Of all the  (tradition) festivals, the harvest festival can be found in almost every culture. This important agricultural festival takes place  all the crops have been gathered in. People celebrate  (show) that they are grateful  the year's supply of food. In ancient Egypt, the harvest festival  (celebrate) during the springtime—the Egyptian harvest season. It  (feature) a parade and a great feast with music, dancing, and sports. Today, in some  (Europe) countries, people decorate  (church) and town halls with flowers and fruit, and get together to celebrate over  meal. During the Mid - Autumn Festival in China, families gather to admire the  (shine) moon and enjoy delicious mooncakes.

Located beside Lake Geneva, the Olympic Museum houses more than 10,000 artificial objects and hours of interactive contents highlighting some of the best moments during the Olympics. Here are some of the museum's most moving moments.

The Olympic Park

The journey through the Olympic Museum begins in the Olympic Park, an 8,000-square-meter outdoor area in front of the museum overlooking Lake Geneva and the Alps. The park contains artwork and sculptures that show respect to the world of sport.

The first Olympic symbol

The "Olympic Rings" flag was designed by Coubertin in 1913. The rings represent the five continents that participate in the Olympics: Africa, Asia, America, Australia and Europe. The six colors include at least one color that is represented on the flag of every country.

The stadiums

The stadiums that host the Olympic Games are as much of a celebration of design as the games are a celebration of sportsmanship. Guests can explore plans and models of Olympic stadiums' past and present, including one of the games' most attractive stadiums, the Bird's Nest from Beijing 2008 Olympics.

The Olympic medals

Have you ever wondered what an Olympic medal looks like? The Olympic Museum has a room that houses every bronze, silver, and gold medal from every Olympic Games dating back to the first modern Olympics of 1896. Each medal design is a unique representation of the year and location in which the games were held.

    As a child, a fall left a big scar on one of my eyes. So my scarred, 1 and gray eye lived on with me.

    I walked with my face looking at 2 so people wouldn't see ugly me. Sometimes people laughed at me. I grew up imagining everyone 3 me.

    Yet mother would say, "Hold your head up high and 4 the world." She started when I was young. "If you do so, people will see your 5 soul." She continued this message 6 I wanted to hide.

    Those words have meant 7 things to me over the years. As a 8, I thought mama meant, "Be careful or you will 9 or bump into something because you are not looking." As a youth, though I tried to look down to 10 my shame, I found sometimes when I held head up high and let people know me, they 11 me. Mama's words helped me realize by letting people look at my face. I let them recognize the intelligence and 12 behind both eyes even if they couldn't see it on the 13.

    In high school I did well, 14 on the inside I still felt like a disable person. All I really wanted was to 15 everyone else. When things got really bad, I would cry to mama and she would look at me with 16 eyes and say, "Hold your head up high. Let them 17 the beauty inside."

    My mother's love and encouragement helped me overcome my own 18. I learnt to face the fact and appreciate 19.

    "Hold your head up high" has been heard many times in my home. The gift my mother gave me 20 in another generation. Because each of my children has felt its invitation.

Non-Credit Courses

The Pre-College Program offers non-credit courses. Students will experience college-level courses given by some of our college's leading experts and will receive written feedback (反馈) on their work at the end of the course. Pre-College students will also receive a grade of Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory and a certificate of completion at the conclusion of the program.

All non-credit courses meet from 9:00 a. m.-11:30 a. m. daily and may have additional requirements in the afternoons or evenings.

COURSE: Case Studies in Neuroscience

·June 11— July 2

·Leah Roesch

Using student-centered, active-learning methods and real-world examples, this course is designed to provide a fuller understanding of how the human brain works.

COURSE: Psychology of Creativity

·June 15—June 28

·Marshall Duke

Why are certain people so creative? Is it genetic (遗传的), or a result of childhood experience? Are they different from everyone else? This popular psychology course highlights the different theories of creativity.

COURSE: Creative Storytelling

·June 21 — July 3

·Edith Freni

This college-level course in creative storytelling functions as an introduction to a variety of storytelling techniques that appear in different forms of creative writing, such as short fiction and playwriting.

COURSE: Sports Economics

·July 19 — August 1

·Christina DePasquale

In this course we will analyze many interesting aspects of the sports industry: sports leagues, ticket pricing, salary negotiations, discrimination, and NCAA policies to name a few.

    There is a fine line between a parent who is active and open-minded and one that doesn't know when to let go. As my daughter, Nicole, prepares to leave home for college, I'm discovering how hard it is to stay on the right side of this line. When I hold onto the apron strings (围裙带) connecting, Nicole, eager to taste independence, tries to loosen my grasp. What results is an awkward mother-daughter, push-me, pull-you kind of tango.

    For the past two years, it's gone like this:

    Mother's question: "Have you thought of taking an advanced placement class so that you can earn college credit?"

    Daughter's response: "No, I'm not interested in that."

   ………

    I bit my lip a few times and Nicole shot me a few glares.

    Two months ago, she was accepted to a great university. However, I was still the mother having a hard time letting go. The night before the introductory meeting of the university, I had read the course catalog carefully and underlined courses which I thought looked good. We met on the campus the next afternoon, and Nicole's face lit up with excitement. "I have had my entire schedule figured out," she said. "Already?" I was astonished, thinking she should have discussed it with me. I examined the schedule. Nicole hadn't taken a single one of the courses I had suggested. Every course she had chosen exactly suited her interests. Just then I saw a mature, capable young woman with a sharp mind and the ability to shape her future. She no longer needed her mother evaluating every decision she made. I felt excited that she was my daughter, though still a bit sad.

    I reviewed the lessons carefully. Nicole has struggled to learn over the past 18 years: responsibility, sympathy, and hard work. There have been a few holes along the way. Still, she is well-equipped and eager to embrace the future. The next step, I recognized, was mine to take: giving my daughter and myself the independence we both needed.

Touring Cenotes

    My parents and I traveled to Mexico to visit my grandparents last summer, and we visited the cenotes (say-NO-tays), the natural swimming holes located on the Yucatán Peninsula. The term "swimming hole" might make you think that cenotes are just average, but cenotes are truly . I had the most exciting experience of my life exploring these wonders of nature.

    Thousands of years old, the cenotes formed and created sinkholes underneath. Though the ancient Mayans (玛雅人) used the cenotes as water , people can now swim, dive, take photographs, and admire local trees and life, all through water as clear as liquid diamond.

    In Cenote Azul, my parents, my grandparents, and I swam through water that seemed too blue to be real. I countless younger kids diving into the water from a small cliff, but I dared not to jump at first. I finally worked up the courage, and my try instantly put all my worries to rest.

    A few days later, we went to Cenote Ponderosa. We stayed in the sun-covered pond, where we floated while others did diving and took underwater photographs. Being surrounded by a valley of trees made everything else in the world seem to disappear.

    Grutas de Loltún were definitely the most magnificent of all the cenotes, even though there was no swimming involved. Grutas are caves, and the Grutas de Loltún are among the biggest caves on the entire Peninsula. Our guide, Carolina, walked us through several caves, where we saw many drawings thousands of years old on the cave walls! Just one brief look at those drawings made me feel like I had stepped back in time to a(n) era of history. Our group thought Carolina was joking when she claimed she could make the stalagmites(石笋) sing for us, but when she them, we heard what sounded like the words "Lol" and "Tun"—the name of the caves! I cannot imagine that a(n) played at a concert at Carnegie Hall would have been any better.

    Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula is filled with beauty, but the cenotes are a one-of-a-kind opportunity to commune with nature in a way that is impossible anywhere else on Earth, and I would not to do it all again.