You've got mail…and it's a postcard
Paulo Magalhaes, a 34-year-old Portuguese computer engineer, loves to open his mailbox and find a brightly colored picture of Rome's Colosseum. Or Africa's Victoria Falls. Or China's Great Wall.
"I often send postcards to family and friends." he says to China Daily, "but you can imagine that after a while, you never receive as many as you send, and you realize that not everyone is into it ” Seeking other like-minded souls, however, Paulo started looking in a somewhat unlikely place: online. Many would say the Internet is a place for people who have given up on the traditional postal service, but Paulo's hunch（直觉）paid off.
Today his hobby has developed into the website postcrossing.com, a social network that has grown to 575,217 registered users in 214 countries and regions since he started it 10 years ago. Running the website has almost turned into a full-time job.
Language is certainly a barrier for many people. For postcrossing to work worldwide, a common communication language is needed so that everyone can understand each other. As cool as it may be to receive a postcard written in Chinese, the concept doesn't work if one doesn't understand it. So a common language is required and in postcrossing that's English since it's widely spoken.
"Many people in China have limited exposure to English. That said, we know of many postcrossing members, including Chinese, who have actually improved their English skills through their use of postcrossing," Paulo says.
A. And that's totally fine.
B. That makes it extra hard to learn and practice it.
C. He likes to think of sending postcards as a family-friendly hobby.
D. Many love to make a connection with someone from across the world.
E. On August 5, the number of postcards exchanged by members topped 31 million.
F. Similarly, if you speak only Chinese, receiving a card in Swedish takes part of the fun away.
G. In short, he loves postcards, and the excitement of getting a hand-written note from someone far away.
Swap, Don't shop!
You keep hearing about recycling, right? But it doesn't end with bottles, cans, and paper. Clothing takes a huge amount of natural resources（资源）to make, and buying loads of new clothing（or throwing out old clothing）is not healthy for the environment. So what to do with all those perfectly-good-but-you're-maybe-a-little-sick-of-them clothes piled on your bedroom floor? . It's the best way to get rid of your used clothes, score clothes from your friends, and have a party all at the same time.
A successful swap depends on the selection of clothes, the organization of the event, and, obviously, how much fun is had. It's really easy to do! Here are a few pointers.
●Invite 5—10 people so you have a nice selection. , and there may not be enough things to choose from; more than that, and it becomes uncontrollable.
●. They should also prepare plenty of reusable bags to carry their "new" clothes home.
●Put different types of clothing on different surfaces in the room.. Place a few mirrors around your room so people can see how things look when they try them on. One of the ground rules of the swap should be that everyone must try on the clothes before they take them—things always look different when you put them on.
●Set a starting time. Maybe you say "go," or turn on a certain song, or whatever. . And don't forget to put out some cookies and fruits. Remember, it's a party!
A. Less people than that
B. Hold a clothing swap
C. If two people are competing
D. Just keep music playing throughout
E. Donate whatever clothes are left over
F. Have everyone put their clothes in the right spots
G. Tell everyone to bring clean clothes in good condition
According to Jessica Hagy, author of How to Be Interesting, it's not difficult to make yourself interesting at a dinner party.
, if you're out of your comfort zone or if you're wandering into somebody's house for the first time. So the main thing is just to show up and be adventurous, trying different foods and talking to strangers.
People love to talk about themselves. If you can start the conversation with a question other than “What do you do for a living?", you'll be able to get a lot more interesting conversation out of whomever it is you're talking to. . it can bring in "I have this old, broken-down vehicle" or "I rode the bus with these crazy people who were laughing at silly jokes in the back." It just opens up conversation.
? If you can't take their wine away, you should certainly try to take away their soapbox （讲台）.If you're the host, you can ask them to help you in the kitchen with something and just remove them from the situation.
And what about that other dinner-party killer: awkward silence? If you're faced with an awkward silence at a dinner party, the only thing that always gets everyone talking again is to give the host a compliment (赞扬).. Just quickly tun around and say, "This cake is extremely delicious and you have to tell me all about it.”
So being interesting at a dinner party isn't that hard.
A. How do you know the host
B. The first step is to go exploring
C. If you ask the question "How did you get here?',
D. Be prepared to have awkward conversations with strangers
E. Or turn the conversation into a topic where they have little to say
F. What about that person who has had too much to drink or won't stop talking
G. He or she is the person who is feeling the weight of that awkwardness the most
My husband and I just spent a week in Paris.So the first thing we did was rent a fantastically expensive sixth-floor apartment the size of a cupboard. It was so tiny that we had to leave our suitcases in the hallway.
The place wasn't entirely authentic, though. Unlike a normal Parisian apartment, the plumbing ( 水管 ) worked. Our building even had a tiny lift with a female voice that said, "Ouverture des portes," in perfect French. That is the only French phrase I mastered, and it's a shame I don't have much use for it.
Parisians are different from you and me. They never look lazy or untidy. As someone noted in this paper a couple of weeks ago, they eat great food and never gain weight. French strawberries do not taste like cardboard. Instead, they explode in your mouth like little flavor bombs.
On our first morning in Paris, I went around the corner to the food market to pick up some groceries. I bought a handful of perfectly ripe small strawberries and a little sweet melon. My husband and I agreed they were the best fruit we had ever eaten. But they cost $18!
In France, quality of life is much more important than efficiency.
You can tell this by cafés life. French cafés are always crowded.When do these people work? The French take their 35-hour workweek seriously — so seriously that some labor unions recently struck a deal with a group of companies limiting the number of hours that independent contractors can be on call.
A. Not all the customers are tourists.
B. The quality of life in France is equally excellent.
C. There was a nice kitchen and a comfortable bed.
D. The amazing food is mainly consumed by local farmers.
E. That's not the only reason the French eat less than we do.
F. Our aim was to see if we could live, in some way, like real Parisians.
G. The food is so delicious that you don't need much of it to make you happy.
You run into the grocery store to pick up one bottle of water. You get what you need, head to the front, and choose the line that looks fastest.
You chose wrong. People who you swear got in other lines long after you are already checked out and off to the parking lot.
It turns out, it's just math working against you; chances are, the other line really is faster.
Grocery stores try to have enough employees at checkout to get all their customers through with minimum delay.Any small interruption - a price check, a chatty customer-can have downstream effects, holding up an entire line.
If there are three lines in the store, delays will happen randomly at different registers. Think about the probability:So it's not just in your mind: Another line probably is moving faster.
Researchers have a good way to deal with this problem. Make all customers stand in one long, snaking line- called a serpentine line - and serve each person at the front with the next available register.This is what they do at most banks and fast-food restaurants. With a serpentine line, a long delay at one register won't unfairly punish the people who lined up behind it. Instead, it will slow down everyone a little bit but speed up checkout overall.
It takes many registers to keep one line moving quickly, and some stores can't afford the space or manpower. So wherever your next wait may be: Good luck.
A. Why does this always seem to happen to you?
B. So why don't most places encourage serpentine lines?
C. Some of the may have stood in a queue for almost an hour.
D. The chances of your line being the fastest are only one in three.
E.How high is the probability that you are in the fastest waiting line?
F.With three registers, this method is much faster than the traditional approach.
G.But sometimes, as on a Sunday afternoon, the system gets particularly busy.
