My son’s thank you letter...

My son’s thank you letter to his CTY sponsor (Center for Talented Youth-Johns Hopkins University-Summer 2010):

Dear Sponsor,

You made possible my stay at CTY program this year, and for that I am very thankful. I need you to know that without your help I would have missed the three best weeks of my life. When you help a child go to the CTY program you are giving him a pass to a new and great community, because calling it a camp isn’t even close to the reality of it. You gave me the chance to interact with kids who are a smart as me, have the same interests as me, and accept me for who I am. Thanks to you I was able to spend three weeks taking a class where I learned so much and had so much fun at the same time. The class was much more challenging than the classes at school yet you aren’t afraid to speak up because no one laughs at you if you’re wrong. The class that I took was Logics: Principles of Reasoning. The teacher and the TA were very nice and kept the class interesting all the time. If I needed help in any moment I felt comfortable talking to them and asking for help. But CTY is more than a place where smart kids go to class seven hours a day for three weeks, it’s also a place where you get to meet a lot of different people and have fun with them. I had hall mates from different countries and backgrounds and I learned a lot about them and their cultures. I also learned a lot of card game and other different types of games which I never would have heard of. A game that was very popular in CTY was Ultimate Frisbee, and when I say popular I mean that we played it ALL the time. In fact, when I got home I taught it to all my friends. Every one there was so friendly and easy to talk to. Every one tries to involve everyone else in whatever they are doing and not let anyone out. And the friendships you make at CTY don’t end after the three weeks, because we still talk to each other using Facebook or by texting. The whole experience is great and I do think that it will help me in the future in different ways. The first one is that I know how it feels like to be in college, at least the part of being away from your family. Another way it has helped me is that I now feel the need to learn more and more and not hold myself back because I have seen a place where knowledge is a good thing and knowing stuff isn’t weird but in fact cool and awesome. What I am trying to say is that you made my summer very special and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.