Summer Courses 2009

    San Diego Seaside College is offering one and two-week English summer courses for high school students from all over the world who want to improve their English. Classes are offered at five levels, from basic to advanced. Students will be tested when they arrive and placed in the level appropriate to their language ability. Each class has a maximum of 14 students.

    Tuition Fees(学费)

    One-week Course (July 26—August 1) : $310

    Two-week Course (July 26—August 8) : $ 620

    The full payment must be received before the beginning of the courses.

    Accommodations(食宿)

    We provide housing, including breakfast & dinner, 7 days a week.

    Single room : $ 250 per week

    Twin room: $160 per person, per week  You should reserve your accommodations before May 15 and all the accommodation fees must be paid in full before June 15.

    How to Apply

    Fill out an application form and send it to us at esc@sdc. edu.

    Come to our college this summer and make yourself shine at English.

Are Happy Meals Really Happy?

    Don't we all know a “Happy Meal” when we see one--the famous boxed meal that includes a hamburger, kid-sized French fries, fruits and milk, served with a toy that's extremely popular with children who love to collect them?

    A Happy Meal is a form of kids' meal sold at a certain fast-food chain since 1979. A toy is included in the meal, both of which are usually contained in a box or paper bag. However, collectors of these little toys will not get them any longer, since the company will replace toys with books and each of these books will mainly pass on nutritional messages.

    Happy Meals are extremely popular with kids, especially for their collectable toys, when you consider that over 1.3 billion of these packages are sold each year. These packages have been very controversial. Health supporters believe that drawing kids to these meals with toys is a clever way of promoting unhealthy food choices. They see it as an advertising a strategy of “catching its customers young”--a move that has paid off very well for the fast-food company.

    Child development experts say that food habits get formed in children by age six and continue through to their adult life. Fatty and sugary foods such as those served in Happy Meals are believed to play a big role in growing health problems such as obesity and diabetes. Public health care costs have gone up and untold amounts of money have been spent on coping with these health problems. On November 2, 2010, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a law requiring that children's meals sold in restaurants must meet certain nutritional standards before they could be sold with toys, to overcome the problem of childhood obesity--in other words, the State of California tried to ban the toys in Happy Meals. However, it was strongly opposed by some as being heavy-handed, and the ban was thrown out by the government.

    While some people believe that the fast-food company, with its large following of children, can create a powerful message through the books, others believe its actions are contradictory. Anyway, the company is trying to spread the message of nutrition while it is serving food that is anything but healthy.

Senses That Work Together

    When we think about how our senses work, we usually imagine them operating separately: you sniff a flower, and the smell is delivered uninterrupted from nose to brain. However, it's more complex than that. Most evidence for cross modal perception (知觉) comes from studies into sound and vision (视觉). But research that shows other senses crossing over is coming out all the time, and it seems that even sound and smell sometimes form an unlikely pairing.

    When New York researchers, Daniel Wesson and Donald Wilson, tried to find out the truth about a "mysterious” area of the brain called the olfactory tubercle, they had to deal with this fact. Originally, they only intended to measure how olfactory tubercle cells in mice responded to smell. But during testing, Wesson noticed that every time he put his coffee cup down, the mouse cells jumped in activity. In fact, the olfactory tubercle is well-placed to receive both smell and sound information from the outside world. Later they found that among separate cells, most responded to a smell but a significant number were also active when a sound was made. Some cells even behaved differently when smell and sound were presented together, by increasing or decreasing their activity.

    Of course, mice aren't people, so research team has been carrying out further experiments. They pulled together a group of people and gave them various drinks to smell. Participants were asked to sniff the drinks, and then match them to appropriate musical instruments and produce the notes at different levels. The results were interesting: piano was regularly paired with fruity fragrances; strong smells sounded like the instruments that are made of metal.

    Further research found that listening to different sounds can change your perceptions. Studying taste this time, the team ordered some special toffee (太妃糖) and put together “soundscapes” corresponding to bitterness and sweetness. Participants tasted similar pieces of toffee while listening to each soundscape, and found the toffee more bitter or sweeter, depending on which soundrack they were listening to.

    Studies like this are helping scientists correctly describe our understanding of the senses, and how the brain combines them with its advantage. The consequences are worth considering. Could we see musicians work together with chefs to produce sound-improved food and drink? Will you be ordering a coffee with a soundrack to bring out your favorite smell? Come to think of it, that could be one thing you hope coffee shop chains don't get round to.

