Staff
RA stands for residential assistant. They act as counselors would at any other camp; they live with their charges, eat with them, and keep 'em in line. RAs are in charge of weekly and daily activities, and organize Mandatory Fun. Many of them are former CTYers themselves, and some later become TAs/instructors.
TA, LA, and PA stand for Teaching Assistant, Lab Assistant, and Program Assistant respectively. These are the people who help the Instructor teach classes, and are often in charge of Study Hall and grading papers. JHU uses the term TA to refer to non-science assistants, the term LA to refer to lab science course assistants, and the term PA to refer to instructional assistants at CAA (Baby CTY). However, some sites use only one term for all assistants to Instructors.
Instructors are the teachers of classes, which seems obvious. Instructors often change every year; however, some come back year after year, much like some RAs and TAs (Pomm and Timmer of Number Theory at Lancaster are a prime example).
At each site, there are usually several RAs, TAs, and Instructors that are loved and/or loathed (and therefore also loved) by all.
The famous staff pages are now organized by site:
Los Angeles
The Borings
Current CTY LMU students and alumni know the three Boring brothers as virtually inseparable from the CTY identity. Chris, Jesse, and Jason Boring are the most respected and legendary RAs to have been employed at the site, and are known for running the best activities, many of which are long-running. Examples include Sparkleball and More Active Than Sleep But You Probably Won't Break a Sweat. Along with their "adopted brothers and sisters," RAs Tom Ryan, Jake Benninger, Jess "Stumpy" Bonnlander, Nate "Hairy" Stern, and Mary Rieg, the Borings have dominated the site since 2001 and remain a student favorite.
Famous Boring moments include Jesse's bedtime song written for his hall in 2003 ("Sleepytime in Jesse's Hall"), the painful waxing of Jason's leg in 2005, and Mary accepting an annual challenge to eat a snail, slug, or worm.
In one year, Jesse Boring and his hall participated in the talent show, and as part of the act Jesse ripped off his CTY shirt in truly macho style, then one of Jesse's hall poured cereal and milk into the hollow between Jesse's ribs and ate it. As any LMU student knows, most of the female population of CTY LMU is in love with the Boring brothers. A girl from Latin class, Jen, was in the hospital, so Mary Rieg's hall (the Latin girls) serenaded Jesse's hall with songs like Tearing Up My Heart by NSync in exchange for the shirt Jesse had ripped off as a get well present for Jen. Later Jesse sprayed the shirt with his cologne as a bonus. Strips were torn from the shirt and every girl from Latin Session 2 2004 has a piece of Jesse Boring's shirt with his cologne (Curve for Men, if you want to know) on it.
Jesse was unable to attend CTY 2005, but Tom ran an activity, "Jesse Boring Worshipping", in order to generate interest for Jesse's surprise visit.
In 2006, Sessions 1 & 2, only Jason and Jake were RA's (edit by Tom Ryan). Jesse and Chris couldn't do it. Neither could Tom Ryan, and everyone was sad. Especially everyone. By everyone I mean Tom Ryan. He cried. A lot, since he missed everyone (this too was edited by Tom Ryan).
In Jesse and Jason's free time, they operate www.wwzmd.com.
