Four years may seem like a long time, but, as we realized, it can go by more quickly than one could ever imagine.  One minute you’re arriving on campus for freshman orientation and the awkward first roommate encounter, and the next minute President Gann is handing out diplomas and suddenly life in Claremont has disappeared in a flurry of job applications and interviews.

Before the time slips away, there are some things students absolutely should do before leaving Claremont.  While we made our own bucket list, and have worked hard on the weekends crossing many things off, this list is intended as a suggestion for students looking to explore and make their own memories – a starting point for everyone to incorporate their own unique goals and interests.

My best advice as a senior is to not waste time worrying – instead, spend more time doing… and enjoying.

10. Discover the Claremont Village.

Neighbors meet at the village market

Claremont isn’t exactly a booming metropolis, but there are many fun parts of the Village that Claremont students never take the time to experience.  Hidden gems like C.K. Cafe, which has free WiFi and a fantastic tea selection that includes the special blooming flower teas, are great places to study or just to hang out.  Likewise, Eureka! Burger is a great place to visit, with a rotating beer selection, visiting brewers, and “Steal the Glass” Night on Wednesdays.  While some make it a goal to visit every restaurant in downtown Claremont, it’s also worth it to expand that goal to include going to events in the Village.  The Sunday morning farmer’s market, held from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Second Street, has fresh fruit and vegetables, as well as honey, hummus, pita, and local artisan crafts.  It’s a great place to grab groceries for the week with friends and prices are often cheaper than in stores.  On Fridays from 5 p.m. – 8 p.m. students can visit the Green Market at the Packing House, where vendors bring food and crafts to sell at great prices.  Students staying in Claremont over spring break will find many options for fun close to home.

9. Cheer on C-M-S at a sports game.
Although CMC doesn’t have the big-school sports frenzy like USC or UCLA, C-M-S events are not to be missed.  Division III events can be just as exciting as Division I, especially when you’re rooting for people you actually know.  It’s a great way to show friends that you care by supporting the Athenas’ undefeated basketball season, or going to a track meet to see a friend hurdle her way to victory.  And how better to show that guy in Econ 50 that you like the way he talks about the demand curve than by cheering on his water polo team?  Not only are C-M-S sports events fun and exciting, but they’re also a great way to bond with friends.  Game schedules and results are posted online at the C-M-S webpage.  Even at a small school, spirit is important.

Students at an open mic night perform a cover of Weezer's "Buddy Holly".

8. Attend a student theatrical or arts performance.

There are many organizations that put on plays, open mic nights, improv shows, and musical performances around the Colleges.  The CMC theater group, Under The Lights (UTL), puts on several performances each year, including their One Acts – a night of one-act plays – and the perpetually classy Dinner Theater performance at the Athenaeum.  “The name of the dinner theatre play is ‘Finnegan’s Farewell’ and it is going to be performed the evenings of April 9th, 10th, and 11th,” says UTL President Jen Baute (CMC ’12) about this semester’s play, a comedy involving Irish drinking songs.  These students work hard for weeks to put on a professional and entertaining show, and they rarely disappoint. Plus, they always have great refreshments.

7. Go to Karaoke Night at Sushi Cruise or hit up El Ranchero for Mexican fare.
Sushi Cruise, the restaurant shaped like a boat and home to the infamous Claremont Roll, Rainbow Dragon Roll, and many other California sushi fusion masterpieces, is also the home of Thursday night karaoke.  Not only does Sushi Cruise have a huge selection of songs for karaoke, they also have big screen displays for the lyrics and an incredible waitstaff that will participate in the festivities.  The Claremont icon has a great all-you-can-eat menu that is even more valuable with the 10% off coupon you can find on the CMC Forum – valid with a student ID.  El Ranchero, which is on the same block as Sushi Cruise, is another option for a fun night off-campus that is great for larger groups.  They have incredible specials, like the popular “dollarita,” that make it a must for the tail-end of spring break. El Ranchero is big fun, small price.

6. Spend a day downtown.

Hollywood attractions are easily accessible by Metrolink and metro busses.

