CADENCE Volume 17 September 2012
I’m New Here: 5 Do’s, 5 Don’ts, & 1 Thank-You Does Hard Work Always Bring Success?
‘The September Issue’: Always in Vogue
Self-Taught: True Things
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CADENCE VOLUME 17 September 2012
Self-Taught
“
Things are not true because they must be true. Things are not true because someone says it’s true. Things are only true when they are true.” – Selfism
Painting (left) by Ella Sullivan Front cover photo by Liam Dobson
Welcome back & what to look forward to Our three months of leisure and spontaneity have come to an end, and we’re back to our regular routine. Some of you may be excited for a new year; others may already be looking forward to next summer. Regardless of who you are, Cadence welcomes you to a new magazine. Now that we’re turning 3, we’ve made significant changes to the magazine. With a new bilingual format, Cadence celebrates both the English and Arabic languages. Our editorial crew is bigger and brightereyed than ever, working round the year to bring you literary and artistic delights every month. We will
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continue to feature original short stories, poems, essays and photos, and we hope to publish even more articles about the people, events and happenings at ACS. If you feel inspired to contribute, please send your work to cadence-group@acs.sch.ae. For now, though, just forget all your homework and responsibilities, and sit back and enjoy our first issue of 2012-13. And from all of us at Cadence, welcome back, or !"د$%& '()*+.
The Editors
CADENCE VOLUME 17 September 2012
ACS 101:
“You get a clean
10 do’s & don’ts for new students By Emily
slate — why not seize the day and try something outside your comfort zone? There is NOTHING stopping you!”
Larson
Having arrived in Abu Dhabi a week prior to the start of school, I am about as new as they come! And with September filled with the “back to school” excitement, it may seem easy for someone new to the area to feel lost in all of the hustle and bustle. Here are just a few quick pointers for all newcomers here at ACS:
– Emily Larson
First off, my top five things to avoid at a new school … Photo by Liam Dobson
5. It’s not quite sweater weather — stay cool! If you have yet to note, the climate here is on the hot side, on a good day. Be sure to stay hydrated throughout the day and dress in layers. This way you don’t sweat to death when going from class to class, but at the same time you don’t freeze when sitting under an air-conditioner. 4. Don’t forget your schedule. For many, it’s a bit of a change in the way your day is scheduled. So instead of wandering around aimlessly, there’s no shame in writing down your classes on a cheat sheet to avoid being late. 3. Don’t put more on your plate than you can eat. With so many appealing clubs and activities offered around campus, you could easily find yourself putting your name down on everyone’s list! Although clubs are a great way to get involved, remember that during the first season you are still adjusting to life at ACS, and there is Photo by Elise Shivamber
no sense in dropping your grades for clubs and sports! 2. Don’t be the first to break a school rule this year. Carefully observe all dress and behavior codes and be sure to apply them to your day-to-day decisions. There’s no point in giving teachers or other students the wrong impression of yourself right off the bat, so be sure to dress appropriately and utilize the “grandma code” before you do or say something wrong. 1. And most of all: Don’t blow off your workload! I’m talking directly to those taking the IB Diploma or IB courses; there is a lot of work involved in your day. If you even miss one day, you could, in fact, find yourself playing catch-up for the rest of the week! Be proactive, not reactive.
And now, five suggestions: 5. Bring a sweater. Although it may be a bit warm outside, most classrooms are quite chilly, and having a sweatshirt on hand may come in more useful than you’d think. 4. Time management, time management, time management! You may be finding the workload a bit greater than what you are used to. But
there are 86,400 seconds in a day, and it’s up to you to use them in the most productive manner! 3. Try something new. You’re at a new school; you get a clean slate — why not seize the day and try something outside your comfort zone? There is NOTHING stopping you! And even if you don’t succeed there’s no shame, because you get to say that you’re new. 2. Get involved. There is something at ACS for everyone! Whether you are interested in MUN or MSF, theater or technology, there is no excuse not to join clubs and activities. You meet great new people, and it gives you something to do after school.
And the most important tip I can give … 1. JUST HAVE FUN!! Life is a journey, not a destination. Whether you are returning or new, you only have a few more years until you go off to university; therefore, do not take a second of your high school life for granted. Don’t get wrapped up in superficial drama — just enjoy yourself, and you will have a successful year!
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CADENCE VOLUME 17 September 2012
Photo by Liam Dobson
Measuring ‘hard work’ and ‘success’ By Sarah
Borland
There isn’t a phrase that is as oft-repeated in school as it is in life than “hard work.” From the day we are born, our parents, companions and families have all measured success based on the idea of doing “hard work.” They have this preconceived notion that by doing the hardest “hard work” they can achieve, they will earn the highest reward. However, it is my observation that this is not often the case. The phrase “hard work” is ambiguous at best and downright meaningless at worst. I have friends who (not meaning any insult here) tend to be forgetful and downright irresponsible when it comes to studies; yet they pass their classes with flying colors. On the other hand, I have seen students devote their entire religion around the “Temple of School” and fail miserably. It is often said that if one truly devotes one’s time and effort to “hard work,” then it must be logical to say that one’s chances to succeed will increase. However, as stated before, this is not the case. Perhaps the problem when facing such an equation is that one’s idea of hard work is not the same as another’s and therefore cannot be compared. Yet it is at the insistence of friends, parents and teachers that if you “work hard enough,” you’ll be able to achieve anything. However, by
Photo by Elise Shivamber
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saying this you are measuring someone’s achievement by the amount of effort they put into work, and you are implying that there is an amount of effort that’s “enough” to give the idea of success. Yet how do you measure how much effort to put into “hard work” for it to be enough for success (if there is an “enough”)? For that matter, what constitutes “success”? I heard many of my fellow Seniors say that once they achieve success, that’s when they know when they worked hard enough. However, how would you know what success is? Is it the GPA that is stamped onto your report card? Is it the amount of money you earn in your career? Is it the number of friends you have? It’s not just enough to “work hard.” There is no point in working hard unless you have a goal that is your version of success. It’s also not fair to compare your success to another person’s because, even though they might not have worked hard in your version of success, they might have worked hard to achieve their version of success. Bill Bowerman, co-founder of Nike, sums everything up nicely: “The idea that the harder you work, the better you’re going to be is just garbage. The greatest improvement is made by the man or woman who works most intelligently.”
