Once there were two mice: They were friends. One mouse lived in the country;1mouse lived in the city. After many years the country mouse saw the city mouse. He said, "Come and see me at my house in the2." So the city mouse went. The city mouse said, "This food is not good,3your house is not good. Why do you live in a hole in the field? You4come and live in the city. You would live in a nice house5stone. You would have nice food to eat. You must come and see me at my house in the city."
The country mouse went to the house of the city mouse. It was a very6house. Nice food was set ready7them to eat. But just as they began to eat, they heard a great noise. The city mouse cried, "Run! Run! The cat is coming!" They ran away quickly and8. After some time they came out. The country mouse said, "I do not like living in the city. I like living in my hole in the field. For it is9to be poor and happy10to be rich and afraid."
Getting electricity has always been a problem for the 173 people living in Nuevo Saposoa, a small village in Peru, South America. However, things went from bad to worse in March 2015 after heavy rains damaged the only power cables in the area. The villagers were forced to use oil lamps, which are not only expensive but also dangerous because of the harmful gases they produce.
Luckily, researchers at the University of Technology (UT) in Lima, Peru heard about their problem and found a wonderful solution. They made a lamp that can be powered by plants and soil, both of which can be easily found in the Amazonian rainforest where the village lies. The lamp takes energy from a plant growing in a wooden box and uses it to light up an LED light bulb.
While that may sound amazing and even impossible, the science behind the idea is quite simple. As plants create their food (using the sun's energy, water and chemicals from the soil), they also produce waste which they return to the soil. Tiny animals in the soil eat this waste and they produce electrons—the building blocks of electrical energy. The UT team put special sticks inside the soil to capture the energy and keep it in the lamp's batteries for later use. The researchers say a single charge can power a 50-watt LED light for two hours —enough time for local villagers to get their evening work done.
The university gave ten Plant Lamps to the villagers of Nuevo Saposoa in October 2015. So far, they have been a huge success! Elmer Ramirez, the UT professor who invented the lamp, believes the Plant Lamp could help improve the lives of many people, especially in small rainforest communities, 42% of whom have no electricity.
O. Henry is one of the American famous short story writers. His novels expose (揭露) the darkness of capitalism (资本主义) from different points of view, describe the difficult life of lower class, and praise their friendship and love to happy life.
As we all know, O. Henry's endings are always unexpected. He would suddenly change the inner world of the characters in an unbelievable way. For example, The Cop and the Anthem is one of the typical surprising endings of
O. Henrys novels. And O. Henry just used this way to expose the reality of being unable to distinguish the good from the bad.
The artistic effects of O. Henry's endings don't always appear in the end. In The Cop and the Anthem, both an attractive woman and a well-dressed customer give readers a perfect feeling. In fact, they are not the people that we think, but they really exist in our society. Is everyone in upper-class noble, kind and well-behaved? Of course not, someone just puts their dirty behaviour under their beautiful mask. In short, O. Henry's endings expose the public moral (道德) of capitalism going from bad to worse in a humorous way.
An American woman living in Wisconsin (威斯康星州) offered to teach English to a Japanese woman who had moved into the same community. "Before each lesson, and on each and every visit," the American reported, "the Japanese lady brought me a gift-a book, some paper sculpture, flowers, or candy. It was embarrassing."
Unknowingly, this American was experiencing a part of protocol (礼仪) rooted centuries deep in the Japanese culture.
In America, valuable gifts are surely out. A proper (适宜的) behaviour on a gift is to take the person to dinner, or to an entertainment or a sporting event. On the contrary, gift-giving is a custom in Japan. According to Business Tokyo magazine, among the Japanese "gift-giving is a necessity, not only a small thing as in the West". In Japan the proper gift is thought to express the giver's true friendship, gratitude, and respect far better than words can, So if you plan to visit Japan or to have Japanese visit you here, be prepared.
So you know nowadays gift-giving plays a very important role in society. Now let's see what happens in other countries.
Australia is known for its kindness and honesty. So proper gifts, such as a business diary, a paperweight, or a coffee cup might be presented as a memento (纪念品) of a business meeting. At a trade show, T-shirts, ties, baseball caps, or a pin may be proper mementos. Anything more than these types of gifts could cause embarrassment.
What is the happiest thing for children? Of course, getting gifts from their parents is one of the happiest things for them. But what gifts do children like to get most and what gifts do parents like to give most?
As Senior Three students, we are not children any more. So we don't have Children's Day. But we can still remember what gifts we got in our memories and what gifts made us excited on Children's Day in our childhood.
Recently, a survey on Children's Day showed the results that 30.3% of the children wanted to get toys most while 28.8% of the parents wanted to give books most as gifts for their children.
I'm Ted. I have a cousin (call) John. He is six (year) old now and he is very cute. One day, his mother asked him to (draw) a picture. She put three oranges the table and told him to finish picture before she came back. Then she went out. Little john (think) it was too hard to draw so many oranges. Then he had idea. He ate one orange, and there were two oranges on the table. He thought he still had two oranges to draw. If there was only one, it would be much (easy) to draw. So he ate another orange, and there was only one orange. Finally, he drew one orange on the paper. When his mother (come) home, John gave the picture to her. a clever boy!
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A. but you can't see it before you reach the top B. and I learnt lessons from his experiences during our conversations C. I really got a lot from the mountain-climbing. D. I was too young to understand his words. E. It was so challenging for me because I was only ten years old. |
Whenever the sun dropped and the blue sky came up, my father and I used to climb the mountain near my house. Walking together, my father and I used to have a lot of conversations, He always told me, "You should have goals (目标) like climbing the mountain." Without the mountain-climbing, we couldn't have enough time to spend together, because my father was very busy. It gave me time to talk with my father and to be in deep thoughts as well as to develop my patience. Once we climbed a very high mountain. During the first few hours of climbing, I enjoyed the flowers and trees, and the birds' singing. But as time passed, I got a pain in both of my legs. I didn't want to climb. In fact, I hated it at that moment, but my father said to me, "You can always see a beautiful sky at the top of the mountain, . Only there at the top can you see all the nice things, just like in life. At that time, But later, I got to know hope and confidence (信心) . I found myself standing at the top of the mountain, and the sky was as clear as the crystal (水晶).
