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00 | There is a trend among people our age to "find" people online.Whether it be searching on Google, finding a significant other on JDate, or seeing how many people you know on Friendster, this type ofWeb-based mingling is the newest form of procrastination. Now, don't get me wrong, I am an overzealous advocate of keeping in touch and making new friends. But for this column, I wanted to see if you could still do it the old-fashioned way. So I'm not going to fill out any online profile about my hobbies, eye color, or favorite foods. Instead, I am going to see how many people I can connect in my 6-degree world, just by living my regular life in New York City. Let's see if I can bring it around full circle, shall we?

Since people usually meet others through their closest friends, I'll begin by congratulating Waina Cheng, who matched at Columbia for internal medicine.Waina graduated from Mt. Sinai with Gail Burstein, who matched at Temple for internal medicine and is now reunited with her fiancé Manny Porat in Philadelphia.Manny is entering his fourth year as a medical student at Temple, while his freshman year roommate Scott Weiss remains in Boston. After graduating from Harvard, Scott began his rotations at Children's Hospital's combined residency program in pediatrics.

Recently, I ran into one of Scott's former housemates Brian Gershengorn at a reception at Brooklyn Law, where he was representing his firm, Proskauer Rose. Brian is now married to Lauren (Bettman) '01, who just graduated from Brooklyn Law this year. The two have moved out of Manhattan to begin their new life together in Jersey, but they still make time to keep in touch with good friends like Doug Weine. Between his medical career and beautiful girlfriend, it is difficult to snag a spot on Doug's calendar, but I was able to catch up with him for dinner and get some updates nonetheless. I am happy to announce that Doug has officially gone "Triple Red."Obviously, being an alum of Cornell's College of Arts & Sciences wasn't enough, because after graduating from Cornell Med, Doug remained at Cornell to do his residency in internal medicine. But as hectic as Doug's schedule is, he still makes time for important events like the wedding of Drs. Lukshmi Kamat and Vinay Puttanniah. The gorgeous couple were wed on May 30, 2004 and honeymooned in the Greek Islands.Vinay is doing his residency at Cornell in anaesthesia, while Lukshmi does hers at Columbia for pediatrics.

Also in pediatrics, Rich Bruckner moved to Manhattan after he happily matched at Cornell. Rich graduated from Syracuse Med with Chad Nadler, who matched at MCP/Hahnemann (now called Drexel U.) for general surgery. Chad also graduated with Evan Grossman, who graduated number 1 in his class and is now a resident at Cornell in internal medicine. I ran into Evan on the Upper West Side while he was brunching with classmates Rachel Zinaman and Dave Feldstein (who is at Fordham Law). There I learned that one of Evan's fraternity brothers, Mark Goldman, is also in the Department of Internal Medicine.Mark matched at North Shore U.Hospital after graduating from SUNY Downstate, which is where Josh Mollov will be for the next seven years. Josh graduated from Georgetown and is now a resident in general surgery. Along with Josh, Tawana Winkfield will also be at SUNY Downstate in the pediatrics department. On my way to a Mets/Yankees game, I ran into Tawana on the subway uptown and she looks great!

Tawana used to live in Balch Hall, as did Kimberly Case, who is now a resident at Wake Forest in family medicine. But before Kim moved to North Carolina, she spent time with former housemate Linda Nicoll, who is now delivering babies at Cornell's Department of Ob/Gyn. Linda is absolutely delighted to be "Red" again, reminding her of the days when she was a TA for Professor Parrot's Human Sexuality class, along with me and Juri Kitazawa Hirschey. Juri married Roy '01 last October and is now working at GE Financial as their Communications Manager. Also working in finance, Garrett Ellsworth bumped into me in the laundry room (we didn't realize we lived in the same building) and shared his good news. Garrett was promoted to an associate in the Leveraged Finance Group at BNY Capital Markets.His fiancée Julie Sylvester is finishing up her fourth year at New York College of Osteopathic Medicine. Speaking of which, Alfredo Rabines is currently attending Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. I went out for drinks with Alfredo over on the East Side and we called up his fellow Pike brother Heath Rosenthal. Heath graduated from Northwestern Law School and is now living in the city.We then met up with another one of their brothers, Adam Lelonek, who is still attending law school just like me (except Adam is at Cardozo and I am at Brooklyn).

See! I told you I could bring it around full circle! And I have officially proved that you can still "find" people through good ol' word of mouth. So if you want to be in my 6-degree world (or Sarah's), send us your good news! We love hearing from you, and we love writing for you! -- Andrea M. Chan, amc32@cornell.edu; and Sarah Striffler, sjs34@cornell.edu.

