Ahoy! Clara Hard is living the life of a sailor. After three months in the South Pacific, she returned to Seattle to show landlubbers Katie Mygatt, Alana Frost and Emily Bonem around before getting back out on the water in the fall. She's second mate and relief engineer on the schooner Adventuress and can be found somewhere in Puget Sound.
Ryan Manalansan is in the same boat, in a manner of speaking: "I thank God every day I don't have a desk job," he wrote. He just finished a stage play, which, despite scenes involving puppet-puppet/human-puppet sex, had a successful run at the Stage West Theatre in Fort Worth,Texas, of all places. He is currently working on a made-for-TV movie in which he plays a character with Tourette's. "Go figure."
Summer was good to Mark Foster, who helped run a community center on Martha's Vineyard. He also worked at a fish market there with his sister, Susie Foster '08, and took advantage of the occasional swell to go surfing with Cecily Lowenthal and Jason Epstein '05.
Meredith Sanger-Katz used all of the vacation days she had saved up and went on a trip through Israel, Turkey, Greece and Jordan. She has been working in the Paterson administration and is living on the LES. She sees April Champion, who also works in her building, and Nikhar Gaikwad, just a few minutes away in the West Village, from time to time.
Speaking of which, if you didn't spend the summer planning an unofficial reunion for your favorite Purple Cows, you're in the minority. The weekend after Memorial Day, Drew Raab, Brian Lowe, Nick Maselli, George Rodriguez, John Symanski, Jamie Kingsbery and Sean Clifford '05 descended upon the Kingsbery abode in Rumson, N.J. Drew is a third-year clinical psychology student at UH-Manoa; Brian is back from Syria and is living in DC; Nick just started med school at UMass; George is the assistant athletic director/assistant track and field coach at Wheaton College; John is in his second year at the Medical College of Wisconsin; and Jamie is working at a software startup in NYC.
Nearly two dozen Ephs made it to Chapel Hill, N.C., for the wedding of Gillian Sowden and Evan Bick on July 6. Evan was deployed to Iraq in October; Gillian, who is in her third year of med school at Harvard, threw him a surprise party before he left.
In August, Poker F convened at Taylor Tyson's place in Chapel Hill. Angie Chien, Kristin Moss, Nadia Moore, Courtney Bartlett and Erin "Sprinz" Wagner were there, as was Taylor's boyfriend, John Haywood '04.
Jon O'Hanlon and Andy Bisset paid Sam Sawan (in his first year of law school at Northeastern) a visit in Boston at the end of August. They celebrated Andy's birthday at Whiskey Park with Tiffany Chao, Michael Saracco, Joseph LaPaglia and Katy Wilks '07; he danced to "Shout" in front of the entire club and had so much fun that he staged an encore the following night at the People's Republic in Cambridge. On one of those nights (not surprisingly, Sam couldn't remember which) the trio spotted Jessi England in the Back Bay "getting her daily workout in" circa 2 a.m. Jordan Bate, Marilyn Gomez, Cecilia de la Campa and Kristyn Bretz '07 also sang "Happy Birthday" at the end of August, but to Megan O'Malley at a Purple Pub-like dive bar in the West Village. Megan is director of programs at the Williams Club; she took over for Sydney Streets, on sabbatical in (where else?) Sydney, Australia. Cecilia and Galen Glaze live two doors down from Megan. Cecilia sells rights for Simon & Schuster's children's and young-adult books. Galen is a contributor for the Onion.com.
Liz Woodwick left her job at Lehman Brothers in June; she spent the summer traveling to London, Paris and (wait for it) Minnesota. This fall she enrolled in a pastry arts program at the French Culinary Institute. Anna Kretchmer Gunning was happy to see Liz when Liz was in London. Recently, Anna reverted to her role as tour guide to man the Williams booth at a college fair there.
Over Labor Day weekend, Liz, Jon Wisbey, Hayley Wynn, Chris Richardson and Phil Kim '07 kept Brad Chu and Steve Myers company in Philadelphia. Brad is in his third year of med school; he moved to Camden to do rotations.
That same weekend, Andrea Burke organized a "Games and Sports Weekend" in Woods Hole. In attendance were Ian Bone, Martine Neider and Melissa Paige from NYC; Yariv Pierce and Carol Rosenberg from DC; Chris Thom from Philly; Elizabeth Doran from Boston; Susie Theroux '05 from Providence; and Geoff O'Donoghue all the way from Berkeley.
Joe McDonough also met up with Dave Letzler, Brian Hirshman and Seth Zeren '05 at Kent Falls State Park that weekend, where he orchestrated the appearance of Elizabethans past and present. Joe is back at the Kent School for take three. Dan Burns took a break from summer classes at BC to attend the wedding of Mike Montalbano and Kimberly Davis '08 with Jen Huang, Sulgi Lim, Christine Rabe, PJ Bonavitacola, Joanna Darcus and Priscilla Damaso.
