By XIAOWEN LIANG

Many people like Chi-

nese food. If you want to try

some real Chinese food, you

should follow your Chinese

friends.

The YiPinXiang is a

spicy hot pot restaurant. The

food price is about $20. The

food style is from northern

China. It is very delicious

and awesome.

You can choose different

kinds of food, such as beef,

shrimp, chicken wings, po-

tato, and tomato.

Last time, I went to this

restaurant with my Arab

friends. It was the first time

they used chopsticks and ate

spicy hot pot. They all said it

was very good.

The restaurant is located at

301 W. Valley Blvd., #101,

San Gabriel, CA 91776

Ultrazone Laser Tag in Alhambra ($10) Friday, March 29, 2013 1:30pm-6pm Come play laser tag with your classmates and Language Academy staff. This will be a fun and high-energy activity sure to bring out the competitive side in you! We still have spaces if you are interested but please see Silvia ASAP! Getty Villa (FREE) Friday, April 5, 2013 1:30pm-6pm The Getty Villa in Malibu is a museum with art from cultures of ancient Greece, Rome,

and Etruria. It has a beautiful collection of art, not to mention the view of the ocean! Sign-up for this event on today from 12pm.

NBA Clippers Game and Pregame Experience ($25) Wednesday, April 10, 2013 (4-11pm) Join Language Academy at the Staples Center to watch the Clippers take on the Minnesota Timberwolves. Sign up today at 12pm in JEF Courtyard. Bring $25 cash for payment. Tickets are limited!

The Taste of China

I N S I D E

T H I S I S S U E :

Language

Labs

2

University

Day classes

3

Tallest Hotel

in World

4

April Fool’s

Day April 1

4

Movie Review

“The Call”

4

Weather

Changes

5

Religious

Observances

6

UP C O M I N G AC T I V I T I E S

The Academy News M A R C H 2 9 , 2 0 1 3 V O L U M E 5 6 , I S S U E 9 Check out The

Academy News online at

www.usc.edu/

langacad.Go to

“Student Infor-

mation” and

then click on

“The Academy

News.”

See more photos of

March 15 Shopping Spree on p. 6.

Language Academy students try out chopsticks for the first time . Below: a typical dish at the restaurant. This northern Chinese food is spicy.

P A G E 2

Reading Power

(Levels 1-3): Do you want to become a better, faster reader? Attend this lab to get tips and tricks on how to improve your reading skills. IELTS Preparation

(Levels 3-6): Learn how to do well on the IELTS exam. Writing an “A” Paper

(Levels 3-4): Make your writing more sophisticated by using research. Learn how to use research in your writing to effectively support your ideas.

Conversation Groups:

Practice speaking English by level with USC students. This is an interactive discussion in which you will participate in groups about several interesting topics. This is your opportunity to practice and to ask questions to native English speakers. To sign up, go to www.usc.edu/

langacad Click on “Student

Information” Click on “Current

Students” Click on

“Language Labs”

Monday, April 1

Time Location Description Facilitator

11-12pm

JEF Courtyard

Conversation Levels 1 & 2 Rachel

USC Student

JEF Courtyard

Conversation Levels 3 & 4 Liza

USC Student

JEF Courtyard

Conversation Levels 5 & 6 Blaire

USC Student

12-1pm

GFS 229 IELTS Prep Lab (Levels 2 & 3) James Hutzell

Instructor

GFS 228 GRE/GMAT (Levels 4, 5 & 6) Jeminah Espinoza

Instructor

GFS113 Writing an “A” Paper (Levels 3 & 4) Heather Robertson

Instructor

JEF Courtyard

Conversation Levels 1 & 2 Belen

USC Student

JEF Courtyard

Conversation Levels 3 & 4 Rachel

USC Student

JEF Courtyard

Conversation Levels 5 & 6 Luke

USC Student

Wednesday, April 3

Time Location Description Facilitator

11-12pm

KAP 166 Reading Power (Levels 1, 2 & 3) Nevena Fairclough

Instructor

12-1pm

GFS 228 Reading Power (Levels 1, 2 & 3) Nevena Fairclough

Instructor

GFS 229 IELTS Prep Lab (Levels 2 & 3) James Hutzell

Instructor

GFS 113 Statement of Purpose (Levels 4, 5 & 6) Marisa Garcia-

Crocker Instructor

Thursday, April 4

Time Location Description Facilitator

11-12pm

THH 107 IELTS Prep Lab (Levels 2 & 3) James Hutzell

Instructor

TUESDAY IS UNIVERSITY DAY AND THERE WILL BE NO LANGUAGE LABS!

