I
Was a Teenage Adventure Gamer
Upward Bound
This column actually has nothing to do with
games, adventure or otherwise. But Matthew Desmond, our youngest staff member,
is having an adventure of his own this summer, and we thought this would be as
good a time as any to remind us all that there is more to life than playing games.
As I finally had a chance to sit down and write a column,
I decided it would be only fair to give everyone a glimpse of the past three weeks
at Upward Bound. For those of you that don’t know, Upward Bound is a program that
helps low-income high-school students get ready for college and allows them to
be the first in their families to graduate from college. Upward Bound is part
of the TRIO program; other programs in the TRIO program include Talent Search,
the McNair Program, and SSTARS. Don’t ask me what any of these mean, because Upward
Bound is the only thing I chose to focus on.
My first day was Sunday, June
24th. We had to check in between 10:00 am and 12:00 pm. My family packed up the
car, and we left the house by 9:00 am. It was about an hour drive to Presque Isle,
which is north of my home. Now, I’m not going to bore anyone with the trivial
details. But let’s just say that after going to Wal Mart, I was moved in by noon.
We
had from noon until 12:30 to unpack. Then, it was off to the campus cafeteria
for a meager lunch of hamburgers and hotdogs. The afternoon was spent playing
“getting-to-know-you” games, and if I have to play another one of those
games this summer, I’ll go crazy. This took us about two and a half hours. We
were allowed from 4:00 to 5:00 to unpack some more, and then it was off to the
campus cafeteria for supper. The rest of the evening was spent between the first
floor lounge for a dorm meeting and the third floor study lounge for a floor meeting.
But thank God for free time. At 8:00 pm, we were allowed to do whatever we wanted
until 10:00 pm (lights out).
Upward Bound is rigidly structured. On a typical
day, everyone is up by 6:30 and has had breakfast by 7:15. You are expected to
be at the classroom building by 8:00 am, and classes conclude at 11:45. Everyone
is expected to have had lunch by 12:10 and is then expected to report to afternoon
elective or work experience (I work, yes!) by 12:45. It’s back to the dorm by
3:45 to have quiet time before dinner at 5:00. For the two hours following dinner,
we are involved in various activities, including activity hour, and ed lab (study
hall), and from 8:00 to 10:00, we are free to do whatever we want.
This
schedule slightly deviates during the week. Tuesdays, instead of class, we have
field trips (I’ll get to these eventually, trust me, they are so much fun),
and from 6:00 to 8:00, we have activity hour and a guest lecture. Wednesdays from
5:00 to 10:00 is free time; 5 hours of being away from everyone else is pure bliss.
Sort of. I like to hang out with some of the people on my floor, but others, I
don’t. Thank God for the weekends; otherwise I’d be partially demented by now.
But anyway, let’s talk about the theme we have for this summer. The theme is Agriculture
in Aroostook County. As I put it on the first day of class with my research group,
“Or lack thereof.” Aroostook County used to be the world’s number one
potato producer 50 years ago. Now, soulless corporations have bought out family-owned
farms and the farms ain’t doin’ squat.
Remember those field trips I told
you about two paragraphs ago? In the past three weeks, I’ve been to four farms
and two production plants. Woo-hoo! It’s not that I’m against agriculture or anything,
I’m just against the allergens located on a lot of these farms. And a lot of the
tour guides aren’t that interesting.
Out of the tour guides we had, one
was only six years older than I am and could at least understand that agriculture
is not all that interesting to us. As a matter of fact, she was finding ways to
make the tour interesting. Thank God she did; otherwise, I might have gone crazy.
For one thing, the tour was during the middle of our heat wave. It was 9:30 and
we were standing in the middle of a berry field slapping at bugs and trying to
look as if the art of growing strawberries is the most interesting thing in the
world, meanwhile silently praying for a thunderstorm. I believe by that time,
the temperature had reached almost 90 degrees and was still climbing. We were
also praying to go to a nice and cool spot, and she said “Let’s go to the
greenhouse, it should be cooler in there.” Wishful thinking. It was only
about 10 degrees cooler in the greenhouse, but with the humidity, it was all but
bearable. Actually, it wasn’t that bad. I was trying to send some of you on a
guilt trip. It was actually much, much, much cooler in the greenhouse, especially
near the fan.
And as always, on field trips like this, none of the students,
and 95% of the staff, asks any questions. But there is always one staff member
who does. Everywhere we went, especially outside and when the tour guide was about
to move us inside, one person always had a question (I’m not going to mention
any names either). But he always asked a question–I’m assuming to be polite.
But what about us? What about the people who had practically shriveled up?
Anyway,
enough with that. Let’s talk about the most important thing at Upward Bound. Free
night. Every Wednesday night, if you’ve earned it, you can go on free night. You
can go anywhere you want to go, too. And nothing beats going to the mall with
friends, sitting in the food court, chugging soda, eating Chinese food, and griping
about people. But more importantly, we can go do whatever we want. My first free
night, I went with a friend and we drove all around the area, went to Arby’s,
went to the mall, got some stuff we needed, and spent the rest of the evening
cruising. Nobody had free night the second week because it was the Fourth of July.
And last week, I just went to the mall and hung out with my friends. I also managed
to buy the Evil Dead trilogy.
I wanted to talk about dorm problems,
but that stuff is hush-hush. So, let’s talk about where I work. For six days,
I actually worked at Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Central Aroostook. I didn’t like
that job at all. So now I’m working in Student Activities doing a lot of cool
things like researching and making bulletin boards. Which is really neat because
I get to choose the topics. For August, I’m working on a bulletin board about
golf. For September, it’s National School Success Month. And you can’t beat working
in an air-conditioned computer lab, either.
Stay tuned for more! In the
coming weeks I’ll have a wrap-up of the program and several game reviews, including
World War II Online, Half Life: Blue Shift, Microsoft Train Simulator, and
a comparison of Evil Dead Hail to the King and the Evil Dead movies.
