TeenTeenHABEEBOMOLARA+We are one

Talent show

World Domination 04

LET’S TALK TECH

WORLDDOMINATION

EDITOR’S LETTER: APRIL by Nastasia Harden

Authentic’s theme this month, “World Domination,” is to show how “authentic” is taking over the world. Teens are doing amazing things everywhere—whether they’re singing, designing, or writing—and we’re here to celebrate them all. Throughout the month, we tried to broaden our horizons to see the different influences from other countries and bring them all into this one package to you in April and May.

Milan Harden and I experienced a lot of new cultures and activities from all over the world at Western Michigan University’s International Festival. From sipping Bubble Tea to dancing with African drums we truly had a world domination experience. Even our cover stars, Omolara and Habeeb Salimon who are sister and brother, are from Africa, and are bringing an out-of-this-world touch to this month. Our monthly articles are also taking a trip for April, and May as we travel to Australia and Spain in the Film Focus and the Blog of the Month.

This issue is for preparing our Authentic troops (you guys) for the new world—the Authentic world—where everyone is authen-tic and different, and we are all bringing something unique to the party for you to enjoy and celebrate the individuality we have. Why? Because that’s what really makes us all authentic.

-Editor in Chief Nastasia Harden

Olyvea Davis

MAKENNA COX

All the way from Charlotte ,Michigan, Makenna is a fun loving free spirit. Now the writer of our very first Authentic comic, shell be a continuous contributor here offering a cool new element to Authentic Teen.

JEREMY HOLDER Jeremy Holder is our tech savvy guy. Whenever you have a question about computers, video games, or any apple product, he’s your man. He writes “Just for your APPetite” to keep you guys updated on all the latest and greatest technology.

Making sure all the periods and commas are in line is her job. Which is a demanding job but if Olyvea cant do it no one can. Originating from Jackson, Michigan, she loves to read and spend time with her friends. You can read her first article to be featured in Authentic teen magazine: “We are one Talent show.”

Milan Harden Our Marketing Manager and Film Fanatic Milan is a genius. With big hair, and an even bigger sense of fashion, she’s turn-ing the world upside down with her passion, her mind, and her crazy dog Sasha.

Nastasia Harden The editor in chief of authentic teen magazine, the girl who ties everything together and makes this magazine pos-sible. She’s “seventeen and crazy” and loves every minute of it. Graphic Design is her passion and communicating something new and diffrent to the people is her job.

THOMAS BRoWn He may be the youngest on our team, but that doesn’t mean he’s short on experience. With a strong musical background and family, Thomas is bringing all the latest music our way in every issue of authentic teen. Be sure to check out his singing covers at www.youtube.com/kidtom101

O U RMISSION What we are trying to establish here is helping Ladies and Gentlemen to be their true Authentic selves. Which is really hard today when society shows us that being fake is the new cool. The idea stemmed from when I was talking with my good friend who is gorgeous beyond all belief. She started crying because she just felt uncomfortable being herself. This made me realize that people who have no reason at all to be concerned with the way they look, are some of the ones that worry the most.

I myself growing up heard many statistics and cries for help about girls and their self esteem, but the thought never really registered to me that this is real. Over the years I have grown, learned, and have been pushed, to think beyond myself and to see from different perspectives. I know what its like to be the girl that wants to be anybody but herself and I know what it like to be the girl who completely loves herself. The journey in between the two is long and hard but I’m here to help you grow, to help you learn, and to sometimes even push you. I don’t expect to save the world and boost everyone’s self esteem but I figured I could showcase some amazing people and they could see that they’re awesome and so could the rest of the world.

In AUTHENTIC TEEN we refuse to be just another magazine that go-ing to tell “apple shaped” girls they look bad in flowing dresses, or is it they do look good in flowing dresses? It doesn’t matter because that’s not what this is all about. It’s about the awesome person sitting next to us in Algebra class that never says a word, but doodles the coolest sketches on their sneakers. It’s about the girl in Chemistry who can recite all the elements on the periodic table in alphabetical order. It’s about the cheerleader who just got dropped by her squad, and even the Homecoming Queen and King. Point blank, its for you whoever you are, you are special, amazing, and talented, and you are something no one else could ever even dream of being, your just you.

