User:PHS Philip

Stuff

If you're curious and want a little bit about me (and my CTY experience), here goes.

How I ended up doing CTY: I heard about CTY a few times in middle school, but since I was in a bit of a "I hate the world" depressive state at the time, I ignored it and any other promise of stuff to do with other people. Finally this year I rediscovered it on my own, and with a little research (and the prompting of my CTYer friend (thank you again so so so much Cindy)) decided that it'd be worth a shot. I decided to give it a shot in January, three days before the SAT, then scrambled to make sure I could still do the January test date. I managed (barely), and then had an...interesting experience getting the scores to JHU (we ended up faxing a screen shot of the page with the scores. Like I said). Anyway, back on topic. From there I ended up getting in.

I got my one and only session at a real site at SAR.09.1. I was in Logic B. I may, however, be doing Princeton next year and maybe the year after. My one year was pretty incredible, but that goes without saying, I think. I met some pretty amazing people, and I miss it. That's about all that needs to be said.

Me: Um, as you may have noticed, I'm not so great at the whole "staying on topic" thing. I'm pretty random and ADD sometimes, which at home gets me weird looks, and at CTY was about par for the course :D I'm pretty friendly even though I'm not that social usually.

What else? I'm a science and a languages kid (I can do math, but it's not fun for me). I LOVE the really conceptual sciences, and I love to write, which sometimes makes for an odd combination, but it's also usually interesting. I'm a drummer, which adds another odd spin to the whole thing too.

Stuff I like

The stars! (I miss seeing them :( )

Science! All of it :)

Music! (Just about every style really, although especially the various forms of alternative. Jazz mostly just to play, though, not to listen to)

Writing! (It's my release valve. My most whiny stuff gets written into stories and that way I get over it. Plus when I need to escape, I can make up a world and write about it so I don't have to think about this one. It helps)

Singing! (I can't sing, at all. But it's fun to do anyway :) )

And last but not least...FRIENDS! People who'll actually listen to me when I need someone to listen to me are pretty awesome.

CTY to Me

My home friend who told me about CTY and got me to go (see earlier "thank you so so so much") told me it was the best experience of her life. I've been told lots of over the top crap about things, so I didn't exactly go in expecting it to be all that good. I figured it would be ok, but not amazing.

Well, the first week or so, it seemed pretty fun and stuff, but not that amazing. Certainly not "this is the best thing I've ever done." But week two, and even more so week three, that changed for me. I knew people by the second week, yeah. But it was more than that. Things that took a while to happen had finally happened.

I don't feel a sense of home about things, really. My house doesn't feel like "home," really. But what I realized during the second week was that, maybe for the first time, I felt like I was in a place that I could really call home. Back where I'm from, I'm really me only with my really, really close friends. Most people are perfectly fine to me, but I'm just not ME with them.

That was the first thing that I realized. At CTY I had started, without even noticing it, just being me with everyone. For me, even though I didn't realize it was even the case at first, that's huge. To just be me with people is something that I value hugely, and part of why I care about my friends so much (because they're good enough to me let me). And to be that way to everyone is a huge part of "home" for me, I guess.

And what I realized next was, it wasn't just that I could act like me. It was that to be me wasn't weird. In fact, it was pretty normal. I fit in. I've never fit in, really, and even though I don't show people it, that's always kind of hurt. I can deal with it, but it hurts sometimes. So again, to be somewhere where I was normal and fit in without faking everything was just...it was amazing. That made it even more "home," I guess. After all, what is home but the place where you are valued and accepted as you are?

That alone would be enough for my 3 weeks at CTY to have a special place in my memory. But CTY did more than that stuff for me, it also changed me.

Being truly me for three weeks helped me to finally decide that that's what I need to do. "Screw it, I'm done. I'm me, I'm who I am, I'm how I am, and if people don't like it, that's their problem," was a big part of it. When I go back to school, I'm not going to mirror people around me, I'm going to act as I really am.

But really, the whole time was more than the sum of its parts. All that stuff comes together to give me a place that, for three weeks, was a true home. Not just a place where you live and get by, but really, well and truly home. It's where people accept you because they've probably had to deal with the same unfair crap as you have. It's a place where people understand you, because in this one place, for this one little window of your life, you're surrounded by people who are a lot like you. It's a home, a safe haven from the storm of the real world.

CTY's like a dream. You know that eventually the dream will end and you have to go back to real life. And maybe you need that, because even the best dream shouldn't last forever. But while you're in it, you hold on as tight as you can so you don't lose it, because for that short dream, you can escape most of what makes the real world so hard to live in sometimes. It's not perfect maybe, but it's as close as you can hope to come. Even in your sadness there, there's happiness. Even in your having to leave home forever, there's still a home that you carry with you. You carry a little piece of it in your heart for the rest of your life, remembering it, and so some small part of you has never really left. You're a nevermore your last year but not after it, because once you leave, you will still forever more carry a little part of that home with you. So what is CTY to me? CTY is home, to me.