JCC Academic Center Help Students Prepare for College
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This fall, the Academic Center at the JCC of Mid-Westchester is adding three new classes to its portfolio of offerings for high school students. The new classes -- college application essay writing, college interview skills, and a series of "Extra Edge" lectures and workshops that address stress -- are designed to help students through the entire college application process. These programs will expand the Center's full menu of year-round PSAT, SAT, and ACT preparation courses. "Our goal is to go beyond offering only test prep courses by providing programs for students and parents through small classes that help students with all components of the college application process, including learning how to manage stress," said Lisa Itzkowitz, Director of the JCC Academic Center.
Skills for Applying to College
· College Application Essay Writing workshops will focus on writing the personal essay for college admissions, exploring what makes each student unique and working to craft a narrative to best portray one's self in college application essays. According to one parent whose child recently took the class: "The course is a definite winner. The instructor provides expert guidance and encouragement for writing the essay."
· The new College Interview Skills Essentials workshops teach students critical interview skills to help them in both the college interview process and beyond. According to research done by workshop leaders Kyrie Stillman and Peggy Marx, founders of College Interview Counselors, a common myth insists that college admissions interviews are simply a formality. Interviews for admission are offered and encouraged at 95% of the top 75 colleges and 88% of the top 25 universities!
· The new Extra Edge Student Workshops for Peak Academic Performance, led by Dr. Juna Bobby, will teach kids how to practice relaxation and emotional intelligence skills to efficiently improve attention, memory and recall. Studies of K-8th grade students show an average gain of 11-17% on achievement test scores after learning stress management skills. This program is adapted from the Benson Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School.
· Writing Skills Workshop, teach students how to hand in their best writing with proper use of grammar and language, as well as what additional steps to take to ensure a final, polished piece of writing, not just a clean version of the first draft.
JCC Academic Center Lecture Series
Parents and students won't want to miss the Academic Center's fall evening lecture series, featuring:
· Extra Edge Stress Reduction for Peak Academic Performance, an introductory overview with Dr. Juna Bobby on Monday, September 30 at 7:00 p.m.
· 6th Annual Inside the Admissions Office, with deans and directors of admissions from American University, Emory University, Lafayette College, University of Chicago, University of Maryland and Vanderbilt University, on Sunday, October 20 at 7:30 p.m. No fee but registration is required at www.jccmw.org.
· The ABC's of Organizing Teens, with speaker Leslie Josel, on Tuesday, October 29 at 7:30 p.m.
Pre-registration is required for Academic Center lectures and workshops. For fees and other information, visit www.jccmw.org/academic.htm, or contact Director, Lisa Itzkowitz at 914-472-3300, ext. 275; email: [email protected].
The JCC of Mid-Westchester, 999 Wilmot Road, Scarsdale, a proud beneficiary of UJA-Federation of New York, is a non-profit organization dedicated to enriching the community by providing cultural, social, educational and recreational/fitness programs, human services and Jewish identity-building opportunities to people of all ages and backgrounds without regard to race or religion.
Scarsdale Concours d'Elegance Celebrates Ten Years in Scarsdale
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Now in its tenth year, the Scarsdale Concours d'Elegance will be held on Sunday, October 20th, from 10:30 am to 4:00 pm in the center of Scarsdale Village. The show will feature over 120 vintage, classic, and super-exotic automobiles, including dozens of marques such as Aston Martin, Alfa Romeo, Bentley, BMW, Bugatti, Cadillac, Chrysler, Cisitalia, Cord, Corvette, Delahaye, Duesenberg, Facel-Vega, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Lancia, LaSalle, Lincoln, Lotus, Maserati, McLaren, Mercedes Benz, Packard, Pagani, Porsche, Rolls-Royce.
The event was founded by Evan Cygler and Denis OLeary III, classmates from Scarsdale who had a passion for vintage and new cars and wanted to find a way to give back to the community.
In the fall of 2003 the founders discussed the idea of doing something fun and worthwhile involving their love of cars. Their simple idea of a car show snowballed into their first Concours. Everyone they talked to loved the idea and they received active support from numerous constituencies including the police, local government, merchants and car collectors. The event serves as a great lesson that anything is possible. In the past nine years the Councours has raised over $220,000 for charities across Westchester County.
With Evan and Denis now pursuing business careers, a group of accomplished local businessmen have assumed responsibility for the event to ensure that the legacy will continue for many years. In 2012 Evan Cygler passed the torch to two upcoming members of the board, both aged 14.