WHAT WE’RE MADE OF

SAMANTHA PRESCOTTTaking us to the islands this month is Samantha Prescott, with her

awesome tropical illustrations.

tech

nol

og

icLet’sTalk

TECHWith

JeremyHOLDER

• Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) that develops computer processors and relatedtechnologies for commercial and consumer markets. Also the main competitor ofIntel.

• Central processing unit (CPU) is the hardware within a computer that carriesout the instructions of a computer program by performing the basic arithmetical,logical, and input/output operations of the system. In other words, it’s like thebrain of the device.

• Graphics processing unit (GPU) Modern GPUs are very efficient at manipulatingcomputer graphics, this is what kicks out the awesome graphics and more.

• AMD’s Graphics Core Next (GCN) I don’t want to go into too much detail on thisone, just think of it as a “super” graphic chip.

• Tera FLoating point OPerations per Second (TFLOPS) One trillion floatingpoint operations per second. FLOPS are a measure of computer performance,especially in fields of scientific calculations that make heavy use of floating-pointcalculations.

• Double Data Rate (DDR) the higher the number at the end, the better the memo-ryin terms of speed, heat reduction performance, and more. The DDRs I listed areGraphics Double Data Rate 5 & Double Data Rate 3.

• Direct Rambus DRAM or DRDRAM (sometimes just called Rambus DRAM orRDRAM) is a type of synchronous dynamic RAM (Random Access Memory).This older tech was mainly replaced with- guess what- DDR!

• eDRAM stands for “embedded DRAM”

• High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) I’m not going to get too technicalon this one, because HDMI is one of the most used terminologies concerning techof our age. It’s in so many devices. WiiU, PS3, Xbox360, laptops, PC (PersonalComputers), smartphones, tablets, and more. It’s that one (most of the time black)cord running from your device to your TV or Monitor!

• Gigabyte (GB) is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage.Therefore 1 gigabyte is 1,000,000,000bytes. One GREAT example is the low endiPhone5 comes with 16GB of storage. BUT when referring to RAM sizes it mostoften has a binary interpretation of 10,243 bytes, such as an alias for gibibyte.It’s a little confusing for some that 8GB of STORAGE and 8GB of RAM are twototally different things. You got to read what’s around the GB and figure out whatit’s describing.

• Megabyte (MB) is commonly used to mean either 1000 bytes (STORAGE) or1024 bytes (RAM).

PS4: Hardware Specs

(WARNING: this may get a little geeky but just stay with me here. If you don’t want to read the more detailed geeky mumbo jumbo, then read only the text in red!) AMD, as everyone guessed all along, is coursing through this new system’s veins- no shocker there. Sony revealed the system runs on a single-chip custom processor and utilizes eight x86-64 AMD Jaguar CPU cores, with a next-gen AMD Radeon based graphics engine powering the way. This mean it’s a PC-based system, which is great news for developers who will find it much easier to code games for the next gen consoles and for PCs—great news for the PC end.

Believe it or not, that CPU is hardly next-gen – looks like it will be modified for this system, but the AMD Jaguar plat-form is by no means the fastest of its kind; indeed it’s slowerthan Intel’s fastest by orders of magnitude. So the next-gen PS4 will not run on a next-gen CPU. Why did Sony do this? Well, with fewer redundancies than a PC has, the PS4 is able to make use of every single Watt of power it draws, where a PC may not.

The “highly enhanced PC GPU” is another story. It’s another AMD part - something along the lines of a Radeon 7850 card—and packs 18 GCN units. That may sound a like a lot of techy mumbo jumbo but what it essentially means is that the GPU packs 18 processing clusters, each packing up to 64 cores. That pro-vides a lot of parallel processing power, and will thushandle the majority of the PS4’s grunt work. It hits 1.84 TFLOPS of processing mojo. The GPU is a far more powerful compo-nent than the Jaguar CPU and is

rumored to have the edge on the GPU inside the Xbox 720.

Sony also announced that the console will even use its GPU to compute features to take advantage of the GPU’s awesome raw power—for general computa-tion tasks to make games graphi-cally shiny, and Sony knows that many of its fans love shiny. (That somewhat ends the heavier geeky talk so no more highlights.)

