junior program summer site : conversations : first session



	Corey from New Jersey (7/15) Corey is back at Explo for his second summer. Busy with learning guitar, building Lego industrial machines, and playing sports, Corey still manages to find time to hang out with his friends. What were you up to yesterday? Yesterday I had my courses -- I played a little guitar and did a little Lego building. I played some two-square before assembly because it's a game I love. For activities, I went swimming and played some GaGa. I almost won GaGa, but then I got out. My mom came by to visit too; we got some food and ice cream. It was pretty cool yesterday. Guitar and Legos . . . would that be “School of Rock” and “Big Dig”? Yeah. In “Big Dig,” basically, we're trying to build something that would help out with the Big Dig in Boston, just out of Legos. So we built two projects before we actually started the final project. Today we actually started it, but we're just planning. We're not really sure what we're going to build yet. Sounds tough. What about “School of Rock”? In “School of Rock,” we get to use Explo's guitars. We get a guitar and work on three songs. The first song you ever learn in “School of Rock” is "Smoke on the Water" [by Deep Purple]. Then you learn "Brainstew" [by Greenday] and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" [by Nirvana]. So I've already learned the first one -- "Smoke on the Water" -- and the Greenday song, too. Then at the end you get to pick whatever song you want to work on, so I picked "Vida la Vida" by U2, and I'm working on getting that down now. That's some commitment. Do you think the classes at Explo are different from the classes at school? A bit, yeah. You get to do different, more fun things here. Like, in school you probably wouldn't get a project with Legos. Plus we get different classes and subjects here. I mean, the classes are in the same subjects, but you get to do cooler things within that. Awesome. What do you think is the coolest thing you've done so far this summer? I really like doing the Daily Challenge. It's a challenge question about a staff member, and you have to think about what staff member might be the answer. We go around asking the staff the question and then the Daily Challenge gets revealed at lunch assembly. They're sort of “who-am-I” questions, like today's was which staff member's favorite cartoon was Tin-Tin. We ended up running around asking staff whether they liked Tin-Tin or not. They pick a winner at assembly and the winner gets a freezy-pop. A great prize, indeed. What does "Explo" mean to you? To have fun and explore your mind. To explore. What workshops are you in? I'm in flag football and baseball. I like to play a lot of sports, so those are a lot of fun. In baseball we practice fielding, hitting, defense. In football we've been playing football practice games, and we run. So, if you had a friend who was thinking of coming to Explo, what would you tell them? That they should come to Explo. Even if you're nervous, you can write your parents, and even call them after the first week. But you have a whole bunch of people around that you can talk to. You can play around a lot. What's your residential group like? My res group is awesome. My RA's are awesome too. That's Darien and Teddy. They're nice and cool guys. Plus it's pretty easy to meet new people -- you just go up and say hi and make new friends. If Explo was a dessert, what kind of dessert would it be and why? It would be a chocolate mountain cookie, because the campus is so big, the cookie is fun to make, and it's made up of all different things. Explo has all different people in it. Like, my hall has kids from Korea, France, America -- all new people. more conversations > first session \| second session