Lots of people take trips to the beach, but fewer people take the time to explore downtown Los Angeles.  Although Claremont can feel far from the city, it’s quite accessible: by Metrolink train it only takes 50 minutes to get downtown (and it’s only about $7.50 each way, compared with $18.50 or more each way, plus parking, if you choose to drive).  L.A.’s Union Station is just walking distance from attractions like Olvera Street, an old-town Hispanic marketplace and the  the oldest part of Los Angeles.  The Walt Disney Music Hall is very close to the train station, as is the L.A. Museum of Contemporary Art, which charges just $5 for student admission every day (closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays) and has free admission on Thursdays from 5 – 8 p.m.  For lunch, hit up Grand Central Market, an open-air plaza famous for homemade mole and the fresh, El Salvadorian specialty food, pupusas. Helen Kim, a senior who frequently visits the Los Angeles downtown area added, “You can take the Red Line out to Hollywood to see the Kodak Theatre and also the Purple Line if you wanted to go explore Koreatown.”  There are always new places to discover and there is always something going on downtown.  Whether it’s a museum exposition or a cultural festivity, the possibilities are almost endless.

5. Explore Mt. Baldy.
The image of Mt. Baldy in its snow-capped glory standing majestically behind Bauer Center is one with which we are all familiar.  We see it on postcards, emails, and even the CMC webpage.  But how many students have actually been to the top of Mt. Baldy?  How many have been to the bottom?  Mt. Baldy presents so many possibilities. In the winter there are often online deals from Groupon.com or Livingsocial.com that offer discounts on lift tickets or snow-tubing passes.  In the fall there’s a swim-suit hike organized by Pomona’s On The Loose program (OTL, an outdoor activities organization).  The town below the ski area, named after the mountain, is a fun place to visit before or after making it to the top.  For upperclassmen, there’s the Mt. Baldy Pub, with the Mt. Baldy Lodge right next door for those who want to make a weekend of exploring the mountain.  In addition to great hospitality, the good people of the Lodge lead moonlight hikes.  And for students of all ages, there is Buckhorn Restaurant, which has live music on the weekends (and a free drink special on its website), and the Mount Baldy Trout Pool, where students can try out their casting skills.  The trout pool has all the rental equipment necessary, as well as bait and lures.

Spring break is a great opportunity for road trips with friends.

4. Impromptu road trip with friends
Whether near or far, a road trip with friends is a must in college – especially in Claremont.  Claremont is uniquely located, where it’s only a three to four hour drive to Las Vegas or Death Valley, two hours to San Diego (where there is great beach camping), and six hours to the Bay Area and great outdoor spots like Big Sur.  Companies like Zipcar have made it even easier to get away for the weekend, with cars in Claremont available for members.  With online discount sites like Kayak and Priceline and deals from Groupon and other community sites, it’s easy to find a last-minute place to stay.  And great camping spots are only a Google search away.  Don’t have the gear? The OTL gear room is open from 7-10 p.m., Monday through Thursday, and has everything you’ll need.

3. Go all night at the Marathon Party.
It’s not uncommon to pull an all-nighter for class to write a paper or study for a midterm exam, but attending a party with friends and classmates that lasts all night is much more memorable, and much more fun.  The 24-Hour Party is planned every spring by ASCMC to involve activities that last an entire twenty-four hour period, from noon on a Saturday to noon on a Sunday.  Events range from swimming, to wine and cheese tasting, to karaoke, and even huge games of tag.  This event is also purposefully inclusive of students who choose the dry lifestyle; it’s more about fun with friends than about anything else and designed for maximum participation by everyone.

2. Participate in Ski-Beach Day.
Ski-Beach Day is the infamous day when a group of students ski for half a day and then hit the beach.  It’s an event unique to the Claremont Colleges, where students are close enough to the mountains to drive up to resorts like Mountain High and ski until noon before hitting the beach for some tanning, swimming, and good eats. This is an event few people will ever do outside of college.  Since it’s subsidized by the College and it’s planned out by the Student Life Chair (SLC), it’s well worth it to take advantage of this trip.

1. Get ponded or pond a friend.

You may have noticed that on January 18, Wikipedia and Reddit went dark and Google displayed a black rectangle over its normally colorful logo. These Internet giants—as well as hundreds of thousands of smaller sites—were protesting the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its sister bill in the Senate: the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA).

