junior program summer site : conversations : first session



	Julia from New Jersey (7/14) It's Julia's second year at Explo and when she's not busy learning stage combat and reinventing fairy tales in class, this Pioneer can be found dancing on the quad. And, oh yeah -- she loves snack! So what did you do today? Well, today I went to my courses and I just finished my first activity where we carved potatoes. I made a necklace. And what classes are you in? I have theater special effects (“Break a Leg”) and reinventing fairy tales (“Goldilocks and the 33 Bears”). Theater special effects is in the black box theater and it's really fun. You learn stage combat and make scenes. We're working on a play for Off-Broadway Night. Our play is about superheroes and super-villains . . . there's going to be a flood, and the bad guys made the flood. In the end, the bad guys become good guys and then we fight our teacher with stage combat. What are you doing in your other class? Well, in reinvented fairy tales, we made a company and we called it EHEET! It's sort of an acronym, but it stands for a lot of different things – very long things. So we make a bunch of fairy tales, and then we sort of combine them and make one big fairy tale for the Explo Coversheet Company. So what's your favorite fairy tale that you've written so far? I don't know . . . We sort of morph fairy tales and take stuff from our own experiences to make new ones. My favorite is probably a mix of Rumple Stiltskin, The Little Mermaid, The Three Little Pigs, and The Merwolf. I'd never even heard of The Merwolf until this class. Do Explo classes differ from classes at school? These classes, they're sort of not just one subject, like math or science. They get deeper into those subjects, and they're more fun. What do you think “Explo” means? Other than it being short for exploration, “Explo” is different. It's different from other camps because at other places they plan everything for you. But here you can be spontaneous and you can choose your own things. You don't have a schedule here. It's different. Is there anything you're really looking forward to for the summer? Probably snack! Ha! What makes snack so good? Because it tastes good. There are cookies and fruit and it's always really good. I'd have to agree. So this is your second year at Explo -- what brings you back? The staff members are cool. Some of them are the same and some of them are new. And the other people too. I like the people, I like the courses, I like snack, I like being able to choose what I'm doing every day. What do you think is the most memorable thing you've done so far? So far, I think the field trips. No specific field trips, just the field trips in general. They're fun because sometimes you get to stay on campus and you get to do things that you didn't think you could do here. Like, one time I did a weekend workshop called “Dessert Mania,” and I didn't even know there was a kitchen in West Campus, but we got to make a lot of food and then eat it. Other times, like on off-campus trips, you can do a lot of things that you can't do at Explo, but you can in a different way, because you're not “at” Explo but you are at the same time, just in a different way. If you had a friend who was thinking about coming to Explo, what would you tell them? Well, actually, I have a friend from home who came here because I convinced them to. And I was convinced to come by my brother. So, I would pretty much say that it's fun, you get to choose what you do. Then I'd do the “Numa” for them. Care to explain exactly what the “Numa” is? The “Numa” is a dance that we all do when the song plays -- I think it's Romanian -- and everybody just runs to the lower quad and we do this dance. It's not on the spot either. They were dances that already were established, but Explo made them, so they're special. If Explo was a dessert, what kind of a dessert would it be and why? I think it would be a really good chocolate cake 'cause it's so sweet. more conversations > first session \| second session