Earlier this week, we saw videos from Laura Mac (C'89) who will be celebrating her 20th reunion this weekend.

Two more alumni of note (authors!) will be back on campus respectively celebrating their 25th and 10th reunions.

• Penn Alum and author Marie (Busterna) Lamba (C'84) will be back on campus this weekend celebrating her 25th reunion, as well as doing a book signing for her young adult novel WHAT I MEANT... this Saturday May 16th from 2-:4:30 pm at the Penn Bookstore (3601 Walnut Street)
  

WHAT I MEANT, which Publisher’s Weekly has called “an impressive debut,” is set in Doylestown and Philadelphia and is about a 15 year old girl, her mysterious guy, her Indian dad, her American mom, her evil aunt, and tons of drama and laughs.

Marie says she owes much of who she is today to her time at Penn. “I took tons of writing courses in college, and that, combined with my experiences as a student there, really helped shape me as a writer, and it influenced my novel as well.” The Philadelphia scenes in What I Meant… are drawn from her freshman year at Penn. “My teen character winds up stuck in Philly at night, completely lost and shook up. Kind of like me in my first year of college. I, too, was a small town girl who had a lot to learn about cities and about myself.”

Find out HERE how Marie got her start, got published and her advice to you on becoming an author!

Marie's website HERE

• 
  Rachel Skerritt (C'99, GSE '99) will also be doing a signing and discusion of her book WHEN THE LIGHTS GO DOWN at the Penn Bookstore on Saturday 5/1 at 3:30 pm.
  
  Read my post I did about Rachel HERE and learn how she leads a double life as a high school principal and novelist!
  
  What inspired Rachel to start writing? ...Which famous Penn alumni have been mentors to her? ...And what are her tips to YOU? The answers got me chuckling... Find out more here!
  
  

Other Penn authors HERE




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As Laura K. Mack (C'89) prepares herself for celebrating her 20th class reunion at this weekend's Reunion Weekend (May 15-17th), she posted some videos (see below) she took from being on campus during last year's (2008) reunion weekend.

If you haven't been back to campus in a bit, Laura takes us for a walking tour down her memory lane as she reminisces about the High Rises, Locust Walk, and the Quad to name a few of her tour stops. She then journeys into some video in the 2008 reunion tents as well.  I thought her video back into Hill House was most interesting as she attempts to visit her freshman dorm room. 

It seems like Laura has lots of great memories!  She looks forward to reuniting with her class this weekend! (fyi, Laura has organized a Hill House mini-reunion at the 1989 tent this Saturday at 1 pm)

For more info about this May 15-17th weekend's reunion weekend (it's not too late to register!), click HERE!

And be sure to check out

• some of DT's 2008 reunion videos in the scroller above from the Class of 1993 reunion tents.
• DT videos from the 2007 Reunion weekend HERE
  

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Drama alert!

If you saw Russell Simmons' "Brave New Voices" on Sunday night you would have seen that at first our Team Philadelphia didn't get into the finals...BUT because of their "brave new voices", they called the judges on a technicality of one of the other teams who got into the finals.  Apparently the other team went over their allotted time. As a result, Team Philadelphia is rightfully now in the finals!

While I have covered chilling performances from Josh Bennett (C'10) and Alysia Harris (C'10), last night was the first time we were introduced to Aysha El Shamyleh (C'10).  And while they didn't show Aysha's "Cupid in a War Zone" video posted on the HBO site on Sunday night's episode, I wanted to make sure all of you got the chance to check it out above.  It's yet another spine tingling, emotional performance by Team Philadelphia!

Per HBO.com,

'Aysha spits passionately about gender and social justice for the Middle East and all Muslims. "My first language is Arabic," she says. "And sometimes I feel really guilty because I cannot pick up a pen and write a poem in Arabic. Maybe it's because it's a very rich, sophisticated language, very difficult to use." Is there slam poetry in the Arab world? Aysha says, "Not that I'm aware of, but my sister and I were thinking we would love to introduce it to Jordan and the Arab world."'

On a related note, in this week's episode there was a moving clip from a performance where Aysha El Shamyleh (C'10) and Alysia Haris (C'10) perform together. Each were locked arm in arm and had their back to one another and were supposed to represent two different sides of a person.  I presently can't find the clip anywhere but if I should find it, I will post it on DT.

Let's all hope that Team Philadelphia wins next Sunday night in the Finals!





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Yes, "The Celebrity Apprentice" ended last night, and while the winner wasn't Penn alum Melissa Rivers, it did turn out to be her mother Joan Rivers. So there's a close win for us anyway.

On a related note, in a very last effort attempt to capitalize on this season's Apprentice fever, check out a class project video takeoff of "The Apprentice".... done Wharton style.

Watch above as Team Shy Guy and Team Pushy try to sell cookies on Locust Walk for the American Cancer Foundation and face the actors who are supposed to be (but not look like!) "Donald Trump" and "Ivanka Trump".

Other Creative Class Projects here



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The Wall Street Journal turned the tables on the presidents of 10 top colleges and universities with an unusual assignment: answer an essay question from their own school's application.

For Penn President Amy Gutmann, that meant submitting page 217 of her 300 page autobiography, where she discusses her professional accomplishments, including creating a vision for the school, dubbed "the Penn Compact," when she became the University's president in 2004.

Check out President Gutmann's page 217 HERE

Thanks to Kiera Reilly (C'93, Director, Alumni Travel, Associate Director, Global Alumni Network) for the tip!



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