The first true digital protest was surprisingly effective. If social networks and search engines are good at one thing, it is reaching a lot of people quickly. On Wednesday, 7 million people signed Google’s anti-SOPA petition, 126 million people saw Wikipedia’s blackout page, and 8 million used the page to look up contact information for their representatives. It was almost impossible to use the consumer Internet on Wednesday without coming across something about this legislation.

Apparently Congress listened. Between Wednesday and Thursday, 15 members of Congress dropped their support for the bills, and 70 members went from undecided to opposed. Just hours after the protests ended, both bills were dropped from the Congressional voting schedule. Now, both lack the support to be considered again.

For now…SOPA is dead and buried. If lobbying were a beer pong game, Hollywood executives would be running a naked marathon around Silicon Valley.

The Internet got what it wanted, but the conversation is not over. It is worth reflecting on SOPA and PIPA for two reasons: 1) to understand why they are perhaps the worst pieces of legislation ever written, and 2) to understand why we sort of need something similar. Stay with me.

Let’s tackle point #1 first. SOPA, as written, would have destroyed the Internet. To tackle the widespread issue of digital piracy, we needed tweezers—not the sledgehammer that was introduced on the House floor. Either the person who wrote SOPA had a painfully vague understanding of what the Internet is, or he hated it and wanted to kill it. Probably both.

The bill as written would have allowed the Justice Department to remove any website that displayed copy-written materials from the domain name registry, without due process. There are two things wrong with this. First, the punishment mechanism is silly. To be clear, removing a website from the domain name registry will not stop people from accessing it. It will, however, make accessing it needlessly difficult. If Google were removed from the domain name registry by this law, a user would have to type in one of Google’s IP addresses (for example http://74.125.224.72/) in order to access the site. This means that the URL “Google.com” would take you nowhere, but “Google.com” would still be around. Clearly the person who designed this punishment was confused.

Second, SOPA’s punishment criteria are extraordinarily broad. Punishing websites for hosting copy-written materials would mean that websites who allow people to post things would have to start policing their users. Or—in a more likely scenario under SOPA—websites would have to stop letting users contribute content.

Think of a website. Seriously, think of a website. Got one? Good. Were you thinking of YouTube, Facebook, Google, E-bay, Amazon, Wikipedia, Reddit, Twitter, any blog, any porn site, or literally any website with an upload button or a comment box? That site would have three choices under SOPA: 1) try to stop it’s users from posting copy-written material at great cost, 2) face legal action from the government, or 3) stop letting their users from posting anything at all. In the best-case scenario, the Internet would change dramatically to skirt around this law. In the worst-case scenario, the Internet would become completely useless. Email? Good luck.

Imagine a law that forced Toyota to choose between policing drunk drivers and removing all the doors from its cars before selling them. This is the choice SOPA would give to Internet firms. Toyota would probably stop selling cars. Facebook would likely be a shell of its former self. Find me a modern law that is written more poorly than SOPA. I will be flabbergasted.

However—and this is a big however—it is important to understand that the original spirit of SOPA was a good one. Online piracy is a serious issue that requires a serious solution.

Technologies such as torrenting (which was sort of invented by a CMCer) have made it easier than ever to steal content (aka digital music, software, and books). Widespread theft has become a significant issue for the creators of content. By almost any estimate, we have swapped billions of dollars worth of content with each other. It does not seem like we are going to stop on our own.

Let’s use some of our Econ 50 knowledge for a moment. If the creators of content cannot get paid for their work, many will be forced to stop creating content (or only the wealthiest will be able to continue to create). If people are asking for payment in return from their work—and we are not giving it to them—everyone loses. Do not get me wrong; it is wonderful when people do things for free. Wikipedia rocks. But we cannot rely on the spare time of the smart and creative to fulfill our desire for good writing, software, television and music. If we try, we will end up with crap. A culture of theft will eventually lead to a culture filled with things that are worthless.

Ending Internet piracy is a noble goal, and one that should be taken seriously by the government. Not to say I wasn’t raging with you, but the piracy party must end. We really ought to be paying people for their work.

The shutdown of MegaUpload by the FBI on Thursday was justified. The site was willfully providing a way for people to steal content. Their intent was to steal. Therefore, in our society, they should be charged with breaking the law. I may not agree with the way the shutdown was handled, but it is time to realize that we can’t expect to be able to take what we want. The laws of our society have to apply to the digital space just as they do in the physical space.

