So I went. My first year, I was supposed to room with either Jason, my best friend, or Ciaran, my second best friend. I love how little kids classify their companions so. However, Jason didn't make it and Ciaran didn't get the class he wanted so I went alone. I went alone, had a terrible roommate, but had a great time anyway. I was a scared little tyke.

It was the summer of seventh grade. I was twelve, going on thirteen. Half the other kids there were scared too. The other half were older and meaner, high school kids, basically. I made it through. Never did get hooked up with a girl.

Instead, I had a hell of a crush on this girl in my Algebra class. Together with another guy, we exploited the CTD math system, which is basically they hand you a book and a syllabus and you sit doing problems all day, trying to finish a chapter a day. Finish a chapter, take a test. If you pass you go on ahead, if you don't you sit down for about 15 minutes and then ask to take it again.

We decided, after becoming friends, to accelerate our pace to two chapters a day. We didn't know what we'd do with the extra time we'd have but figured that we could either blow off a week and a half or move on to Algebra II. The fact that we were working our asses off to be the best among nerds should tell you the mindset that goes along with such camps. I was dragged along at an incredible rate through Algebra I and II, sometimes failing, sometimes not. What a rush.

Socially, I didn't do as well (isn't it always like that?). Made a few friends and obsessively kept in touch with a few of them. But no girlfriend. Even my asshole roommate got hooked up on the last night there. Didn't see him leave, even. The girl I was lusting after dated another guy her age. And me. I just took it all in.