Michigan couple Steve and Debra Mejeur received a very special Christmas surprise this year. They were reunited with their beloved pet dog, Lola, who went missing over three years ago.
In October 2017, the couple and then 5-year-old Lola were visiting a friend in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, which is about three hours from their home in Kalamazoo. Somehow, Lola escaped from the fenced-in backyard of their friend's home.
The couple tried desperately to find Lola after she went missing, and stayed in Illinois for the night to search for her. Debra said they joined every Facebook group she could find in the community in an attempt to locate the pup. The couple spent about a month looking for her, making the three-hour trip from their home every weekend. They posted in the Facebook groups for two years to try to get any leads, but came up empty-handed.
So, she was shocked when she received a message on December 3 stating Lola had been found, advising her to contact the Dupage County Animal Control in Illinois. Debra immediately called the shelter. The lady on the phone quickly responded, "Are you Debra?" "I started shaking and crying," Debra said. "I couldn't stay still. I was pacing back and forth the whole time. I was overwhelmed by so many emotions. I was in disbelief and shock because it's been 3 years. I was relieved that she was finally safe."
"It took her a little time to recognize me," Debra explained. "When she finally came up to me, she did a small sniff, licked my forehead and that's when she knew. Her tail started wagging and she turned into an excited dog! She heard my husband laughing from about 20-30 feet behind us and ran right to him without any hesitation." Debra said Lola's personality hasn't changed at all, adding she even remembers her commands. "It's like she's never been gone," she said.
Feeling exhausted at the end of a long day of video-conferencing? Do your back, shoulders and mind ache after a Zoom meeting marathon? Do you miss the morning small talk at the office's water fountain and the face-to-face interaction with your favourite colleague?
If you answer yes to any of these questions, believe me, you're one of millions suffering from Zoom fatigue (疲劳), named after the popular video-conferencing app. Recent figures in fact indicate that four in 10 remote workers report suffering from a sense of physical and mental exhaustion that accompanies the long screen engagement and the lack of face-to-face interaction during the workday.
In March 2020 — when the World Health Organisation declared the COVID-19 pandemic — there was a sudden and violent impact on work habits. Employers rushed to shift their workforce to remote working globally. Although the rush toward remote working and virtual learning has its advantages — think, for example, of how much shorter commutes (通勤) are — it does not come without costs. The clinical community has widely acknowledged the threat that Zoom fatigue poses to mental health.
Zoom fatigue has become so widespread that a group of scientists from the University of Gothenburg and Stanford University developed the Zoom Exhaustion and Fatigue Scale. This scale might be used as an assessment tool to better understand this condition.
The specific causes of Zoom fatigue are still unknown, but it is widely accepted that one of the contributing factors is the worker's urge to multitask during video calls. This phenomenon, which is also common in distracted driving, is motivated by our tendency to stay active following boredom or a short break in job performance.
While the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health are still unknown, it is not too far-fetched to expect that should this issue not get properly addressed, it would add to the mental and physical burden that COVID-19 will have had on remote workers, and the population as a whole.
The effects of noise can reach living things without ears. Because of the way they rely on each other, noise pollution may actually stop some forests from growing, a new study suggests. In a New Mexico woodland where pinyon trees (矮松) are the most common trees, researchers found far fewer seedlings (幼苗) in noisy sites than they did in quiet ones.
The study area is dotted with gas wells, some of which are quiet and some of which have machines that create continuing loud noise. This allowed Phillips, a behavioral ecologist at Texas A&M University-San Antonio and her colleagues to compare sites that were similar except for noise level.
In areas that had been noisy for at least 15 years, the researchers found only about 13 pinyon seedlings per hectare (10,000 square meters), compared with 55 pinyon seedlings per hectare in quiet areas. The noise also seemed to affect the rest of the plant community, with different wildflowers and bushes occupying the main species in loud versus quiet sites.
The differences in plant growth were probably caused by changes in animal behavior, said Phillips. For example, noise might drive away certain pollinators (传粉媒介) such as bees, bats and moths. In the case of pinyon trees, the problem was likely a lack of animals to spread seeds. Pinyon trees depend on certain birds to carry their seeds away from the parent tree, and the very birds are known to avoid noise.
Pinyon trees are slow-growing, with most of the mature trees in such woodlands being over a century old. Moreover, pinyon trees only produce seeds once every five to seven years, so it takes a long time for them to recover.
The findings suggest noise pollution is more than a mere nuisance, according to the researchers — it could be a serious threat with the power to transform ecosystems.
How to Handle Bullying (霸凌)
Bullying is not a sign of strength; it's a sign of weakness. People who bully may well have been bullied themselves or else they feel powerless in some other areas of their lives. They bully to give themselves power or control over something.
But they all cause suffering and stress-related illnesses to their victims. Bullyi ng isn't just physical. Emotional bullying can be just as cruel. Bullying is being constantly criticized, threatened or verbally (语言地) abused. What should you do if you are being bullied?
Write a formal letter of complaint to the bully highlighting what they are doing to you and how it makes you feel. State that although you do not wis h to take further action, you would be forced to do so should the bullying continue.
