junior program summer site : conversations : second session



	Christian from Massachusetts (7/29) Christian is learning guitar in "School of Rock" and has already mastered Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water." In "Hot Off the Press," he's been interviewing anyone who will answer his questions -- with these skills, we can expect to see Christian on either a major record label or a major news channel in a few years. What did you do yesterday? For my first course I had “School of Rock.” We played a song called “Smoke on the Water” on guitar. My second course was journalism with Jonah. We learned how to interview people, and so today we went around doing interviews. It was fun. I interviewed Maria and some other teachers. . . I got to interview a bunch of students, too. We talked about Carnival Night. Everyone said it was really nice but one student said there should've been more cotton candy. There should always be more cotton candy. Had you ever played guitar before “School of Rock”? No. It feels good. I mean, I'd played before, but I didn't know how. So it felt kind of good playing it and knowing what I was doing. What workshops are you taking? I'm taking karate and basic tennis. I hadn't tried either before Explo. It feels kind of the same way as playing guitar in “School of Rock.” Like, Grant – my teacher in tennis – was teaching me all about the faces and handles and strings of the racket, and we're learning similar stuff in guitar class. And in karate, we're learning how to defend ourselves, but not in the way that if someone's bugging you, you should beat them up. Not like that. We learned that if someone's bugging you, there's other ways to defend yourself without fighting. Like the teacher taught us just to not keep our heads down. To always keep your head up. Do you think the classes at Explo are different from the classes you take at school? Yes. At school, you learn about things but you don't do them. Like, model rockets. . . at school you learn about them, but you don't get to build one or to launch one, but at Explo you get to do that. It makes you happy that you're doing it, and it shows you how it works. What are your teachers like? They're a lot of fun. The teachers here, they give you a break and they're a lot of fun. For activities they teach you new games, and they make up cool names for what they do. All of the activities they do are fun. What are some of your favorites? Basketball, soccer, and free swim, probably. What's your day group like? My day group is a lot of fun. My DA is Runga. He helps us out a lot. He's inspirational. He tells me, if I'm sad, that I shouldn't be, because this is Explo and you're always going to have fun. He's great. And then with the other students in my group, we made a handshake, and every morning we always say our group chant and give high fives. We talk about all the activities we want to do. Is there anything you're really looking forward to? My trips, and Wednesday. On Wednesdays we get to do our workshops, and in tennis we're going to be able to play matches against people. In karate we're going to learn new stuff, but we don't know what because our teacher said it would be a surprise. My trips -- well, I don't know what trips I'm going on yet -- but I liked Canobie Lake and the Duck Tour. The Duck Tour was awesome. We got to ride the Duck boat and to see everything. For Canobie Lake, we just went on a lot of scary rides, and then we bought some stuff at the gift show. I got some toys and some candy [laughs]. If Explo were a type of dessert, what would it be and why? It would be a raspberry ice cream, because raspberry is my favorite ice cream, and because Explo is so much fun that if it was a dessert I would get it always. more conversations > first session \| second session