Memory

The PS4 will ship packing eight gigabytes (8GB) of GDDR5 memory. That’s some super-fast stuff, and should enable light-ning-fast performance. 8GB of memory may not seem like a lot to a PC, but to a gaming console, that’s a lot! To give you some ex-amples: one of my 3 year old PCs got 8GB of DDR3 memory. The PS3 has a 256 megabyte (MB) system and 256 MBvideo memory. The PS2 has 32MB of Direct RDRAM and 4MB of eDRAM. The Xbox 360 has 512MB of GDDR3 RAM clocked at 700 MHz. The new 21.5 inch iMac ships with as low as 8GB of 1600 megahertz (MHz) of DDR3 memory, but it’s not a gaming console with the main purpose of gaming. Some gaming PC’s have 16GB or even 32GB of memory. So 8GB isn’t awhole lot, but is a huge step up from the PS3, and for a gaming console, that’s a lot of ultra-fast memory!

Indeed, Sony has revealed that you will be able to power down the PS4 mid-game and then switch it on again in seconds and pick up right where you left off. That’s the sort of loading power that this memory enables. Good-bye long load times, we will not miss you, as we all hatedyou!

Other Specs

The PS4 will inherit some of the PS3 specs such as Blu-ray disk support, good ol’ DVD, HDMI output, Analog-AV out, and an optical digital output. The Xross-MediaBar (XMB) interface of PlayStations past will not return to the PS4, with Sony instead choosing to design a new operat-ing system (OS) interface that looks a lot more like that of the Xbox 360 than the PS3.

The PS4 controller comes in the form of the DualShock4 pad. Very much a classic design, the DualShock4 offers upgraded vibrations, enhanced motion sensors and a Vita-like touchpad on the front. The DualShock4 is actually one of the only concrete SEEN features of the PS4 console, other than some of the launch games.

Sony has revealed that the PS4 will launch with the ability to stream games directly to your PS Vita. In exactly the same way as the Wii U allows you to switch off your TV and continue playing on the tablet controller, the PS4 will wirelessly send your games to the Vita. As a WiiU owner, I must say one of its biggest features is the ability to play on the Game-Pad. A lot of WiiU owners must agree because, after all, Sony copied it from Nintendo. The PS4 price isn’t released yet, but rumors are spreading that it will be around about $450.00— and that’s not too bad, considering the PS3 launched at $599.99 and the current WiiU Deluxe Bundle is $349.99. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (CD Projekt RED) and 10. Watch Dogs (Ubisoft)

That’s it for now. See you next month! Until then, hit me up on twitter!

Hello readers! This month I thought I would mix things up a bit with a new, differ-ent kind of article. So instead of “Just for your Appetite,” this month there will be “Let’s Talk Tech” (“Appetite” will return next month along with “Let’s Talk Tech”). These articles are to talk about everything in technology—from Windows 8 to Nintendo WiiU. If you have any questions about technology of just about any form, hit me up on @ask_iTeachTech on twitter! And who knows—I may feature it in my articles! The PlayStation4 (PS4) is now an official thing. It officially exists, and is actuallycoming out! The PS4 official release date is unknown, other than “This Holiday 2013”. From what I’ve seen and heard so far, it looks pretty awesome. De-spite the fact that very few know what the console looks like, we do know some of the hardware specs along with some amazingsoftware features that the new console will have. To explain the abbreviations, here is a list of what most of the abbreviations mean (I also suggest ether printing, writing, or saving these down. As most of this is information regarding to the device you are using to read this such as PC, CPU, RAM, DDR, and more:

Film“The Sapphires” “The Sapphires” is a fun new film about four Aboriginal women who chase after their dreams to become a glamorous singing group in 1968. Their journey takes them far from their tiny hometown Cummeraganja in Australia, deep into the conflict zone of Vietnam, as they go on tour, singing to the troops.

In case you want to go on your very own international adventure, be sure to follow these tips:

1. Talk That Talk. At one point it gets super intense, as it’s just the four girls with their manager driving through the jungle in a tiny jeep. They get stopped by some very hostile Vietnamese soldiers. If Kay hadn’t taken the time to at least learn how to say “We come in peace” in the national lan-guage, they probably wouldn’t have made it out alive. Which brings me to my next point.

2. Know Where You’re Going. In 1968, Vietnam was like the absolute worst place they could’ve gone for a good time. Granted, they were answering an ad for a singing group, but THERE WAS A WAR GOING ON! THEY COULD HAVE DIED!!! That’s why the next point is so important.