This may seem like a difficult option if you are essentially a passive person. However, having more trust in yourself will not only help you to cope with bullying behavior, it can assist you in all other areas of communication in your life and help to improve relationships and your self-confidence. When the bully realizes that he or she can't control you, you are one step closer to solving the problem.
Make the bully your friend. However, when you make an attempt to understand their feelings and the reasons behind the bullying, you will no longer feel so threatened by their behavior.
A. Learn to be more confident in yourself.
B. Contact a bully support line or appropriate organizations.
C. To handle bullies, we have to understand why they harm others.
D. They generally pick on the weak, who they feel will not fight back.
E. Bullying takes on many forms and there are different types of bullying.
F. This is hard, especially when you are handling negative feelings like anger and mistrust.
G. Besides, copy the letter to your teacher, manager or lawyer, depending on who is bullying you.
Daniel Hernandez always knew he wanted to help people. He felt 1 by the good deeds that responsible lawmakers can do, so in his junior year at the University of Arizona, he declared a major in 2 and began volunteering in political campaigns. One of his heroes was his local congresswoman, Gabrielle Gi ffords.
He was 3 when he was picked for an internship (实习) with her, and he gladly 4 a part-time sales job for the chance to work on her team. So 5 was he that he started work four days early. On the first day, he was told to 6 people and guide them into a queue so each could get a photo 7 with the congresswoman.
At 10:10 a.m., Daniel heard loud popping sounds. "Gun!" someone 8. He heard people screaming and saw some 9 to the ground. Daniel was standing 30 feet away from Giffords when she was shot. In 10, he was at her side.
Everywhere around him was 11, but Daniel willed himself to remain 12. "I tried to tune everything out and keep an intense 13. I didn't want to let my emotions become part of the problem."
Giffords was lying on the sidewalk; blood was streaming down her face from a bullet 14 to her head. Gently, Daniel lifted her into a sitting position against his shoulder 15 she wouldn't choke on her blood. Then, with his bare hand, he applied 16 to the wound on her forehead to slow the flow of blood. She was 17, so he calmed her and told her all would be fine.
Nineteen people fell victim to a crazy man with a deadly weapon that day. Six people died. Giffords, though seriously wounded, 18 — partly because of Daniel's quick and selfless actions. Recalling that day, he 19 it simply. "Sometimes, I wonder if there was a 20 for me to be there."
The U.S. Library of Congress contains 167 million items, has 838 miles of bookshelves and adds 12,000 articles of history daily. It is one of the largest libraries in the world, which (set) up on the same day in 1800 as President John Adams signed a bill, (order) the seat of government to be transferred from Philadelphia to the new capital city of Washington.
As its name suggests, the library was (origin) for members of Congress only, but its role as the leading research arm of the government (expand) up to now. Anyone 16 and (old) may get a library card and use the collections on site.
the main office of the library is in Washington, it has offices around the world. Its collection includes materials in 470 (language). The library is home to a Gutenberg Bible and a 1507 world map that is the first known document on which "America" appears.
The Librarian of Congress is a title has been held by 14 librarians since 1800. Carla Hayden, current librarian, is the first woman and first African-American (hold) the post."If you can absorb information yourself and make your own decisions, that's a freedom," Dr. Hayden told The Times last year.
Not until recently have I known that a little pet can be such a helpful assistant to a helpless mom. This is all due to what our new family member, a little kitten named Thula, has done. She seems to understand exactly what Iris needs at any given time.
Within a year of my daughter's birth in 2015, I already suspected that something was wrong. Even by babies' standards, Iris was a frighteningly bad sleeper. She also appeared unmistakably distant. Besides, after saying "dada" at eight months, she stopped talking. Finally, aged two, she was diagnosed as autistic.
In fact, after a long process of trial and error, I found activities that obviously did help her, including music and riding on the back of her dad's bike. Above all, Iris showed a remarkable talent for art: producing large multi-layered Impressionist-style paintings that took her several days and that once led to the Leicester Mercury headline, "Top artist aged 3."
Iris did make progress, but by no means steadily, with promising developments often followed by periods of regression (退步).
One night, Iris refused to sleep. As her frustrations mounted, she started to cry, and her sobs filled the quiet room. I felt so hopeless as I held her close. Nothing seemed to comfort her apart from her favorite book and I longed for some help, but she pushed away all who tried except me, making me on the edge of breaking down.
Downstairs, my husband looked at Thula in surprise who had suddenly got up off his lap. Her eyes focused towards the door and she had one foot raised, perfectly poised(悬在) in the air. Something had grabbed her attention – the crying of Iris. Then her legs were moving fast. Zooming round the corner, she flew up the stairs into Iris's bedroom and jumped onto the bed. She curled up next to Iris, ignored the cryin g and started grooming(梳毛) herself, licking her paws and rubbing them over her ears.
注意：
1）所续写短文的词数应为150左右；
2）至少使用5个短文中标有下划线的关键词语；
3）续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语已为你写好；
4）续写完成后，请用下划线标出你所使用的关键词语。
Paragraph 1:
Almost immediately, Iris's mood changed.
Paragraph 2:
I was curious about the silence, then returned to the door of Iris's room and looked in.