01 | Send news to: -- Itai Dinour, id22@cornell.edu; or Lauren Wallach, lew15@cornell.edu.

02 | My brother James got married July 4 in Chicago, which meant I had my first trip to the beloved Wrigley Field. I have already been pressuring him to make me an auntie. I can't wait. This marriage gave me a new cousin, Brittany Roth '06, whom I met at CTB senior year and successfully convinced to apply to Cornell. I'm making plans to move to NYC to start my MA in Social-Organizational Psychology at Columbia's Teachers College in September. There I will lunch frequently with fellow Theta Beth Watson '99, who is in the clinical psychology program. If anyone has plans to be back on the Hill the weekend of August 21, I will be there with Sherry Lai '01, MME '02, to test for our 2nd degree Black Belt under Cornell Taekwondo instructor Han Dan Cho '89 (I will be the one gasping for air).

Many of you have been working in very challenging and creative fields. Ellen Brosius has been residing in Columbus, OH, for two years. Currently she is a buyer for Abercrombie/ Hollister Graphic Tees. She just bought a cute little house and therefore is obsessed with shopping at Lowe's. I lived with Ellen sophomore year in Theta and remember what a wonderful decorator she is. Charles A.Heffernan III moved to Philadelphia, where he works for Merck & Co. as a biochemical engineer.He is a project manager in Merck's new Biologics Pilot Plant, and resides in both the Philadelphia and Lansdale areas. Ziv Feldman left NYC and the investment banking world for his hometown of Brookline, MA. "I have been teaching 7th grade math for the past year and this fall will be teaching high school math at Brookline High School. I am also working for Wall Street Prep (www.wallstreetprep. com), a company that develops self-study tutorials for anyone interested in pursuing a career in financial services."

Congrats to those of you heading back to school this fall. Amy Liesenfeld has been working in DC as a marketing coordinator for the past two years. She is headed to law school at William and Mary. Davon Collins writes, "I just finished working on a US Senate race here in my homestate of Illinois (we lost in the primary). I will be heading to Yale for law school this fall.Wish me luck!" Fariba Yassaee has just finished a two-year legal assistant job at Kaye Scholer in Manhattan. This fall she begins her master's at Georgetown U.'s School of Foreign Service. She is very excited about her upcoming endeavors in DC! Nate Pettit, MPS '03, has spent the last year working as a personal trainer for Crunch Gym in Boston, MA.He starts an MA program in Social-Organizational Psychology at Columbia's Teachers College this fall (yes, the same as me).He looks forward to living in the big city and expects to run into former Cornell roomies Adam Scheinman, Jon Scharf, Brad Unger, and Dave Sherman.

DC is filled with '02ers. Daniel Ricardo Salas has been working for the IT management firm Accenture since November 2003. If you are in the DC area, please be sure to say hello. He's very excited that his brother Fernando will be entering his freshman year at Cornell this fall. Adam Ryan is living in DC and working in Rockville,MD, doing vaccine development for the NIH. Laura Thomas is the assistant society reporter for the Style section of the Washington Post. "So far I've met and interviewed Henry Kissinger, Diane Sawyer, and Sean Astin, to name a few." Laura says she's having a BLAST being single and fabulous in our nation's capital.

Susan Cohen will be attending Harvard Graduate School of Education in Cambridge, MA (coincidentally, she is moving into my room when I move out!). Sarah Miller will be joined in Burlington, VT, by Lynsay Ayer for her graduate degree at UVM. Jim Robenalt starts law school at Ohio State this fall.Mac Gillespie is moving back up to Ithaca, where he will embark on a new career and join his lady Brooke. Gwen Fay has taken a position at Quatt Associates Inc., a management consulting firm in Georgetown. Gillian Klempner, after working on a political documentary with Peter Jennings, has taken a new documentary film position in downtown DC.

Sarah Mann continues to work for Jeremy Rifkin and coach field hockey at Catholic U. As New York City is not far away, Sarah writes, "We are lucky to have frequent visits by Katie Hurley, who is attending NYU Law School, Katie Sawicki, who lives in Brooklyn and continues to perform her music across the US, Ariel Schwartz,MPA '03, Matt King, Chris Principe, Nina Englander, and Dan Webb, BFA '03." Shara Freeman has started a new job as associate director of Cornell's Northeast Regional Office in Boston, MA. Active in her sorority, Kappa Delta, Shara was also a member of the phenomenal women's softball team that brought home two Ivy League titles. After graduation, she worked for Ryan Homes as a sales and marketing associate, then returned to Ithaca and earned a Master of Sports Psychology at Ithaca College in June.

