Baltimore

Baltimore
The main "bell tower" of Gilman Hall.
Site Information
College	Johns Hopkins University
Location	Baltimore, Maryland
Dates	Session 1: June 25 - July 14 | Session 2: July 16 - Aug 4
Years of Operation	Early 1990s?-1995 | 2001-present
Avg. Number of Students	240
Courses Offered
Humanities	Beyond the Binary: A Cultural History of Gender | Global Politics: Human Rights and Justice | Human Nature and Technology | Playing God: The Ethics of Human Subjects Research |
Writing	You Will Be Offended: Satire, Comedy, and Public Discourse |
Math and Computer Science	The Mathematics of Competitive Behavior | Topology |
Science	Advanced Topics in Physics: Special Relativity | Epidemiology | Investigations in Engineering | The Global Environment |
Canon
High Holy Canon	American Pie | Stairway to Heaven | Mr. Brightside | Forever Young
High Canon	Don't Stop Believing | Sandstorm | Cha Cha Slide | Come On Eileen | Iris | Tunak Tunak Tun
Middle Canon	Wobble | Bohemian Rhapsody | For baltimore | Cotton Eye Joe | Istanbul (Not Constantinople) | I'll Make a Man out of You | Time Warp | Stacey's Mom | Bad Romance | Can't Hold Us | Sweet Caroline | Blister In the Sun |
Lower Canon	Nightswimming | How far we've come | Every Time We Touch | Fireflies | Anna Sun | Closing time | Somewhere only we know | Numa Numa | Satisfaction | Heartless or the hills | Long live | Pokémon Theme Song
Site Specifics
Position-holders	Empress and Emperor | Prince and Princess of the Blood | Games God and/or Goddess | Rave Monarch
See The Essential CTY for cross-site articles.

The Baltimore site uses the Homewood campus of Johns Hopkins University. Although it houses the main administration for CTY, it was not made into an actual site until fairly recently. It is also considered in popular belief to be the strictest site, and has the fewest formal, site-wide traditions. Baltimore has a wide reputation for lacking many traditions present at other sites. Baltimore is infamous among CTYers at other sites for passing down controversial new rules and is famous for being the birthplace of the underhammer (JHU.09.1), a variation of the hammer in Ultimate Frisbee that usually catches people off-guard.

Site Overview

The Homewood campus, where CTY is hosted, is 20 minutes from Baltimore/Washington International Airport and 10 minutes south of Penn Station.

While the campus is relatively small, CTY only uses a small region of the it. This consists of the two dorm buildings, a number of grassy areas, nearby classroom buildings (usually within a 10-minute walk), and other buildings and quads that are used only rarely.

There is a large number of trees, benches, and winding walkways.

Classes are held in a number of different buildings, as opposed to all sharing one or two buildings.

Dorms

The girls' and boys' dorm buildings are known as AMR I and AMR II, respectively. These two dorm buildings are perpendicular and adjacent to each other. They are "C"-shaped, and contain a courtyard. Three sides are part of the building, while the fourth side is a gate and turnstile. Both quads have relatively tight security, and are guarded at all times. To enter either dorm building, one must first pass through a guarded turnstile which is activated by an RFID card. However, it is possible to enter either building (after going through the turnstile) without using a keyfob using a roundabout pathway, although the keyfob is required for local stairs. There is a labryinth of tunnels and hallways underneath the two buildings (and the rest of the campus) and possibly a secret passageway between the two. More detailed information about the buildings can be found at Baltimore/places

All dorm rooms have two air conditioners (although, on rare occasions, at least one is dysfunctional). All dorms have two desks (with built-in lamps), two windows (each with an air conditioning unit), two chairs, two wastebaskets, two recycling bins, and no phone (in 09, there will be a room with phones in AMR I). There are two beds with adjustable heights. It is advisable to bring a power strip, as power outlets are inconveniently placed.

