Saturday, August 23, 2008

My Happy Ending...

-This is actually my homework in English for Mr. Waid) :D

My Happy Ending…

Imagine yourself 15 years from now. Many of us are probably stable enough to stand with our own two feet. Or even better, many of us have already families of their own, stable jobs, successful careers, and contented lives. How sweet can our future be! How luxury! How euphoric to imagine! On the contrary, it’s not always like this. Many people are still having a hard time finding there “happy endings”. But I think I know a certain place where most “happy endings” are placed. Los Angeles, California is the place.

LOS ANGELES is the largest city in the state of California and the second largest in the United States. Often abbreviated as L.A. and nicknamed The City of Angels, it is rated an alpha world city, having an estimated population of 3.8 million and spanning over 498.3 square miles (1,290.6 km²) in Southern California. Additionally, the Los Angeles metropolitan area is home to nearly 12.9 million people who hail from all over the globe and speak 224 different languages. Los Angeles is the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populous and one of the most diverse counties in the United States. Its inhabitants are known as "Angelenos".
Los Angeles is one of the world's centers of culture, technology, media, business, and international trade. It is home to renowned institutions covering a broad range of professional and cultural fields, and it is one of the most substantial economic engines within the United States. Los Angeles also leads the world in producing popular entertainment — such as motion picture, television, internet content, video games and recorded music — which forms the base of its international fame and global status. The economy of Los Angeles is driven by international trade, entertainment (television, motion pictures, and recorded music), aerospace, technology, petroleum, fashion, apparel, and tourism. Los Angeles is also the largest manufacturing center in the United States. It is also one of the most important ports in the world, and vital to trade within the Pacific Rim. To add more fuel to the flame, crime rates are significantly low in L.A. According to the LAPD crimestat and epolice website, Los Angeles has been experiencing significant decline in crime since the mid-1990s, and hit a record low in 2007, with 392 homicides. Criminality peaked in 1992 with 72,667 recorded acts of violence — of which 1,096 were homicides — and 245,129 recorded property crimes. The year before, Los Angeles recorded 1,025 murders. See? What more could you ask for? A competitive place to live in for business tycoons, and a safe place to live in for families of today.

Though I have described L.A. as a paradise, it still has a shortcoming that is needed to be coped up. They have a great environmental issue. POLLUTION. Owing to geography, heavy reliance on automobiles, and the Los Angeles/Long Beach port complex, Los Angeles suffers from air pollution in the form of smog. The Los Angeles Basin and the San Fernando Valley are susceptible to atmospheric inversion, which holds in the exhausts from road vehicles, airplanes, locomotives, shipping, manufacturing, and other sources. Unlike other large cities that rely on rain to clear smog, Los Angeles gets only 15 inches (381 mm) of rain each year: pollution accumulates over many consecutive days. Issues of air quality in Los Angeles and other major cities led to the passage of early national environmental legislation, including the Clean Air Act. More recently, the state of California has led the nation in working to limit pollution by mandating low emission vehicles. As a result, pollution levels have dropped in recent decades. The number of Stage 1 smog alerts has declined from over 100 per year in the 1970s to almost zero in the new millennium. Despite improvement, the 2006 annual report of the American Lung Association ranks the city as the most polluted in the country with short-term particle pollution and year-round particle pollution. In addition, the groundwater is increasingly threatened by MTBE from gas stations and per chlorate from rocket fuel. With pollution still a significant problem, the city continues to take aggressive steps to improve air and water conditions.

It doesn’t really matter where you live… What matter most is HOW you lived your life. Make your life worth living for. Because life is too uncertain for us. But if you ask me where can I enjoy living my life to the fullest? I say Los Angeles is the best!

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