Australian Billionaire Plans to Build “Jurassic Park” and Titanic II

Unlocking Word Meanings
Read the following words/expressions found in today’s article.

1. magnate [MAG-neyt, -nit] (n.) – a person who is rich and powerful, often in industry or in business

Example: People consider the Hiltons as hotel magnates for owning several hotels and resorts in 78 countries.

2. ancient [EYN-shuh nt] (adj.) – very old or coming from or belonging to a distant past

Example: Ancient objects and artifacts are displayed in the town’s museum.

3. enormous [ih-NAWR-muh s] (adj.) – unusually great in size or amount

Example: The Tokyo Skytree is an enormous tower.

4. replica [REP-li-kuh] (n.) – a close or exact copy of an object

Example: I came to see the replica of the dinosaurs in the national museum.

5. maiden [MEYD-n] (adj.) – done for the first time

Example: The new cruise ship will have its maiden trip by the end of this year.

Article
Read the text below.

Australian mining magnate Clive Palmer has recently revealed his plans to build a theme park with life-sized mechanical dinosaurs. Inspired by the movie Jurassic Park, the theme park will feature more than a hundred mechanical dinosaurs that are currently being built in China. At present, Palmer Coolum Resort, Palmer’s property, has already installed Jeff the T-Rex, while a 20-meter Deinosuchus is set to arrive by the end of April. With a name that translates as the “terrible crocodile,” a Deinosuchus might be the largest ancient crocodile that ever existed. With 165 robotic dinosaurs, Palmer Coolum Resort will probably be the world’s largest dinosaur exhibit. The theme park will be constructed in the resort’s golf course. Aside from being enormous, the animal robots will also be able to perform life-like movements such as blinking, swaying their tails, and lifting their chests. In addition to the Jurassic Park-themed attraction, Palmer also intends to construct a replica of Titanic, the historic cruise ship that sank in April 1912. Considered as one of the deadliest disasters in the sea, the Titanic tragedy took more than 1,500 lives. Named as the Titanic II, the replica will have the same dimensions, design, and classifications of the original ship. The replica will also offer tickets for first, second, and third class passengers. Titanic II’s construction will be complete by 2016 and will have its maiden voyage from Southampton, England to New York in the same year.

Viewpoint Discussion
Enjoy a discussion with your tutor. 

Discussion A

·         If you had a chance, would you visit Palmer Coolum's dinosaur exhibit? Why or why not?

·         Do you think Clive Palmer's plan to recreate the Titanic is a good decision? Please explain your answer.

Discussion B

·         What fictional movie characters and settings would you like to exist in real life? Why is that so?

·         How important is it to recreate historical events?

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Meet the Rock

meet the rock

it's had a hard life,

one meltdown after another,

freezing,

thawing,

testing the rock.

this piece of the ledge,

close up,

nearly tells a story,

swirling,

then petrified,

scraped,

abraded,

ever changing.

i was upset when

they blew up mountaintops

to put up whirlybirds.

some guy responding to my rant,

said they didn't blow up much of the mountain.

Will you feel the same about mountains as i do?
They're sacred kind of places,
with a place in our environment,
just as they are.
don't blow up rocks
for power.
please

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Sun Allergy, a Major Inconvenience in Daily Life

Unlocking Word Meanings
Read the following words/expressions found in today’s article.

1. invader [in-VEY-der] (n.) – a person or thing that enters a place by force in order to do harm

Example:  Body invaders, such as viruses, may cause fever.

2. outgrow [out-GROH] (v.) – to lose something (like a trait, behavior or condition) as a person grows older

Example: Laura outgrew asthma when she got older.

3. susceptible [suh-SEP-tuh-buh l] (adj.) – likely to be affected or harmed

Example: Stress makes people susceptible to colds and other illnesses.

4. slather [SLATH-er] (v.) – to apply or spread in great amount

Example: The woman slathered lotion on her body to prevent her skin from becoming dry and itchy.