James Brittin summered in Cambridge with Ashleigh Theberge, PhD student extraordinaire.
Alissa Caron is back stateside after receiving her master's from Oxford. Gape Machao, Sarah Steege and Elissa Hardy joined her for the Boston premiere of a documentary that her big bro edited.
Joseph Shoer is working on his PhD at Cornell and rooming with Jared Strait '07. In June he, Dave Butts and Erika Latham got together in Williamstown. (The boys' dads were there for a reunion. They introduced Joseph, Dave and Erika to some old Tyler House traditions. Roofball, anyone?) Joseph visited Lisa Lindeke and Seth Daniels in Boston and then, before classes started, he traveled to Honolulu for an aerospace engineering conference where he presented his work. Joseph Gangestad was there, too!
Rachel Winch is in DC. After wrapping up work with her congressman, Jim McGovern, she took time off to manage a farmers market in Silver Spring, Md. She, Jen Messier, Michael Gallagher, Jessica Lovaas and Healy Thompson '03 gathered in Essex, N.Y., for a weekend of swimming, kayaking and catching up on life after Parsons. Now she works for the Global Child Nutrition Foundation on weekdays and manages the farmers market on weekends.
Blake Albohm is also in DC. In July, he hosted another "Shaboitfest," this time to raise money for IronMatt.org. In September, he and Sasha Gsovski ventured out to the West Coast. They vacationed in San Francisco and LA.
Colin Yee just moved to DC. He hangs out with Yariv Pierce, Leah Weintraub and Lucy Cox-Chapman.
Hayley Wynn, Jason Law, Aaron Bloom, Ben Berringer and Meghan Dwyer are bringing a little bit of the Purple Valley to Washington Square. All are in their first year of law school at NYU. At a reception for incoming students, the vice dean listed schools producing a high turnout. He failed to mention Williams, however, so Ben and Kate
Whipple '07 caught him on his way out of the men's room and set him straight.
After completing his second year of law school, Brad Brecher reported to Camp Lejeune, N.C., where he handled his own caseload and lived in a beachfront house on the government's dime. "Thanks for paying your taxes!"
Sarah Steege is doing double duty, pursuing an MPP and a JD from Harvard and the University of Michigan, respectively. Her roommate in Somerville, Mass., went to Amherst. No smallpox, no worries.
Elizabeth Hewett is in her second year of med school at Dartmouth. Liz Killien is also there, as are Erin Sullivan '02 and Emily Greenberger '08. "The Williams-Amherst rivalry is strong in the Upper Valley," Elizabeth wrote, "but all in all, we have the Amherst kids squarely outnumbered!"
Bryan Monier is in his second year of med school, too; he's in San Antonio. Over Labor Day weekend he caught up with Matt Brown, Matt Slovitt, Jeff Koegel, Jeff Wilbur, Jon Russell, Robbie Bergan, Scott MacKenzie and Addison Lanier in Charleston, S.C. They played golf, listened to bluegrass and soaked up the Southern hospitality.
After seven years of dating, Ted Unger and his girlfriend Erin, a Middlebury alum, are engaged. Ted just moved to Chicago—Erin is in her first year of med school at Northwestern. Says Addison, "Good thing Sarah Connell will be there to show her the ropes."
Jessie Kerr spent the summer in California leading backpacking trips for teenagers. Now she's exploring med school at the University of Vermont.
Heather Casteel also spent the summer in California; she hung out with Kim Heard and Katie Belshe in SF before moving to Boston to begin her first year of law school at Harvard.
Ruxandra Paul is in her third year of her PhD program at Harvard. When she isn't teaching or working on her dissertation she's attending to her duties at the Center for European Studies.
Tiffany Chao is still at Harvard's GSE, where she is getting certified in school counseling. (She and Ian Bone are planning their next fake honeymoon: a cruise to Antarctica.)
Former roommate Katie Krause is off to London to get her MPH. Kimi Gilbert just moved there to go to UCL; she looks forward to getting into mischief with Vanessa Badino. Holly Houghton is at the Courtauld Institute, and Whitney Johnson (at Yale for an MPH) is recruiting male models for Holly to "study."
After passing her school psychology licensing exam, Beth Ann Barnosky is interning on Long Island. Poker E spent a long weekend together in Florida in July; in August, BA and Kate Sauerhoff welcomed Meaghan Rathvon and Phoebe Fischer-Groban to their temporary digs in SoCal. (BA was living in San Diego, and Kate was living on the beach. Lucky.) Meaghan is now a registered nurse. After an end-of-summer NESCAC boat cruise in Boston Harbor, she went back to school for another year to become a family nurse practitioner.
Kim Fassler and Mary Catherine Blanton are roommates; they're in their first year at SAIS. Kim hopes to spend next year at the Hopkins Nanjing Center. Mary Catherine will move on to Harvard for law school.
I had the good fortune of accompanying her and Emily Miyares (in her first year of architecture school at UVA) to a Celine Dion concert in DC. It was on a school night, but neither of them seemed to mind. C'est la devotion.