Yes, it is true: the digital space we are creating is much different than the physical space we were born into. It has very different properties. For instance, you can copy something an infinite number of times for almost no cost. Our capabilities inside the digital space are much, much different than we are used to; even those inventing our capabilities still do not understand them or can predict what they will be.

Because of these issues, our values and laws have to be applied differently to the digital space. However, one thing is for sure: a system of laws must be created for the Internet. Users today are making questionable choices that clearly contradict our system of values. There are parts of the Web that resemble the Wild Wild West or Hobbes’ state of nature. It’s time to address Internet crime with legislation. That legislation, however, must be written by someone knowledgeable of the Internet and its purpose.

Writing laws for the Internet will be one of the great challenges of our time. I only hope we can do it before the 60-year-old technophobes in Congress pass something like SOPA.

The first thing to notice is the cast. This year’s “Dreamy McDreamboat,” Ryan Gosling, reemerges from the shadows of The Notebook with his third starring role this year as Stephen Meyers, second-in-command for the presidential campaign of Governor Mike Morris (Clooney).  Stephen is an ambitious, young, and idealistic campaign worker, who puts all his faith in the ambitious, not young, and idealistic Governor. The more knowledgeable campaign workers include Stephen’s boss, Paul Zara, (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) and the head of the opposition, Tom Duffy (Paul Giamatti). Rounding out the D.C. personalities are a sneaky New York Times journalist (Marisa Tomei) and, of course, the intern (Evan Rachel Wood). All the parts are played expertly by a cast that has seen a ridiculous amount of Oscar nods between them. However, this is Gosling’s show, and his performance stands out above the rest.

From the beginning, the film speaks to Clooney’s idealistic world. Young women are easily charmed by handsome older men, a crooner sings in the background of a smoky bar, a popular presidential frontrunner doesn’t declare a religion, a black senator from North Carolina holds peaceful office, and a few unsupported jabs at the Republican Party are taken (unsupported, not undeserved). However, it was at this moment, just when Clooney had me half-convinced I was watching an unbelievable Hollywood portrayal of Washington, he pleasantly surprised me with some turns that suggested more complex characters and a more realistic story, as Stephen struggles to stay on top after meeting with the opposite side and eventually uncovers a few secrets himself.

In all, The Ides of March is a well-written, well-cast movie. The problem lies not in the story, but the material itself. What’s that, you say? Politics is a dangerous game that sometimes leads even the most idealistic players into corruption and deceit? The movie tells us this rather artfully, but it’s a disappointingly basic message at the end of the day. For you movie-goers mildly interested in politics, by all means go see it, just don’t expect to get your political pants blown off by anything innovative. Rating: B

Many college-aged guys and gals are barely familiar with Allen’s work. Maybe you’ve seen Vicky Christina Barcelona, his last major critical success, or watched Annie Hall in an intro film class. This is a shame because, with over 40 movies under his belt, Allen is one of the most prolific filmmakers of our time.  I’m not saying all 40 flicks are must-sees… there’s a definite downside to pumping out three, sometimes four, movies in a year.

Luckily for Woody Allen fans, Midnight in Paris contains all of the admirable qualities of his more enjoyable films. The film is original, quirky, and cleverly muses on romance and life through the eyes of an underdog-type protagonist involved with a pretty woman. Allen, who in his younger years often played the male lead in his movies, cedes central role to Owen Wilson.  Wilson does a fine job of blending his own off-beat traits with Allen’s distinct mannerism– actually, he nails the role. Marion Cotillard elegantly plays the 1920s “It-girl.”  Rachel McAdams is another story: I found her to be the weak link in an otherwise stellar cast.  As in Sherlock Holmes, McAdams really got on my nerves.  But in her defense, Allen intends for the audience to hate her “bitchy girlfriend” character.

