intermediate program summer site : conversations : first session



	anna from minnesota (7/26) Anna has been having a great time at Explo meeting new friends learning Italian. This speed reader is excited for the first weekend of trips and tonight's dance! How do you like first year at Explo? I like it a lot. It’s fun. How do you like your roommate? She’s awesome, she’s from China. She doesn’t speak a lot of English but we’ve been communicating well. Tell me a little bit about your courses, what are you taking? I’m taking “Mansion Makeover” and “When in Rome”. Have you taken interior design before? In FACS, a class at my school, we did a unit on it and I like interior design. We’ve been discussing feng shui and color so far. Feng shui is pretty intricate. What are some of the laws of feng shi you’ve earned so far? Different areas of your house are supposed to be different colors. The center of the house is supposed to be yellow and the top right corner of the house is supposed to be pink to represent love and marriage. There’s a lot to learn. And how is “When in Rome”? It’s really good. It’s an Italian class and I’m Italian. My great-grandpa still speaks Italian, he goes there every summer to visit and practice the language. What mini-courses are you taking? “Skin Care Creations” and “Yoga”. What did you create in “Skin Care Creations”? We made lotion and lip-balm. We used beeswax, hot oil and honey to make the lip balm. Have you done yoga before coming to Explo? Yeah. I used to dance; I danced for 7 years so we had to take like a mandatory Pilates class to stretch out and stuff. That made me want to try yoga but they didn’t have it in the town where I live. Have you been encouraged to try something new at Explo? Well Italian is totally new and I’ve been wanting to try curb-ball too. What activities have you done that you’ve really liked? I did sock-puppet design which was really fun and I don’t know, I’ve done a lot of different things. What movie did you see last night? “Mama Mia”. It was really good. my friends thought it was really corny. I liked the Abba music and I like corny love stories so… I like Abba, they do the soundtrack, and I’ve heard a lot of the songs before while a lot of my friends had no idea who Abba was. How have you found it meeting people here? Um, I was following it online. I would read all the interviews and stuff and everyone was saying, you know, “Oh it's so easy to make friends” and I make friends pretty easily, but I was pretty apprehensive. I was thinking, I’m going to Explo for three weeks alone, I’m not gonna know anyone, how easy can it be? And its been really easy….Everyone in my living group, we’re all good friends. What advice would you give to someone coming to Explo? What advice would I give...To be open to new and different ideas and things and people. I’ve tried to be open to everyone, be open to other’s beliefs and ideas. So since you’ve been following the conversations, I’m assuming you’ve heard my question “If Explo had a mascot what would it be?…” Have you been thinking about this question already? Yes, I have (laughs). Well, One girl said an owl. And I think an own, a little white snowy owl with peace glasses and a tie-dye scarf. I remember the snowy own represented knowledge from before, but what about the other things? Well wisdom too and then the little peace glasses because they’re fun and then the tie-dye scarf or sweater because that just represents diversity, different colors, different things. more conversations > first session \| second session