The Monsooners

 

Gareth “The Guvnor” Johnson, Jan Elma “Green Lights” Ferrer, Jan Christian “The Warrior” Ferrer, Sonya “Splinters” Chandra, Anderson “All-Star” Lee, Sam “The Honeybadger” Wong, Jason “The Rock” Ea, Laima “Fifth Amendment” Tazmin, Samantha Kay “Alice” Miller, Cathy “CIA” Cao, Christine “Surgeon” Park, Vivian “DJ” Trinh, Andy “The Dentist” Tran, David “Tarzan” Zhou, Justin “Fedora” Huang, Gabino “The Ambassador” Chu, Leslie “Sea Urchin” Auquilla-Cabrera, Joy “Make it So” Achounjei, Steve “Iron Man” Su, Siddhi “Princess Badass” Mittal, Alfred “Umbrellas” Yeung, Edmund “The Translator” Fong, Nicholas “The Wise Man” Chong, Adam “The Vet” Murphy: Mexico, Cuba, The Bahamas, Jamaica (Apr. 23- May 5, 2014)

Anderson “All-Star” Lee, Tabitha “The Alchemist” Shook, Vineet “I Didn’t Do It” Devaiah, PJ “The Champ” Danarh, Arti “Child of the World” B, Dennis “Vormund”, Joreen “Unfiltered” Tay, Victor “Designated Driver” Ng, Simon “The Historian” Lu, Grace “The Scholar” An, Lui “Guardian of the Dungeon”,  Morello, Alex “Enabled by the Guardian of the Dungeon” Hardy, Esther “Perpetual Motion” Wisse, Patrick “The Grand Cannon” Le Quere, Benjamin “The Virtuoso”, Scott “Streaking Redefined” Frazier, Sandra “Queen of the Amazon” Friedel, Serena “Queen of the Ice” Yuan, Gareth “The Guvnor” Johnson: Antarctica, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile (Dec. 9 – Dec. 25, 2013)

Mariam “O Darling, My Darling” Dar: Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain (Dec. 27, 2013 – Jan. 6, 2014)

Angela “Ah-Choo-eey!” Chen, Jun “Be Water My Friend” Wakabayashi, George “Bannne” Mu, Matt Chen, Kym “Stars & Sunrises” Pham, Erick “Ooh-rah!” Capulong, Bill “Smoothie King/Slim Shady” Zou: Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama (Jun. 22nd – Jun. 30th, 2013)

Mandy Cheuk, Cynthia “The Veteran” Koo, Kai Tan, Carolyn Hou, Ying Zhu, Andrew “Hot Wheels” Chang, Simon Lu, Olgi Qendro, Ry “Shredder” Willie, Jan Elma “Green Lights” Ferrer, Jennifer “Crime Scene” Le, Ruchika “Sangria” Sangani, Alana Tung, Krystle Jiang, Maria “DREAMer” Villa, Gareth “The Guvnor” Johnson: Poland, Ukraine, Germany (Dec. 26, 2012 – Dec. 31, 2012)

June “Mamabear” Kao, Jane “In the Zone” Yee, Go Yang “Artistry in Motion” Park, Calvin “Baby Calvin” Lin, Melissa “Dora the Explorer” Le, Seulbee “The Badass” Lee, Yiru “The Other Badass” Li: Spain, Gibraltar, Morocco, Portugal (Dec. 22nd, 2011 – Jan. 2nd, 2012)

An Wang: China & North Korea (Aug. 7th – 13th, 2011)

Karen Wong: India (July 16th, 2011 – July 20th, 2011)

Kseniya Khamara: Perú and Colombia (Mar. 26th – Apr. 3rd, 2011)

CYNTHIA KOO (Recurrent Monsooner: Guatemala, Iran, Eastern Europe) likes to travel/monsoon (thanks to Calvin), and making bucket lists that, in Calvin’s opinion, are way too easy to check off. 

She makes kickass websites for fun. She’ll fill in the rest sometime soon (or maybe never).