Marion Cotillard as a 1920s muse

The film succeeds in being nostalgic, while simultaneously convincing us that nostalgia is all about perspective, and is usually a waste of energy. The film’s surrealist vibe plays homage to the Modernist Paris it celebrates. The cinematography includes iconic shots of every Parisian scenes: this is Allen’s love letter, of sorts, to the City of Light. For literary zealots, the film’s reimagining of the ex-patriate artists and writers of the twenties is particularly fun.  A disheveled Ernest Hemingway inquires, “Have you ever shot a charging lion?” and Adrian Brody makes an incredibly convincing Salvador Dali. Other cameos include Kathy Bates, Tom Hiddleston (Loki in Thor), and Carla Bruni.

Midnight in Paris also lives up to Woody Allen’s record of making ideal flicks for date-nights: guys and girls will both find this film entertaining. To get in the Modernist Paris mindset, read some Gertrude Stein or check out a modern art history book before you head to the theater. If the film piques your interest, read Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast.

Whether you’re a lover of literature and art, or just need an fun summer film, Midnight in Paris is an excellent pick.  The main theme focuses on a universal search for happiness and love in this crazy, chaotic world.

 Watch the trailer for Midnight in Paris here.

Check out my reviews of True Grit and Wolfman, and be on the look-out for more summer movie reviews.

It is easy for us to forget that outdoor adventures are possible because we’ve grown so accustomed to the typical weekend at “Camp Claremont”: sun bathing, grinding to music, and playing  pong. Don’t get me wrong, these activities are awesome but every once in awhile, when the word “shot” makes you feel like you might vomit, when you just can’t stand another night grinding to Top 40, bros trying to look cool, and rough Sunday mornings, it is time, my friend, to go on an outdoor adventure. Here are five of my favorite adventures for when you just need to get away from life at CMC.

Deep Creek Hot Springs (Hour and a half drive)

Does soaking in warm natural hot springs after a gorgeous mountain hike sound like a good way to spend your Sunday? Well, you’re in luck because there’s a hot springs not too far from campus! It’s a two-mile hike into the springs, which are located along the side of a river.  You can lounge in the hot springs and then cool off in the river.

Beware– there may be some nude hippies skinny-dipping. It is easy enough to avoid them though… or you could join them.

EXTREME: The Deep Creek Canyon has great bouldering – so go climb some rocks! Also, there are swimming holes that offer great cliff jumping.

Hiking Mt. Baldy (35 minute drive)

Mt. Baldy is that sometimes-snowy mountain that you gaze at from your Econ 50 class when you have given up trying to understand the lecture. Although it may look like a small and kind of lame peak from here, it actually reaches an elevation of 10,068 feet, which is higher than the peaks in both Whistler, and Park City. If you want to check out what Southern California mountains have to offer, Baldy is your place to go! A great hike that I would recommend is The South Approach from Maker Flats parking lot. The trail is 8.5 miles round-trip and first leads you to a resting ski hut (2.5 mi), a perfect place to eat lunch, relax and enjoy some scenery (you can even spend the night here and see the Baldy Summit view at sunrise). The trail continues all the way to the top of Baldy. The views from the hike are absolutely insane. On a clear day you can see all the way to the ocean and you can also see Honnold-Mudd library (where all your poor classmates are trying to study)! Also, from December through May you will be hiking through snow. So make a snowman, have a snowball fight, and sled down the mountain on your butt!

EXTREME: If you want to take this adventure to the next level, I suggest carrying your skis/board up and skiing down the Baldy bowl (not part of the ski resort). These steep slopes and chutes offer backcountry skiing comparable to Colorado or Utah.

Beach camping (55 minutes)

Chilling on the beach, watching the sunset, roasting some s’mores and drinking some nice beer; this is beach camping. Not only is it super relaxing, but it’s a great way for new campers to experience a milder version of camping. The beach campsites in Southern California have toilets, running water and even showers. If you don’t want to deal with cooking over a fire, it is really easy to jump in your car and make the five-minute drive to a local burger joint. Campsites can be reserved through Reserve America, or you can just show up and hope there’s a spot open. My two favorites are San Clemente and San Onofre State Beach.

San Clemente has nice facilities and campsites. They seems brand new! The beach is a quarter mile walk from the campsite through sandy bluffs. This beach is awesome and very quiet. It is a sick surf spot, so pack your board! San Clemente is a great place to swim, lounge and read a book or play sports on the beach.

San Onofre State Beach is also a nice place to camp. It offers a more authentic camping experience that is further away from the hustle and bustle of the city. The drawback is that it is only open during half the season. Check out their website for open season.

