gold. She said she was proud
to be a Trojan.
See Football on p. 8
Language Academy stu-
dents attended the Trojan vs.
Cal football game on Satur-
day, September 22.
The campus was filled
with tailgate parties before the
game as loyal Trojans en-
joyed food and drink before
the kickoff at 3 p.m.
The bleachers were packed
with fans in cardinal and gold
making waves across the sta-
dium and cheering on the
players as they entered the
field.
Robin said, “I didn’t real-
ize that football was so popu-
lar. Actually, it’s more excit-
ing before the game—all the
people marching to the sta-
dium. I couldn’t even find the
ball on the field!”
Miya was asked at the
Subway station why every-
body was wearing red and
Venice Beach Friday, September 28, 2012 12:30PM-6:00PM, meet at JEF Venice Beach is an iconic Califor-nian destination lined with art ven-dors, beach activities and diversity. Meet Blaire and Luke on Friday at 12:30pm in the JEF courtyard for a day that is sure to be memorable in your Los Angeles experience!
Los Angeles Zoo Friday, October 5, 2012 12:30PM-6:00PM, $5 payment Join us on our trip to the Los Ange-les Zoo, home to more than 1,100 mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles representing more than 250 different species. There is a $5 pay-ment, so be prepared to pay in cash when you sign-up today!
Fight On! USC Trojans Defeat Cal 27-9
I N S I D E
T H I S I S S U E :
Language
Labs
2/
3
Healthy
Lunch
4
Mid-Autumn
Festival
5
Romantic
Restaurant
6
iPhone 5
Review
6
True Love
Story
7
Movie
Review
8
UP C O M I N G AC T I V I T I E S
The Academy News S E P T E M B E R 2 8 . 2 0 1 2 V O L U M E 5 5 , I S S U E 3
Check out The Academy News online at www.usc.edu/langacad.Go to “Student Information” and then click on “The Academy News.”
Moran learns to cook for himself. See p. 4.
Americans and Chinese: Differences in Diet, p. 5.
Language Academy students show their school spirit at the USC-Cal game.
P A G E 2
Writing to Impress (Levels 5-6): Impress your Language
Academy teachers and your USC professors with your academic style. Learn how to use aca-demic sources to power-fully support your ideas and enhance your schol-arship. GRE/GMAT Prepara-
tion (Levels 4-6): Find out the best ways to suc-ceed on the new exam Statement of Purpose
Workshop (Levels 4-6): Learn how to write an amazing SOP for gradu-ate school. Bring your draft statement of pur-pose to every session. Speak English Flu-
ently (Level 1-3): KNOW THE CODE! Maybe you can speak some English, but when you hear Americans talking so-cially, they use different English. This language lab will give you everyday English phrases so you can understand what Americans are saying, answer quickly, and make new friends. Conversation Groups:
Practice speaking Eng-lish by level with USC students. This is an inter-active discussion in which you will participate in groups about several interesting topics. This is your opportunity to prac-tice and to ask questions to native speakers.
Monday, October 1, 2012
Time Location Description Facilitator
11-12pm
JEF 124 Writing to Impress (Levels 5-6) Heather
DRB 265 GRE/GMAT (Levels 4-6) James
JEF Courtyard
Conversation Level 1 & 2 Rachel
JEF Courtyard
Conversation Level 3 & 4 Jackie
JEF Courtyard
Conversation Level 5 & 6 Luke C.
12-1pm
JEF Courtyard Conversation Level 1-3
Luke C.
JEF Courtyard
Conversation Level 4-6 Jackie
VKC 202 Statement of Purpose: Introductions (Levels 4-6) Marisa 1:30-2:30pm
THHB10 Writing to Impress (Levels 5-6) Heather
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Time Location Description Facilitator
11-12pm
JEF Courtyard
Conversation Level 1-3 Luke C.
JEF Courtyard
Conversation Level 4-6 Rachel
JEF Courtyard
Conversation Level 1-3 Luke C.
12-1pm
JEF Courtyard
Conversation Level 4-6 Joyce
JEF 203 Speak English Fluently (Levels 1-3) Diana
1:30-2:30 VKC 202 GRE/GMAT (Levels 4-6) James
GRAD OPENHOUSE USC School of Architecture
Monday, October 22 at 5:00 p.m. Master of Architecture (Post-Professional, +2) Master of Building Science Master of Heritage Conservation Master of Landscape Architecture (Post-Professional,
+2, +3) Learn about our programs, connect with faculty and current students and tour our facilities. We are committed to an interdisciplinary approach to graduate studies and look forward to meeting with you.