See page 3 for more information

P A G E 3

Arts

WPH 102 9:30am-10:50am FACS 150 – Visual Culture and Literacy I: Visual part of Art, TV, Movie and Internet

LPB G122B 10:00am-11:50am MPPM 240 – Drumming Proficiency: Beginning instruction in drum set techniques

MUS 213 10:00am-11:50am MUCO 233b – Theory II: Analysis of musical pieces

CTV G128 11:00am-11:50am MUCO 131b – Harmony in Popular Music: Study of harmony used in popular music

HAR 220 2:00pm-4:50pm FAIN 210 – Introduction to Digital Photography: Beginning course in digital photography

BMH 100 4:00pm-5:50pm MUEN 222 – Trojan Marching Band: Rehearsal and participation in Trojan Marching Band LPB AUD 4:00pm-5:50pm MUSC 255 – Songwriting: Musical and lyrical composing and listening

Communication

ASC G26 9:30am-10:50am COMM 201 – Rhetoric and the Public Sphere: Communication and message production

ASC G26 12:30pm-1:50pm COMM 206 – Communication and Culture: Analyzing cultural institutions, ideas, artifacts

Engineering

THH 210 9:30am-10:50am CHE 205 – Numerical Methods in Chemical Engineering: Solving numerical problems

ZHS 163 10:00am-11:50am AME 261 – Basic Flight Mechanics: Performance of flight vehicles

KAP 163 11:00am-11:50am CSCI 101 – Fundamentals of Computer Programming: General computer systems class KAP 267 12:00pm-1:50pm ITP 109 – Introduction to Java Programming: Introduction to software design

WPH B27 2:00pm-3:20pm CSCI 271 – Discrete Methods in Computer Science

Health Sciences

WPH B27 9:30am-10:50am HP 200 – Introduction to Health Promotion and Disease Prevention

THH 119 2:00pm-3:50pm MEDS 260 – Challenges in the Forefront of Biomedical Ethics

Humanities

THH 301 12:30pm-1:50pm CLAS 151 – Civilization of Rome: Study of Roman civilization through literature THH 202 12:30pm-1:45pm PHIL 115 – Ancient Greek Culture and Society: Greek culture and philosophy

THH 114 2:00pm-3:20pm COLT 251 – Modern Literature and Thought of the West: Modern Western literature

Natural Sciences

SAL 101 9:30am-10:50am GEOL 130 – The Nature of Scientific Inquiry

KAP 145 10:00am-11:50am PHYS 200 – The Physics and Technology of Energy: Study of energy technologies

WPH 102 11:00am-12:20pm ENST 100 – Introduction to Environmental Studies: Study of environment

SGM 123 11:00am-12:20pm GEOL 125 – Earth History: A Planet and its Evolution: History and evolution of Earth SLH 102 12:00pm-1:50pm PHYS 152 – Fundamentals of Physics II: Electricity and Magnetism

VKC 152 12:30pm-1:50pm CORE 103 – The Process of Change in Science: Problems in scientific thought

SGM 123 2:00pm-3:20pm ANTH 200 – The Origins of Humanity: Human evolution and evolutionary theory

SLH 200 2:00pm-3:50pm PHYS 151 – Fundamentals of Physics I: Mechanics and Thermodynamics

Social Sciences

MHP 106 9:30am-10:50am HIST 245 – Gender and Sexualities in American History: Gender roles in U.S. history

THH 301 9:30am-10:50am IR 101 – International Relations: International relations GFS 106 9:30am-10:50am LING 275 – Language and Mind