EXTREME: After some nice warm campfire raging, there is nothing more exhilarating than going out in a midnight skinny-dip in the ocean! It is extremely cold but totally worth it. Just don’t trip on the sand while running naked towards the ocean. It’s quite embarrassing and very painful. (That actually happened).

Sunset hike to the “Hollywood” sign (40 minutes)

If you’re feeling stressed and need a break from that ten-page history paper due in two days, you should totally take a night hike to clear your mind. Do it right; go to Griffith Park to watch the sun set. Although extremely busy in the day, you are almost guaranteed to be alone at night because the park officially “closes” at sunset. Driving into the park after dark is prohibited but walking in is apparently OK. Just remember to park your car outside of the park if you plan on staying past sunset. There is no better way to spend your Sunday night than standing on the top of Mount Hollywood alone in nature, yet surrounded by a sea of city lights. I would recommend hiking up to the “Hollywood” sign and then exploring one of the many less traveled trails.

EXTREME:  Make it a date. Pack some Cabernet, some fancy cheese, a blanket and have a picnic with your sweetheart (or with that really cute girl in your Gov. class that you’ve always wanted to ask out) on a secluded hillside while you watch the sun set.

Bridge to Nowhere Hike

If you think that hiking to a giant arch bridge that is literally in the middle of nowhere might be cool, you should definitely do this hike. Not only do you get to see an awesome bridge nestled in the San Gabriel Mountains, you get to experience one of the most beautiful hikes around. This hike travels four miles in a canyon along a mountain creek. The creek offers many pools that are perfect for a mid-day swim.

EXTREME: If you think not studying for a midterm gets your adrenaline pumping,try bungee jumping off the bridge! This has been seriously one of the most thrilling experiences of my life! You can’t get much more extreme than hiking four miles to bungee jump off a bridge in the middle of nowhere. If you are interested I suggest reading Ellie Beckett’s article about it.

I hope this article has provided you with some ideas for fun outdoor adventures so that next time you need a break from CMC’s “study hard, party hard” lifestyle, you’ll have some sick things to do. You can also check out my Facebook group dedicated to CMC outdoor adventures. We go on trips like these all the time!

Here are a couple of my favorite walks:

Close: Hollywood Sign

Behind the Hollywood sign

This walk is for you if you have a car, an afternoon to kill, and a desire to embrace the tourist within you.  It’s a 5 mile walk, with a steady incline most of the way. It should take about 3 hours to get to the outlook above, behind the sign, and back. If you have plenty of daylight and time to spare, you could also try the side trails off the main path– they could either end in a fantastic shortcut, or get you fantastically lost.

The path is beautiful; you get both great city views and the feeling that you’ve escaped into the wilderness.  The Hollywood sign itself is surrounded by a fence, so if you were planning to do something like this, you’re out of luck.

Here are instructions on how to there. (It says it’s strenuous- ignore that. It’s not.) If you plan to be out past sunset, park outside the gate–otherwise your car will be trapped inside.

Finally, here is a very detailed write up worth reading if you’re going to give it a try.

Closer: Claremont Wilderness Trail:

So maybe just the thought of driving into L.A. makes you pee yourself out of fear, I can relate. Maybe you don’t have a whole afternoon– just a few hours. There’s a much closer off-campus wilderness walk you can take advantage of, and it’s right here in Claremont. The directions couldn’t be easier; Turn onto Mills from Foothill Blvd. Head for the hills. That’s it.

Sunrise at Claremont Wilderness Trail

Mills ends at the trailhead parking lot. It is a 7 minute drive, or 30 minute bike ride. (CMC Bike Shop Info can be found in here) The loop is 5 miles, with a mild-moderately steep uphill for the first 2.5 miles. There is a pavilion with benches around the halfway point, 50 minutes to an hour away at a leisurely pace. The whole 5 miles takes around an hour and a half. The trail is relatively busy with people of all ages on it at all times of the day; bikers, runners, and fast-walkers abound.

Really strapped for a large chunk of free time during the day? Try this loop in the morning and catch what is, in my opinion, Claremont’s prettiest sunrise. Give yourself about an hour to get to the Pavilion. You probably won’t need all that time, but better safe than sorry. The path is open enough to not need a flashlight. You could do this walk and make it back with plenty of time to snag breakfast and make your 8:10 class.