3. Look Out for Each Other. It can be scary going to a new country, even when it’s nota war zone. When you don’t know your way around, don’t know the culture, and don’t quite know where the danger is, it’s super important to know that someone’s got your back.

4. Stay True to Yourself. These girls were so far from their comfort zone. They were Aboriginal Australians, touring in Vietnam, singing soul music to Black American troops. Just writing that makes my head spin! In spite of all of the different cultures, these girls never forgot where they came from, and who they represented. When they came back home, they held their heads high, and sang for all of their friends and family.

So whether you’re going on a trip, or keeping it close to home this season, make sure you check out “The Sapphires” for a sassy, sensational, soul-singing good time. Bon Voyage!

By Milan Harden

HONESTTo

WE ARE ONE TALENT SHOWOlyvea Davis

Showing off your talent is encouraged by people everywhere. Talent shows allow for people of all kinds to do just this. One example was a school in Battle Creek, Michigan that decided to put on a talent show to advertise the diversity and originality that existed inside its walls. Battle Creek Central High School, an inner-city high school in with over a thousand students, put on a talent show for any of their students who would like to be a part of it. Acts from singing to dancing were part of the show, and it really encouraged the students to be themselves.

Pictures by Nastasia Harden

Music

Have you ever wanted to see your favorite animal wearing clothing? Who hasn’t? And now’s your chance! This month we’re fea-turing a photo series at zooportraits.com. Here you can stroll through the zoo of dressed-to-impress animals and order them as prints or cards to send to your friends and family. This photo series was created by a talented Spanish photographer named Yogo Patel. Don’t worry—no animals were harmed in the making! Using his Photoshop skills to the max, Yogo takes portraits of regular people and lets their wild side show—wild animal side, that is.

So buy that ‘Thank You’ card with a pug in a white suit and baseball cap on it for your grandma. And don’t forget to send one to a friend, so he or she can enjoy the view of a koala wearing a Hawaiian shirt, to say ‘Aloha!’

While I use the word ‘blog’ lightly, your wildest dreams can still come true.

Nastasia Harden

Students from various factions around the school—nerds, outcasts, popular kids, foreign kids—came together to provide entertainment in the show. To start off the performance, the National Anthem was sung by one of the singers. Then the talent poured out onto the stage.

Singing was the most popular talent in BCCHS’s talent show. Many young sing-ers took the stage to wow the audience with their voices, singing both well-known and their own original songs. Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” and Alicia Keys’ “If I Ain’t Got You” were just two of the song choices in the show. Both showed the energy and ambition of the students and their willingness to think outside of the box to showcase their true tal-ent. The original song that was performed by one of the students illustrated the creativity in students’ minds and the writer’sfeelings about the world and people sticking together for the better.

There were musicians involved in the talent show as well. One of the performanceswas done by two guitarists, playing a duet. The sound of the music was soothing and calm, like taking a walk through a vineyard, and it showed how skilled at playing the guitar both of the performers were. It was entrancing, and it was great to see the cour-age and pride that was shown by the artists after performing for the audience.

A step team was also a part of the presentation, called The Unsteppables. The dancers had a mixture of hip hop dancing and clapping and stomping integrated into the dance. It was an upbeat performance that was filled with spirit and precision—the dancers had to concentrate closely on their moves to be able to nail each with perfect timing. The dancing cap-tured peoples’ interest because it was so complicated, and enjoyable because they had worked very hard to make it exactly right. Knowing

that the students that were a part of the dance team were the ones that came up with all of the dance moves made it even more amazing and admirable.

Students being willing to show their AUTHENTIC-ness to the world and not being afraid to be different and to accept oth-ers for who they are demonstrate exactly the kind of character that AUTHENTIC Magazine hopes and loves to promote. Battle Creek Central High School is just one

example of a school wanting to recognize its students for who they are and encourage them to con-tinue being unique. If you ever have a story of your (or someone else’s) AUTHENTIC-ness, remember that AUTHENTIC Magazine is always looking to publishteenagers’ unique stories, and to send your story to authenticteen-magazine@gmail.com!

