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World News
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 Atlanta's Weekly E-Magazine
Jan 26th - Feb 2nd, 2001
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World News
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SANTORINI Yes Santorini is beautiful and one of the most popular of all Greek Islands. Yet Santorini also has a magnificient and violant past. A past that practically put an end to the Minoan civilization. During the 2nd millenium B.C. Santorini was very much influenced by the Minoan civilization which was flurishing in the neighboring Isle of Crete. Excavation started in 1967 to reveal a city that was covered by pomice and ash due to the volcanic eruption around 1500 B.C. The city named Akroteri has cobble stone streets, the streets widen in certain areas to form small plazas. Multilevel houses are in both sides of the streets. Under the paving of the streets runs the draining system which is connected to the houses. The ground floors of the houses were used as stores and workshops while the upper floors were the main residences. The residential areas are decorated with magnificient frescos and some of their furniture has survived. Unfortunately when the volcano erupted the whole center of the island collapsed - some say that also was the disappearance of ATLANTIS - but surely was the collapse of the Minoan civilization. Part of the volcano is still active as a small island in the caldera. Today the sun sets over the volcano silently as nothing has ever happened. |
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Editor's Corner Question: If a friend begs off your lunch invitation because she is meeting a college planner to discuss her 9-year-old son's future, is she A. Lying through her teeth? B. Subscribing to yet another yuppie fad? C. A wise parent who is giving her kid an advantage in a competitive world? Answer: Depending on the friend, the answer could be A or C. Increasingly often, parents are seeking formal college planning for kids as young as seven or eight. They realize that decisions, choices and plans made in a student's early years can have major impact on where that student ultimately goes to college and how well she does when she gets there. The primary goals of early college planning are threefold. First, families want to identify areas of academic strengths and weaknesses early on in order to encourage and enhance the former and address the latter before a modest problem becomes a crippling one. Second, families want to focus and plan a student's extracurricular activities to insure real growth and development rather than scattershot choices or oversubscription which lead to burnout. Finally, families want to begin learning about schools and their programs so that when the time comes to make a choice, they will have the information necessary to make a good match between student and school. As an example: most of us knew kids in high school who, in their junior year went on a frenzy of joining clubs, teams, anything to build a record of activities to list on college applications. Generally their time was wasted because these were meaningless involvements. While it is true that selective schools are very interested in what students have done with their spare time and may value highly a record of significant community service, no admissions director is going to be fooled by this kind of last-minute effort. What they want to see is evidence of a history of service in which a student has taken on increasing levels of responsibility and has demonstrated genuine commitment. The point, then, of early college planning is not to push kids mercilessly so they will get into Harvard. It is to help families provide the guidance kids need so that in their junior year they can say, "I plan to go to _____ University. It has the programs I want, I've worked hard to get ready for it, and I think I can do well there." That is a more encouraging approach than "I just hope I can get in a college that's near a beach." Judy C. Brown, PhD College Planner |
Issues
