intermediate program summer site : conversations : first session



	amanda from massachusetts (7/15) Although she lives just a few towns away, Amanda is a residential student at Explo. She is entering ninth grade and it's her first year at the Intermediate Program. Actress, chef and sky-diving daredevil, Amanda has really enjoyed her time at Explo and is excited to see what the last week of the session brings! How do you like being a res-student but living so close? It’s fun. I really like being a res-student because there’s a lot of fun things to do at night and during main events that I wouldn’t want to miss. How do you like Explo overall? I like it. It’s really fun. It’s great to meet a lot of new people. Some of the more local students, I know where they go to school, so we have connections that way . . . but, then, also meeting people from New Jersey and Texas and stuff like that is awesome. So have you found it easy to meet people then? Yeah, very. So, what courses are you taking? I’m taking “Give My Regards to Broadway” and “Both Sides of the Front Lights”. What’s “Both Sides of the Front Lights”? It's directing and acting . . . so, like, right-now we’re working on a skit that I’m directing and acting in. What’s it about? Its about a psychic who has a girlfriend . . . and he knows she’s gonna break up with him and he finishes her sentences and drives her crazy . . . and then this waitress happens to be a psychic, also, but they cant see into each other’s future . . . so they get together in the end. Wow, sounds like a great skit. Did you guys write that? No, we were looking through short skits and plays and found it. And what are you doing in “Give My Regards to Broadway”? Well, right now we're working on choreographing and singing a song for Footloose. We were going to do a whole plot and do three different songs, but we only have five minutes . . . so we think we’re just gonna do “Footloose”. What mini-courses are you taking? Um, Graffiti Art and Mexican Culture and Cooking. How’s Mexican Culture and Cooking? Its really, really fun. I really like it. We’ve made guacamole, tortillas – from scratch, I might add – salsa . . . Cool, How did it turn out? Good, ours was a little sweet, though. We had ingredients lists from manufactured salsas to look at and all of them had sugar so we put a little bit of sugar in . . . but we put in too much. But it turned out okay. Have you cooked before? Yeah, I like to cook a lot. What’s your favorite thing to cook? Grilled salmon is definitely my favorite. And corn bread. Most of the things I do are from . . . well, my baby-sitter wants to be a chef, so she’s, like, a really good cook. So she’s teaching me how to cook right now, so I get a lot of my little secrets from her. What other hobbies do you have? I like hanging out with friends a lot. I talk a lot when I’m with my friends and laugh a lot when I’m with my friends so . . . Have you tried anything new at Explo? Yes, I did graffiti art and that’s completely new to me. I see all my friends doing all these bubble letters, and it looks really cool, but I couldn’t do it . . . so I took that class and it was a lot of fun. Anything else new you’ve tried here? I’ve tried, like, learning stuff I didn't know. Like in "Mexican Culture and Cooking" I knew some of the recipes and stuff, but I didn’t know the culture behind it all . . . so it was fun to learn about that stuff also. What’s your favorite trip you’ve been on? My favorite trip . . . Skydiving was a lot of fun. How did that work? You didn't actually skydive, did you? It's like a big wind tunnel . . . and you jump on and there’s the wind pushing you up. They say all the instructors there have been skydiving, and that they say it feel the same on your body. What were you expecting when you came to Explo? I was expecting . . . well, I'd heard about the term “in-Explopriate” [Explo lingo for: inappropriate for Explo] before I came here, because a lot of my friends from school went here . . . and I knew they had a lot of fun. They told me about the Program, so I was just waiting to get here to see what it was really like. Every-time I would do something stupid in front of them, they said, “that’d be in-explopriate” (laughs). Do you feel like Exploration is preparing you for college and high school? Definitely, Definitely. How so? Learning . . . meeting new people . . . not being afraid to step out of my comfort zone. I know when I usually first go to places, I’m usually kind of shy and kind of reserved . . . but here I decided to just be me the first day and it turned out well. If Explo had a mascot what would it be? I don’t know . . . something comfy and huggy . . . like a teddy-bear. more conversations > first session \| second session