CADENCE VOLUME 17 September 2012
The September issue: Have you read it yet? By Elise
Shivamber
Steff Yotka, of Fashionista blog, says the September issue is the most important issue of the year
Photo-art by LG
Dear _______ , By Allegra
Cox
Welcome. Step out of the sun. Brush the sand from your clothes. Straighten the vertebrae of your spine, link them gently — you will not fall down. They clink like piano keys strung on wire. The dust settles, and the sky blue will return. Breathe. If you need to, cry a little, but not too much; ! ! just a pinch of salt. Nothing will grow otherwise. Keep your memories in a pot by the window they need sunshine and fresh air, but they will do fine on their own. There is so much waiting for you stretching out, looping around corners dissolving into the space between sky and minaret. Welcome.
Fashion magazines finish their September issue months before it hits the news stands. The September issue reports the upcoming trends for fall and winter, after the FallWinter Fashion Weeks that occur between January and April. The famous fashion weeks include: New York City’s Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week and Fashion Weeks in held in many other countries. Fall is usually the strongest selling season of the year. In fact, most stores do more business in the fall and winter than in spring or summer. Back-to-school shopping helps increase the sales during the Fall season. Those who indulge in fashion magazines know that the September issue is the biggest issue of the year, every year. According to the Telegraph article “The September Issue: Fashion faces its coldest Wintour,” the September issue of Vogue in 2007 “turned out to be the biggest in industry history, weighing in at a whopping 5 pounds and 840 pages, including 725 of glossy, premium-cost ads.” The 2012 edition of Vogue’s September issue “weighs in at 4.5 pounds and has 658 ad pages (Elle and InStyle followed with over 400 pages each),” as stated by the Stylist in “Vogue September 2012 Issue Has a Weight Problem: Heavy Magazines Lead to Mail Woes.” This issue has the most pages in their history, due to an increase in editorial content. These magazines are weighing so much, in fact, that one of the postal workers that Sarah Leon of the Stylist spoke to claimed that “she hasn’t seen magazines this large in a decade.” The reason that all the September issues are so large is the numerous ads from designers and other firms. Thousands of people read the September issue of any given magazine, and thus in order to increase profits, the magazine publishers want to sell more ads and more magazines. In the Marketplace Morning Report for 27 July, 2012, Mark Garrison stated that it costs “$165,000 for a full-page ad” in Vogue. In “Every Page Counts: Magazine Publishers Release September Ad Counts,” Garrison also reported that “publishers are taking an ‘all eggs in one basket’ approach to September.… Vogue, for instance, had 12 percent less pages [in August 2012 than in 2011].” I wonder who gets the job of counting the pages of ads in these issues, in order to release an accurate number to the press …
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CADENCE VOLUME 17 September 2012
A view from ‘the other side’: What it’s like to be new at ACS By Mattie
CADENCE VOLUME 17
Haag
Abu Dhabi g ave me three impressions when I stepped off the plane six weeks ago: new, different, hot. The American Community School gave me three completely different ones. Someone who has been going to school here for a while might not recognize the subtle differences between this school and any other. You might know that it’s smaller than others, or more rigorous than others, or have different sports and activities. But we new kids are seeing ACS for the first time. H av i n g ex p e r i e n c e d s eve r a l different schools, I found myself expecting one thing and seeing something entirely different. For starters, I expected that people would be worldlier than I, would have travelled, would be bilingual. But I couldn’t quite prepare myself for the culture shock — everyone spoke more than one language, had lived in several different countries, and even had dual citizenship and an alternate passport. For an American school, this mix is more eclectic than I could have ever imagined. After my first impression, I got my second: academics. They would be rigorous. We must have had it easy in
the States. I had been warned about the amount of paperwork and homework that came with the IB prog ram, but the amount of organization, dedication, and pure perseverance that will be required from me in the next two years was definitely not exaggerated. Finally, after getting over two uncomfortable shocks in a short period of time, I realized something comforting. I had expected people to be unwelcoming, as high schoolers most often are, but just the opposite occurred: I, and the other new students that I knew, were welcomed. I had expected people to be different here — interesting, yet unknown — but what I came to learn was that we are all just Freshmen, Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors. And in many ways, we are all the same. So thank you, overall, to those that make ACS what it is. I hope that next year I can participate in the welcome for new students who may have a different first impression than you or me or anyone else. Because school can be hard and school can be great, but, most of all, school can be the people that make it up and the experience that it brings to you in the end.
CONTRIBUTORS Eissa Al Hashimi Allegra Cox Liam Dobson Marwan Elzeftawy Mattie Haag Emily Larson Mariam Osman Elise Shivamber Nadia Zalika
EDITORS
Sarah Borland Alex Kim Yasmeen Mansour Rebecca Reuter
DESIGN & LAYOUT Brittany Mitro Dina Siada
ADVISERS
Lane Graciano Hanya Mikati
PRINTING
Pam Mandich
To contribute, send articles to: cadence-group@acs.sch.ae Send photo files above 5MB to: cadence_99ca@sendtodropbox.com
Read PDFs of past editions at: www.cadenceonline.net
Photo by Allegra Cox
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