5. wear off [wair awf, of] (phrasal v.) – to slowly disappear or decrease

Example: George began sneezing again after the effect of the drug wore off.

Article
Read the text below.

An allergy to the sun, called polymorphous light eruption or PMLE, reportedly affects 5% to 20% of the world's population. People with PMLE develop itchy red bumps and blisters on their skin and may even have a headache when exposed to the sun. This allergy arises when the body's immune system releases antibodies as the skin treats sunlight as an invader. Usually, people who got PMLE when they were young outgrow the sickness through increased sun exposure. However, those who got the sickness later on are likely to have it for the rest of their lives. Women are also more susceptible to PMLE than men, and the condition can sometimes be hereditary. Dr. Chris Adigun, a dermatologist at NYU Langone Medical Center, pointed out that skin color has nothing to do with sun allergies. Any person and not only those with light skin can have PMLE. Although its symptoms are rarely serious and disappear within hours, PMLE is a big inconvenience to people who suffer from it. Chelsey Madore, a makeup artist from California, said she has to change her lifestyle because of her sun allergy. She always has to be careful even with ordinary activities like walking through the park. According to Dr. Adigun, the best defense against PMLE is prevention. The dermatologist advised people with sun allergy to slather on sunscreen lotion with zinc oxide or titanium [tahy-TEY-nee-uh m] oxide. Dr. Adigun also stressed the importance of clothing, which unlike lotion, won't wear off.

Viewpoint Discussion
Enjoy a discussion with your tutor. 

Discussion A

·         What do you think would be the worst thing to be allergic to? Please explain your answer.

·         In your opinion, what is the best way to prevent or treat allergies?

Discussion B

·         Do you agree or disagree with the saying “Prevention is better than cure?” Why or why not?

·         How can we prevent ourselves from getting sick?

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Monday

monday

was another start,

a new week,

fresh with newness,

like the air

after a hard rainfall.

the beat was ever present,

a steady rhythm,

guiding us through,

not to,

tomorrow.

the newness would not last,

and would soon become old,

then Monday will roll around

again.

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Teacher Uses Art to Make Classes Interesting

Unlocking Word Meanings
Read the following words/expressions found in today’s article.

1. come up with [kuhm uhp] (v. phrase) – to discover or think of an idea

Example: The student came up with the solution after reading some textbooks.

2. stimulating [stim-yuh-ley-ting] (adj.) – encouraging or inspiring

Example: The stimulating environment helped the students feel lively during class.

3. ambiance [am-bee-uh ns] (n.) – the mood or atmosphere in a specific place

Example: Colorful chairs and tables create a happy and lively ambiance in the restaurant.

4. stand out [stand-out] (v. phrase) – to be obvious or noticeable

Example: The woman’s colorful dress stands out in the crowd.

5. critical thinking [KRIT-i-kuh l THING-king] (n.) – the ability to think logically or in an organized manner

Example: Professors teach critical thinking to aid students solve problems.

Article
Read the text below.

A French high school teacher in Maryland, USA came up with an artistic way to make learning more interesting and fun for students. Ryan Martinez, who teaches at Walter Johnson High School, said that the classroom mirrors the teaching style of an educator. So, he used his artistic skills and painted the ceiling tiles of his classroom to make a stimulating atmosphere and to encourage his students to have fun while learning. This creative project started a year ago when Martinez brought home a tile and painted it with blue. After installing the blue tile, the students saw it immediately as it stood out from the rest of the white tiles. Every weekend, Martinez spends 10 hours to paint other ceiling tiles of his classroom. But aside from his classroom, he also paints for other parts of the school, such as the math classroom. Martinez’s co-teacher Maggie Mesorly believes that colors can boost the students’ critical thinking and creativity in problem solving. Martinez also encourages students to help paint ceiling tiles during their break so they can feel more involved. According to some students, painting boosts their confidence and gives them new fun experiences. The French teacher also goes to Inwood House, a nursing home for adults with disabilities, to brighten up their ceilings, which in turn lightens up their rooms’ ambiance. Inwood House manager Meg Marshall commented that seeing the artworks on the ceiling make the residents feel much better.