Ben Hasson and Sam Fried, both newly appointed members of the board will serve with their fathers, board members Ira and David. These two young men received a special honor from Cygler in a dedication accompanying the awards ceremony when he stepped down from his position as Founder and CEO of the Concours.
This year, Dan Patrizio, son of Board Member, Lawrence, is joining the board as is Jacob Goodman. With these additions the Scarsdale Concours board now has three father and son teams and four local high school students on the Scarsdale Concours Board of Directors.
The charities that the Scarsdale Concours d'Elegance will support this year are: Scarsdale & Edgemont Family Counseling Service, White Plains Hospital, and the Warrior & Family Assistance Fund.
The Scarsdale Olympics
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- Written by: Deborah Skolnik
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Summer's almost over...waaah! As usual, it went by faster than the Bronx River Parkway floods after a drizzle. Do you feel like you missed out on something special this season? No, not your annual trip to Walter's Hot Dog Stand (check!), or bin-diving at the Scarsdale Village Sidewalk Sale (check!) or sending the kids to sleepaway camp (five-figure check!).
We're talking about the Olympics. There were none this summer--guess all those world-class athletes were sitting by a cabana drinking mojitos like the rest of us yobs. But fear not, for, while there were no Summer Olympics, something even better has begun: The Scarsdale Olympics!
Now that we're all back in town, let's roll up our sleeves and try our hand at any or all of these ten events. The winners get a gold med...well, actually, they get diddly. But, as they like to say at our kids' rec games, if you had fun, you won!
EVENT 1: THE 'HIGH' JUMP – Can you act more startled and outraged than anyone else in town if you're mistaken by the paparazzi as Pot Mom? Bonus points (and extra humiliation) if you're a dude.
EVENT 2: THE 20-METER DASH – Can you run backwards past 20 parking meters in Scarsdale Village until you reach your own--before you get a $25 ticket for forgetting to put in your dime? (Losers' ritual: Walk angrily past signs saying "SUPPORT YOUR VILLAGE—SHOP LOCAL," reflecting how your ticket could've paid half your annual Amazon Prime membership.)
EVENT 3: ARCHERY – Can you hit Target on Saturday morning before the City Center parking lot is full?
EVENT 4: WRESTLING – Once inside Target, can you snatch the last sale pack of Bounty towels from a fellow shopper's grasping hands?
EVENT 5: UNEVEN BARS – Can you complain that Scarsdale has fewer cool drinking holes than White Plains without sounding like a whiny hipster wannabe?
EVENT 6: CURLING – Can your blow-dry from Plush withstand your steam-table run to C-Town afterwards?
EVENT 7: VAULTING – After paying your taxes, do you have anything more valuable than your old Million Dollar Man Pez dispenser to stash in your safety-deposit box at Chase?
EVENT 8: DRESSAGE – Can you pass off your $15 Payless pumps as Louboutins at Back-to-School Night?
EVENT 9: DECAFALON – After arriving at the train station too late to wait in line at Starbucks, can you refrain from strangling the fellow Metro-North passenger who's yammering into his iPhone?
EVENT 10: TORCH RELAY – Can you play it cool when someone informs you that your old girlfriend's moved back to town, just like you and half the class of 1993 did?
Deborah Skolnik is Content Director for Myron Manufacturing, a large business-gifts firm headquartered in Maywood, New Jersey, and writes frequently for major magazines.
Scarsdale Grad Produces Indie Web Series
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Here's another good reason to try watching TV on your computer. Scarsdale High School ('07) Alum Charlie Alderman has launched his career in the film industry by producing a comedy web series that was nominated by Indiewire for the "Best of 2012." The series, titled Chloe and Zoe stars twenty-something girls in LA and has been compared to the hit TV series Girls. The series features Chloe Searcy and Zoe Worth pretty much playing themselves. You can watch all the episodes on YouTube by clicking here:
The first season followed the pair of best friends as they made plans (from holding a dinner party to starring in porn) and talked themselves out of them or failed miserably in the execution. Starting with an eviction from their beloved apartment, the second season shows Chloe and Zoë's attempt to get back on their feet by making a no-budget slasher flick.
The twenty episodes, which range in length from four to six and a half minutes, can be accessed via YouTube and you can binge watch the entire two seasons or savor them one at a time.
Alderman graduated from Wesleyan and then went to earn an MFA from the Peter Stark Producing Program at USC's School of Cinematic Arts. He has interned for HBO, Alexander Payne, and Lionsgate and is currently producing his second web series.
We chatted with Alderman about his experience and pumped him for advice for others who want to follow him to Hollywood. Here is what he shared:
How does producing for the web differ than producing for film or television?
