intermediate program summer site : conversations : first session



	aaron from virginia (7/30) Ethan is a day student getting ready to enter 8th grade. It's his fourth year at Explo and he's already a curb-ball pro! I was amazed to hear about his multi-cultural background and to hear his fluent French! So, you've spent some time at the Junior Program? How is the Intermediate Program different? I like it. There’s a lot more independence. On trips, you don’t have to stay with a chaperone all the time. [There are clear boundaries and staff stations.] It’s a lot of fun. What else has surprised you about it? That we can go into the Vil -- Wellesley center. What classes are you taking? “Go-Cart Madness” and “Designing Your Dream House”. Those sound great. What have you been doing so far in "Designing Your Dream House"? Well, first we looked at scaling and measurements. We also looked at some of the architecture around campus and now we’re doing sketches for the houses were designing. Later on, we’re all going to be building models of what we design. Any idea what yours will look like? Yeah, it’s going to be like an igloo shape, kind of. Any other features? Will it be made out of ice?! It will be really big, but no ice. Maybe glass. That’s very Norman Foster of you. What have you been doing in “Go-Cart Madness”? Right now we're building the foundation of the go-cart. I’m the team captain for my group. Each group has a team captain to kind of organize the group, make sure there’s balance, and everyone's been working. It's not that hard. And then every Friday we write down how we’ve been doing and what we’ve done. I’ve built things before, but never in this scale. How have you found it meeting new people here? It’s been pretty easy finding new people. I have two friends that I came to Explo with and then we’ve all met new people too. Tell me a little bit about your trip today. . . It was good. First we were at the aquarium. We saw some cool exotic fish. What was your favorite thing at the aquarium? Definitely the sharks. I wish there was a tank just for sharks. And after the aquarium, we went to Faneuil Hall. What did you end up doing there? Well, some people ate lunch . . . but I had mine at the aquarium earlier. I live nearby, so I’ve been there a lot, but I did get to show other Explo people around, so that was cool. What’s one of your favorite activities at Explo? Chill time. I stay late a lot. What do you do during chill time? I play a lot of curb-ball. Which is of course a game that is unique to the Intermediate Program. Would you mind explaining it a little bit? Well, you play in-between two curbs. There are three lines, one at each end and one in the middle. It’s kind of like a blend between tennis, ping-pong and four-square. You can play either doubles or singles, and you hit it first on your side and then it has to bounce on the other side before it gets sent back. And then you play until it double-bounces or goes out of bounds for a point. I prefer singles because doubles can be hard because there’s always curb-ball miscommunication. Well said! If Explo had a mascot what would it be? It would have to be a curb-ball, definitely. more conversations > first session \| second session