Up until college began, I lived with my parents and cats in Danbury, on the western edge of Connecticut. Although there's not much to do near my parents' house, I worked as an ice-skating coach on weekends and I also baby-sat. So I stayed busy! As you can see from the web page, students from Spain, Japan, and Korea lived with my family for quite a few summers, and it was a great experience! Among other things, my family usually went someplace like the Caribbean or Disney World for vacation. Would you believe it if I told you that our family trip during the summer of 2000 was to Japan?

I'm doing well here in the Barnard environment! How can I already be done with college, and fully done with the daunting senior thesis? Anyway, I've gotten a lot out of my time here in New York! My major is East Asian Languages and Cultures with a concentration in Anthropology and a focus on Japanese Civilization (Hai, Nihongo ga hanaseru!) On campus in my free time, I was a member of the Barnard Baby-sitting Service and Japan Club, I used to be a board member and coach for the Columbia University FSC (Figure Skating Club), and I also spent my Fridays in Central Park, coaching at Wollman Rink. I spent the summer of 2000 here as an R.A. for high school students, and I won a grant this past year so that I could intern at the New York Shambhala Center, which I wrote my senior thesis about! This summer I'll be traveling out west as a counselor for Weissman Teen Tours, and next year I'll be heading across the country to the lovely Californian city of Palo Alto to attend graduate school at Stanford University. Meanwhile, you can catch me on AIM at atopo. Go Columbia!!

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Bye!