#westcoastwanderlust

I've been up for almost twenty-four hours and traveled thousands of miles.  I'm not looking up a meaningful quote. 

New CTY lanyard for 2013!

If you’re wondering about why I’m going to LA and what I’m doing there, this is for you.  It’s not really a story so much as information.  Stories about my flight out coming soon!

My end destination today is Loyola Marymount University’s campus in Los Angeles, California.  It’s one of a few dozen sites across the nation where Johns Hopkins University runs a summer camp for gifted young students called Center for Talented Youth (herein after throughout the summer referred to as CTY).  CTY is a three-week sleep away summer camp where students, aged 11-17 can come and take a course—for no other reason than to learn (no high school or college credit is given for these courses).  That is, they can come if they qualify by scoring above the national average (among 18 year olds) on a test like the SATs.   And, if their parents are willing to pay over $3000 for Smart Kid Camp (no one officially calls it that, but it just seems to make sense as a name). 

I am not going as a student—I wasn’t smart enough to qualify and I doubt I’ll ever make enough money to send my own kids should they be geniuses.   I’m going as an instructor.  It’s actually pretty cool what I’m going to do—I’m going to teach kids who have just finished fifth or sixth grade a three week writing course called “Heroes and Villains.”  We’re going to read the Young Adult novel Wonder (which I can’t recommend highly enough), Edith Hamilton’s classic text Mythology, Tolkien’s translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and a few of Charles Perrault’s Fairy Tales and do a whole bunch of writing and discussing all day, every day.  Okay, not everyday.  They do get weekends off, but Monday through Friday, they’re in with me from about 9-4 everyday with a few short breaks plus a lunch break.   So my 10-12 students, my TA and I are going to get to know each other reallllllllly well over the next three weeks.

When I’ve told people about what I’m doing they inevitably say, “How did you get that job?”  I’ve so far avoided saying what’s always on the tip of my tongue, “I applied for it” (apparently this blog provides me the ability to release all of the snarky comments I keep inside in real life.  I’m not really a completely snarky person, even inside, I promise).

I know what they’re asking is, “How did you find out about this job?” or something like that.  And the answer is pretty simple—one of the sites, Dickinson College, is basically in my hometown and when I was in undergrad, I worked for the residential program.  In some ways I can’t believe I’m going back to work for CTY—it’s an intense experience, especially when you work both sessions like I did at Dickinson in 2005.   Three days off in six weeks, only one day between sessions without kids, and trying to help kids who greatly resemble Sheldon Cooper be social is tough work.  In 2005, I lived in the dorms with the kids, was about twenty minutes from my parents’ house, and helped plan and attended eight dances.  Eight smelly, crowded, awkward adolescent dances.   It was also a summer I remember re-reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in preparation for the release of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.  (Side story—the book actually came out the day between the two sessions and most of my kids had finished the book, some of them twice, by the time they got to Session 2.  I immediately made it a rule that if anyone told me who mysteriously died, they would have to go to bed early the entire session because all of the RAs had decided it just wasn’t a good idea to get sucked into the book when we had almost no free time.  I was, therefore, quite distressed on the second night when, just before light’s out, one girl yelled through her open door, “Dumbledore dies!” as I was walking past.)

This summer, I’m living in apartment style housing, sharing only a bathroom with one other adult, in a totally different building from the kids.  I don’t have to go to any of the dances, and I have every evening and weekend free.  I’ve traveling a little farther from home—a totally different coast this time around, but that’s by choice.  They offered me a job teaching the same course at a day site in Alexandria, Virginia, but they’re paying me enough to justify the airfare out to California, and once I’m there it seems silly not to take a week afterwards to explore Southern California and the Grand Canyon. 

I don’t have to go to any of the dances this time, and I didn’t bring the book form of any of the Harry Potter books, though I did read Quidditch Through the Ages on my first flight out to Houston for my connection.  I’m not any more excited about eating dorm food than I was back then. 

So oddly enough, I’m headed back to Smart Kid Camp for three weeks, then road tripping with my mom for a week afterwards.  I feel pretty stupid saying this but I will anyway—you can follow me on Instagram with #westcoastwanderlust, even if you’re not friends with me on that app (but really, if you actually know me, you should be my friend J).  I’ve given up on Twitter (does that make me ridiculously old?).  And I’m going to try to have some adventures worthy of posting about on here from time to time, especially on the weekends when I’ll brave public transportation.  I think. 

Send me texts, e-mails, invites to Google Hangout or Skype, make actual phone calls (but remember I’m three hours behind you, so don’t be prepared for me to answer if it’s 9 am on Saturday morning on the East Coast).  Also, feel free to send presents to Meghan Short c/o Johns Hopkins CTY Program, Loyola Marymount University One LMU Drive MS 8150-12 Los Angeles, California 90045 through August 3. 

Forty-five minutes away from boarding—too bad I can’t post this yet!