ARTstART

Another brief, but worthwhile exhibit in the Ginger Elliot Hall next to the Garner House in Memorial Park. This exhibit showcased art from students at Vista, Oakmont and Sycamore. These upper grade students were part of ARTstART sponsored by the Claremont Museum of Art. This program works at many levels starting with college students who mentor high school students to lead the elementary children through three art lessons. 

The Courier's lead story on Friday led me to the exhibition. It gives a more fully detailed explanation of the work that is being done with this exciting program of arts integration across the curriculum, and leadership training for high school students. The exhibit will be open once more - this Wednesday from noon - 4, and if you are free then (and the exhibit is also free), I highly recommend a visit! 

Week Round-Up in Photos

As I was out and about last week, I took photos for the blog, but didn't come up with any posts for them, so now I clump them all together. 

Book club members now live in the hills above San Bernardino. Here is the view from their 4 acres.

A walk through the Pomona farm showed us this statue. Presumably the goddess Pomona.

Streamers have been up at CMC since Alumni weekend. I like the reflection in the water.

The new arts building going up at Pomona College

Humans Vs Zombies

On Tuesday I saw these students walking toward Honnold Library, and their bandanas altered me to the fact that this semester's round of Humans Vs Zombies is underway at the Claremont Colleges. You can read the entire set of rules for the colleges here.  You can see a short youtube video from a game in 2011 here. According to the official website, this game of "moderated tag" started at Goucher College in 2005. There is a link at that site to a documentary about HvZ which I have not seen, but may watch during spring break next week.

Getting a Jump On Spring Break

Spring break at the colleges starts at the end of the day today, but a student is getting started early, here in front of Bridges Auditorium just before noon today.

Here's a link to a similar photo from several years ago at HMC.

TEDx

Yesterday in the early afternoon, in front of Garrison Theater, I ran across 10th Street blocked to traffic, two food trucks with long lines and seemingly great activity. Approaching the building I saw signs announcing TEDx talks.

Today I discovered that this all-day event featured speakers on the topic of storytelling. This website lists the speakers and their backgrounds. I have been thinking quite a bit lately about the importance of story (and an upcoming blog posts or maybe posts will reflect that), so I will be checking the web in the near future to see when these talks will be online.

Here is why I was over near Garrison yesterday, watching a movie next door in Boone Recital Hall.

Pacific University

Our daughter is teaching biology this year at Pacific University in Forest Grove, just west of Portland. It was great to wander the campus and enjoy brick buildings, fall colors and sunny days. Here are a few shots of the school.

The original building

Art in the library

More art in the library

The school mascot is a boxer - part dog, part dragon

The J-Term course my daughter will be teaching (two weeks in January)

Signs of Summer and Fall at the Same Time

Signs of Fall:
First Day of School for CUSD today (lots of Facebook photos to enjoy!)
More Students at the Colleges / More Students at the CMC gym
My music schedule for Vista arrived today
Working on Lesson Plans

Signs of Summer:
It is HOT (and even muggy!)

Summer Evening Walk

On our evening walk tonight we wandered through Pitzer and HMC, seeing some of the students who have arrived early for various reasons. I took my camera, and here are my two favorite shots.

Chickens roosting at Pitzer

Sunset at HMC

Public Art at Pitzer

I am going to totally co-opt a blog post from my friend, Judy. On Friday she wrote about the signs that I have seen at Pitzer College. Like her, I noticed them and wondered what the heck they are. Unlike her, I never bothered to investigate. She gives links in her post to the artist-in-residence, Edgar Heap of Birds who installed these signs sometime earlier this year.

San Luis Obispo

One good thing about a road trip is that going from point A to point B has opportunities for nice stops along the way. We've only driven through/by San Luis Opisbo before, never stopping to check it out. We decided to spend a few hours in this college town on our way up to Cambria - a delightful stopping point. Before we left home, I had downloaded a series of podcasts to take a walking tour of the historic downtown area, and we took the opportunity to listen to these little gems while driving up the 101. If you decide to do the same, just know that these podcasts have little video as well as audio, with historic and modern photos for each segment. Actually, you can see them as youtube videos, as well.

I didn't take any photos of the used bookstore that we enjoyed, but H bought a book with various walks throughout Paris for future reference.

The Court House

Mission San Luis Opisbo (Opisbo means bishop)

The original Carnegie Library, now the History Center where we talked to one of the docents who was a Scripps alumna

The creek that runs through town

A small, free art museum

The Wineman Hotel

The Ah Louis Store

Just outside of town is the SLO Botanical Garden, a little gem of a place. There is no charge during the week, but we would have gladly paid the $3 entrance fee if we had been there on the weekend. While H took great interest in the various plants, I was especially enamored of the various art pieces throughout the landscaping - some of it for sale. What a great way to combine several different interests which go so well together.

We also drove through the campus, but I didn't take any photos there. It's tucked into the foothills above the town.

An Hour in San Bernardino

I had an hour to kill yesterday while L was interviewing at San Bernardino Valley College, so I looked up places to see in San Bernardino. Many sites recommended places outside the city, but I discovered that the original McDonald's is not far from the college, so I drove there to have a look-see.