If you keep reading this article but never see your name, no need to be shy.Whatever you are doing these days I assure you is worth reading about, and we all want to know. -- Carolyn Deckinger, cmd35@cornell.edu; and Elizabeth Richards, elizabethlauren_richards@yahoo.com.

03 | It's hard to believe that enough time has passed since our graduation to have yet another class join us as alumni, and a brand new set of freshmen taking on the excitement and challenges of Cornell. This has hardly been a calm year for most of us; our classmates are all over the world working on exciting projects and having great experiences.

Some of you may have needed some summertime relaxation and happened to catch an episode of "The Casino" on Fox. If you did, you may also have noticed one of our own, Zach Conine (who was the director of Hotel Ezra Cornell in 2003), as one of the cast members of the reality show. Zach is executive assistant at the Golden Nugget, a casino in Vegas that is the focus of the reality show.

Meanwhile, other members of the class are doing some unique things, though they may not have national television broadcasting their activities. Ryan McClay writes, "I just finished my first year as head coach of my high school's varsity lacrosse team.My season for the New Jersey Pride has begun as well." Katie Lavin, another lacrosse player, writes that she is "in NYC working in licensing for Liz Claiborne, specifically on the Lucky jeans, Juicy, and Ellen Tracy brands. I am coaching lacrosse year-round and also trying to play still." Rachel Gordon is also working in fashion and started her career with a company called Garan. She is working in product development for children's wear fashion lines.

With the political season in full gear, it's not surprising to have classmates involved in campaign work. Michael Laycob finished his first year of law school, and for his summer job is managing a Missouri State Representative campaign. Joining Mike in academia, Lauren Fanell writes that she is finishing the first year of her FMA at American U. Angela Herrera has decided to stay in Ithaca a bit longer than the requisite four years and is working as an admissions counselor for multicultural recruitment in the Undergraduate Admissions Office at Cornell. Jessica Dowling is spending her summer as a barn manager for a children's camp in Maryland, and continuing to prepare for vet school. She keeps herself busy by volunteering at Heritage Christian Stables, handling horses for therapeutic riding. Mollie Klurfeld has traveled the farthest of our classmates in this column and is working in London at the London Development Agency.

That's all for this update.We're looking forward to hearing your stories from trips back to Ithaca, visits with other Cornellians, or your 15 minutes of fame--whatever you've been up to! I hope you had a wonderful summer! E-mail us at: -- Sudha Nandagopal, sn58@cornell.edu; or Sam Buckingham, swb9@cornell.edu.

04 | Has it set in yet? I am sure that like me, you had quite the experience this summer becoming acclimated to saying that you are a Cornell graduate. Some of you may even miss Ithaca. I know I do. But enough nostalgia, let's get to the updates.

Jonathan Blank spent his summer in St. Louis, New York City, and Italy. Currently he is living in London, training for his position as human resources analyst for Deutsche Bank. Jeanne Hwang (jyh24@cornell.edu) is also in New York City. She was the Senior Week Co-Chair and hopes that everyone enjoyed it, "after so much hard work and time was put into making it happen." She and her family vacationed in Taiwan and Hawaii for the month of July. In August, she began her career in corporate America as an analyst at Accenture. She would love to hear from friends who are in the area.

Robyn Tortorelli has given up NYC for Columbus, OH, and is working at Abercrombie and Fitch as an assistant allocator. Feel free to contact her at rmt23@cornell.edu if you are in Columbus. Robin Allen spent her summer on the farm doing construction work with her brother for her uncle and cousin. She is beginning her master's program (MAT), which includes student teaching at John Bowne High School in Queens, New York City.

David Jackson, our Convocation Chair, is attending Columbia Seminary before getting his PhD in clinical psychology. Tiffany Scott is also at Columbia, but is studying at the law school. Her former housemate Lisa Plush has left Westchester for Washington, DC, and is studying law at Georgetown.

If you are out west, you will want to get in touch with Alex Koch. Alex is a financial analyst for the chief financial officer of the Golden Nugget Laughlin. That's all for now. Keep the updates coming. If you have not forwarded your mail yet, please do so at http://classof04.alumni.cornell.edu. -- Vanessa Matsis, vgm3@cornell.edu.

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