The Rogue's Gallery!

Here we have a crazy group of people, all of whom are very dear to me. They've shaped and moulded me into the person I am today. I've hoped to be all-inclusive here, but I know that some of the rogues are eluding me at the moment. I want to document their visages, for the benefit of mankind...
Be Careful! These folks are crafty! NOTE: This page takes a LONG TIME to load!


This is the most inclusive photo I have of university pals. Lots of folks are here... Betina, Jason, Aliah, Swati, Me, Ramy, Sara, Nouneh, Nahla, Yuki, Wendy, and Nhan. It's not everyone, but a heck fo a lot of people. We were at the performance of the newly formed Gamelan Ensemble. Nahla, Betina, and I were members. I played the great gong and an assocrtment of smaller gongs called kempul. Fun stuff! Jason is a singer and drama buff who's always worried about his hair. Ramy is a singer as well. He's such a show boy... emotional and spontaneous. He's come to me with problems and I've come to him with mine. How appropriate that he's wearing light colors in the middle of an overly dark picture. He LOVES being at the center of things. Check out his website. Sara grew up in Beijing, and always seemed to be jetting off to visit her parents at some far-off locale. She's extremely intelligent, has strong opinions on government and politics, and dedicated herslef to her studies and preparing for international volunteer work. Nouneh is Miss Medicine. When she wasn't in the biology lab, she was making raku in the ceramics workshop. She loves my hugs and I love hugging her. Wendy is the Army Chick. We'd always see her in fatigues... or studying Arabic. Nhan knows everything about computers. Mr. Fix-It always knew how to help us out, and was always pulling all-nighters playing StarCraft!


Here's Nahla holding one of the flutes... a suling. You can see some of the kempul in the background. The red thing by her left knee is what I used to hit the kempul.
Richard, my infamous, multi-lingual college roommate for 3 years. He was cutthroat and cunning, but also a great friend. He was an excellent consultant, and was there anytime I'd have needed him. I feel bad that I didn't take advantage of that more often. He really is a great guy!

Gutter Girl #1: Betty here is a silly girl. I love her and she's a vital component in my life. We can gab like no one else matters. She was my left arm during my final year at William & Mary, shotting photos with me, gossiping, and just acting stupid. Check her website. Gutter Girl #2: Nahla likes to scream. She's a nut-seeker. She's funny and musical, like a barrel of monkeys. She's uber-talented and driven, and she makes some of the coolest sounds I've ever heard. When stressed, she falls asleep. She's a nibbler, and always has a box of munchies nearby. Twinkling Vegan: Aliah is a magic-wonder friend. She finds magic in all kinds of things and passes that on to other people. It's a great talent. She stands by her morals, and she's always beautiful. She and I also share a lot of the same insecurities.

Gutter Girl #3:
Here we have the enigmatic Goddess Parvati, aka Miss Swati Patel. She's always strutting her stuff for the camera, and it's obvious why she does it... she's radiant! Swati likes fine wine, delves into deep, thought-provoking topics during all-night, fireside conversations. She's always up for anything... just come up with an idea, and Swati is usually willing to undertake the challenge.		 Nahla's victims: Betina and Yuki!
Yuki's a pretty girl, isn't she? She's honest and loyal... good qualities in any person. She giggles, and is very kawaii (cute). She's true to friendships, dedicated to family, VERY easy to talk to. I guess that's good, since she's currently studying to be a counseling psychologist. Still, she and I can chat about J-Pop and SMAP, and lots of silly stuff. She has a website.		 It came off the moor.
Behind the mask lurks Emma-chan. She's my lively gal-pal from Plymouth, England. I met her when she was a wild bird of Kakuma (in Japan). She fixes a mean curry, dances up a storm, brings the party with her, and her laugh.... ah, her laugh. It's amazing!


Jordan (the the right) is another Wild Bird of Kakuma, except she's Alaskan. It's cool how she could get tons of scholarships for university just by coming from Alaska. Actually, she earned them. Jordan is an incredibly smart, incredibly sharp, incredibly funny young woman.


Jordan was one of the instigators for a New Year's 1999 Reunion of the Kanazawa University Foreign Exchange Students in Dublin, Ireland. Here we have (l to r) Ulala, Me, Jordan, Hide, Hiro, and Hisako. Jon took the picture.

