It's the 3rd Annual Family Fun Fair!

    Games • Crafts (工艺品) • Apple pie contest

    Food • Face painting • Door prizes (门票对号奖)

    ... and more!

    What: A chance to celebrate spring, support our community (社区), and have fun!

    When: Saturday, February 8th from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., rain or shine!

    Where: The big field next to Hopedale Elementary School

    For more information: Contact Peter Halm at 555-0191

    Don't miss the 3rd annual Family Fun Fair!

    This fair promises to be even better than last year's fair — no kidding!

    Last year the game booths (摊位) were a big hit. (Who could forget Principal Snyder winning a toy dog that was so big it took four students to carry it to her truck?) This year we have two new game booths. So get ready to take part in the games.

    Visit our craft tables. They will be better than ever! You can buy items such as clothing, backpacks, and gift baskets.

    Children aged 5 and under can have their faces painted for FREE by Mr. Garcia's third-grade art class.

    No fair would be complete without food. We will be selling hot dogs, ice cream, roasted nuts, and cotton candy at our booths. For those of you who love to bake, why not enter our new apple pie contest? Just bring your pie to the pie table on the morning of the fair. At 1 p.m., our judges, Coach Carter and math teacher, Mrs. Adams, will choose a winner.

    Won't you please support our school by coming to the fair? Tickets are only $2 each. Door prizes will be given. You could win sports equipment, a new camera, or dinner for four at Merino's Restaurant!

    This will be the best fair ever. Don't miss it!

    Cultural rules determine every aspect of food consumption. Who eats together defines social units. For example, in some societies, the nuclear family is the unit that regularly eats together. The anthropologist Mary Douglas has pointed out that, for the English, the kind of meal and the kind of food that is served relate to the kinds of social links between people who are eating together. She distinguishes between regular meals, Sunday meals when relatives may come, and cocktail parties for relatives and friends. The food served symbolizes the occasion and reflects who is present. For example, only snacks are served at a cocktail party. It would be inappropriate to serve a steak or hamburgers. The distinctions among cocktails, regular meals, and special dinners mark the social boundaries between those guests who are invited for drinks, those who are invited to dinner, and those who come to a family meal. In this example, the type of food symbolizes the category of guest and with whom it is eaten.

    In some New Guinea societies, the nuclear family is not the unit that eats together. The men take their meals in a men's house, separately from their wives and children. Women prepare and eat their food in their own houses and take the husband's portion to the men's house. The women eat with their children in their own houses. This pattern is also widespread among Near Eastern societies.

    Eating is a metaphor that is sometimes used to signify marriage. In many New Guinea societies, like that of the Lesu on the island of New Ireland in the Pacific and that of the Trobriand Islanders, marriage is symbolized by the couple's eating together for the first time. Eating symbolizes their new status as a married couple. In U.S. society, it is just the reverse. A couple may go out to dinner on a first date.

    Other cultural rules have to do with taboos against eating certain things. In some societies, members of a family group, are not allowed to eat the animal or bird that is their totemic ancestor. Since they believe themselves to be descended from that ancestor, it would be like eating that ancestor or eating themselves.

    There is also an association between food prohibitions and rank, which is found in its most extreme form in the caste system of India. A caste system consists of ranked groups, each with a different economic specialization. In India, there is an association between caste and the idea of pollution. Members of highly ranked groups can be polluted by coming into contact with the bodily secretions, particularly saliva(唾液),of individuals of lower-ranked castes. Because of the fear of pollution, Brahmans and other high-ranked individuals will not share food with, not eat from the same plate as, not even accept food from an individual or from a low-ranking class.

    A few weeks ago, I called an Uber to take me to the Boston airport for a flight home for the holidays. As I slid into the back seat of the car, the warm intonations(语调) of the driver's accent washed over me in a familiar way.

    I learned that he was a recent West African immigrant with a few young children, working hard to provide for his family. I could relate: I am the daughter of two Ethiopian immigrants who made their share of sacrifices to ensure my success. I told him I was on a college break and headed home to visit my parents. That's how he found out I go to Harvard. An approving eye glinted at me in the rearview window, and quickly, we crossed the boundaries of rider and driver. I became his daughter, all grown up — the product of his sacrifice.

    And then came the fateful question: "What do you study?" I answered "history and literature" and the pride in his voice faded, as I knew it might. I didn't even get to add "and African-American studies" before he cut in, his voice thick with disappointment, "All that work to get into Harvard, and you study history?"

