Wonder Plates
A unique, personalized gift!
Wonder Plates offers you a unique gift opportunity- a personalized ceramic(陶瓷的)plate! Each plate contains a special message from you to your best friend or loved one. All you have to do is follow these three steps:
Step 1
On an A4 sheet of paper write a personal message. Write it exactly as you want it to appear on the plate. We recommend a typewritten printout. The message should not be more than 50 words.
Step 2
Select one of our 10 plate colour options and a design from one of our 12 design patterns.
Step 3
Sign the attached form, enclose your personal message, and send these to us together with your payment. Please send only money orders or cheques. Do not send cash.
Charges
The charge for a standard-sized plate is $ 20 regardless of the colour you choose. A fixed charge of $100 per plate for the design and printing of the message is also payable. For orders of two to four plates, customers may get a 15% discount. For orders of five to ten plates, the cost of per plate is reduced to $12 and the design and printing of the message is just $75 per plate.
Delivery
Once we receive your order and payment your plate(s) will be sent via regular mail. Delivery can be expected within 14 business days. If you require a faster delivery time, please fill in the Urgent Form and send an additional $30 (guaranteed 3-day delivery). We guarantee your satisfaction, but if for some reason you are not satisfied with our product or service, please fill in the Consumer Feedback Form and send it to our Customer Service department. Alternatively, you may call one of our friendly Customer Service Officers at 122523.
In 1990, Hal Donaldson was 23 years old, fresh out of college and found himself in Calcutta, India, where he was asked to interview Mother Teresa.
Donaldson says about the great woman famed for feeding the hungry," She wasn't wearing shoes and her ankles were swollen. She sat down with me and was very polite." After the interview, Mother Teresa asked him," What are you doing to help the poor?" Donaldson admitted that he was young and wasn't focused on helping others. With a smile on her face, Mother Teresa said," Everyone can do something."
Those words deeply struck Donaldson and forced him to face some hard truths about himself.
Hal Donaldson grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. When he was 12 years old, his parents were hit by a drunk driver; his father died, and his mother was seriously injured. To make ends meet, they went on welfare. Donaldson says ," I had holes in my shoes and clothes, When you're teased at school for that, you just want to escape."
He managed to do just that. Donaldson got into college and turned his focus to making money for himself. He says ," I was just trying to find my way out of insignificance. However, it's easy to overlook others along the way. I was the guy that would see a homeless person and cross the street, so I didn't have to confront him. My focus was on climbing to the lop instead of helping those trying to climb with me."
Donaldson returned home from India with a different thought. He traveled to eight cities in America and stayed on the streets and listened to stories of the homeless. " My heart broke ," he says," I knew I could no longer just live for myself."
Inspired by Mother Teresa's words and the stories he'd heard across America, Donaldson loaded a pick—up truck with $300 worth of groceries and handed them out to anyone who needed help. In 1994, Donaldson created the nonprofit organization, Convoy for Hope, which works with communities across America and around the world. Their work focuses on feeding children, women's empowerment, helping farmers and disaster services.
Imagine a world without insects. It might sound good at first without creepy-crawly bugs and annoying flies in your apartment. However, the consequences would be disastrous.
The number of insects has dropped by more than half in the past decades, according to British biologist Dave Goulson, author of Silent Earth: Averting the Insect Apocalypse. As insects make up most of the known species on this planet, this data is not good news, The Guardian reported on July 25.
Insects are indeed on the path to extinction, according to the first global scientific review of insect population decline, which was published in the journal Biological Conservation in January 2019. The researchers say intensive agriculture has been the main cause of the decline. Pesticides, in particular, destroy insect habitats. Urbanization and climate change are also significant factors.
"Unless we change our ways of producing food, insects as a whole will go down the path of extinction in a few decades," the researchers wrote in the review. "The repercussions(影响) this will have for the planet's ecosystems are catastrophic to say the least."
What would happen to Earth without insects? It's almost impossible to predict, but the consequences would be far-reaching. We need insects to pollinate(授粉) crops, recycle plant and animal material, keep the soil healthy and much more. Without insects, many animals would have nothing to eat, and the predators of those animals would go hungry as well. The ecosystem would be thrown off balance.
"If insect species losses cannot be halted, this will have catastrophic consequences for both the planet's ecosystems and for the survival of mankind," said Francisco Sanchez-Bayo at the University of Sydney, Australia, one of the authors of the review.
The first step to halting this process is "to engender a society that values the natural world, both for what it does for us and for its own sake", Goulson suggests. "The obvious place to start is with our children, encouraging environmental awareness from an early age."
With low temperatures, radiation and high-energy particles, the vacuum of space is nothing but harsh(严酷的). Can you imagine spending six hour walking in space? Chinese astronauts did just that on their latest spacewalk.
On Aug 20, Chinese astronauts Liu Boming and Nie Haisheng went out on the second spacewalk of the Shenzhou XII mission, according to the China Manned Space Agency. The pair set up and adjusted equipment, showed their spacesuits and tested the large robotic arm and other spacewalk-related devices.
