Ups and Downs, Part 2

After that first bit of venting, I figure I should mention some great stuff that has been going on in the past few weeks. If you've noticed in the list of links, there's a new one called Flashback ASN.



I went to middle school at the American School of Niamey in western Africa. It was the most amazing time of my life. I was in a class of 12, the school held about 130 total and our group included the kids from grades 5-9 (everyone in our class had siblings so we all stuck together).
Over the years, I've kept a handful of my friends linked up, first by snailmail and now entirely by e-mail. Living in the DC area has definite benefits for friends such as these, just about everyone has to hit the East Coast at sometime, either to live or in transit. It's a remarkable city. Google has been invaluable also, though the information tends to be outdated and it's more hit and miss. Knowing people in other countries seems to help some too. An on-line buddy lives in Canberra, and I'd lost track of Peta Fussell years ago. So I asked Suzanne to look in her phone book and wouldn't you know, there was a single Peta Fussell listed. She actually called her up and Peta is now back in our fold. It gets even better, because we will be in Sydney/Canberra next spring for our RnR.
But, the ASN website guestbook has been the best resource. One by one I've been picking new e-mail addresses off there and building a list and a few weeks ago, Patricia Coulter-Schiller (my best friend in the day) sent out a mini-quiz to the list to get update on where everyone was, what they were doing, marriage, kids, hobbies, etc. It got the ball seriously rolling. Henry Cowie offered to make a website for all of us and it's just wonderful to watch it develop. New alum who have been found are pulling out information for other alum. We're sending in recent photos as Henry scans our old yearbooks.
We still have a large list of the missing. The hardest to track down are of course the girls who've gotten married and moved away. It's impossible to find a Kimberly in Saudi Arabia or a Stacey in the South somewhere. But we have enough links to people to be able to work our way down the list.
And maybe, just maybe, we can get ourselves together to get a reunion going in summer 2005. At least, I hope they do 2005 because I'll be back in the States then!