    Here I was, his daughter, squandering the biggest opportunity of her life. He went on to deliver the age-old lecture that all immigrant kids know. We are to become doctors (or lawyers, if our parents are being generous) — to make money and send money back home. The unspoken demand, made across generations, which my Uber driver laid out plainly, is simple: Fulfill your role in the narrative(故事) of upward mobility so your children can do the same.

    I used to feel anxious and backed into a corner by the questioning, but now as a junior in college, I'm grateful for their support more than anything. This holiday season, I've promised myself I won't huff and get annoyed at their inquiries. I won't defensively respond with "but I plan to go to law school!" when I get unrequested advice. I'll just smile and nod, and enjoy the warmth of the occasion.

    Climate change is perhaps the key issue of our time. Often, however, it is presented to us as being so abstract that it seems impossibly distant. For those of you looking for something a little more concrete, a new report suggests that the effects of climate change may significantly affect coffee.

    The report, put out by The Climate Institute, describes the effects of climate change on various coffee-growing nations and the resultant effects on the plants and those who grow them.

    Coffee Arabica plants, which produce 70% of all commercial coffee, can be adversely affected by even a half-degree change in typical weather conditions. This sensitivity to temperature puts the plant at increased risk of the effects of climate change.

    In Central America the average temperature has risen by a full degree Celsius since 1960. In Ethiopia the average temperature has increased by 1. 3 degrees. This increase is enough to have notable effects on the plants. In Tanzania the productivity per hectare of coffee has fallen by half since the 1960s due to changes in temperature.

    Indeed, studies claim that by 2050 the area of the world suitable for growing coffee will be cut by half. Coffee production is likely to then be pushed to higher elevations (海拔) to take advantage of lower temperatures, but this will not be enough to make up for lost lowland areas.

    Coffee is the second most traded goods by developing nations, and the inability of producer nations to export it could cause dramatic chain reactions in their economies. Millions of people make a living in the production, processing, transport, and sale of coffee; their livelihoods would stand to take a blow as growing areas decrease and prices rise.

    As the temperature keeps rising, your cup of coffee will become much more expensive, and it may also carry an aftertaste bitterer than usual, for all those workers in the coffee belt left without the means to make a living as conditions worsen. Not only that, but the economic effects will cost the West millions in increased foreign aid.

    If you are planning on travelling, there are few simple rules about how to make life easier both before and after your journey.

    First of all, always check and doublecheck departure(出发) time. It is surprising how few people really do this carefully. Once I arrived at the airport a few minutes after ten. My secretary had got the ticket for me and I thought she had said that the plane left at 10:50. When I arrived at the airport, the person at the departure desk told me that my flight was closed. Therefore, I had to wait three hours for the next one and missed an important meeting.

    The second rule is to remember that even in this age of credit cards(信用卡), it is still important to have some local money in cash(现金). Once I arrived at a place at midnight and the bank at the airport was closed. The only way to get to my hotel was by taxi but because I had no dollars, I offered to pay in pounds instead. "Listen! I only take real money!" the driver said angrily. You can image how terrible I felt at that moment.

    The third and the last rule is to find out as much as you can about the weather at your destination before you leave. I feel sorry for some of my workmates who travel in heavy suits and raincoats in May, when it is still fairly cool in London or Manchester, to places like Athens, Rome or Madrid, where it is already beginning to get quite warm during the day.

According to a new research,the more people in a country who have a particular gene(基因),the happier the nation will be.This DNA is known as the FAAH gene.People with a particular version of it tend to be cheerier souls.There is a link between levels of the FAAH gene and the number of people who say they are very happy.

Sweden—one of the happiest countries in the world—also has lots of happy DNA.Ghana,Nigeria,Mexico and Columbia all come out near the top in the happiness league,and have high rates of the gene.In contrast,the people of Iraq,Jordan and China are among the least likely to rate themselves as very happy and also have the lowest level of the FAAH gene.

However,wealth and health are found to have little effect on happiness.The finding could help explain why some of the world's poorest nations are also the happiest.In addition,the FAAH gene and an optimistic attitude would not always go hand in hand.For example,Russians and Estonians score very low in happiness,despite having the right happy DNA.

Professor Michael Minkov said,"The climate condition is associated with the nation's happiness.We can notice the high occurrence of the FAAH gene in tropical(热带的) areas in the Americas and Africa.And the occurrence of the gene around the Mediterranean Sea is much lower than that in Northern Europe."

The social experts say that genetics is not the only determinant(决定因素) of happiness.The economic and political difficulties in some nations also contribute to the very low happiness scores.Nations that are not blessed with the right DNA aren't necessarily miserable.