We are "The Management" -- Billie Karel, Synphen Wu, and Amy Chen -- three 2001 graduates from Stanford University who worked as volunteers under the auspices of the Kham Aid Foundation's Volunteer Teachers program in Kham during the 2001 - 2002 school year.

Billie is a Sagittarius (moon in Cancer, Taurus rising), born and raised in the pits of suburban Rockland County, NY. She graduated with a BA in Human Biology with a concentration in Environmental Conservation and International Development. As of August, 2002 she'll be an organizer for Green Corps. She owes her soul to a few rockin' people, organizations, and other good stuff around the world right now who care for, inspire, and otherwise save her @$$ in all sorts of ways, including her folks, her condors, her goats, her students and friends, Kham Aid, and yu xiang qie zi. (Update: Billie lasted all of one week in Green Corps before the insanity had to stop. She then moved back to San Francisco, bummed around there in the fog for a while, researched for Pesticide Action Network North America, tutored for College Track, ate a lot of cheap food at El Castillito Taqueria and King of Thai, and wrote lots and lots of cover letters. Currently, she lives in North Carolina, pretends not to be a Yankee, and works for the Pesticide Education Project in Raleigh. She still misses good ol' Kangding real bad every now and then, and was thrilled to have the chance to visit in Spring, 2004.)

Synphen spent her childhood in Taiwan and Hicksville, New York, and subsequently moved to her present home in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, outside of Chicago. She double majored in Biology and English, because she could. She is a smartass muthafugga who's going to be living off fang bian mian and Kraft dinners for the next eight years of her life while she pursues an MD/PhD (hot damn!) at NYU. She likes playing guitar, going on road trips, and capsizing with Amy in small dingys. She also knows the first two stanzas of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by heart. Go ahead. Ask her. [NOTE: Amy took the liberty of writing this bio for her. Synphen would never say such mildly embarrassing things about herself--mwahahaha! ]

Amy grew up in the (La) Brea Tar Pits, which is even pittier than suburban Rockland County, take her word for it. Whoofa! She studied International Relations, but didn't focus on anything in particular, and thus thinks of herself as an illegitimate IR major, even though "I are IR." She's starting at Harvard Law School in the fall of 2003, where she will revert back to her previous incarnation as a student and will NOT lose her soul so long as the friends who are the guardians of her conscience keep her hum buzz whirring into the next stage of her life. In the future she plans to join forces with one (Wonder Twins Activate!) or more (Bionic Three-Four-Five-Or-More Unite!) of these truly incomparable individuals to move mountains, kick some ass, and never let the bastards grind her (or anybody else) down.

Billie and Synphen taught at Kangding Middle School (Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, PR China) during the fall term, 2001. Synphen returned to the states at the end of the year, and Billie was then joined by Amy for the spring term, 2002. While at Kangding, we all taught English and worked on a student website. Our goal is to have every page on this website in all three languages: English, Chinese, and Tibetan, so that our students' work can reach people all over the English-speaking world, all over China, and also in different Tibetan communities around the world.

The website project has been loads of fun, perhaps the highlight of our time here, but it's still very much a work in progress. We've got over 170 students and teachers involved in this project in one way or another. There are definitely some students, teachers, and classes who have been of particular help to us (read about them on the credits and thank you page!)

kangdingweb@gmail.com is the email address for the whole website, so should you want to contact us or strike up a conversation with any of the student authors featured on our page, don't be shy, drop a line in that direction.

That's all for now! Thank you for visiting our site! Come back to see us again soon, and also please tell anyone you think might be interested to come check it out!

Peace peace,

Billie, Synphen, and Amy
September 2001 - May 2002