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Here we will keep you up to date with events for former students and news about Oaklawn.
From our alumni mailbox
I think today is a good day to write.
Where to begin? I mean, I am about to write about Oaklawn.
I guess I could start by saying that I studied two years there, 94-95, 95-96. Then I returned to work in the summer camps of 98 and 99. In august 2000 I returned so I could be an assistant in the 2000-2001 school year. The experience was so enriching that I had to stay for another year, 2001-2002. After that I have returned to the summer camps from 2002-2004, and 2006. So I guess you can say that I am very fond of Oaklawn, and it is an institution that has touched and influenced my life in many ways.
And now I just closed another stage in my life. I just finished my university studies majoring in communication. And Oaklawn directly influenced my decision of studying communication. My first video I ever edited was in the 94-95 school year. Fr. Juan Gabriel Guerra, LC, had asked me back then to help him out with the school year video, and if anybody sees that video, my name is in the editing credits.
In the following years that I returned to Oaklawn I did all sort of videos, virtue videos, activity videos and towards the end, I did some of the promotional videos for the summer camp.
And now, for my professional exam, I presented a Documentary Video about my home town, Tijuana. The production of the documentary in whole took over a year. And in a great deal, I owe this to Oaklawn, because in the area of video making and editing, it was my first school.
But this is only one of the many aspects in which Oaklawn touched my life, I could write a whole dissertation about the ways Oaklawn has influenced my life. And it is interesting that as I finish this stage in my life, the school year at Oaklawn finishes as well.
I remember what it was "May at Oaklawn" as a student and as an assistant. And I guess the feeling is the same for both: you can't wait for it to be over! But it is a good thing, because that means you will be with your family and loved ones again. But at the same time, you don't want it to end; because that also means that you won't be seeing the people that with out noticing, little by little have become your family. Your classmates, teachers, assistants, deans, janitors, staff of the kitchen, ladies of the laundry, coaches etc. They all have a meaning in our stay at Oaklawn. They all played a roll, and will continue to play a roll when we look back to remember our Oak Days. But you know it has to end, and once those curtains in the auditorium open, and you feel the yells, and screams of the parents, and you feel the lights and the flashes in your face, you know that you have a new story to write ahead, and hope that the one you wrote during those nine months is one worth reading.
The curtains just opened again with me in my life, and I know I have a new story to write ahead of me. And the words I use to write it, I learned at Oaklawn. And the pen and paper I use to write it, have the Oaklawn logo on them.
When will I return to Oaklawn, I really don't know, but I remember my last day in one of the summer camps as Mr. Granados was driving me to the Van Galder station so I could take my bus to the airport. I said good bye to him, and told him, "Well, this is it, I guess this is my last summer here". He just gave me a look full of experience, grinned at me and said: "Mister Arvizu, one always returns to Oaklawn". And I did, and I will.
GABRIEL ARVIZU