RSVP: Laarni Cutidioc at [email protected] or (213) 821-2168
P A G E 3
Statement of Purpose Workshop (Levels 4-6): Learn how to write an amazing SOP for graduate school. Bring your draft in-troduction to this weeks session. See more detailed description online. 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.
Speak English Flu-
ently (Level 1-3): KNOW THE CODE! Maybe you can speak some English, but when you hear Americans talking so-cially, they use different English. This language lab will give you everyday English phrases so you can understand what Americans are saying, answer quickly, and make new friends. Conversation Groups:
Practice speaking Eng-lish by level with USC students. This is an inter-active discussion in which you will participate in groups about several interesting topics. This is your opportunity to prac-tice and to ask questions to native English speak-ers. Special Conversation:
Election 2012 (Levels 4-6) Americans will be
choosing their next Presi-dent on November 6th. Learn more about the process and the candi-dates.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Time Location Description Facilitator
11-12pm
JEF 124 Statement of Purpose: Introductions (Levels 4-6)
Marisa
JEF Courtyard
Conversation Level 1 Megan
JEF Courtyard
Conversation Level 2 Anastasia
JEF Courtyard
Conversation Level 3 Luke P.
JEF Courtyard
*Special Conversation: Election 2012* Levels 4-6
Blaire
12-1pm
JEF 124 Reading Power (Levels 1-3)
Marilyn
JEF Courtyard
Conversation Level 1,2 Anastasia
JEF Courtyard
Conversation Level 3 Luke P.
JEF Courtyard
Conversation Level 4-6 Blaire
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Time Location Description Facilitator
11-12pm
JEF 124 Statement of Purpose: Introductions (Levels 4-6)
Jeminah
JEF Courtyard
Conversation Level 1,2 Megan
JEF Courtyard
Conversation Level 3 Luke P.
JEF Courtyard
Conversation Level 4-6 Blaire
12-1pm
JEF 124 Speak English Fluently (Levels 1-3) Marilyn
JEF Courtyard
Conversation Level 1,2 Blaire
JEF Courtyard
Conversation Level 3 Anastasia
JEF Courtyard
Conversation Level 4-6 Luke P.
P A G E 4
Recipe of Healthy 5-minute Lunch for One
Yiqing Lin (Claire)
Are you tired of choosing sand-wiches, burgers or pizza for your lunch? Are you worried about your health( or your body shape) when you are eating those meaty, high-calorie foods? You may only need five minutes at night to prepare your-self a delicious, healthy lunch for to-morrow. Follow the recipe and find it out!
You only need a cucumber, a can of tuna, a lemon, and ¼ teaspoon of seasoning salt for this meal. You can start by strictly following this recipe, and then make your own version by being creative.
Directions: 1. Peel the cucumber, or wash it
thoroughly before use. Cut the cucumber into half at the long way, then cut the two pieces again into fourth. Then, cut them
into small pieces freely. (Tips: I usually cut the cucumber into bite-size because it feels better when you eat.)
2. Put the cucumber into your lunch box.
3. Open up a can of tuna, and drain
all the juice inside the can out. Drop the tuna into the lunch box too.
4. Cut the lemon into half. I prefer
picking out all the seeds before the next step. Then squeeze all the juice into the container (Enjoy SQUEEZING!!).
5. Sprinkle the seasoning salt onto
your meal. This step adds extra flavor into your lunch. So feel free to try different seasonings and choose your favorite!
6. The last step: mix all things up
with a fork and take it with you to school.
Notes: The ingredients are not nec-essarily fixed. You can add almost anything you want into the meal: e.g. fresh strawberries, raspberries, or even mixed nuts. The secret of this recipe is the lemon juice. With a hint of that, everything feels fresher.
You can find more of this kind of quick lunch ideas at Youtube. Search “Quick lunch” in the website, watch the videos and try your favorites out. If you are inspired by some of them, you can also videotape your creative recipe and share it with everyone else.
Moran Pei
My First Cooking
Experience in LA
It was not until last weekend
that I cooked by myself. In the past
21 years in my life, I never cooked
but just dined with my parents, or-
dered delivery or went to restau-
rants with my friends. When I ar-
rived in LA, I tried to do the same
thing in the first week; however,
soon I found it was much more ex-
pensive eating in a restaurant here
than in China, and obviously I
couldn’t bear to have every meal in
Burger King or Wendy’s. So finally
I decided to cook for myself.
On a lovely Saturday I went to
Ralph’s to buy some ingredients.
