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! |
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-Allen
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On to the formal questions.
CJAS:
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What was your vision for CJAS and how has CJAS progressed?
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Chris:
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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.
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Allen:
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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!
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CJAS:
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What is the best memory you have from CJAS?
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Allen:
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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).
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Chris:
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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.
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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.
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CJAS:
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How about your worst CJAS memory?
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Chris:
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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.
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Allen:
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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...
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Chris:
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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).
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CJAS:
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If you could cos-play as any anime character, who would you be?
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Chris:
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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.
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Allen:
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JoJo, but only if I could really stop time. :)
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