To the left is the picture of us at the Cliffs of Moher on the west coast of Ireland. Cathy, Hiro, Jordan, Ulala, and I crawled out to the precipice for this shot. I almost fainted.
Here I am with 3 more Wild Birds. Shoop is to the left. I LOVE Surparna. She makes me laugh, and summarizes things with a flare that CANNOT be rivaled, IMHO. She's glorious, and her brilliant Scottish accent makes me grin from ear to ear. Ulala was the most reserved of the Wild Birds, and Vicky was, perhaps, the wildest. They're American and British, respectively. Ulala is sweet and hard working, while Vicky is working hard all over the world (Britain, Japan, the USA). Both ladies are incredible!
Sano rocks my world! He's my hip, Japanese buddy. He and I like so much of the same music, and just dig eachother. He's one wild and crazy guy, and now he's stuck in rural Kurobe, Japan... making zippers with YKK. Here is Miss Karin Larson. She has strong Scandanavian roots (as if it's not obvious enough from the photo). She 's never afraid to jump headlong into the midst of things. We've scaled mountains and repelled off of cliffs, and we've shared long conversations over cups of pumpkin soup. She and her English students have a website.
Now were gettin' Old School! These are high school buddies of mine. Bryce, with her blonde hair and bright blue eyes, is on my right, while Heather and Andrew are to my left. Bryce is into the macabre. She likes vampires, cold winter nights, goth music, New Orleans, Victorian England, celtic jewellery... Heather is a blast! She always makes me laugh, and even her e-mails have me rolling on the floor. She flares her nostrils with exceptional ease, and, if I try hard, I can make her laugh so hard she cries and says she's going to 'wet her pants'. Her (a href="http://www.oocities.org/heathercalihan">website rocks! Andrew and I have been friends since the third grade. We can spend hours, maybe days, talking about completely mundane things (like comic books and movies). He's always been there when I needed him. Read his musings. Toby has done more to foster my imagination than anyone I know. During elementary school, he and I would get together after school and draw until it was time for one of us to go home. We had all sorts of fantasy worlds sketched out on paper and mapped in our heads. We also had a warped sense of humor, and all of our action figure games would never end until everyone had died (usually rather brutal deaths).
Rei. Mr. Japan! As far as I'm concerned, he's a genius. Rei knows so much about computers. He speaks brilliant English and fluent Japanese, travels, reads a lot, plays soccer and basketball, and parties. He knows how to balance his social and professional lives. He and Aliah seemed to have a special bond, but Betina and Nahla liked him a heck of a lot, too. Betina, Swati, and I met him at the same time -- the 1996 Keio University Summer Program at W&M! Go Keio!
My parents have the picture on the left framed and placed in a prominent location at home. I must admit, Betina did a fine job shooting this one. It's out behind our dorm senior year.
I have the picture on the right framed and in a prominent location in my apartment. It's me and the gang performing one of the final acts at our university. When you finish your last class on the last day of classes, all seniors go to the historic Sir Christopher Wren Building and ring the bell. Aliah, Ramy, Sara, Betina, Phuong Anh, Nahla, and I pulled hard for this posed shot.
One day we're all students, happily sitting on the steps of the sunken garden. The next day, we're marching through campus towards William & Mary Hall for our commencement exercises. Time at university flew by faster than I'd liked. My friends there are still friends today (OK, it HASN'T been that long since I graduated). Still, these people are amazing and I owe so much to them all. They taught me so much about themselves and their various cultures. They taught me about the world around me, and about myself. Ok... enough of the cheese.


Speaking of CHEESE, here are some photos from when I met up with everyone in May 2000. We had Fondu at 'The Melting Pot'. I think it's an apt place for my group to convene. Nouneh was there, as were Ramy, Kostas, Tamer, Jason, myself, Nhan, Swati, Rebecca, and Jeremie. Nahla took the photo.


Afterwards, we all got in the picture outside the restaurant. (look for Jason's smile!)
Print clubs of lots of people... Eric, Laurie, Rachel, Rani, Blaine, Andrew, Dale, Anna, Chad... Look closely. More on some of them on my JETs page. Eric and Laurie. These two are have only met once, so don't get the idea that they're a pair. Not the best picture of the three of us either. Eric is such a great guy. He's my French connecton. He showed me Paris, and has opened my eyes to so many things. Laurie is a ball of energy and emotion. She's always a riot, and even though she makes me yank out huge chunks of hair, she challenges me and makes me look at myself and my character in an entirely different light. I appreciate it.

There are lots of folks that I have not included on this page... mainly because I don't have any pictures of them with me. I'm giving shout outs for Rayna, Ed, Tony, Irish Tom, Baby Tom, Jackie, Lisa, Huong, Mr. Park, Shannon, Tina, Lillian, Yu, Allison, Roland, Jay, and the OD and Reves crews. Check back for updated versions of this page, and, if you've got the time, drop me a line.

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