April

Over spring break I purchased a used Canon A-1 film camera. In order to not let my  money go to waste, I had to take a lot of pictures. I got permission to develop my film with the visual art department’s equipment, and all was/is good. 

The biggest event of April was MORP, which is prom spelled backwards. Because I go to art school, there is a certain desire to do things differently. (The Arts and Humanities Focus Program of LPS also has a MORP.) I went with my friend Jane, who is a technical theatre major. She focuses on costume design, and so she made a dress to match my shirt. We all spent the night at another friend’s house who lives right next to Jeff Kimpton (president of Interlochen Center for the Arts) the night before MORP to get ready there. The next morning we grabbed some appetizers at the reception and got on the buses taking us to the Grand Traverse Resort were MORP was being held. 

The theme for MORP this year was “Lights Out!” So there were glow sticks everywhere. The table center pieces were foam blocks with protruding glow sticks on all sides. After the fairly decent meal and very rich chocolate cake, everybody got up to dance with their glow things while I went around taking pictures. I played around with Jane’s camera doing some rear-sync flash photography with slow shutter speeds. By the end of the night I took around 800 pictures. 

After the dance, we all got on the buses once again to go bowling. I played one really bad game and took pictures the rest of the time there. Eventually, I left the group I came with and socialized with some other friends. We were the last group to leave the bowling alley on a bus that left at 4 a.m., which meant that we got back on campus at 4:30 a.m. We weren’t exactly happy to have to wait so long to get back, but we had a very good time.

The next day was MORP brunch. There was a station for omelettes, cotton candy, pizza, smoothies, and “exotic” fruit (watermelon, honeydew, cantaloupe, berries, and pineapple — not anything very exotic). Of course, everyone was there stuffing their faces with as much food as possible. Even some of the teachers were there, although some of them were the ones making the omelettes. 

And that was Interlochen’s MORP 2008. As for what’s happened the other part of April. I can’t really remember, except for that I received word that I was accepted to St. John’s College in Santa Fe with a nice financial aid offer. So on May 12th and 13th I am making the trip to go visit the college and see how I like it.