Saturday, March 23, 2013

Strolling Down Memory Lane

It's been a few years, but my husband and I made a pilgrimage back to our Alma Mater, Occidental College for an alumni event this weekend. It is hard to believe that it's been ten years since we graduated and it made me feel a little old and nostalgic to visit.  Every time I go back to the campus something is always a little different, but the memories are still the same. They always tell you that college will be the best years of your life, and who could argue? I would gladly switch places with my "college self" in a second. What were my biggest concerns in college? Perhaps something like writing a ten page paper on Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, but that was more fun than anything. (In case you didn't already know I was a philosophy major.)


Even if you have never heard of Occidental College, which celebrated its 125th anniversary last year, you've probably seen it. It's a very popular place for filming movies and TV shows, as it's in Los Angeles. For example, the majority of Clueless was filmed on the Oxy campus. Movies dating back to the 30's were also filmed on campus. Chances are you've seen a movie or TV show featuring some building or feature of the campus. Oh, and our current president also attended Occidental...but I don't want to get into politics.

The picture below is taken by a notable Oxy landmark, the Gilman Fountain, better known as the Star Trek fountain which appeared in the 1983 movie Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (which I haven't yet seen). It is a tradition to throw people into the fountain for their birthdays, which only happened to me once.

I am wearing orange (J. Crew mini in "Big Apple")  due to the fact that it's our school color, along with black. (I think they borrowed their colors and mascot, the Tiger, from Princeton.) Luckily no one threw me in the fountain today because J. Crew and Prada don't mix well with water in my opinion.  




Often in college I could be found eating my lunch or reading a book outside on one of the benches in the quad. As you can see, on a beautiful Californian day like today it is the perfect place to be.



One of the reasons Occidental is such a lovely place is the architecture. Notable architect Myron Hunt, who also designed buildings for Caltech, Pomona College, the Pasadena Public Library, the Huntington Hotel, the Huntington Library, Huntington Hospital, the Rose Bowl, and many other buildings in Southern California, designed the original buildings on Oxy's (second) campus beginning in 1912. Some of the other buildings you will find on campus reek of the 60's and 70's so I decided not to include them here. Below are a few glimpses of Hunt's original buildings. The first two are Johnson Hall and the last is Swan Hall




And what girl wouldn't need an incredible pair of shoes to stroll (strut) down memory lane in? I thought the J. Crew Valencia pumps in leopard would be perfect because our school mascot is the tiger and while a leopard isn't exactly the same they're both big cats, right?



2 comments:

  1. Hello legs! I love those Valentinas, I keep looking for them on Ebay.
    The sky there is so wonderful and you are out in bare legs, both of those are about three months away for me.

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    1. I was lucky to find these Valentinas for about $30 last summer at J. Crew. They were quite the deal! I hope "bare leg" weather comes soon for you

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