After wandering the supermarket, I
added chicken, shrimp, beef, three
kinds of vegetables (I don’t know
their names), and a lot of spices
into my cart and checked out.
Thanks to modern technology, I
googled something like “how to
cook chicken,” “how to cook beef,”
and “a complete collection of cook-
ing shrimp,” when I arrived home,
but suddenly I realized that if I
cooked all kinds of meats and vege-
tables, I would need to wash a lot
of dishes. I hate washing dishes, so
the plan A, making a feast, turned
into plan B, making one course.
Eventually I decided to make
fried chicken with vegetables, since
it seemed like a simple and nutri-
tious one. Surprisingly, the process
of cooking was pretty painless. I
thought that I might cut my finger
or burn the chicken into coals, but
actually nothing happened.
I followed the online guidance
step by step and made a really nice
and yummy course (at least I think
so). “I should apply for chef
school,” I told myself.
Moran learned to cook for himself here in L.A.
P A G E 5
Dan (Iris) Mu
Culture Differences in Diets be-
tween China and America
In China, there is an old saying: Food is the paramount necessity of the people. That is to say, people regard food as their prime want. As a result, my friend thought that knowing food well is the best strategy for me to quickly adapt to a new life. He took me to the university cafeterias, surrounding restaurants and local supermarkets. As a Chinese woman who is here for the first time, I strongly felt the subtle differences in diets which are due to dis-parate cultural backgrounds. There are many differ-ences in cultures which are reflected in diet.
One of the culture differences in diet is the time options for dinner. In China, people normally have three meals per day, breakfast, lunch and supper. They place emphasis on breakfast and lunch be-
cause they consider this habit as a regimen to keep healthy. They eat break-fast very early in the morn-ing, and they have lunch at noon. However, I find that American people just drink coffee in the morn-ing, and they eat lunch a little late (at 1 o’clock) in
the afternoon. Alternatively, they sometimes combine breakfast and lunch together as brunch which occurs at 10 or 11 o’clock in the morning.
The other culture differ-ence in diet is people’s attitude towards dinner. In China, the dinner’s proportion of all day’s food-intake is only 10% -20%. For health concerns, a lot of people usually eat less food than at lunch, and the choices of food also focus on easily digesti-ble, such as porridge or vegetables. On the other hand, Americans eat more energy food at night, and they also prefer to hold a formal banquet in the eve-ning while in China the banquet is usually held at noon.
Besides, under the far-reaching influence of tra-ditional medicine, one aspect of China's health life style is diet. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) believes the human body is a balanced system, and food is the most natural and safest drug when the body loses balance. TCM always encourages peo-ple to eat vegetarian and to have a limitation on the intake of meat. Therefore, most of the food in China mixes the appropriate proportion of coarse grains with meat and vegetables. Unfortunately, most peo-ple like to eat junk food which contains high-calories in the United States. Therefore, the cultural differ-ence is an indispensable factor which exerts a pro-found influence on different eating habits.
Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival Christy (Qiong ZHU)
This September 30 is a very important day for Chi-nese people. It is the Chi-nese traditional Mid-autumn Festival, which Chinese
named "中秋节".
Traditionally, this festival is for those farmers who had toiled on the soil to celebrate their harvest. However, with the advancement of agricul-ture and industry, this festi-val has been transformed into a one-day holiday in order to gather family mem-bers for dinner and join in
activities together. These activities include
eating mooncakes while en-joying the beautiful full moon, appreciating decora-tive lanterns, and burning incense.
The mooncake is a deli-cacy that is an integral part of this important occasion. Usually, the mooncake has a round shape with approxi-mately 3.9 inches in diame-
ter and 1.8 inches in thick-ness.
The filling, which is wrapped by a thin mooncake crust, is made from many different types of food, such as the lotus seed paste, salted duck egg yolks, sweetened bean paste, ham, sesame seeds, and abalone. Hence the flavor of moon-cake can be sweet or salty based on personal prefer-ence.
If you love ice cream, you cannot miss the various fla-vors of ice cream moon-cakes, like vanilla, choco-late, strawberry and so on. For those meat eaters, fresh pork mooncake is the best choice! The fresh pork mooncake is different from the other mooncakes in size, ingredients and taste.
Though its size is much smaller, it is much more popular with the people who live in the Yangtze River delta because they regard this kind of mooncake as freshest and best tasting. It needs to be eaten immedi-ately after it has been baked.
The crust tastes like puff pastry, and the filling is all pork which is still hot and even contains its delicious juice.
On the Mid-Autumn festi-val day, you can easily find the stores selling this type of mooncake because people line up for them. It is often said where there are fresh pork mooncakes, there are long queues.