Viewpoint Discussion
Enjoy a discussion with your tutor. 

Discussion A 

·         If you were Martinez’s student, would you like his teaching style of using art in class? Why or why not?

·         What do you think is the most effective way of teaching?

Discussion B

·         Aside from art, how else can teachers make their lessons interesting and fun for their students?

·         How do you think can students help themselves become more eager and interested in studying?

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Back this Album!

I was so tired I forgot to do Friday night music.
Oh yes, I forgot, it was not planned.
Spent yesterday dragging plastic out so we can till and plant.
All stove up as some might say today.
Hanging out in the sunny window
and found a reason to buy a new signed CD
and actually be part of funding the project!
We have seen Randy in person and have been amazed.
Bruce Katz is on Alexis Suter's DVD live at the Ramble.
So hope you too will support this worthy project, no matter where in the world you might be.

CKS is producing a new album...
Your opportunity to help
press this link to

Back this Album!


Here are the members of CKS...
 

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Psalm Challenge 101

Psalm Challenge 101

 

Psalm 101

King James Version (KJV)

101 I will sing of mercy and judgment: unto thee, O Lord, will I sing.

² I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way. O when wilt thou come unto me? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart.
³ I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me.
⁴ A froward heart shall depart from me: I will not know a wicked person.
⁵ Whoso privily slandereth his neighbour, him will I cut off: him that hath an high look and a proud heart will not I suffer.
⁶ Mine eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land, that they may dwell with me: he that walketh in a perfect way, he shall serve me.
⁷ He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house: he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight.
⁸ I will early destroy all the wicked of the land; that I may cut off all wicked doers from the city of the Lord.

 

King James Version (KJV) by Public Domain

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Mary's notes:

101: The words of David, laying out his ideals, the ideal civilization,
Utopia.
Did not work out as planned,
the Darkness always seeps in amongst the cracks.
This week, posting another story,
about spring,
and death,
and how even when you try very hard,
some things are destined,
no all things are destined,
to die.


　
　
　
　
　
　
　
An Apple Year
by Mary E. Gerdt
C 2013
all rights reserved



　

When I was in the second grade we went on a field trip to a farm. My childhood world was people, pavement, asphalt, stop lights, buildings, downtown small town US. Animals were squirrels and blue jays and crows nesting for the night before heading out to raid the corn fields of the flatlands of Illinois. But when we got off the bus (riding the bus was a treat for me in and of itself-I always walked to school), and smelled the fresh air and saw the animals and plants and fences, I knew this was the life for me. I wanted to live on a farm.
My Mom’s cousin Eleanor and Mom’s best friend Sissy, and Sissy’s Mom Dorothy were the other farmers that sealed my resolve to shake off the pavement and move to the peaceful side of life. “Don’t you just love livin’ with nature” Sissy said. “Yes” I said silently to myself as I read her Christmas card.
Dorothy, Sissy and Eleanor are gone now. I would venture to say their farms may be gone too, with development pressures nipping at what is left of the rural life around Midwestern small towns.

 
So when my innocent eyes saw the farm that my husband Fred grew up on, it was love at first sight for me. In a strange way I felt we belonged there even early on, although we would not move there until years later. I imagined all the things that must have happened there and turned out to be wrong about many of them. When I looked from the outside it seemed so simple, so loving, so orderly.
On our journey on our piece of the family farm, I have learned nothing is as it appears, nothing can be predicted, and nothing worth having is easy. We gave up a fortune for my dream of a farm. We gave up our peace now (then) for peace of the future (now). We flew by the seat of our pants and, along the way, Fred developed high blood pressure and diabetes. My doctor discovered I have had Multiple Sclerosis which I have feared for some years. Stress makes all these conditions thrive.
Somehow these health problems helped us focus away from the material world. When we look for the good in all these experiences, that is a part of it. It made us ask: what is all this but money and property? Nothing. Where can we go from here? Right through it, a friend suggested. Where else?