Closest: Pomona

If you scoffed at the suggestion of taking hour long walks, if carving 30 minutes out of your day between classes, work, sports, and meetings is a stretch, that’s still okay. You need not even leave the 5C’s to get your walk on. If you head down 6th street towards Pomona (coming from Ducey), turn left at the field (instead of right to Frary), walk down to the parking lot, turn left and go through the park area with the Greek Theatre and then take a right at the bottom of the stage, you will suddenly find yourself in a natural shrubby enclave with a few different paths. One leads to the farm and more walking paths. Another leads to a field. A final path leads you around and out. It’s the one place on the campuses that feels least like you’re not on campus. Even if you can only manage a half hour break, you can still get away.

A view of Los Angeles' City Hall from the Walt Disney Concert Hall, where the LA Philharmonic plays.

Unfortunately, these trips are not open to CMC students.  This is where our student government needs to step in and put forth some funding and organizational effort to plan off-campus excursions for the student body.  There is no denying that CMC has plenty of social events and activities. However, campus life inevitably becomes dull from time to time.  If ASCMC wishes to truly represent the will of the student body, it should offer subsidized trips to desirable locations.  Such locations could easily be determined by a poll, distributed via email.  Once the desired locations were determined, the endeavor could start out small, one trip per month at the beginning and expand from there.

Student government-organized trips are especially vital considering the fact that freshmen are not permitted to have cars on campus.  If transportation is not provided and the fees associated with various trips are not subsidized, many students will miss out on some of the best destinations Southern California has to offer.  If students wish to truly make the most of CMC’s incredible location, a greater effort needs to be made to plan such trips. What it really comes down to is student happiness.  ASCMC-sponsored trips would be fun and accessible for everyone and would add a whole new dimension to CMC’s social climate.

As a first step in the planning and execution of subsidized trips, I have polled a selection of CMC students on where they want to see ASCMC organize trips.  The results are as follows.

Question: If ASCMC were to organize a trip at a subsidized cost, providing transportation, to the following place would you attend?

Wolf (1994)

I think an important element to any good monster flick is the actor or actress playing the monster, and I honestly can’t think of anybody I would rather see turn into a werewolf (or even a mermaid, for that matter) than Jack Nicholson. James Spader co-stars in one of his better roles pre-Boston Legal, as a wimpy, nerdy foil to Nicholson’s, well, Nicholson-esque werewolf protagonist. The movie does have its fair share of ridiculousness, such as the opening scene, where Nicholson’s character, Will the magazine editor, pokes a wolf with a stick until it bites him. That being said, the film provides some good suspense, the effects are solid, unexpected people die, and like I said before, Jack Nicholson is a werewolf. If nothing else, watch it for scenes like the clip below, where Nicholson realizes he has “heightened senses” (sounds like another good movie in itself).

The Wolf Man (1941)

After seeing the original, it’s easy to understand why Hollywood would want make a remake. The Wolf Man really was a gem of the Golden Age with groundbreaking make-up, impeccable acting, and an ending that knocks the socks off viewers still today. The actors in the remake, by the way, creepily emulate the originals in a non-acting, natural sense. Benicio del Toro could be Lon Cheney Jr’s. son, and the original actor Claude Raines looks like a munchkin doing an Anthony Hopkins impression. The entire movie can be found online, but the clips are long and I don’t want to spoil anything for you. Just try to ignore the fact that everyone in Wales besides the father has an American accent.

An American Werewolf in London (1981)

This is the undisputed greatest werewolf movie of all time. It has the comedy, the horror, the teen slasher elements, and the abrupt, awesome finale that has yet to be surpassed these 29 years. Boy gets bitten. Boy meets girl. Boy turns into wolf. That old story. The make-up is some of the best in the history of Hollywood, and every scene holds up when compared to the best a computer could create today. It’s probably better.  Also, the soundtrack is awesome. Every song has something to do with a moon.  I will leave you all with one of the greatest transformation scenes in movie history, to the pleasant sound of Blue Moon in the background. Be sure to take note of Mickey Mouse. I’m still trying to figure out that shot, but I like it.

An American Werewolf in London Transformation

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