The doors of halls are usually decorated by RAs. These may range from printed images or drawings to xkcd comics. Hallways are physically separated by either stairwell passages or doorway frames.

Bathrooms vary in quality and size depending on location. They range in the number of stalls, sinks, and showers. A hall may share a bathroom with another hall, but this depends on the location of the hall.

Off-Campus Locations

Each weekend, and on some activity days, CTYers can go off-campus on a short walk with their hall or Activity group into the local town (only rarely do they actually go into downtown Baltimore itself). Note: All of these locations can be found through Google Maps.

• Barnes and Nobles: This is the bookstore. There are regular activities to visit the bookstore. This is connected to a Starbuck's.
• Chipotle: A burrito and taco restaurant. Somewhat expensive. RA Chris Flow holds an auction prize involving this restaurant.
• Tamber's: An Indian food and diner food restaurant. This is somewhat far away, but was an auction prize.
• Dominion Ice Cream: This has both regular ice cream and specialty ice cream (e.g. vegetable ice cream). Very delicious.
• Subway: This is located across the street from the Barnes and Nobles.
• Niwana: This is right across the street from the campus, near the Beach. It has expensive Japanese and Korean food.
• There are several grocery stores. RAs know where they are. (Advice: First day, go to Eddie's Market or University Store to buy junk food. Directions: Keep on walking down past B&N, turn right at the first traffic light and look for the stores)
• Cloud 9: A clothing shop

Activities

Each weekday has two activity periods. Depending on the session, activities are organized differently. Many activities are available for one day, while other activities (especially in Session 2) are available for one-week-blocks. Students are not allowed to switch in or out of activities.

There are also weekend activities. In the past, these have included Casino Night (which always occurs), Music Night, the "Olympics", and the Talent Show.

Traditions

Baltimore is well known for having a lack of traditions. It is one of the newest sites and we just started importing traditions like Passionfruit; we still need more people from tradition heavy sites to come to Baltimore and be a rebel to bring the traditions. In 08.1, students organized a drag day. However, RAs were forbidden from participating, and the administration did not officially organize it. In 08.2, it was less concerted and organized.

The Rape Buttons

The "rape buttons" are emergency buttons that are attached to poles with a blue ball light above and when hit, lights up, sirens sound, and campus security arrives. The name comes from the idea that a sexual assault victim might use the button to summon help.

Meet Market

Meet market is after 9:00 and lasts for an hour and is basically social hour on the Gentle Slope. It is supervised by RAs who are there to prevent and discourage "risque activities." Occasionally, there is an impromptu dance. In 08.1 and 08.2, there were several dances either at the front of AMR I or AMR II.

The lawn used for Meet Market and outdoor activities is known as the Gentle Slope. It borders ANMR I, ANMR II and the cafeteria, and is surrounded by a brick walkway and park benches.

Chinese Take-out

It is a tradition for halls to order Chinese take-out food. RAs tend to do most of the work in carrying the food, while CTYers organize the money collection.

Dances

Dances usually have specific themes (e.g. The 80's, Beach Party, Black-and-White, Rubik's cube, etc.). However, this usually does not have a significant effect on the music played (one exception was The 80's dance, in which a larger amount of older songs was played).

Music played by the dances tends to be popular music. However, the composition of the music is changing. Song requests are being used to introduce Canon songs. Glowstick raving was introduced during "Sandstorm" in 08.1 and has been carried on into 09.1.

In 09.1, "Stairway to Heaven" was not played. This is because almost all RAs were new and had not been former CTYers.

Rules about dances are enforced, but not strictly. At 08.1 and 08.2, there was grinding at impromptu dances, but people would crowd around them to make them hard to detect.

There is no Afterdance.

