When I returned to Caltech, I was very keenly aware that some of my friends from my era were still around in some guise or another. Upon returning, however, I have also bumped into others periodically who I had not realized were around or had returned. (Several people from my era have returned to Tech in the last several months.) Of course, I bumped into Alex Sheive on my first day back on campus in June, and that's how I truly realized I was back.
On Wednesday, I ran into Mike Tice '97 (Lloyd House), who just came back as a postdoc. Naturally, Frances Siu '98 (from my class of Lloyd frosh!) is back along with him. Dave Relyea '97 (also from Lloyd) drove across the country in returning to Tech as a postdoc last week. (I saw his name listed in the catalog and knew he was returning, but I just found out he's now in residence, although I haven't run into him yet.) Today I saw Paul Penzes, who was a transfer student Lloydie who came he during my frosh year. He was actually my roommate during my first week in Lloyd. He stayed at Tech as a grad turkey and then worked in Pasadena for a couple years before just returning as a postdoc. I also run into Lloydies Ellis Meng '97 and Tuan Huang '95 every few weeks and hang out with old friends Julius Su and my former froshlings Tim Elling, Joe Schaeffer, and a few of the other regulars (which includes a couple young'uns) along with these two musketeers. I've also run into some other old friends on campus who aren't here normally. Jing Xu (a Scurve, class of 1998) dropped by to visit for a little while on Thursday after her talk at JPL, which was one of my two highlights from this week (ping pong was the other one).
Ping pong also goes in this post. I played a crapload at Caltech and became pretty good. I also played at Cornell but wasn't able to keep it up at Georgia Tech. Yesterday was my first time playing in 3 years, so my rust showed. (My serve came back pretty quickly, though. That's always been the best part of my game.) The ping pong coach recognized me immediately (as had a few of my profs, although some others still haven't figured out who I am---either that or they don't care), so that was very nice. She noticed that the rubber on my paddle wasn't in great shape, so I'm dealing with replacing that for next week's class. As usual, fencing and some martial arts were under way while we were playing. And just like when I was at Tech, Sean Mauch was among the martial artists. He's been at Tech since 1991 (as has Tuan), so maybe he wants to take over for Millikan Man or something?
Anyway, Caltech is my home, and seeing familiar people and places again is really great for my morale (my immense stress level these past couple weeks nonwithstanding).
There's a scurve ('99) and a page boy (a bit earlier than '98) doing cutting edge nano stuff in Micheal Rouckes group at tech. The list just goes on.
ReplyDeleteI think Sean has gone through undergrad, grad, postdoc, and is a staff scientist at tech during this time. It's tough to say what I would do in his shoes. Oh wait, it's not tough.
Do you remmeber Gloria from the registar? I think she was a techer too.
Actually one of my advisors at UCSB and his wife are from tech as well. One of the teachers at Santa Barbara High School was a Rudd (maybe '96?) Techers are just everywhere.
-- jing
It's good to know that somebody here is doing cutting edge work. I think mine can be a little blunt at time. :) (Well, I don't actually believe that, but it's a fun comment to make.) I ought to meet them, though, because I think they all have offices on the same floor and same building as me!
ReplyDeleteI tried to figure out Sean Mauch's current position just now. Staff scientist is probably right. Caltech's search is down and I didn't find the info I wanted via a general google search. If I remember, I might check the current directory.
I definitely remember Gloria. She was extremely helpful on _numerous_ occasions, although I found out during my Ditch Day stack that she can't act. (Sean, however, can, as he delightfully pretended to be full of panic when begging me not to beat him up.) I have no knowledge of her being an alum, and Caltech's online alumni network doesn't either. (Caveat: There are several real Techers that the alumni network doesn't have in its database. That's one of the things one is reminded when attempting to track people down for a book.)
Hi Mason-- Wow, I had no idea so many folks from our era were back on campus! That's great to hear. I sometimes wish I had spent more time talking with my fellow Lloydies while they were still around to converse with. You can never recreate that time because we'll never be all together in the same house again... Of course, in the here and now I *still* don't find much time to socialize! You take me right back to my fencing days; I remember sharing the gym with martial artists and crazy ping pongers. :)
ReplyDeleteI forgot to mention that Rachel is back too, although I haven't seen her yet. (You should come and play board games with us!) Yesterday morning, I was recruited very briefly for fencing after one of the crazy fencers I know saw me playing ping pong, but that's not going to happen.
ReplyDeleteI am having "fun" today pretending to work on my grant proposal. Doing this is so much more odious than my other work. I have been attempting to avoid it in several possible ways, including by sending out some job applications. (How pathetic is that?) I think the numerics I am simultaneously running may be obeying now (fingers crossed), so maybe I can soon send the new version of a paper I'm supposed to revise to a collaborator who wants to submit the new version within a week.