junior program summer site : conversations : second session



	Peter from Massachusetts (8/3) On Rock the Vote theme day, Peter -- a 7th grade Voyager -- decided he was going to enter his own name into the election for new director of Explo. A dark horse candidate from the beginning, Peter took the lead and beat out political opponents Sarah Skittles and Dr. Kahn -- simultaneously setting a precedent in student involvement and undermining the two party system. In his off time, Peter can be found enjoying his alliterative classes "Stand Up and Speak" and "See It, Sketch It, Sign It." So what did you do yesterday? Yesterday I didn't do too much out of the usual. I played wallball and board games. I did “Imagination Medley,” which is an awesome activity. You sort of go around and imagine everything you could possibly want to do and then you do it. There was “Imagination Escape” which was like, you're walking through the upper quad and going “Oh what a nice day it is. . .” and you have to try to escape the group and make it to the squash court. We also did one where we were truckers. Then there was also a game called “Crocs and Clocks,” where we pretended to be crocs and we had to go to a clock shop to get Big Ben's clock fixed. . . we had to ride mules to get there. That sounds awesome! What are your classes? I take drawing for my first course and then public speaking/debate second period. Drawing is cool because I'd never drawn in charcoal before, so I got to try that and it was pretty cool. I drew a lot before, but charcoal is different. It comes out sketchier and darker. . . you can get more with it, because a pencil will only come out one way unless you use different types of pencils. And what are you up to in public speaking/debate? This week we're going to be doing debates and things, but so far we've been working mostly on confidence building and persuasion techniques. We talked about the bandwagon. The sort of “Oh, everyone does it” approach. There's also testimonial, where if you were trying to sell something, you'd get someone to be like, “Yeah, I use this and so should you.” For debate, Damon, who's our teacher, gives us pretty random topics, so it's always changing. So I hear you were involved in the recent Rock the Vote theme day. What was that like? It sort of started as a joke for me. I'd been here for four years and I was used to what happens on election day. The good person's platform was offering things that we already had at Explo, like “Blue juice every day” but we already have blue juice. Or “The Numa often” and we have the Numa often. So I figured that I should be a candidate, first as a joke, and then I really did it. . . and then I won the election. Did your public speaking skills from “Stand Up and Speak” help with your campaign? It's funny. I don't really know how I got all those supporters. I just sort of walked around and asked for signatures to make me a candidate and pushed my campaign, which was soda and unlimited snack items. That was my platform. But I'm not actually the director of the program now, which is sad. I can only imagine. So after four years, what does the word “Explo” mean to you? It's a place where you can try lots of new things, because at Explo it seems like you can choose from a million different courses and activities. All of them are different and random things that you might not have heard of or known about before. Like public speaking/debate – I didn't really think that that would be interesting to me, but it turns out that it really was. Is there anything you're really looking forward to? The trips. Especially “Old New and Barbecue,” which I'm going to on Sunday. I like barbecue, and Brazilian barbecue could only be better. We also go to the MIT Museum and see holograms and robots and stuff. Then we go to the Harvard Natural History Museum, where we get to see some cool stuff. I haven't been to either of those places before, so it's going to be interesting for me. My brother went on this trip and said that at the Brazilian Barbeque place they just bring out trays and trays of food, so I'm going to be in my happy place there. If Explo was a type of dessert, what would it be and why? Explo would definitely be a coconut cream pie, because I love coconut cream pie and I love Explo! more conversations > first session \| second session