STEPHANIE QUAN (Travel Date: June 10 2011 – August 14 2011 from Turkey to Myanmar) went to Columbia with Calvin. She has no idea who Annah is, but is sure they could be good friends. Hi Annah! She’s currently transitioning from being a chemistry teacher at Harvard-Westlake to being an inorganic chemistry grad student at UCLA because while she loves her 10thgraders (even when they call her mom by mistake), what she really wants in life is low pay, long hours and the satisfaction of synthesizing Metal Ligand Complexes. When not pursuing academia, Steph cultivates a faux hobo-hipster lifestyle. Rock climbing, beginner’s guitar and driving through canyons are listed among her favorite activities. She also really enjoys listening to bands she found on commercials, starting really long email chains and organizing things like film festivals for fun. Here is an adventure-y photo of Steph. See how innate ADVENTURE is to her? Like I said, faux hobo-hipster.

Angela “The Lieutenant” Chen, Jun “Poker Face” Wakabayashi, Quechau “Altitude Warrior” Thai, Chris “Gets Up For Pregnant Women” Chen, Ben “The Photographer” Dumond, Cindy “Oakland” Lu, Natasha “The Translator” Neris, Andy “The Virgin” Wu, Shanika “The Alchemist” Jayakody, Karthik “Memory Cards” Ganapathy: Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru (Apr. 10 – Apr. 22, 2014)

Andrea Trillo, Mel Tri, Danny Tran, Jenn Lau, Tracy Thai, Bill Zhang, Alistair Morgan, Suhrid Mantravadi, Freema Vinnikov: Iceland (Oct. 31 – Nov. 03, 2013)

Reny Pascual, Jackie “The Artist” Ho, Ben Tso, Sam Wong: Haiti & Dominican Republic (Jan. 01 – Jan. 06, 2013)

Sonny “The Romantic” Tieu, Gai Olivaires, Andrew “The German” Chu, Evan “The Interpreter” Jones, Anna Wong,  Jade Shyu, Nina “Weapon of Mass Destruction” Yang, Cynthia “Why I Move” Koo, Gareth “The Guvnor” Johnson: Germany, Austria, Iran, Switzerland (April 4th, 2012 – April 14th, 2012)

Anna Wong, Cynthia “The Newbie” Koo, Maria “The Translator” Funes: Guatemala & Belize (November 23 – November 27, 2011)

Anya & Joyce: India (Jun 30th, 2011 – Jul 17th, 2011)

Sonya Chandra: Turkey (Jun 11th – 18th, 2011)

Hilda Poulson: Colombia (March 2011)

Corinne Fukuyama: The Philippines and Vietnam (May 31st, 2010 – Jun 13th, 2010)

Caitlin Halpern: Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, & Singapore (June 20th, 2010 – July 8th, 2010)

GO YANG (Travel Date: December 22 2011 – January 3 2011 from Spain to Morocco) is the kinda girl that breaks the mold. For one, she’s not gonna write in the third person. Hey, I’m Go. I met Calvin at Columbia when I attended Barnard College my freshman year, but I ended up getting my degree in English and History at the University of Michigan, and spending a year and a half or so in Seoul, Korea, not teaching English (see? breaking the mold) but studying at Yonsei University and freelancing at everything from translations for artists to voice acting. Right now I’m one of the few students over the age of 21 at Art Center College of Design getting a second Bachelor’s degree in Illustration (more mold breaking), and I’m really excited to be traveling, drawing and blogging with Calvin.

ANNAH KIM NELSON-FEENEY (Travel Date: May 31 2010 – July 15 2010 from the Philippines to Korea) is a relatively overcommitted International Relations-French and Music student at Mount Holyoke College. At MHC, she’s on the executive board for Model UN as the Events Coordinator and she’s in charge of Publicity on the executive board for Orchestra. She’s also a CMS Fellow (Web and Media worker) for Mount Holyoke. Adopted at the age of 6 months, Annah is Korean with Polish-Swedish and Irish parents. Unfortunately, she speaks none of the languages that coincide with the above nationalities and instead speaks French and had a brief relationship with Mandarin. Last summer, Annah worked a lot doing a couple internships and jobs. This will be the last collegiate summer before she starts with the GRE’s, GMAT’s, LSAT’s, more internships, grad school applications, and job applications. In short, it’s the last time in her collegiate career to do a trip like this. So she is absolutely psyched to be taking the opportunity to backpack this summer – even if not everyone approves of it!