Visiting CMC (11 Years Later...)

I have no idea how to get rid of this huge space at the top before the entry begins..  Sorry!

On our trip back to California for Christmas, I made sure to schedule a day to visit my alma mater.  I had seen photos of all the changes and was excited to see how much it's transformed and if there was still a glimmer of the college I went to for four years way back when.  

Lucky for us, one of my college buddies Gena is living in Claremont, a few blocks away as her husband is a visiting professor at CMC.  They also have two kids, so we made sure to bring the whole family.  It was the first time our kids met each other and they hit it off right away. Just for the historian in me, the last time we hung out was at 4am with standby tickets for the Ellen 12 days of giveaway in 2010! We left the show later that day with a car full of free goodies, it was such a fun experience and I'm glad I got to share it with G!! We sat shivering in our camp chairs, bundled up with an iPad but ended up just chatting and then driving over to trader joes or Starbucks (it's been a while) and our then LA apt to get dressed and go back to the show. It was an amazing experience I'll probably never have again! 

Back to CMC... Here's the first change.. if you look closely, you'll see the windows all have a red frame.  The lighting doesn't show it as well but it's a BRIGHT RED frame, really glossy, and is supposed to add "branding" to the college.  Looks spiffy.  Notice the new bike racks and the shiny red railing also.  The golf carts looked like they got an upgrade too.  

in front of Berger Hall, I lived here sophomore year

I don't remember this hall much, probably because I didn't live in it, but since it's us, I wanted to take a photo in front of it.  No other significance beyond that. ...

Phillips Hall

A view of the old field with the new gym in the distance, with its "branding" of yellow and red strips.  Definitely not used to seeing this one...

new Ducey gym

This is the view right outside of McKenna Auditorium.  The famous fountains are still there, for some reason I thought the shiny see through quiet room was here, but they preserved the fountains.  Where else are people going to get dumped on their birthday?  For the record, I was never dumped on a birthday haha, but I do remember getting a bottle of champagne along with the rest of the senior class when thesis was finished and dipping my feet into the fountain.

fountains of birthday fun/doom

This is where the old hallway into the old admissions was.  It is absolutely breathtaking.  To the right (didn't get a photo), there are some fancy steel staircases that go down and there's fountains all around.  The only odd thing is all the administrative offices have full windows, it was a bit weird when I went over to meet some of the admissions folk (I volunteer as the Salt Lake CMC interviewer) and realized they had seen our kids run amuck outside already.

can you spot the three kiddos running?

roaming the campus with our kids

We tried to take a photo with our kids but Jordan and Hannah were having too much fun running around the campus.

The cool new floating room.  It's surrounded by water and stands on all four window walls and is just a neat room.

I guess students go here to study. Or people watch.  Lucky for us, break had already begun, but with Professor Hopper, we had access and got in to take a lookie.  Our kids sure enjoyed the comfy seats and views of the campus all around.

we could pass for college kids... anyday!

or college moms... 

Bubba

Jordan and Andy

If you look closely, you can see the tiny heads at the top of the building...

tiny tiny heads

Hot hapa guy spotted walking on CMC campus with kids!  They didn't change North Quad much, most of the changes with the new pods happened my senior year, so this little view of the corner turn with the dining hall on the left and Appleby on the right was the same.  They did update the lettering of all the dorm halls.  Feels old to see things updated, just reiterates the fact that I'm getting old! I can't believe it was 15 years ago that I stepped foot onto this campus and 11 years ago that I graduated and left...

hottie on campus

They added a kitchen and connected Berger and Benson hall.  And then made it spiffy with these cool cosmetic changes outside.  I tried to get a photo with Bubba in front of it, I thought it was a cool background, one worthy of a LinkedIn profile pic!

new mid section...

Remember the old Japanese gardens east of Marks Hall?  GONE!  They have a bunch of generators and stuff there, surrounded it with this cool wood wall, and then put some bike racks in front of it.  Too bad I don't have any photos of the old Japanese gardens.

G and me in front of the new wall formerly known as the Japanese gardens

goofy new BFFs

these two hit it off right away

best buds, aren't they cute? Hannah told Jordan she was part Chinese and Jordan responded that he was three quarters Chinese. Smart 4 year olds!

A view from the parking lot across from the south quad lot where Ducey USED to be on the right.  The towers still look the same on the left.

the new parking lot view

A view of Marks hall driving down Sixth towards Pomona... check out all that red branding!

Sixth Street

We had a great lunch at Gena's, it made me really miss having close college  friends with kids close by.  Too bad we don't live closer, we'd play games and let our kids run amuck all the time!  Before we went back to Arcasia, we did made sure to swing by Donutman.  It's no secret that my boys love donuts so they were convinced we had to go as soon as they heard the name Donutman.

Apparently, Gena had never been!  Donutman is open 24 hours and in Glendora, about 10 minutes from Claremont, so it was a popular spot late night when we college kids needed a sweet recharge.  They also had these amazing strawberry filled donuts, so mostly we went for that.  I guess Gena never went, she didn't have a car in college either and never lived close to me in the dorms, so that was probably why.

Our kids were the most excited about Donutman.  Both kids had to potty in the parking lot, they had held it for so long and in the midst of our catching up and adult conversation (mostly uninterrupted cuz our kids were having so much fun), we forgot to have them go before we left... Oops! So Jordan marked his territory in the Donutman parking lot and G showed me this cool contraption that I'll have to get for Dags, cuz girls can't just piss anywhere they want like dudes.

DOnutman!

throwing weird signs... 

view of the goods

sign and sky

What a great way to kickoff our Christmas week in LA! Sadly though, Jordan didn't even know we were on the CMC campus until we had left, and he asked Andy, "when are we going to Mom's school?"  oops.... Guess he missed the self guided tour while running around.