intermediate program summer site : conversations : second session



	melissa from new york (8/9) Melissa is a residential student from New York spending her second summer at Explo. Though the summer's almost over, she thinks that tonight's Final Party might just be the most memorable evening yet! This enthusiastic reader and writer loved her broadcast journalism class and is sad to be leaving her "home away from home". So what courses are you taking? Or maybe now I should say, what classes did you take? I took “Movin’ With Style” and “Reporting Live at the Scene”. Did you perform last night at Off-Broadway Night for “Movin’ With Style”? Yeah, my performance was actually really good. I was pretty nervous in the beginning, but when I got on stage, I just let loose and gave it my best. When I heard my friends cheering for me, I knew I’d be fine. Awesome! How did that class go otherwise? Have you taken any dance before this? Actually, I have, but it was when I was six years old in first and second grade and then I stopped. I used to do ballet and hip-hop, but since then it's been just for fun. In “Movin’ With Style”, the kind of dance we learned was kind of a jazz and ballet combination. It was very modern. And when I first was in it, I really wasn’t good at it. It just wasn’t my style. It was pretty challenging because a lot of the girls there had been dancing their whole lives, but I decided to stick with it and it turned out to be really fun. Tell me a little bit about “Reporting Live at the Scene”. Well, it’s a journalism class and you learn about terms and behind-the-scenes news stuff: why reporters say certain things, why anchors say certain things. I learned a lot in that class because it made me realize that when I’m watching the news there’s so much going on to capture your attention. What made you want to take that class? Well, I’m a writer and I love to read and write, so when I was signing up for my courses, I thought "Maybe I can write and show what a good speaker I am." Last year at Explo I did public speaking, so this year I wanted to do something involving that again. Have you found it easy to meet people here? Oh, definitely. At Explo it's so easy to make new friends, you can just randomly come up to someone, even on the last day, and no one will ever push you away here. Have you been encouraged to try something new at Explo? Every day I’m encouraged to try something new. What trips did you go on this session? First weekend I went to the aquarium and Six Flags, and this past weekend I did the cooking stay-back Saturday and Blue Man Group on Sunday. I had actually seen Blue Man last year, so I knew it, but there was so much I had forgotten about. It still seemed brand new to me. I can’t believe it's already the last day! What do you think you’ll miss most about Explo? The people. Everybody here is just so welcoming. Explo just wouldn’t be Explo if it didn’t have the kind students and the energetic staff members. I can't say I don’t miss home -- I do want to go home -- but I really don’t want to leave Explo at the same time. Looking back on the past three weeks, what has been your favorite memory or activity? I think it will be tonight. I know tonight is gong to be memorable with goodbyes and the film festival. But if I had to leave right now, it would be . . . I don’t know. Everything is just so memorable. Probably the first dance and Cruise Night. If Explo had a mascot what would it be? It would probably be a teddy bear. Did someone already say that? I don’t think so. Why a teddy bear? Because a teddy bear, it’s just so soft and cuddly and cute. You can just give it a big hug and a teddy bear can just never make anybody sad. Explo is just a place where you leave home and start a new life here: a new environment with new people. It’s just literally a home away from home for me. Finish this sentence: Explo makes me want to. . . Explo makes me want to come back again. Explo just makes me just want to forget all my worries and just stay here forever. That’s the other thing about Explo. I feel closer to a lot of the people here that I’ve known for three weeks than I do to the people I’ve known since kindergarten. Explo is just so different. It's gonna break my heart to leave. more conversations > first session \| second session