Westmont College

Well, when we were in California, I finally got to take my fiancé to Westmont. It was a beautiful day and I should have taken more pictures. I meant to get a shot of the "penis tree," but forgot. It's a tree that has one huge phallic branch that defines the whole tree. It's pretty awesome. Sorry I don't have a photo of that to share. All I've got is a shot of the prayer chapel that's near a pond. Definitely a favorite spot of mine on campus.


She got to see the old dorms and classrooms and that was neat to share with her. Westmont also has the Wardrobe (Read story here) that inspired C.S. Lewis to write "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe" (can't wait for the movie!). That's pretty cool. It's in the English building.


We also got to stop in for a quick lunch and I forgot how awesome that used to be. Free drinks, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, fruit and soft serve ice cream any time you want it. Those were the good ol' days. We made sure to leave with a handful of cookies and a vanilla ice cream with sprinkles. Those days seem great to me now, but at the time I was always thinking of when I would come home. Weird how that works.

One embarrassing moment that happened in that cafeteria was near the end of my first year there. During the year at the dorm I was staying, they would have what's called a "study break." Everyone would stop whatever they were studying and head to the lounge for some kind of treat, usually a dessert. Well, once a year they do a campus-wide study break at the DC (dining commons). Some of the faculty show up and serve breakfast type foods (pancakes and such) to all of the students at like 10:00 at night. It's a lot of fun and a pretty cool thing to do, so I was looking forward to it.

About a week before that night I had taken some work to the beach so that I could study for finals. Well, I'm retarded and fell asleep studying and ended up being out there for like four hours. It's probably the worst I've ever been burnt. My face was literally purple. So it sucked and was painful and I deserved it.

So a week later it was starting to heal, and that meant a lot of peeling. I had like huge cracks all over my face and some of the spots had already lost the skin. So part of my face was dark and cracked and part of it was white with new skin. I looked like a leper. I was hideous.

Alright, so my friends and I all head down to get a meal together. We were late getting there, so the whole cafeteria was packed. It was seriously like every student in the school. So we go through the line and I grab my pancakes and some sausages and I'm feeling pretty good about myself. I get my drinks and turn to my friends (about 7 of them) and say something like, "Hurry up you tools, it's getting cold." And they say something about following me to a seat.

So I start walking to an open table and I hear the guys behind me singing "Happy Birthday." So I think, "Oh that's cool, someone's having a birthday party tonight." So the whole school stops eating and stares back at us to see who is having a birthday. I'm pretty curious at this point too, so I turn around. Sure enough, my friends have surrounded me and are singing happy birthday right in my decrepit face.

All I could do was turn around and smile at my fellow students, pretending to enjoy this nice surprise on my birthday. I'm sure if my face wasn't already burnt and cracked, it would've turned five shades of red. When I smiled, more cracks appeared and made me look all leathery (if that makes sense).

So I was pretty embarrassed and had to talk to people who thought it was my birthday and all my friends thought they were pretty clever. I was able to get revenge, but that's another story for another day.