　
 
I know this is not the kind of story that recounts how we went on a vacation this year (because we did not), or that our children were successful in school (they are too old), or that we had a great year at work in our dream jobs (come on, is that ever really true anyway?).
This is the kind of story meant to tell you what really matters in the world.
When we saw the front yard tulips blooming in the spring, we couldn’t help but think of Ed and Augusta, Fred’s uncle and aunt who lived here. The tulips Augusta planted years ago have bloomed sporadically, usually a pretty sad showing of a tulip here and there, like they do when they finally fade forever. But this spring, the first after Augusta died, we saw more tulips and they were brighter than ever. They seemed to bloom forever. More colors.







It was a sign, I had to think, a message from Augusta. After Ed died we have referred to a particular local vulture as Ed. The vultures roost in the maple woods out back and circle all summer on the thermals on this bluff where we live. We imagined after Ed died he would have preferred to be a large bird soaring high overhead freed from the manmade obligations he found so tedious. Now fully at one with nature.
When Fred and I first moved to the family farm house, we were hopeful of the apple trees. They are large old trees in the yard. We explored restoring them but the neighbor said they never produce apples, they would die if you pruned them, and they were dying now.
You can’t. You won’t. It doesn’t.

 
So, much to our surprise two years later the apple trees bloomed and they produced apples. Was that a miracle? Spite at the neighbor? Or hope?
My scientist brother explained when apples are left to be wild, meaning not pruned, they produce every other year. He would know that. It made me relieved. We don’t prune and get apples every other year. In 1998, the ice storm pruned them for us. Like a bomb went off, our yard looked completely disturbing to us, a foreign appearance.
A few days after I turned forty, we were cleaning brush and I fell and broke my arm.　 Those apples again. I was seeing my connection to nature, like Sissy said. The apple trees broke and my arm broke: like a twig, my arm snapped.
Along now I began to wonder: Where did I come from? Why did I always seem at war? Why did I have scars on my face where I had not been cut? What was my former life? How could I be so detached from nature when I know only a few short generations ago I plucked and killed chickens to eat, I scrounged for food in the woods and washed in a creek.
Everyone did.
I wondered what my homeland had looked like? What plants did we have to eat? How did they survive the harsh weather? Is that why I am so attracted to Vermont?
I became sure I was a product of war, destined to reincarnate as warrior. Westphalia, Prussia was listed on the family tree my mother had made. My Internet search told me that Prussia was one of the last strongholds of paganism. Were our family members the pagans? Or the warriors? Or, somehow, a cross, tormented at times by two opposing worlds. I believe I am a product of both.

 
This house we live in is like a castle. I now call it Castle Rock. Hard as a rock, built on a stony hill. I imagined us living in such a stony German castle, thinking I had been here before.
Fred's family came from Prussia too.
This year, we finally trimmed the loose ends, patched and sewed up the tattered holes in our life and prepared for our new life together, here on what is now, finally, our farm. We were able to smile a little when the apple trees bloomed in such a profusion we worried it would finally be their last year. And when the apples came, they came on stronger than ever. Even our sad out of place zone five red and golden delicious apple trees that the neighbor said we planted too close together, bloomed and produced many scabby but sweet pretty apples.
In fact, many things about this year were special. The flowers never bloomed so well, the vegetables never tasted so good, and the pain was never quite so deep. The bad with the good. Mother Nature trying to cheer us up, balance the scales, sweeten our sour taste, to show me that nothing comes without a price. Nothing lives without dying.
The trees do watch us and try to cheer us up when all looks lost.
Do you believe?
So, although we have had a rough course to travel these past years, this experience has clarified a few things for us.
　

