Venturing into the Big City

On Tuesday morning, the High School Summer Program students got to demonstrate their knowledge of Euclidean geometry for the first time, taking to the classroom blackboards to work their way — step by step — through several propositions. Then, after the jubilation of clearing what, to many, may have once seemed like an insurmountable obstacle, the students readied themselves for a journey into the big city. Following Mass and lunch, they loaded into three 55-passenger buses and headed to Los Angeles.

The first stop was the J. Paul Getty Museum in the Santa Monica Mountains, with its panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean and the vast expanse of metropolitan L.A. The students wandered the campus, gazing upon paintings, illuminated manuscripts, statues, photographs, and beautiful gardens. The sights spurred discussions about beauty and whether it can be objectively defined.

Next, all piled back into the buses to go the Hollywood Bowl, stopping briefly in the parking lot to consume a dinner of 55 pizzas. Upon entering the storied amphitheater, the students settled in for a concert by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which performed several classical pieces, including the overture from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, Mendelssohn’s Overture in E for Two Pianos, and Schubert’s Symphony No. 5.

At the end of the concert, the group returned to the buses, where they prayed a Rosary for their classmate Philip, and caught up on reading for the next day’s classes. The next morning, they were up bright and early to demonstrate more propositions in their first class, and then to discuss Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy in the afternoon.

Next up: dance practice and open-mic night in the coffee shop …