Mooncakes are a special treat for the Mid-Autumn Festival in China
P A G E 6
iPhone 5 The Most Advanced—but Boring
Bovard Auditorium is the
venue for many concerts dur-
ing the academic year.
Zhonglan (Panda) Lin
Perhaps the biggest thing that has happened to the technology industry recently is the launch of iPhone 5.
According to Apple, within just 24 hours after the release of iPhone 5, pre-orders had reached 2 million, which doubled the record of iPhone 4S. However, as a big fan of Apple products, I’m a bit disappointed in iPhone 5 - it doesn’t astonish me as their previous products used to. I’m not saying iPhone 5 is not a top smartphone. In fact, the processor of iPhone 5, A6 chip, is twice as fast as the last genera-tion. And the use of liquid metal makes it 18% thin-ner and 20% lighter than its predecessor. So “the
thinnest, lightest, fastest iPhone ever” of course becomes the official slo-gan of iPhone 5. But the updated hard-ware of iPhone 5 seems to be boring and under-whelming. Recalling previ-ous surprises, such as the fresh multitouch interface of iPhone 3GS, or the to-tally new outlook of
iPhone4, or the smart voice-assistant of iPhone 4S, we expected another surprise this time, espe-cially when Apple is in a very competitive techno-logical industry in Steve Jobs’ absence.
To my surprise, the lar-ger but lighter and thinner phone is nothing about revolutionary changes but
more like a regular techno-logical development.
It seems like there will be the “thinnest phone in the world” every one or two months. After a time, is there anyone who cares that his phone is 0.5mm thicker or 20g heavier than
others’? I would rather make use
of this space to extend the battery life.
I still ordered an iPhone 5 anyway. As I said before, it is definitely the most ad-vanced phone at this mo-ment. But what if the next generation of iPhone is launched without any sur-prise?
Many other smartphone producers, such as Sam-sung, Nokia, Blackberry and so on, are all doing very well, and they are closely keeping their eyes on the smartphone market.
Yamashiro is a good place to date
and even propose to your girlfriend. If
you have never been there, you had bet-
ter go. Otherwise, you will regret it.
Yamashiro has a long history. It
means “Mountain Palace” in Japanese.
It was the dream of the Bernheimer
brothers in 1911 to build a hilltop man-
sion 250 feet above Hollywood Boule-
vard to house their priceless collection
of Asian treasures. Hundreds of skilled
craftsmen were brought from the Orient
to recreate an exact replica of a palace
located in the “Yamashiro” mountains
near Kyoto, Japan.
Now, Yamashiro is a Japanese restau-
rant which is located in Hollywood. It is
famous for its romantic atmosphere
there. Even though you have never been
there, you still can find it on the web-
site. There is software called Yelp. It is
such popular software we can use it to
find a best restaurant around us.
Yamashiro has five stars in Yelp. Its
reviews increased to 1298 in one month.
People who have been there for dinner
always take a picture and upload to
Yelp.
In order to share their happiness, they
usually write good recommendations on
the website. The food there is also fabu-
lous. Sushi has changed to American
ways. Some desserts there are not too
sweet, but they are made of cream.
Here are some pictures from Yama-
shiro. I hope you will have fun in Ya-
mashiro.
Life in L. A.
Yamashiro: A Romantic Restaurant in Hollywood by Xurui (Christy) Wang
Yamashiro was built in 1914.
Diners can enjoy a
panoramic
view of Los Angeles at
Yamashiro.
Movie Review
Resident Evil: Retribu-
tion by Rui (Christina) He
The fifth “Resident Evil” series came
out on September 14, and it successfully
ruined my two hours in a sunny Friday
afternoon. You don't have to watch the
four previous ones to understand the
movie, because it’s a totally empty-head
film with terrible acting, few storyline
but only simple scares.
As always, our unstoppable, half-
human, half–viral heroine Alice (Milla
Jovovich) has come to save the world,
again. This time, in order to stop the
Umbrella Corporation’s zombie plague
from spreading, she has to destroy their
evil underground facility, which dupli-
cated Tokyo, New York, Washington,
D.C, and Moscow to improve the virus
effectiveness.
Moreover, she also discovers an as-
tonishing fact that the Umbrella has
been using her and her allies as basic
cloning model of the virus experiments.
Suddenly, every friend seems suspi-
cious.
Although the “Resident Evil” series
at first was set as horror movies with
zombies and terrifying creatures, you
have to think twice before buying tickets
if you expect to be scared this time.