The set List

Dead Hands - The skins band

The Way- Ariana Grande

Right Here- Justin Bieber

Power Trip- J ColeJust Give Me A Rea-son- Pink

Cant Hold Us- Macklemore

You may know her as “Cat Valentine” on the Award Winning Sitcom Victorious, but her true name is Ariana Grande. This Boca Raton, Florida native was born on June 26, 1993. She had her acting debut on Broadway at age fifteen, and since then, her career has been in full force. At the beginning of 2012, she was signed to Universal Republic Records, and since then has posted various song covers on YouTube and gained over 1 million views all together. Since her signing, she has also recorded songs with Mac Miller (a.k.a. Larry Lovestein). Ariana’s latest single, “The Way,” had been released just two hours earlier when the song shot to the top of the iTunes list. Now everyone is anticipating Ariana’s next big move: an album, another charttopping single…? We already know that she has a new show called “Sam and Cat,” also starting Jeanette Mc-Curdy from iCarly. Ariana Grande is a star on the rise, and we can’t wait to see where she is going and where she ends up.

Photographer from Grand Rapids.

Representing their hometown, Nigeria, are Omolara and Habeeb Salimon, sister and brother, who are more “authentic” than words can say. I, having many personal experiences with them, can vouch that a moment with them is never boring—whether it’s something funny that they say or do, they’re always being themselves; being loud and proud of who they are and where they come from. It’s amazing to have met them and to think how they both have affected me in ways they don’t understand. The Salimons have opened my eyes to the differences in diverse countries and the people in those countries, as well as the sacrifices those people make. Many times, we judge the kid sitting next to us in class, but when you’re dealing with someone across the world, it can be harder to find common inter-ests and common ground. But being able to meet them and see how amazing they are as people, despite their different upbringing from everyone you’ve been close to, is a truly refreshing sight. I was honored to be able feature them in my magazine, and I’m even more honored to share them with you, the “authentic” teens around the world. So, read on, and see how Omolara and Habeeb are dominating the world with their authenticness!

Habeeb

OMOLARA+

OMOLARA

What do you think makes you authen-tic?

O: What makes me authentic is that am just not like every teenager you see be-cause people think we are all the same. Not me, and I think the fact that am different makes me authentic.

How do you think your cultural back-ground helps you to be authentic?

O: My cultural background helps me be authentic because I am exposed to different things than other people are.

What do you think is “authentic” about your hometown?

O: I think everything in my home town makes it authentic; the people, the food, the culture, and just the place itself. They don’t always wear jeans like most people in the U.S., but the way people here dress is different from the way people dress in Nigeria. In Nigeria, people eat different things, like rice, be-cause it is very cheap and you can make it different ways.

How was the adjustment from two com-pletely different sides of the world?

O: Adjusting to a different place, I would say, was hard. The people, the food , and just adjusting to the new system was hard because my body was used to one thing and then, when I got here, everything changed, and I had to change with it.

How do you think other people are af-fected by your authentic-ness?

O: I think other people are affected by my authentic-ness because I am such a different person, and it surprises, them because most people would be like, “you’re different (weird),” but it’s who I am. So yes, it’s either you like me or not.

HABEEB

What do you think makes you authentic?

H: I am authentic because I am truly one of a kind. Although I wasn’t born in the U.S., I was able to come here and adapt quickly and make a lot of friends. I am also fluent in multiple languages.

How do you think your cultural background helps you to be authentic?

H: My cultural background makes me authentic because it is not every day you meet a person born in an African nation called Nigeria, and I was raised differently, so when I came to the U.S., everyone fell in love with me because of my accent and how respectful I was.

What do you think is authentic about your hometown?

H: My home town is authentic because it is always hot there, and when people asked me if I fought wild animals while in Africa, my answer was always no, because most people don’t know the part of Nigeria I lived was basically identical to a big U.S. city.

How was the adjustment from two completely different sides of the world?

H: My adjustment wasn’t that bad, although it was a little bit hard for me to speak English and I could barely understand it, so, therefore, I was made fun of, and people called me names. But after two years, I was fully accustomed to the U.S. I found everyone to be really nice, and that’s when I started making a lot of friends.

How do you think other people are affected by your authentic-ness?

H: I think other people are affected by my authentic-ness be-cause I am a great person to be around and I was raised to show respect, and that’s what I do, and I give insight to people about what Africa was like. And some people just love to hear my ac-cent.

Photos and stories by Nastasia Harden