AISVIENNA.COM

Al Barr of the Dropkick Murphys mentions his special connection to Vienna... His parents worked at the American International School Vienna for nearly two decades.

If Vienna is part of your holiday season travel, you might be interested in the annual alumni reunion, which is on December 20 this year, from 5:30 to 8:30 in the evening, in the AIS Cafeteria.

Here is a short documentary on AIS Vienna by Conceptually Speaking Designs, "the world's leader in international school videos." Wow... Who knew you could run an entire company by filming international school videos!?

Anyway, check it out here.

AIS alumni were mentioned in several American newspapers in the last several months:

Marriages in the last year of AIS alumni or semi-alumni:

Janis Elane Adams Matos, (No year given)... Married Michael Robert Mlekoday in Naples, Florida on Feb. 17, 2006. Source: Naples Daily News (FL)

Dave Wenslawski, Class of 1989... Married Carrie Pettigrew in Fairfield, California on Sept. 24, 2005. Source: Times-Herald (Vallejo, CA)

Awards:

Judy Bowlin: Teacher of the Year of the Coachella Valley Unified School District (California)... "She left in 1976-77 to teach fifth grade at the American International School in Vienna and returned to the Coachella Valley Unified School District in 1978. Today, she teaches second grade at Westside Elementary School." Source: Desert Sun, The (Palm Springs, CA)

Other:

Jun-Nicole Matsushita (No year is given but class would be around 1994 as her age is listed as 30)... Was featured for her charity work, founding "Help Us Give Slings", or "HUGS" for the Tsunami victims of Indonesia. According to the article:

"The slings, which are 100 percent batik cotton and washable, are made in Bali. They are available for $20 at the Co-op or by calling Matsushita at (319) 430-6736.

Profits from U.S. sales go back into purchasing baby slings to give to Indonesian mothers, pregnant women or women with children under age 5. That's where Indonesian women clamor for multiuse cloths." Source: Gazette, The (Cedar Rapids-Iowa City, IA)

And, last but not least, the website of our very own Daniel Rhodes (2002), glumbert.com, was mentioned in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as one of one of the journalist's favorite websites:

"This site got hacked months ago and is a shell of what it used to be, but its links still are great for a laugh."

As you might have noticed, the old AISVIENNA.COM wasn't exactly the hottest site on the internet! The forums on this site will remain, but this site will hopefully also serve as an informative weblog.

Where are all the alumni?

You might have heard of Facebook, the internet's number two social networking site after MySpace. Facebook has exploded over the last couple months as more and more college and work networks were added to it, and finally, last month, it was opened to anybody with an email address.

As of today, October 24, 2006, there are 279 AIS alumni in the Global AIS Vienna Group from the Class of 1979 to the not-yet-graduated Class of 2007. Most of these members check Facebook at least once a week, if not several times a day!

AISVIENNA.COM can simply not compete with this global phenomenon, and will thus take a different course in the future.

I encourage you to sign up for Facebook and participate in the alumni discussion there! Here are the steps:

1) Register. This should only take a minute. If you currently have access to a college or work email address that is supported, this is the optimum choice. Otherwise register by region.

2) State your AIS Vienna affiliation! Join the Global AIS Vienna Group. Then edit your profile's education information to include AIS Vienna and your class year. You can then go back to your profile, find your education information and search either the entire school's alumni base (click the school name), or just search your graduating class (click your graduation year).

3) See who's going to be in Vienna this winter (if that's relevant to you). Check out the Vienna Winter Break 2006/2007 event and follow the instructions.

Facebook has small, non-obstructive ads, and excellent privacy settings, so it's great to use.