![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jrtomA week and a half ago, I flew out to the East Coast to attend my 20th high school reunion, see some friends that I hadn't seen in quite some time (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fdmts, fenicedautun) and meet a colleague of mine that I'd been working on an open-source project with for several years.
The reunion was cool in some ways, and disappointing in others. I got a chance to hang out a bit withowenthomas, which was a lot of fun as usual. I spent some time with people I knew from choir (Britt, Jesse, Robert B) and some others from classes (Rob W) and with a few more people that I don't think I had any significant interaction with during high school itself (Eric and some other people whose names are currently escaping me). Eric (who actually lives in WA) and I had some interesting conversations (over the care and feeding of online communities) over pizza at 2 AM on the Friday night prior to the main events, which felt very much like high school...except that the pizza should have been Domino's. Interestingly, the basis for conversation with several people was their military experience (rather than what I might have expected, i.e., academic or software engineering or science), mostly on the strength of having grown up in a military family. But, you know, any party at which you have a good audience for a story about a complete lunatic in an F4U Corsair employing a ramming attack--on another plane!--can't be a complete loss.
I spent more time than I'd like during the reception-y bits of the reunion circulating without really interacting. This is my typical "I'm at a party at which I don't really know people" (or, in this case, the "I don't want to look like I'm following the few people I know around like a puppy") mode. I did eventually get over that by the end of the evening--I didn't quite close down the party, but I came pretty close (and would have stayed longer had I not had a 6 AM pickup for my ride to the airport).
I enjoyed dancing, not least because it's a lot of fun to watchowenthomas dance.
I really appreciated Jocelyn's work in putting the slide presentations together, both for the at-school event and the dinner event; it was cool to see even a few snippets from the subsequent lives of various of the students.
I didn't see very many people that I remembered from choir, band, or orchestra there. This was a shame, because that's where a lot of my social life in high school was based, and there were several specific people that I was hoping that would attend, but didn't.
The original principal and co-creator of the school (I was in the second graduating class) was there and gave a talk about the political/organizational formation of the school. I was quite disappointed to hear him say, repeatedly, that he didn't think that it would be possible to create such a school today. I don't think that such an attitude is very constructive, and it weirded me out that I didn't notice anyone else that seemed to disagree. I happen to think that my high school is a truly excellent creation and though I realize that it doesn't (yet) scale, there's no reason I know of that a comparable school can't be created in at least most dense population areas.
I was glad of my chance to hang out with Tom (my JUNG-ian colleague) for a couple of hours. A week or so would have been nice--I think we could burn through a lot of pending stuff given that amount of concentrated time--but at least we had a good talk about future directions and so forth.
fdmts, fenicedautun) and meet a colleague of mine that I'd been working on an open-source project with for several years.The reunion was cool in some ways, and disappointing in others. I got a chance to hang out a bit with
owenthomas, which was a lot of fun as usual. I spent some time with people I knew from choir (Britt, Jesse, Robert B) and some others from classes (Rob W) and with a few more people that I don't think I had any significant interaction with during high school itself (Eric and some other people whose names are currently escaping me). Eric (who actually lives in WA) and I had some interesting conversations (over the care and feeding of online communities) over pizza at 2 AM on the Friday night prior to the main events, which felt very much like high school...except that the pizza should have been Domino's. Interestingly, the basis for conversation with several people was their military experience (rather than what I might have expected, i.e., academic or software engineering or science), mostly on the strength of having grown up in a military family. But, you know, any party at which you have a good audience for a story about a complete lunatic in an F4U Corsair employing a ramming attack--on another plane!--can't be a complete loss.I spent more time than I'd like during the reception-y bits of the reunion circulating without really interacting. This is my typical "I'm at a party at which I don't really know people" (or, in this case, the "I don't want to look like I'm following the few people I know around like a puppy") mode. I did eventually get over that by the end of the evening--I didn't quite close down the party, but I came pretty close (and would have stayed longer had I not had a 6 AM pickup for my ride to the airport).
I enjoyed dancing, not least because it's a lot of fun to watch
owenthomas dance.I really appreciated Jocelyn's work in putting the slide presentations together, both for the at-school event and the dinner event; it was cool to see even a few snippets from the subsequent lives of various of the students.
I didn't see very many people that I remembered from choir, band, or orchestra there. This was a shame, because that's where a lot of my social life in high school was based, and there were several specific people that I was hoping that would attend, but didn't.
The original principal and co-creator of the school (I was in the second graduating class) was there and gave a talk about the political/organizational formation of the school. I was quite disappointed to hear him say, repeatedly, that he didn't think that it would be possible to create such a school today. I don't think that such an attitude is very constructive, and it weirded me out that I didn't notice anyone else that seemed to disagree. I happen to think that my high school is a truly excellent creation and though I realize that it doesn't (yet) scale, there's no reason I know of that a comparable school can't be created in at least most dense population areas.
I was glad of my chance to hang out with Tom (my JUNG-ian colleague) for a couple of hours. A week or so would have been nice--I think we could burn through a lot of pending stuff given that amount of concentrated time--but at least we had a good talk about future directions and so forth.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 12 August 2010 02:46 (UTC)the possibility of the impossible
Date: 12 August 2010 04:16 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 12 August 2010 17:34 (UTC)Re: the possibility of the impossible
Date: 12 August 2010 17:41 (UTC)I think he may also have been giving himself a bit of a pat on the back, and perhaps trying to encourage people to contribute to TJ (rather than some other school, perhaps one closer to them).
I loved TJ, but it would take an awful lot to get me to live in Northern Virginia for long enough for my kids to be able to go to school there.
Re: the possibility of the impossible
Date: 12 August 2010 18:00 (UTC)Re: the possibility of the impossible
Date: 12 August 2010 18:04 (UTC)BTW, note that this post is not friends-locked. :)
Re: the possibility of the impossible
Date: 12 August 2010 18:15 (UTC)Re: the possibility of the impossible
Date: 12 August 2010 19:12 (UTC)