SOS B44 9:30am-10:50am PSYC 274 - Statistics

THH 114 11:00am-12:20pm HIST 105 – The Korean Past: Korean History

THH 101 11:00am-12:20pm POSC 130 – Law, Politics and Public Policy

MRF 340 11:00am-12:20pm SOCI 150 – Social Problems: Problems with Social Groups in America WPH B27 12:30pm-1:50pm HIST 107 – Japanese History

SAL 101 12:30pm-1:50pm PSYC 201 – The Science of Happiness: Evaluates scientific research on human happiness

THH 301 2:00pm-3:20pm SOCI 169 – Changing Family Forms: Cross-cultural perspective of family forms

P A G E 4

Travel Highlights

April Fool’s Day

BY ARC CHEN

Have you ever lied on April Fool’s

Day? Have you ever done something to

trick other people on April Fool’s Day?

Many people go crazy and make some

jokes on that day. Of course, if you are

the person who can’t stand jokes, don’t

do anything on April 1 because some

people may drive you crazy.

April Fool’s Day is one of the tra-

ditional festivals in one of the European

countries, and the origin was from

France. The French adopted the new

calendar in 1564. and changed the date

of New Year from April 1 to January 1.

However,

the old tradi-

tions disagreed

with that

change. They

didn’t want to

change the cal-

endar. They

gave gifts to

each other and

organize an

activity to celebrate the New Year on

April 1. They gave a fake gift and in-

vited each other to a fake party, so they

made a joke on that day every year,

which has become a new popular cus-

tom in France over time.

That festival spread to England in the

eighteenth century, and the early British

immigrants brought it to the United

States later. Now people just have fun

with their friends and tell them funny

lies. Here are some jokes people tell on

April 1.

1993: Men and women will use

different phones in 1993.

One of the local newspaper offices

《Sudkurier》in Germany said the

government was preparing a new

phone system, and men and women

would use different phones. The rea-

son is women always occupy the

phone a lot of the time.

See April Fool’s Day on p. 6

THE WORLD’S TALLEST HOTEL IN DUBAI By YOUSEF ALWASEIFER

The Guinness World Records

has named the JW Marriott Hotel in

Dubai the world’s tallest hotel.

The hotel has 72 floors, and it is

1,165 foot high. The hotel is shorter

than the world’s tallest building

“Burj Khalifa,” located a few blocks

away in Dubai by 1,500 feet.

JW Marriott Hotel in Dubai

consists of two towers. It features

1,608 rooms and suits (804 in each

tower), 14 restaurants that offer

various cuisines, bars and lounges, a

business center, conference halls

and meeting rooms, retail outlets, a

large swimming pool, and a gymna-

sium.

The rate for a standard room per

night starts from $177 to $218. The

hotel is located at Sheikh Zayed

Road, Business Bay Dubai, United

Arab Emirates.

References:

www.the huffington post.com

www.los angeles times.com

UNIVERSITY

DAY

On

Tuesday,

April 2, your

regularly

scheduled

classes will be replaced with one

USC class which you will choose

and sign up for online (JUST LIKE

LANGUAGE LABS). You will get

the opportunity to attend a real uni-

versity class with real USC stu-

dents on this day! Today, March

29, you will be able to sign up

online for ONE class that you find

interesting.

This is your chance to test your

listening and note-taking skills, as

well as to see what a U.S. univer-

sity class is like. You will also

have an assignment in Oral Skills

class to complete after you have

attended your USC class.

The JW Marriot in Dubai has been named the world’s tallest hotel in the Guinness Book of

World Records.

P A G E 5

By LORA SONBOL

“The Call” is a movie that is

playing now in theaters. The movie is playing in AMC and Arclight Theaters. The main actor is Halle Berry. The rating of the movie is 6.6/10.

The movie is about Jordan Tuner (Halle Berry), who is work-ing as a 911 operator. It’s just an-other night on the job until she gets a phone call from a young girl who is home alone.

The girl is frightened by a man breaking into her home. It’s Jor-dan’s job to tell the girl what to do to keep her alive. But one bad choice from Jordan put the girl in more danger. That decision haunts Jordan, especially when

the girl is found dead. Six months later, Jordan is still at the center, but this time she is a teacher to new operators. One of the new operators receives a frightening call. A girl has been kidnapping and is calling from the trunk of the man’s car.