The yelp reviews are pretty positive, but I was not overly impressed. Perhaps if I had been there on tour day I might have had a different opinion. I guess I'm not enough of a McDonald's fan to appreciate the various Happy Meal toys and the "Original Straw", but I would not recommend this place as a destination. At least it was free.

Training Drill

Today is the middle day of three for rescue workers to practice drills for shooters on campus. "Expect a lot of police and fire dept. activity around campus this week. ... At least three helicopters will hover above campus. And the drill will involved the sounds of gunshots and screaming victims."

While my friend Judy avoided checking out this drill, I took my camera and long lens and went to Garrison Theater. I was not the only one with a camera. The most exciting thing was to watch two men rappell from a helicopter. You can see one of them near the top of the trees in the second photo on the left wire. That happened so quickly I almost missed getting a shot.

These people watched from Honnold.

Claremont Colleges Photo Scavenger Hunt

Here is an invitation to participate in a free scavenger hunt at the Claremont Colleges. This is the story of how it started.

A while ago, while walking through the colleges, I noticed this relief of an old telephone on the outside of a building. I decided to take a picture of it. As I kept passing by this telephone several times a week, I thought, "I wonder how many people have noticed this?" Then, "I wonder what other things around the campuses are unique or interesting that people may not have seen, even when walking past?"

I thought I would create a little scavenger hunt. People could go to this photo album here and walk through the colleges looking for the items in the photos. For interaction sake, after people would find these items, they could take their own photo of each one and post them online in their own photo album. Better yet, people could create their own scavenger hunt.

Here are some of my observations:

• I did not do this in one day. No one should feel they have to. This could be an ongoing mini-project.
• Pomona, Scripps and Pitzer campuses have so many interesting things to photograph that I had to limit the pictures I put on the site for those schools.
• CMC has a complete dearth of interesting things to see (I had never paid much attention to how ugly that campus is - sorry to you folks at CMC - but really, you need some art, or something interesting for the eye).
• Some of these items are easy to find - some are hard.
• All items are outside, so you don't need to rely on a door being unlocked.

Have fun!

Baccalaureate

I didn't even know about Baccalaureates when I was in high school and college. Maybe we didn't have them at my schools. When my daughters graduated from Claremont High School, they alerted me to this special pre-commencement service. For CHS I preferred these celebrations to the actual graduation because this interfaith service allowed students who weren't necessarily the top of their class or the best performers, but who were selected by their classmates to present something of themselves to their community. It was also a more reverent ceremony (no air horns and raucous cheering here).

Today I went to the Claremont Colleges Baccalaureate held in Little Bridges. Not only is this an interfaith ceremony, but the only event which brings all colleges together for graduation weekend. Students from each college participated in the service by speaking about their faith and also by performing musical pieces.  The featured speaker, Gustav Niebuhr, graduated from Pomona in 1977.  He spoke on the importance of friendship.

Women's Lacrosse

Having seen this new field at Pomona College which sits atop the new parking structure along 1st St., we finally got over to see a game on Saturday.  Look carefully and see that we watched women's lacrosse, with cross-campus rivals CMS challenging Pomona/Pitzer.  

Music and the Brain

Evelyn Glennie on TED

Because my yoga class has started 30 minutes earlier than usual, Lynn and I were able to catch a lecture at Pomona College called The Musician's Guide to the Brain by Lois Svard, a pianist and professor at Bucknell.

Although I am not a scientist, I am very interested in science (living with a chemist and being the mother to a neurobiologist doesn't hurt), and one of the areas I've done a little reading in is about how being a musician shapes the brain.

Dr. Svard handed out a two-sided page of references and suggested reading and two TED talks (Evelyn Glennie and Charles Limb), so now I have my reading list cut out for me!  While I have heard about plasticity and the brain, I had not heard about mirror neurons, although I had heard that if you are watching your student play their instrument, you naturally feel how they are playing.  If they aren't breathing, you don't breathe.  If they are tense in their right arm, you sense that.  That is, you sense it if you are paying attention.

Harbingers of Fall

Back when I went to college a hundred years ago, I took a trunk of clothes, bedding, a typewriter, a dictionary, a lamp, two posters, some photos, a cassette player and my violin. It fit easily in the back of the Volvo station wagon. Over summer vacation, I packed up what I didn't need for 3 months and put the three boxes in a locker in the dorm basement.  

These days, enterprising companies bring these storage boxes to the Claremont Colleges in May.  Students put their storage items in these containers which get whisked away somewhere.  I know that the return of the upperclassmen is imminent when these boxes return.  First year students officially arrive this week, RAs and fall athletes have been here for awhile and everyone else arrives in a few days.

Another sign that our sleepy town will soon be bustling is the return of the Zipcars.  I don't know where the cars disappear over the summer, but in the last week the Priuses and Honda Hybrids have made their appearances.

July 28

This morning

The students have landed

The students have been slowly infiltrating our sleepy town - we saw the cars unloading boxes and boxes (not just cars - a UHaul, too!), the pallets that have been in storage are on the streets, the first years are waiting for cars before they cross the street (that won't last long), and Hal will teach his first class tonight. On our way to the gym this morning, Hal and I had to navigate our bikes through the throngs of the ROTC kids running at CMC, and then all the elliptical machines were in use in the gym. We figure that we'll have our private gym back in about two weeks. Ah, yes, the world keeps spinning.