General Information

While it's false that the RAs are generally very strict, SRAs may be strict (especially SRA Ben). In 07.2, flashlights and sleepovers were banned, although with a bit of sneaking around and hiding you could manage to get into each others' rooms. The ban against sleepovers has been removed as of 08.1. Neighboring dorm rooms could also tap messages with Morse Code through the wall. Tylenol, Advil, Aspirin, and Ibuprofen were all confiscated by RA's, but it's handy to stash a few in your pillow or wardrobe just in case. However, there is a vending machine with such medications.

Food

The food is excellent. There is always a sandwich bar and a salad bar. During lunch, there is always some cooked potato product, pasta, a few types of pizza, hamburgers, cake or other sugary desserts, and fruits. The macaroni and cheese is amazing, but it was mediocre in 08.1. The scrambled eggs are not real scrambled eggs but rather egg powder mixed with milk. Breakfast usually has good omelets cooked on the spot (which results in lines of at least 10 people long), fresh fruit, meat products, potato products, sausages/pancakes, and cereals. There's also a person who serves ice cream during lunch and dinner. There is a large assortment of drinks available--various sodas, milk, soymilk, coffee, tea, hot water, and juices.

All CTYers share the same cafeteria--at lunch time, all CTYers walk back with their class to the cafeteria. One issue with the cafeteria is that lines tend to be long. This is compounded by the fact that the cafeteria is shared with other programs on the campus--usually Precollege and lacrosse girls, although LeadAmerica shared the cafeteria in 07. CTYers often avoid long lines by first taking food that is in short lines, then coming back for more, or having dessert first.

Sleepovers

In 07.2, sleepovers were banned. This was due to a conflict in rules--CTY administration did not allow sleepovers without transportation of mattresses, while JHU housing did not allow transportation of mattresses due to its classification as a fire hazard. However, in 08.1 and 08.2, this was resolved--CTYers could sleep over on weekends if they moved their sheets/blankets, but not their mattresses. Depending on your RA, it is possible to have discreet sleepovers on non-legal nights. Unfortunately, sleepovers on the last night of 08.2 were banned, causing anger to many nevermores.

The following article is currently obsolete. However, it may become useful if sleepovers become banned again. How to Survive an Illegal Sleepover

Neighbors

CTY has shared the campus with various other programs.

• Summer JHU Campus Tours can frequently be seen. Groups of people will walk around following a guide who explains the campus. Usually, there is no interaction beyond CTYers looking at the groups and vice versa. Some tour guides will explain that JHU hosts summer camps.
• LeadAmerica also shares the campus. In 07, they also shared the cafeteria and had an intrusive presence. In 08, they were on different parts of the campus, so there were only a few chance encounters, and interaction level was very low.
• The Field Hockey Girls shared the cafeteria in 08.1. They would leave out their bags and sticks everywhere.
• The Lacrosse Guys passed through the campus in a huge march in 07.2. In 08, they sometimes walked near CTYers (and also had a huge march), but had no further contact. They inhabited a modern building across the street from the campus, adjacent to the Barnes and Noble, the upper floor of which was used in 08.2 for Casino Night). There was very little contact between the CTYers and the Lacrosse Guys.
• Precollege: JHU hosts a precollege program. In 08.1, they occupied part of AMR II. They did activities on their own, but often were near the Gentle Slope. They also shared the cafeteria.
• A few Interns for the JHU Hospital shared AMR II and the cafeteria. All of them were former Baltimore CTYers who had taken 07.2.GNIC. There was little interaction between CTYers and them, except for when a CTYer recognized an intern and greeted him/her, and when the interns were sitting with the 08.2.GNIC CTYers and chatting with the GNIC co-instructors.

CTYers

This is an alphabetical list of all RealCTYers who have attended Baltimore:

• Beanz
• Christinecatastrophe
• El Hackador
• Eliseeyoh
• Fafnirical
• Falalalice
• JLou31894
• LGCLUV
• Lightman
• Lietk12
• Miacrow
• Reflectia
• Rhnathans12
• Shamelessp
• Sharpshooter1321
• Swangster93
• Tonarg14
• Urkle
• Wendeth
• Wu
• Zakk