditional Imu (Hawaiian cooking pit) in her backyard, in which they roasted a huge turkey wrapped in Banana Leaves, creating a lovely Hawaiian Luau Thanksgiving! Yum!

Finally, as a testament to our creative as well as technical prowess, Emezie Okorafor* released an album, of music, online. Utilizing his art school technical education and his unbridled creative curiosity, he created 9 songs and unleashed them digitally upon the world via Amazon.com and iTunes. He made the cover art, himself:emezie.com/superstarcd-.png. The album is called "Superstar?" by Emezie! Search his name at either of the above virtual establishments, and people should be able to download him. Emie has a song called "Dork", which is basically a tribute to our beloved alma mater! You should check it out!

Until next time!

Kristie A. Tappan, Class Secretary

Jambo Classmates!

Jambo Classmates!

I am writing you from an internet cafe in Moshi, Tanzania where I am volunteering at a primary school, teaching English and computer skills. While here, I have mastered the art of playing tic-tac-toe in the dirt and I have figured out that all of the people saying "Mambo" are not asking me to dance, they are saying hello. These are valuable skills that will serve me well while I am here.

I am, of course, writing to find out how you have been and to solicit news for our next edition of class notes. It is important that you put your typing fingers to work and write me back because I am far far away from home, and it is up to you to make my trips to the internet cafe worthwhile. Feel free to regale me with tales of pumpkin pie and apple cider while sharing news of your new job, recent engagement, or robotic pet hamster named Sprocket. As you know, I love all news, and I am looking forward to spinning your updates into a 1200 word column some time before December 1. Then you will have a nice new column of class notes to cuddle up with during the holidays. Yum.

Finally, you should all go on the alumni association website (http://alum.mit.edu) and make sure your contact information is current. You are excused if you actually still live at 500 Memorial Drive, but otherwise, check the site and make sure your contact information is current. Plus, the site has been spruced up in the last few months. Exploring it could take up several quality minutes of the work day.

That's it from me. I hope this e-mail finds you all doing well enjoying yourselves! I look forward to hearing from many of you soon!

Your Struggling with Swahili Secretary,
Kristie