junior program summer site : conversations : second session



	Zoe from California (8/6) Zoe is going into the fifth grade, and is here at Explo for her first summer all the way from California. In her classes, she's bringing the hard-hitting questions for her interviews and reviews in "59 Minutes." The Pixar film "Up" and Disney's "Hannah Montana" have made the cut, but she's a discerning critic. In "So You Want To Be A Superstar?", Zoe is practicing her improv and acting . . . and preparing for the big performance on Off-Broadway Night. So what were you up to yesterday? Yesterday, in one of my classes, I got to film an interview with somebody. In my other class, I got to practice for Off-Broadway Night. What classes are those? The interview was in “59 Minutes,” and my theater class is “So You Want To Be A Superstar?” In “59 Minutes” we get to choose what we want to do. We can be a food critic or a TV show critic or we could do commercials. With my friend, I'm being a movie and TV show critic and a food critic. So far, we wrote reviews of an episode from "Hannah Montana," the movie "Up," and a few episodes of "Phineas and Ferb." Everything was good, except for "Phineas and Ferb," which I just don't really like. . . And what are you up to in “So You Want To Be A Superstar?” Well, it's an acting class. Each day we play some game, and each day we learn some sort of new improv game. Like, one that we do every day is “wax museum.” There's one museum guard, and everyone else is a statue. When the guard looks away you have to change your position, but if the guard sees you move, you're out. Sometimes they give us a piece of paper or a script, and we need to figure out how we're going to act it out or what we're going to do with the idea. We're learning a lot about acting. What are your teachers like? Jen is my teacher for “59 Minutes,” and Darien teaches my acting class. They're really nice. I see Jen a lot, because she's one of my RA's. We joke around a lot more with our teachers here than we do at school. It's easier to be like that with the Explo teachers. How would you compare Explo classes with classes at school? They're different and fun. Like, you wouldn't find a broadcast journalism class [at school], but we have that here. It's not just like math class or science class. And what workshops are you taking? I take Team Challenge and Summer Spa. In Summer Spa, we make lotion and stuff like that. In Team Challenge, we do these challenges where we compete against other countries. So like, today we had it, and our challenge had different cups and they were each for different countries that had a desert in them. There was a bucket of ice, and we could only take one piece of ice at a time to fill the cups, and they were spread out all over the quad. We had to make sure that it wouldn't melt and that each cup had the same amount of water. It was hard but a lot of fun! What has your experience as a first year residential student been like? It's been a lot of fun. This is the longest I've ever been away from my parents. It's been fun. Mostly, I'm friends with everyone on my hall and everyone is really nice. Jen -- my teacher -- is one of my RA's, and my other RA is Julia. She has this book and she'll read a chapter from it to us sometimes. It's called Sideways Story from Wayside School. It's nice. If Explo was a dessert, what would it be and why? It would be a freezy-pop, because that's the dessert that everyone at Explo wants to win! more conversations > first session \| second session