junior program summer site : conversations : first session



	raven from massachusetts (7/22) Raven, a Voyager, is back for her second summer at Explo. This year, she's decided to come to the Junior Program as a residential student. In addition to her two courses, music video production and ceramics, she's excited to try one of her mini-courses: street luge. What made you decide to come back to Explo this summer? Well, I really liked it last year as a day student, but it seemed really exciting to me to try being a residential student since I’ve never done an overnight program before. So this is my first summer doing that and so far it has been really fun. I’m really excited. What are you excited about for this summer? I’m excited for my mini-course, which is street luge. This will be my first time trying that, so it’s really exciting. The other one is basketball. Why did you decide to take street luge? It just looked fun and crazy. I like things that involve steering and driving, like car video games. Those are fun. Which courses will you be taking? I’m taking “Fun With Mud” and “I Want My Explo TV”. “Fun With Mud” is a ceramics class with clay on the wheel. And what’s “I Want My Explo TV” about? Rose, my residential advisor, was explaining it to me. It’s kind of like making music videos, like on MTV. What are some of the things that you like about classes at Explo? It’s an academic program, but they make the classes really fun. You’re learning, but you’re also having fun. Like, last year I took “CSI: Explo”. Our teacher created a crime scene and we had to figure out who committed the crime, which was the kidnapping of a stuffed animal gorilla. Aside from your courses, what’s cool about Explo? The people here are nice. They are friendly, and it’s possible to make friends in just three weeks. I met some people from my hall already. What have you been up to today? We just did group activities. We traced our hands onto a poster board, and we wrote five things in each of the fingers on one hand about what we can give back to Explo, and five things in the other hand about what we want to take away. What did you write in your hands? I can’t remember all of them, but in the hand about things I can give, I wrote “friends” and “memories”. For the hand of things I want to take, I also wrote “memories” and “laughter” and “smiles”. What are you looking forward to this session? I’m looking forward to the residential experience because I’ve never done that before. I’m also looking forward to being roommates with my friend, because we’ve never been roommates before. Do you think it’s going to be challenging to be away from home? Yes, it is going to be a little hard, but you can write letters home whenever you want, and you can start calling your family during the second and third week. I just wrote a letter today. How would you describe Explo to a friend at home? A fun, academic summer program with a lot of creative dances, like the Numa and the Jamboni -- the birthday dance. What are those? Well, the Numa is a dance . . . it’s a crazy dance. I can’t really explain it in words, but it’s a nice dance. We do the birthday dance to celebrate people's birthdays during assembly. What else happens during assembly? There are skits where they explain a lot of things, like activities. We also go over the answers to the Daily Challenge, talk about what’s going to happen for the day, and then we get dismissed for our classes and activities. What’s the Daily Challenge? Every day there’s a question on our Explorer, which is like our schedule for the day. You have to write down your answer on a slip of paper and put it into a box, and they pick out a name and if you win, you get a freezie pop. The questions are all about Explo staff members. If Explo were to have a mascot, what would it be? I think it would be a toucan. They’re colorful, and the colors of Explo are orange and green, so that just reminds me of a colorful bird. more conversations > first session \| second session