It seems that Paul W.S. Anderson’s
imagination has dried up because there’s
nothing new on the screen: zombies, a
big disgusting dog-like spider with
brains, aliens with axes, and nothing
more. However, if you are a big fan of
the “Resident Evil” video game, you
won’t regret it because it's actually a
first-person-spectating record of the
game in a real human version.
There’s a new face: Bingbing Li, a
well-known Chinese actress, partici-
pated in it and did a fair job. She played
Ada, an agent of the White House who
helps Alice escape from the facility.
As far as acting, she did well and she
obviously put much effort into practic-
ing her spoken-English so that you can
barely notice the Chinese accent. But
due to the script and the limited showing
time, she didn’t have the ability to win
the audience .
All in all, “Resident Evil” is a movie
with great special effects but no story-
line at all. Therefore I won’t recommend
it to anyone that I care about. But if you
insist, all that I have to say is “buy dis-
counted tickets and prepare to be
bored!”
P A G E 7
Media Highlights
Mengyao (Miya) Cheng
Several days ago, I saw a blog
named" A Love Story in 22 Pictures"
which has been reposted thousands of
times and has moved many people
around the world.
The story is about a 23-year-old
young man Taylor Morris and his girl-
friend. In the first photo, handsome
Morris is smiling in a navy uniform. It's
his first day in the army as a bomb dis-
posal officer. Unfortunately, his hard
work didn't bring him good luck. Dur-
ing a mission in Afghanistan, Taylor
lost all his four limbs.
Lying in the bed, he looked so weak
and tired. No one knew if he could sur-
vive, nor did anyone know how this
young man was going to live the rest of
his life without limbs. However, it was
always his girl friend, Michelle, who
encouraged him to never give up. And
she never gave him up.
When Taylor was under treatment,
she was right beside the bed. After he
was discharged from the hospital, she
carried him on her shoulders and went
everywhere they planned to go before
that accident.
In those pictures, they played on the
beach ; they went to concerts together;
they hugged as usual; they took photos
with smile. And finally, they stepped
into the church holding hands with
blessings from all the family and
friends.
Someone told me that love nowadays
is all about detachment. People are say-
ing “Goodbye" almost every second in
some corners of the world.
It's the true love between Taylor and
Michelle as well as their optimism that
gives everybody a life lesson. That is,
you can plan out life as much as you
want, but life has a plan of its own.
What you have to do is just look for-
ward, no matter what destiny may throw
at you.
To see the whole 22 pictures, visit:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/txblacklabel/
true-love-in-pictures-only-28m7
A Love Story in 22 Pictures
Taylor’s girlfriend Michelle never gave up on her sweetheart and gave the blogsphere an
important life lesson.
Music
Jazz Night
Thursday, October
4 7:00pm
Ground Zero Per-
formance Cafe
Free
This ongoing series of contemporary
jazz features top players in Thorn-
ton’s jazz programs performing in a
variety of student ensembles.
Film
Screening of "Assignment:
China" - China Watching
Thursday, October 4
4:00pm to 6:00pm
Annenberg School for Communica-
tion & Journalism
204
Film screening of “Assignment:
China,” China's new segment China
Watching, which tells the story of
American journalists' in Hong Kong
following the Communist Revolu-
tion in China. Led by USCI Senior
Fellow Mike Chinoy. Please go to
this website for more information:
http://china.usc.edu/
ShowEvent.aspx?EventID=3957
USC Language
Academy
Rossier School of
Education
Phone: 213-740-0080
Fax: 213-740-0088
Web: www.usc.edu/
langacad
EVENTS CALENDAR: SEPTEMBER 28-OCTOBER 4
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 [email protected].
Check out The Academy News online at www.usc.edu/langacad.Go to “Student Informa-
tion” and then click on “The Academy News.”
P A G E 8 S E P T E M B E R 2 8 . 2 0 1 2
FREE EVENTS Enjoy free events on campus dur-ing the semester. Please go to the Arts and Events Calendar for more details at http://web-app.usc.edu/ws/eo2/calendar/32/feature/2819
Football continued from p. 1
Panda said, “I couldn’t under-
stand the rules and didn’t know
why there were so many breaks
[in the game.]
Moran said, “It really
shocked me because it didn’t
look like a match between two
colleges. It looked more like a
professional league—huge sta-
dium. In China, the matches,
they just have a few hundred
people. The people behind me
were cheering for Cal, but they
didn’t have too many times to
shout for their team.”
True. USC walked away
with a big win. Fight On!
The USC Marching Band entertains spectators before and during the game.