--Well, "producing for the web," in the case of our first season, just meant "making something for $0 with my friends." That's very different than TV and studio film producing in which you're making something under the auspices of a giant corporation with millions of dollars on the line and sometimes only a little creative freedom. I'm not there yet. But our second season -- for which we had an investment from an indie film financier -- was a lot like independent film. Somebody gave us a little bit of money and infinite freedom to make something, and if it happened to make money, they'd get a piece. The key -- and we got this idea from the tech world -- was that we gave our investors real long-run upside: if we do get to make a TV show, they'd have the first right of refusal to invest more and modest profit participation even if they didn't. That made it attractive for them.
Is web-production an easier way for newbies to break into the biz?
--It depends on what you want to do. If you want to be an agent or a studio executive, nope -- move to L.A. and work for those people. Easier said than done, but it's a way more linear path than being a "creative" or a "filmmaker." If you want to demonstrate your talents as a writer or director or actor, it's probably as valuable as the old school ways (writing a spec script, making a more traditional short film). That said, you need great actors willing to work for free to make a series, and I'm very, very lucky to know Chloe and Zoë and the rest of our gang. If you want to be a producer, you should probably work in the established world and put together a good little series or at least work with promising young writers and get "attached" to their scripts. If you're making a web series and you want to one day make a living, I'd strongly recommend having a plan for how to bring it to TV or film and be ready to send it on to anyone in the business who likes your stuff.
Do you think that commercial sponsors will support this genre?
--YouTube already makes heaps of dough on ads, and some YouTubers (aka people like me nuts enough to put stuff on YouTube) already make money via revenue sharing with Google and various companies that manage and promote new media (we work with one called Fullscreen). But slacker stoner female-driven comedy on YouTube? It's not the easiest sell to the 12 year olds who watch loads of YouTube shows or the 50 year olds who decide what goes on TV. On YouTube, serialized shows almost never get millions of views, and that's what you need to make a living. But Broad City, a brilliant, important, and raunchily hilarious YouTube series that had scandalously few views, will be on Comedy Central within the year. The thing I'm most proud of is that they are fans of our show, and we want to be just like them when we grow up.
What advice would you give to younger students who are interested in working in film? What's the best way to get started?
--I'm hardly qualified to answer this one. I didn't study film in college but went to a two-year grad program. The people who actually make good livings writing and directing movies all watch movies and write scripts and make stuff for years and years as if it's a gravely important job, and then they catch a break and do it for money. If you want to have a traditional job in the industry (say, in the marketing at a studio), you should move to L.A. and work in the mailroom at a talent agency. If you want to be a producer...well, "Producer" means a lot of different things, but the real ones (like Scott Rudin) have usually worked in Hollywood jobs and produced good smaller projects.
Anything else?
--Chloe and Zoë would be rated R, so proceed with caution.
Click here to see more of Chole and Zoe. 
What Scarsdale Is Reading This Summer
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Inferno, Dan Brown's mystery thriller set in Florence, is the red-hot favorite of Scarsdale readers this summer. It ranks first in both print and downloaded fiction at the Scarsdale Public Library. It is followed in the print category by And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini and Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight in the downloaded category.
David Sedaris' Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, a compilation of humorous essays, is the most popular non-fiction book followed by Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook.
Cloud Atlas, the German drama and science fiction thriller, is the most borrowed movie followed by Jack Reacher, the thriller starring Tom Cruise as the title character.
"The list shows the diversity of reading interests and tastes of Scarsdale residents," says Elizabeth Bermel, library director. "We update the list frequently so our librarians can recommend books that they know other Scarsdale residents are enjoying."
The list of what Scarsdale is reading follows:
Fiction
Inferno – Dan Brown
And the Mountains Echoed – Khaled Hosseini
The Hit – David Baldacci
The Interestings – Meg Wolitzer
The Engagements – J. Courtney Sullivan
Non-fiction
Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls – David Sedaris
Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead – Sheryl Sandberg
Guns at Last Light: the War in Western Europe 1944-1945 – Rick Atkinson
Unwinding: an Inner History of the New America – George Packer
The Outsider: a memoir – Jimmy Connors
What Scarsdale Is Watching
Cloud Atlas
Jack Reacher
Side Effects
The Guilt Trip
Quartet
What Scarsdale Is Downloading
Inferno – Dan Brown
Reconstructing Amelia – Kimberly McCreight
Wedding Night – Sophie Kinsella
Paris – Edward Rutherfurd
The Elite – Kiera Cass
