We were able to get a few words from two long-past CJASers about their experiences with the club. Chris DeVries is currently a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts, studying astronomy. Allen Chen is employed. Here's what Allen had to say about himself:

After spending about 20 months at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, I recently took a new job at the National Archives and Records Administration where I'm the lead technical web guy and also the computer security task leader. I'm also working towards a masters degree through night school at Johns Hopkins University (which, by the way, is a piece of cake after getting my butt kicked by CS at Cornell). Otherwise, I don't have too much going on other than coming up with little side projects to do with fellow CJAS alums like Doris and Jerry. Happy Birthday, CJAS!

-Allen

On to the formal questions.

CJAS:	What was your vision for CJAS and how has CJAS progressed?
Chris:
	When I first got involved in CJAS it was going through a transition. It had grown some, and had just started to be held in Goldwin Smith D. When I started we had between 20 and 40 people who came to the showings I think. We went through a rough time as we moved from a small group of friends to a larger group of people who didn't know each other as well. We decided to expand, both in numbers and expand our archive. I think I was mostly a figurehead, but great things happened during my tenure. We created a constitution, we started subtitling our own anime. We started producing the newsletter just in the nick of time. We even had a showing of Laputa in Goldwin Smith that was standing room only. It was an amazing event. Every year a new problem emerges though... such as the problem with not having projection equipment after I left. Every year we started with some crisis, and I guess I just wanted it to run smoothly.
Allen:
	I can't say I really had much vision back then as to HOW the club should progress, but I knew it was growing and it had to evolve. CJAS turned from a fledgling group of otaku hanging out together into what can truly be called a "society." As Webster's defines it, a society is "an organized group of people working together or periodically meeting because of common interests, beliefs, or profession." There is a fairly complex, but organized, governing body; even an economy!
CJAS:
	What is the best memory you have from CJAS?
Allen:
	Having the whole CJAS newsletter gang come to my room on Friday night to put together the newsletter (approximately 8PM). And then going traying afterwards (approximately 1AM). And then coming back to my place to watch Tenchi (that'd be around 3AM).
Chris:
	My favorite memory was the trip several of us took to SUNY Stonybrook to go to I-Con (I think that was the name of the con... I can't really remember). We had a great time trying to rent cars, and then swearing, "No, we're not going anywhere near New York City." We all stayed in Queens so we had a fair amount of driving to get to the con from where we were. We would wake up early in the morning, spend the whole day watching all the anime we could and buying anything we could afford. We laughed at people dressed like Klingons as their make up slowly started to slide off their faces from days of sweat. The campus was depressing as hell, but the con was fun. Chuck left his lights on on the rental car so he had to get it jump started one day. And we saw Genocyber, which is the most disturbing thing I have seen to this day... Actually that part was pretty bad, but not as bad as Wind of Amnesia.
	I also loved it when we showed Laputa and so many people came. I think we were really on the forefront of the current increase in the mainstream acceptance of anime.
CJAS:
	How about your worst CJAS memory?
Chris:
	I seem to remember that our exec basically impeached our president and V.P. while we were working on our constitution (of course I was elected after that, but it was still a pretty bad time). It was awkward after we broke with the tradition of the V.P. moving up to president, and right now I can not recall exactly why we had such a struggle on E-board in my early days in CJAS. After we got the constitution worked out things got better, but I think we alienated a lot of the older members who had a different vision for CJAS.
Allen:
	Back when I first joined the eboard, the meetings often involved very fast, heated discussions and sometimes not-so-nice things were said. At some point, it got so bad that we started recording the meetings with my walkman so we would have a definitive record of who said what. I think I still have some of those tapes somewhere...
Chris:
	I also hated the semester I had to flirt with the Goldwin Smith D building manager to make sure we would have continued use of their projection equipment. They always accused us of messing up their equipment even though we were the only ones taking care of it by aligning the beams and adjusting the focus. If it had not been for us I suspect lecturers would have shown a lot of blurry movies in that room (they probably did anyway).
CJAS:
	If you could cos-play as any anime character, who would you be?
Chris:
	This is a really tough question. I usually am too shy to cos-play anything, but I think that if I had the time and the sewing ability I would like to cos-play Totoro. I'm a fairly big guy, so all I would need is what I imagine would be a fairly hot suit (hence the aforementioned sewing ability) and a little umbrella. I have not seen anyone really be Totoro before at any cons or in any pictures, but I think all around it's a good choice for me.
Allen:
	JoJo, but only if I could really stop time. :)