Night Comes to Jarvis

Trinity College’s Long Walk was my home for four years, and I still find its warm evening glow to be comforting.

Night Comes to Jarvis

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Spectroscopy Lab

Approaching the summer solstice, the start of fall-semester classes and their attendant labs seems far away, but a new class of St. Lawrence first-year students will be here before I know it.

Spectroscopy Lab I

This was one of the light sources students were interrogating: a sodium lamp, like the ones used in street lights (at least in the twentieth century—LED street lamps are becoming increasingly dominant now.)

Spectroscopy Lab II

Buddhist Temple

I didn’t think the day would ever come but I’ve become nostalgic for my time in Berkeley. The coming of fall has got me thinking about walking to campus at the advent of a new school year. Walking up Channing, past this Buddhist temple every day. The temple never meant anything to me personally while I was in Berkeley but now I find myself missing walking past it in the mornings. Memories are weird.

Buddhist Temple

Sinister Colors on Stone

I want to contrast the bright fall colors from my last post with the broad spectrum of colors that can originate from different types of light sources used by humans every day. Where better than the neutral-colored stone of the Cathedral of Learning? Magentas, greens, warm yellows: emission and reflection can both offer a rich array of photons.

Sinister Colors on Stone

Cole Reading Room

When a warm breeze blows across a college campus at twilight, the already gorgeous buildings only become more (pardon the extensive use of cliché) romantic and magical. They tell me that this particular building contains a ghost, but it seems too warm and welcoming (a sort of half-scale college building) to be threatening. Perhaps it contains a friendly ghost?

Cole Reading Room

Under the Learned Arches

The University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning is overwhelming. Huge, Neo-Gothic ceilings, intricate lights, and arrays of tables decorated with busy students. I’m so amazed by this building because it’s not a library; in essence, it’s just an amazing general-use and administration building. Among these hallways are rooms decorated in the historical styles of dozens of world nations. In essence, picking a random room only contributes to the Hogwarts feeling.

Under the Learned Arches

Northam

Trinity College’s Long Walk (of which Northam Hall here is only a part) impresses with just a glance. Living in this Harry-Potter-esque tower delivered a college experience that was more literally epic than I ever expected. The wind blasted through the ancient windows and the walls were two feet thick and the path to actually get to my dorm room was labyrinthine.

Northam

Heavyweight Theology

During our recent trip to the University of British Columbia, Brendan spotted what looked a bit like a castle rising from behind the otherwise modern architecture of the university. What he saw was the Iona Building, the heart of the Vancouver School of Theology. It struck me as a little bit odd to see such an imposing and explicitly religious building on the campus of a public university, but hey–that’s Canada for you. The building’s provenance does little to diminish its architectural achievement.

Heavyweight Theology