    In this Pennsylvania city, Pittsburgh is shrinking but getting wealthier. Since 2000, its population has declined by 95,000 while its income per capita (人均) has shot up 24 percent. The trend is taking hold in many other cities, like Buffalo in New York, Providence in Rhode Island and New Orleans.

    Some of these areas have created more high-paying jobs in energy, health care or education. Others have managed to reshape their producing industry for a new economy. Higher-paying jobs have a greater effect because they create demand for additional services. "The story in Pittsburgh is very positive, and other areas are looking at it as an example of the transformation that might be possible,” said Guhan Venkatu, who wrote an economic history of the area called “Rust and Renewal” for the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.

    Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh have helped bring tech jobs and innovation(革新) to the area by sponsoring tech centers that help graduates start companies without moving to Silicon Valley or San Francisco. This has helped keep Pittsburgh's educated young population growing even as the entire population in the city has dropped.

    Pittsburgh has more STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) jobs than other shrinking cities, about 80, 000 or 7% of all jobs. STEM jobs add productivity and income growth to the area. Manufacturers of high-tech medical equipment in the Pittsburgh area also have doubled employment in the last 10 years.

    However, some experts question whether growing income per capita can really make up for a declining population. According to Patrick Adler, a researcher at the University of Toronto, population loss does matter if it means lower-skilled workers have fled because of a lack of opportunity. What's more, high-paying jobs in education and health care can disappear if the population declines too greatly. So it'd be wise to find ways to increase the population.

    Mom wanted only one thing for her birthday. "Can you find me another copy of this song?" she asked, and handed me a worn-out cassette tape. I knew exactly what was recorded on it: My Redeemer. I heard the song played at least a thousand times while growing up. After so many years, the cassette tape was too worn out to be used. I promised her I would find a replacement.

    My Redeemer became Mom's favorite song after my younger brother Tim was killed by a drunk driver in 1973. The only thing that helped her calm down was the soulful sound of My Redeemer from the local radio station. We recorded it on a cassette tape so she could listen to it any time she wanted but none of us knew who the soloist(独唱者) was. These days, I thought the song would be easy to find out. I went home and searched the Internet. Several songs with that title popped up, but none of them was the one Mom loved. I got frustrated.

    Mom's birthday drew near and then one day, I was driving home, listening to our local radio station. A familiar tune came on. It was My Redeemer!As soon as I could, I phoned the station. I got a line on the soloist, who was called Alan Parks. I typed his name into Google and found his home number in South Carolina. Minutes later, I was telling him how much his recording meant to Mom. He offered to ship two CDs out to me personally. I gave him my address. "Red Lion, Pennsylvania?"he said. "Do you know the Logans?""They are our neighbors!""I've been friends with them for 25years," Alan said. "They'll be at my concert at York Gospel Chapel on April 17th. Would you and your mom come too?" We sure would. Mom was excited to hear Alan sing My Redeemer to her, live in concert-on the evening of her 87th birthday.

Whenever our teachers or parents asked about our hobbies at childhood, my friends and I would always express our love for reading. However, with the development of high technology, our lives are gradually 1 by electronic screens of all sizes. They attract our attention like magnets（磁铁）and gradually 2 us from the world of books.

There was a time when I felt like my life went downhill, and with increased 3 from school, physical tiredness and emotional burdens（负担）, I had to watch short 4 to distract（分散）myself from those troubles.

This situation changed when one day I 5 a book called The Grapes of Wrath by a US writer. When I opened the cover and started reading, I felt like being hit 6 on my head. The wonderful story and beautiful writing attracted me. Although the characters in the book face 7 survival challenges, they still try to live in hard times and struggle for their dreams. This 8 spirit deeply inspired me, allowing me to gradually 9 my confidence in the future.

Now I carry this book either at the dining table or during school breaks. As a student who has a（n）10 of making films, this book also gave me creative 11 . The historical scenes described in the book and the deep human nature 12 within opened a door to the hall of art for me, allowing me to understand that reading cannot only 13 the spirit, but also cause creativity.

Why should we choose to ignore（忽视）such 14 like this book? Finally, I would like to appeal to my peers to protect our eyes and minds, and make 15 choices between books and screens.