Wednesday, July 1, 2009

A Trip to Columbia University's Gym

Hello!

Today after class I went to the Gym building with Jackie. The gym is right next to the Havemeyer building and goes underground. We enter the building on the 4th floor and there are 5 floors in total. From the entrance, the fourth floor leads to a oval indoor running track. This was really surprising because I've never seen an indoor track. Half the inside of the track was actually fenced off because there was no floor. It was more of a balcony and I could see the 3rd floor from the 4th floor. The other inside half of the track had a stairway that went through the buidling.

The track was really cool though, it was lined with carpet and there were three different colors. The inside lane was for walking, the middle lane was for jogging and the outside lane was for running. I didn't run on the track because I was carrying a backpack, but Jackie jogged around the track once while I walked. The track ran through a narrow hallway and on the outside of the track were rooms with weight-lifting equipment and workout equipment like treadmills and exercise bikes.

After going around the track once (twice for Jackie), we made our way downstairs in search for the swimming pool. We went to the first floor and started looking. However, unknown to me, the gym is secretly a maze and we couldn't find the swimming pool! We did find several sport lounge rooms and two dead ends. We would've kept looking except that it was 5:20 and almost time for us to meet up with Mrs. Lilhanand so we took the elevator back up. This was when we found out that we entered on the fourth floor because we originally took the elevator to the 2nd floor as there was a start next to the 2nd floor button on the elevator. But we couldn't find the exit when we reached the 2nd floor. While on the second floor though, we found a balcony that overlooked the swimming pool. As we looked for the exit, a kind passerby told us that the exit was on the fourth floor.

When we met up with Mrs. Lilhanand, she had cupcakes for Sofia's birthday! The cupcakes were from Crumbs and looked very extravagant.

Julie

2 comments:

Don Gosney said...

Julie,

Indoor tracks are very common in better gyms and in those parts of the country where it tends to snow they’ve extremely common. Many of the better colleges have full sized tracks and even football fields all indoors to accommodate the severe winters.

Those cupcakes sure looked good. I appreciate you posting some photos but now you’ll have to give us the “critical analysis” that differentiates one from the other. In other words, describe in great detail how good they were—and don’t leave out any of the details.

Charles Tillman Ramsey said...

Thanks Julie and a big Happy Birthday to Sofia. It is always nice to have a group of people to celebrate your birthday.

What is important to the Ivy League Connection is learn why this experience is important to you and how it will make a difference when you return to El Cerrito High School.

Is the course at Columbia rigorous? Are the students serious or do they become distracted during class? How would you compare the students that are in your class with our students. I want your OPINION, not just a rehash of the day's events. The Ivy League Connection is a serious program and one that wants to provide students within the West Contra Costa Unified School District ample opportunity.

I value Jackie's video clip, but I need more that just seeing people eat a plate of food. I am glad to see the opulence of John Jay and appreciate that students are well taken care of by the University, this is to be expected at Columbia. So, please take us inside the experience and tell us what it is like to study in an urban setting like New York City.

Now is your time to alert us to what is taking place in and around the city. I do want to remind each of you that you have a trip this Sunday to see another University. I hope that someone has done the research and are getting ready for the trip.

Next week you will be at the University of Pennsylvania and you will be with June Chu who is one of our friends and someone that I will have dinner with in three weeks.

Take care. I welcome your reply.

Charles T. Ramsey, Esq.
School Board Member
West Contra Costa
Unified School District

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