 
I can see things now from the apple trees’ perspective. We let them live all these years and have not pruned them, nor doubted their ability, nor made them conform. I believe they are grateful to us for that. We delight in watching their flowers in spring, growing apples some years which the deer gobble up during hunting season, the squirrels all year jump from tree to tree chased by our feral cat pride. In the spring, we pick up fallen branches and Fred cuts the bad limbs when he can reach them and his limbs allow him.
Different birds cycle in all year. Some in the winter eating bugs, cedar waxwings fly though on their migration and eat the blossoms, swallows return from the warm south and play catch with falling blossoms. Chickadees beg for food and follow us throughout the yard.
We are now “reduced” (or advanced enough) to see signs from nature around us. Were we just looking for a sign anyway? That we belonged? Does it matter? What do the apple trees think?
If the apple trees could speak, they might say:
Believe in nature. It is real.
Believe in love. Love is everything.
Bloom when you are happy.
Be who you were meant to be.
　

 
Don’t cry for apples not here this year. Next year you may get more than you dreamed of.
When someone you love dies and you were not able to express to each other how you really feel, look outside and there may be a flower blooming where there were none last year and let that be a sign to you. What could it hurt?
Go make friends with an apple tree.
When you wonder whether you should do this or that, better to at least just do something.
When you think life is fair, you must have been listening to a fairy tale.
Think about the poor old apple trees, scarred and old and gnarly and alive, ready to please us like a puppy dog, watching us all these years struggle to be ourselves and find our own way, now rewarding us with flowers and apples like we are the puppy.
And smiling in their own way.




　

 

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Yahoo Hires 17-Year-Old Programmer

Unlocking Word Meanings
Read the following words/expressions found in today’s article.

1. incorporate [in-KAWR-puh-reyt] (v.) – to include in something that already exists

Example: The manager incorporated the new policies in the SOPs of the office.

2. summarize [SUHM-uh-rahyz] (v.) – to say or express in a brief and short manner

Example: Her boss asked Riza to summarize the five-page report into two pages.

           

3. showcase [SHOH-keys] (v.) – to present or display in a positive manner

Example: The blog gives the businessman an opportunity to showcase his products.

4. shareholder [SHAIR-hohl-der]  (n.) – a person with shares in a company or any property

Example: Shareholders get a percentage of the company’s profit.

5. hesitation [hez-i-TEY-shuh n] (n.) – a pause because of doubt or fear

Example: Poorly written advertisements caused the buyer’s hesitation.

Article
Read the text below.

Yahoo has recently included a British high school student among its new employees after it bought the young programmer’s mobile app for $30 million. At 17, Nick D’Aloisio will start working with Yahoo to incorporate his app called Summly to the company’s selection of mobile apps. Nick still has a year and a half left for high school but is planning to make arrangements to take exams instead of taking classes. He is set to work at the Yahoo office in London, following the company’s ‘no telecommuting policy’. Summly is a mobile app that summarizes and simplifies web stories for mobile readers. Nick developed the app when he was only fifteen. The app came into reality through the funds provided by investors, such as Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, Wendi Murdoch, Ashton Kutcher, and Yoko Ono, who all later became shareholders of Summly. Nick and his team launched Summly in November last year. After only a month, Yahoo and other companies has already started trying to acquire the app. Brian Wong, founder of a mobile rewards company called Kiip, said that Nick's success can be attributed to Nick’s ability to showcase his vision for Summly without hesitations or doubts. In an interview, Nick said that his age was indeed an advantage, but so was the strength of his idea. He eagerly expressed optimism for his app, saying that people should not underestimate how powerful the app can become and how much opportunity the app can get from Yahoo.

Viewpoint Discussion
Enjoy a discussion with your tutor. 

Discussion A

·         Would you be willing to buy an app like Summly? Why or why not?

·         If you owned a start-up company like Summly, would you try to expand it or sell it to a bigger company? Please explain your answer.

Discussion B

·         Do you think teenagers nowadays are more innovative? Please explain your answer.

·         How would you support a child who shows an interest in business? Please explain your answer.

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