features4 DECEMBER 2012

Host home for the holidaysArkady Naus, juniorHomeland: Netherlands

“I expected [that] moving to America would be great and it was better than great. It’s kind of weird because [my host fam-ily] does things differently than how I would do them, but we get along and they are really cool. Christmas is pretty much the same, but I’m still looking for-ward to it; my host fam-ily is pretty big about cel-ebrating it.”

Sung-Min Hong, juniorHomeland: Korea

“There are tons of differ-ences between Korea and America. For example, at our school we didn’t change classes and it would start at 8 a.m. and end at 10 p.m., so we were there for 14 hours. [In Korea] we have Christ-mas and something like Thanksgiving and New Year, so it won’t be much different but I’m excited.”

“When you’re from Europe you grow up watching all the high school mov-ies from America and you think America is just how it is in the movies because you’ve never been there, so you expect big schools and all the lockers. It’s great though, I love it. My host family is buying me a real tree for Christmas, the small one though because they usually have the plastic ones. Back home though we usually have Christmas the night of the 24th .”

Johanna Budde, sophomoreHomeland: Germany

“The people in America are very open minded and very polite. [For the holidays] my host family is getting together with their extended family, so I’ll get to meet them dur-ing Christmas time. [In Germany] Christmas is the night of the 24th, and our Santa Claus doesn’t come down the chimney but, instead, he knocks on the door.”

Anne-Katrina Hoehne, juniorHomeland: Germany

“Moving here from China was a big change because America is so different than back home. In China my family didn’t celebrate Christmas but we did cele-brate New Years with fire-works and family time. I’ll be meeting my host family and getting a Christmas tree, but not a real one.”

“[For the holidays] with my family we would watch the Christmas specials, eat dumplings, and go to sleep really late. People would get clothes and the young-er kids would get money from their parents and we spend time together. This year I’ll be with my host family’s extended family and they’ll teach me how to celebrate Christmas the American way. Also in Chi-na, we don’t have Santa Claus.”

Fan Jia, juniorHomeland: China

Xuechun “Snow” Bai, juniorHomeland: China

Photos by Pony Express Staff

Teenagers around the world may choose to venture off to America to attend the jungle some call high school. Fortunately, some of those teenagers end up at Gaither. These students are in the process of learning how our culture lives from day to day. With the holidays rapidly approaching, it is the perfect time for them to indulge in the American traditions.

Compiled by Sabrina Oliver and Amber RazzanoFlags courtesy of www.worldatlas.com

THE PONY EXPRESS features 5

Kevin SardjaEditor-in-chief(Online Edition)

Fashion forward students destined for designTeenagers interested in trend-setting invent their own unique clothes and sell creations for profit

At eighteen years old, seniors Lourdes Jenkins and Show “Amy” Lin have both found a passion in their lives, fashion

design.“Well when I started, it was meant

to be something for me and my friends. I would start by making clothes for us to go out, like maybe a shirt or something to match our shoes,” said Jenkins.

Jenkins began designing her cloth-ing the summer of her junior year, and has been ever since.

She [Jenkins] began designing clothes for mainly her friends, but started selling as more people began to recognize on her designs.

“Afterwards, a lot of people said they liked [my designs] and I began making it for them,” said Jenkins. “After a while, I thought ‘hey, maybe I should start selling it’ and so I did.”

Jenkins saw this opportunity to develop her entrepreneurial skills and hopefully make fashion design in her fu-ture.

“The whole reason I continued to do it and expand on my variety of clothing because I figured, this is where entrepre-neurs start. So by starting small, it’ll only get bigger and hopefully with [some] per-sistence, I’ll hopefully go somewhere with that,” said Jenkins.

“I hope that one day I could design clothes in the future. I would love to be on Fashionweek and have my own label and everything. That’s my dream, it would be perfect.”

Similar to Jenkins, Lin, whose love for art began at a young age, began to de-sign clothing her junior year.

“I started designing [the] beginning of my junior year,” said Lin. “I printed my first design for sale on 11.11.11.”

Lin’s clothing line can be found at www.showclothingline.com. According to Lin, it takes about two weeks to screen print her shirts.

“I just come up with an idea of art-work, then put it on Adobe Illustrator then screen print it. It usually takes about two week from design to screen prints then to shirts.” said Lin.

Lin, who wants to continue her cloth-ing line after college, continues to create shirts not just for herself, but also for her large fan base.

“I love and desire to do art work [in the future], and instead of putting my art work on paper, I decided to put it on shirts.” said Lin, “I love art and [I] love seeing people smile while they are wear-ing my tees.”

Jenkins also has a fan base from school and online social media, most of them have bought clothes from her.

“I would say I have a pretty decent fan base, I get a lot of my orders from Facebook and from my fans,” said Jen-kins, “From Facebook, around 300 girls bought something from me. I’ve had to

mail and send things across the [nation].”Fans across the school have bought

from both Jenkins and Lin. Junior Maya Ammarell is a custom-

ers of Lin and is really proud to support her work.

“I love [Lin’s] work,” said Ammarell, “It’s really inspiring to see a kid just like me doing something that adults struggle to do.”

According to Ammarell, Lin’s designs are something ‘unique’, and can help jump start her potential career field.

“I really wanted to support her and her passion, and hopefully jump start her career,” said Ammarell, “It’s definitely a unique product.”

Like Lin, Jenkins continues creates and sells clothing in response to her posi-tive comments about the shirts she cre-ates.

“I’m definitely going to continue to make clothing for as long as I can,” said Jenkins, “I saw someone walking in the hallway wearing something that I made and it just me smile. That’s when I knew it was worth it.”

Both Lin and Jenkins can be found on online through Facebook. In addition, Lin’s clothing can be found at www.show-clothingline.com. Jenkins’ can be found at Esty.com.

“I bought mine through her face to face, but it’s seriously just as easy to do it online [from Facebook],” said Ammarell.

Jenkins’ and Lin’s clothing will be on sale and be available online for the 2012 Christmas season.

Student designers Amy Lin (top left) and Lourdes Jenkins (top right) cre-ate and alter clothing to sell Lin’s designs are on left and Jenkins’ de-signs on right. Both have sold items to classmates

Photos courtesy of Amy Lin and Lourdes Jenkins

Flags courtesy of www.worldatlas.com

Rachelle Mourra/ Pony Express