At the Johns Hopkins CTY program (Stanford, Palo Alto)

I attended the CTY Johns Hopkins summer camp at Stanford. I picked Math as my subject. I stayed at Stanford for three weeks. Everyday, except weekends, we did math for 5 hours. We did have breaks but only about half an hour. We woke up at 7AM and had half an hour until breakfast. Breakfwas was 45 minutes. We had a meal card and used it for every meal. We swiped the card to get into the cafetaria. There was a line and we went through the line to get to our food. Then we sat down in a table together and ate. From 8:15 we had half an hour to get ready fro class and have a little free time. Then we got picked up by our teachers and we started class by 9AM. We had class until 11:30 with one break in the middle. Then we had lunch until Noon and break until 12:30PM. Then we had class until 3:45. After that we had something called Enrichment. We had word problems that were very tricky and we usually solved them in groups of 2 or 3. Then we went back to our dorms at 4:30PM and had free time until dinner. DInner was at 5:30PM.

Then it was the fun part. We had activities. We chose them by room numbers or birthday or some random thing. The activities were fun. We had about 10 different activities with different RAs leading the activities. My two favorite activities were soccer and quiditch. On some days we had socials (usually on Friday). Everybody got together and we had free time. There was a movie and we had food and drinks. In my opinion, the social on the last Friday was the best.

Weekends were a whole different thing. We had no class and had two activities every day. We had a talent show once and it was fun to watch everyone do their part. My favorite activitiy on the weekend was the RA fashion show. We got to dress up our RA and there were two judges who picked the RA that was best dressed. We didn't win but it was still fun.

Since all we had was free time on weekends we went places on the weekend. Once we went to Jamba juice. We also went to a icecream place called COldStone which they say is the best icecream place. I didn't think it was that good. We also went to the Stanford bookstore where I bought a few things. Jamba juice and Coldstone were off campus and were a very long walk. We went to Pizza My Heart once and they also said this place was good. This time it was actually really good and I liked it. One time during our walk a palm trees branch broke off and we carried it all the way there. This was a good camp overall except I think the food was a little repetitive.

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My weeklong camping trip at Camp Chawanakee

Camp Chawanakee

During the first week in summer I went to Chawanakee, a boy scout camp. I spent the week there. It was a lot of fun. The first day Sunday, was basically free. All we did was find out what classes we had and their timings. We learned a lot about the camp. We also tried out for swimming. I didn't pass but only one of my friends did, so I didn't feel so bad.

The next day we started our classes. I had five classes. I had trail to Tenderfoot, Second Class and First Class as my first three classes. We did not get merit badges for it but we did do the requirements for them, so we could finish the three. The two other classes were basketry and art. Basketry was just a class that taught us basket weaving. This would get me a merit badge. I got a partial since I didn't finish it. This means I got some requirement done, but not all. I had one left which I could do next time.

After basketry we had lunch. At lunch we had stewards who got the food from the cafetaria to our camp. We ate it at the tables near our tents. There was tons of food but I didn't like it. In my opinion it wasn't very good. Then it was time for my final class Art. In Art, we basically used clay and made pots and other things. I finished this and got a complete. I was happy to get my first merit badge. After class we had free time until dinner.

After dinner, we had a campfire. It was either with the whole camp or just our troops.

THis was our schedule until Friday. We left Saturday morning. I think it was fun overall and I certainly recommend this camp to anyone wanting to go.

THE MISSING PRINCIPAL

“Have you realized that our Principal, Mr. Sid, hasn’t been here for a week?” I said.
“You’re right,” said Tom, “I wonder where he is.”
“There was a rumor that he had been kidnapped by the person living at the house at the end of his street. He did it because he wanted to steal money.”
School had just ended and Tom and I were walking back from school. There was a house at the end of the street that had an ugly face on it. The windows were broken, the door looked like it hadn’t been painted in years, and I couldn’t imagine how old it was.
We rang the door bell and a spooky; ghost looking person opened the door. His face was wrinkled and he looked very old. He did look very nice until I saw the stone in his hand! The second we saw the stone, we ran. He threw the stone at us and it just barely missed hitting us.
We ran all the way home and told our parents. They were shocked and warned us never to go to that house again.
The next day at school, I remembered we had a school detective named Detective Jim.
“Can you bring some people and try to spy on the spooky house at the end of the road?”, I said. “Sure, I can do that.” Detective Jim said.
So the next day Tom, Detective Jim, and I went to the house. This time it was unlocked so we quietly went in. The staircase was almost broken and it was very dark in there. I couldn’t see anything clearly. But I could see so many spider webs that it was hard to walk around.
I heard a noise somewhere but couldn’t find out where it was coming from. We were downstairs and looked everywhere but couldn’t find anything, so we knew it was coming from upstairs.
We went upstairs and peeked into the room. We saw an evil villain named Mr. Crocker and standing right next to him was Mr. Sid. We didn’t go in because he looked very scary.
“TOM, DON’T GO IN,” I heard Detective Jim scream.
But it was too late! He had already gone in and we couldn’t stop him. In a few seconds we were all at home after dodging a stone.
The next day we tried again. This time we all brought some stones with us. We went in and peeked into the same room and Mr. Sid was there.
We made a plan to throw all the stones at once and save Mr.Sid. So we tried the plan. We threw the stones which knocked Mr.Crocker unconscious. In this way, we saved Mr. Sid right in time and ran away.
When we got back to school, Mr.Sid was so happy and gave us extra recess. I was very happy after saving him and lived happily ever after.