junior program summer site : conversations : second session



	Cindy from China (8/8) Cindy, a 7th grade Voyager, is honing her detective and cryptography skills in "Mission:Codebreaker." From reverse dummy code, to scramble code and arthur code, she knows it all. In "(Ad)Ventures," Cindy serves as a general manager for the pet rocks campaign, a huge success within the Explo demographic. What's your typical day at Explo look like? It's pretty awesome. We have our activities in the morning, and those are always really good. Then we have our courses. My first course is “Mission: Codebreaker,” which is a cryptography course and it's really awesome. My second course is “(Ad)Ventures” which is an advertising course. That's awesome too. We sold pet rocks to the rest of Explo and they were really successful. Pet rocks! How'd you come up with that? It was sort of our teacher Aleah's call, but we all brainstormed it. She was sort of the CEO and we were all general managers. It was really fun. It was really successful. We had fake celebrities, like Twan, promoting the pet rocks. We also made advertising banners that we put up on carnival night. We told all of our friends to come and get them, and everyone liked them. And what have you been doing in “Mission: Codebreaker?” Well, on our last day we did a scavenger hunt. It was really fun. Usually, we just go on different types of missions where everyone needs to break a code to solve it. Like, we learned reverse dummy code, arthur code, and lots of others, like scramble. Scramble is the easiest, because you keep the words together, but just scramble the letters. Reverse dummy code is a bit harder, but it's still pretty fun. What sort of missions did you go on? We had one where Benjamin and James stole cars, we had to discover how they did it by finding clues all over campus, but they were all in code, so we had to be able to decode them. What are your teachers like? They're awesome! I love my teachers. Maggie teaches “Mission: Codebreaker” and Aleah teaches “(Ad)Ventures,” and they're both really funny. They just like class a lot, which makes it more fun. They're not like the teachers at school. . . My teachers at school basically just give us homework. They're friendly, too, but it's different. At school they always make it feel like it's serious business, but it's more fun and laid back here. Can you tell me a bit about your experience as a first year residential student? It was great! I made a lot of friends over here. I wasn't really nervous coming here, because the first minute I got here one of my new friends Samantha came up to me and just said “Hey, I'm Samantha!” and we got to know each other really quickly, so I wasn't nervous at all. I love my hall too! Awesome! What's your hall like? During hall time we just sort of chill. Sometimes we share stuff like food and all kinds of snacks, or play hall games like Guess Who or any sort of thing. I love hall time. My RA's are Jenna and Alyssa, and they're so awesome! What do you think you'll remember most from Explo? Having to say goodbye to my friends was hard. I'll miss them a lot. It was so easy to make friends. You make one, and then you know other people through them. On the first day we just went around saying “Hey, I'm Cindy. How are you?” and stuff, so it was so easy. Everyone got to know each other really fast. What does the word “Explo” mean to you? Extremely fun, and that you get a lot of freedom. Like, you can just play and do anything. I'm really excited about next year, when I'm going to the Intermediate Program, where you get even more freedom, and you get soda and ice cream. I'm really looking forward to that. If you had a friend who was thinking about coming to Explo, what would you tell them? That they should totally come because it's super fun, and that everyone here is really friendly. The staff members are really fun to be with, too. You're never bored. If Exlo was a type of dessert, what would it be and why? Tiramisu, because it's my favorite and I love Explo. Or it could be a cheesecake, because I never get bored of it! more conversations > first session \| second session