The new operator doesn’t know what to do. Jordan takes the call, and she will have to put away her feelings and put all her training to work to save this girl. Jordan knows it’s the same man who killed the first girl.

The story tells about how to find this girl alive. In my opinion this movie is very good, and you have to watch it. Rating: R (violence, disturbing con-tent, some language)

By ALIBEK BISSEMBAYEV

According to a recent study in

“The Bulletin of the American Me-teorological Society,” hot weather and cool, rainy days, even minor changes in the weather, play a major role in the U.S. economy.

Weather plays a role in every aspect of the economy from com-merce to travel to agriculture to manufacturing today.

There are many examples that show the two-sided impact of the weather on the economy. A snowstorm in Colorado can attract skiers from Texas and the South-east, which would be positive, but increased heating costs and im-pacts on transportation caused by the snowstorm would be negative.

Also, agriculture could be im-pacted in both positive and nega-

tive ways. The snowpack provides a water supply, but if it melts rap-idly and causes flooding, it can be a major problem.

Another example is a heat wave. The demand for electricity goes up as people turn on air con-ditioners. However, sales of fans and air conditioners and tickets for water parks go up.

As research shows, the influ-ence of routine weather variations on the economy cost as much as 3.4 % of the entire U.S. gross do-mestic product. The conclusion was made after the researchers examined 70 years of weather re-cords through 2008.

Given the study's findings, the yearly economic cost of the weather was found to be $485 bil-lion, plus or minus $240 billion.

Reference: AccuWeather (http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/weather-costs-the-us-economy-h-1/51526)

Minor Weather Changes Affect U.S.

“The Call” Offers Suspense

Halle Berry plays a police dispatcher trying to save a girl’s life.

Movie Review

A man in the Boston area is blowing snow from his sidewalk. The Midwest and the Northeast have had unusually cold weather in March. April is expected to be cold too.

USC Language Academy

Rossier School of

Education

950 W. Jefferson Blvd.,

Phone: 213-740-0080

Fax: 213-740-0088

Web: www.usc.edu/langacad

THE WEEK IN PICTURES

The Academy News is a weekly newsletter pro-duced by students in the Journalism Elective of the USC Language Academy. All students in the Lan-guage Academy Program are encouraged to send news stories and photos to Sonja Lovelace at slove-lac@usc.edu.

P A G E 6 M A R C H 2 9 , 2 0 1 3

April Fool’s Day Continued from p. 4

1994: No drinking allowed

on the Internet.

The popular computer maga-

zine “PC Computing” pub-

lished articles that the

American government would

pass a bill that would make

drinking on the Internet as

"illegal.”

Do you have any ideas for April

1? Maybe this week’s activity is

to tell a joke to celebrate the

April Fool’s Day. To protect

yourself, you have to watch out

for everything. By the way, you

won’t be a joke to other people.

Editor’s Warning: There is a

spider on your head.

Religious Observances

Easter Sunday March 31

Sunday, March 31 is Easter

Sunday. Christians all over the

world will observe this holiday

with different traditions. In the

United States, children will re-

ceive baskets of treats and have

an Easter egg hunt.

Passover March 25-April 2

Jewish Passover is celebrated

this week as well. This important

holiday commemorates the eman-

cipation of the Israelites from

Egypt. Special food includes

matzah, unleavened bread. The

highlight is the Seder meal, cele-

brated on the first two nights of

Passover.

Check out The Academy News online at www.usc.edu/langacad.Go to “Student Information”

and then click on “The Academy News.”

PHOTO CONTEST

The Academy News is looking for your photos! Please send

your best picture to Editor Abdullah Bin Kulaid at

akolib17@gmail.com

FREE EVENTS Enjoy free events on campus during the semester. Please go to the Arts and Events Calendar for more details at http://web-app.usc.edu/ws/eo2/calendar/32/

The Academy News Spring 2013 Staff

Editor: Abdullah Bin Kolaib

Staff Reporters

Yousef Alwaseifer

Alibek Bissembayev

Xiaowen (Sharon) Liang

Lora Sonbol

Language Academy students enjoyed a day of

shopping on March 15 when they went to the

Citadel Outlet.