Jonathan Dowse is in his second year of architecture school at WashU. He visited Williamstown in August to check out all of the new buildings in the area. He and Lisetta Shah met up with former XC coaches and teammates while he was there.
Elissa Klein is still the director of Jewish life at Boston College. She celebrated Independence Day with Ame Beard and assorted "others" at Ame's cabin in Vt. At the end of the summer, she had to say goodbye to beloved roommate Miriam Lawrence, who left to work on her MFA at the University of Michigan. I'm guessing that by the time she reads this, she will have run into Phoebe Fischer-Groban, who is in her first year of law school at the U of M.
Charlotte Delaney received a master's in music/vocal performance from NYU in June. She's busy teaching voice lessons, auditioning and performing whenever she possibly can.
Raphael Jeong is "nurturing his mind in South Korea." Hmm…
Simone Bras Hua and her husband welcomed daughter Claire Noel on April 16! Unfortunately, Simone has been diagnosed with a brain and spinal cord disease. In July, she packed up her family and headed to NYC, where she underwent surgery. If her recovery goes well, Simone plans to seize the opportunity to go back to school and get her PhD in psychology. In the meantime, send happy thoughts her way.
Anne Louise Ennis is teaching a great group of 8/9s at the laboratory school attached to the Bank Street College of Education, where she got her master's. She occasionally runs into Juliana Fuchs, now a student there.
Vickie Fernandez is in her third year of teaching eighth grade in the Bronx and her fifth year of living with Meghan Ryan. (They recently relocated to East Williamsburg.)
Blair Coffman traded her gym shoes for heels when she accepted a position in digital advertising at NBC/iVillage. She happily made the switch from working at a sports complex (Chelsea Piers) to the "real world" of midtown Manhattan.
Lauren Driscoll is "up to the usual NYC shenanigans." She is working as the marketing and events manager for Surface, a style and design magazine based in Soho. She plans events for major design exhibitions, design fairs and Fashion Week. Sweet.
After exactly one year, 10 months and nine days as a paralegal, Jon Russell went in search of greener pastures. He is now the content producer for the website hunch.com, which was set to launch in the fall. Amelia Bishop quit her job in June. She's living in a renovated mill in Lowell, Mass., and doing marketing for a software startup in Nashua. In her spare time, she trains with close-by Ephs.
Amanda Whiting is in London; working at a law firm pales in comparison to her most recent job as store manager at A&F. She is happy to be an expat, though, especially since she has had more than her fair share of visitors: Alex Maclennan stopped by on business, and Tricia Chambers was there with her fam.
After freelancing in NYC, Adam Bloch decamped to PR for a stint with the San Juan Star. "I spent most of my days with other castoffs from the mainland, slowly going to seed with a bottle of rum," he wrote. He decided to "get out of there" after one particularly destructive Carnival weekend in Charlotte Amalie.
Zack Orjuela "was glad that Hurricane Gustav missed New Orleans." Too bad he evacuated to Baton Rouge. He works at the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center. (Elliot Morrison '04 was a summer intern.) Ryan McNeely is also in the Big Easy, but he's not necessarily taking it easy: being managing director at the Forum For Equality keeps him busy.
Ali Moiz is back in San Francisco; he works for Peanut Labs, helping companies like Microsoft and IBM conduct research on social networks.
Neal Holtschulte is still working at Klein Steel in Rochester, N.Y. Over the summer he put in some long runs with Mike Geary '11. It paid off: he ran 14:45 in a recent 5K, placing 17th.
Andres Schabelman's newest goal is to become the next Andrew Zimmern, so he's eating his way through SEA. He ran into Liz Suda '05 in Laos; despite not knowing one another, they "laughed, cried and decided to split a room in Ventianne."
Freshman-year roommates Ben Brown and Roman Herman shared a bottle of Czech wine in the Prague airport at 8 a.m. Ben was returning to NYC from Bulgaria, and Roman was giddy for an opportunity to excuse himself from work and prolong his previous night of boozing.
Robin Stewart works at various software companies in Seattle. Over the summer he, Clara Hard, Katie Mygatt and Emily Bonem went camping in the Northern Cascades. Karl Naden also visited and took him on a "moderately terrifying" sailing outing.
In September, Karl doled out portions of his new favorite soup recipe at his birthday party. Daniel Rooney, Mary Beth Anzovino, Bill Sacks '03 and Diane Reis '03 cooked up other delicacies for the sampling.
Macy Radloff is still living on Nantucket; she loves it and welcomes visitors.
Finally, Mike McCarthy sent in more news about Kevin Greener: "Kevin has recently taken up triathlons as a hobby, so his overall health is benefiting," he wrote. "Sometimes I help Kevin train for the swim by managing his weekly time trials in his parents' above-ground pool. Kevin has always understood the importance of proper training." And a good sense of humor.
That's it! Have the best Chrismukkah ever. I'll see you next year.