Despite the astronauts' skill, spacewalking is a challenging task. Luckily, their bulky(臃肿的) spacesuits protect them. A spacesuit is like a small space station. It has everything astronauts need when they carry out a spacewalk.
China's Feitian spacesuits have six layers. The innermost layer collects astronauts' urine(尿液). There are also four layers that help control the temperature and air pressure inside the suit. Spacesuits are filled with air, so they look like they're puffed up(膨胀). The sixth layer is made of special fibers that cover astronauts from radiation, according to The Paper.
Astronauts are connected to the space station with safety ropes. The suit has headphones and speakers for astronauts to communicate. There is also a mirror on the wrist that astronauts can use to check their suits.
The first Feitian suit was made in 2008. Zhai Zhigang wore it to carry out China's first spacewalk, which lasted about 19 minutes.
The suits Chinese astronauts wear today are the second generation of Feitian. They can support longer walks lasting up to eight hours and can be used more often. The first generation could only be used five times within two years, while the second generation can be used 15 times within three years. Each suit costs around 30 million yuan, and it takes four months to make just one according to Ifeng News.
a. headphones b. speakers c. mirror
d. radar e. compass f. safety ropes
Feeling embarrassed is something that no one really likes.If you're worried about embarrassing situations and you have trouble dealing with feelings of embarrassment, take a look at the following tips to make things better.
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When learning to deal with embarrassment, the first big thing that will help you is to realize that embarrassing moments are in the past. These things have already occurred and there is nothing that you can do to change them. It might have been tough to get through those moments, but you're here now and everything is okay.
●Talk to someone about how you're feeling.
If you're struggling with feelings of embarrassment, then you should try to talk to people that you trust.You'll likely find that these people will put things into perspective and you'll feel much better.
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Embarrassment might feel tough to get over. However, normal embarrassing moments might become things that you can just shrug off and laugh at eventually. When you think about things from the right perspective, you might be able to laugh at yourself for making a silly mistake or falling down.
●Get out there and try again.
The fear of embarrassment should not hold you back from getting out there to try again. If you want to move past embarrassment for good, then the best way to do that is not to let it stop you from living your life. This could mean doing the same thing that embarrassed you in the past. You might be worried about reliving embarrassing moments from the past, but it doesn't have to be this way.
A. Learn to laugh at the situation.
B. Understand that embarrassments are in the past.
C. Don't worry so much about things and be ready to go out there and give it your all.
D. Know that you don't need to apologize for feeling embarrassed.
E. Of course, this might depend on the level of embarrassment that you experienced.
F. Tell them how you're feeling and what happened if you're comfortable doing that.
G. It's generally something that most people want to avoid.
My 12-year-old niece was staying with us for a little while. One night we stayed up talking about how we used to 1and take part in random acts of kindness. We talked about how so much had2, and how difficult it would be to do so many of those things now, 3 when it came to helping out strangers.
The next day, I 4 something from downtown and took her to shop. We were walking around 5we heard a beautiful male voice singing. We turned around to see a middle-aged man sitting on a corner with his guitar. A couple was sitting on a bench nearby and listening to his 6.
After I ran my errand(杂事), we7to sit at an outdoor restaurant across from him on the other side of the street. My niece kept8and saying how wonderful his singing was. Seeing how moved she was by his music, at the end of our9, I gave her a $10 bill and asked her to put it in his bowl.
She was 10, and headed over. As she 11, the man was just finishing a song, and they had a conversation. She told him how 12 she was by his music, and he told her she13his day. As she was excitedly talking about the 14with me, she mentioned, "He didn't even know how much it was. He just15that someone was enjoying his music."
Chinese TV drama Awakening Age, which narrates(叙述) the story of how the Communist Party of China(CPC) （found) in 1921, ended several months ago, but it remains a hot topic on social media,the discussion shows that it has played a positive role in educating young people about China's revolutionary history.
The TV series (celebrate) this year's 100th anniversary of the founding of the CPC has won high praise online. The stories of the young people in the drama—who devoted everything, even their lives, the revolution— have touched a large number of viewers. The storytelling in the show has also been praised by viewers for successfully showing the （deep) of the CPC's history and spirit, as well as the warmth of China and every family in the country.
Many audiences were inspired to find background information about the series and commented that this was their first time（learn) the history about the founding of the Party and the country. "I read many of Lu Xun's novels such as A Madman's Diary when I was in elementary school, I couldn't understand why he wrote them or the angry feelings hiding in the characters. After watching the drama, I read （they) again and found that I could understand they wanted to convey to readers," said Li Lin, 18-year-old viewer.
Sally had trouble speaking in social situations. I'm a registered nurse and I love kids and dogs. I wanted to use Bella to bring her joy, comfort and confidence the way only a dog can.
That morning in January, her teacher led us to a room by the school office. "Sally hasn't spoken outside her home in two years," she told me. "Her parents have taken her to doctors, but nothing has worked." A little girl stood shyly just inside the doorway. Her eyes brightened when noticing my dog.
"This is Isabella Rose. I call her Bella," I said. "Would you like to pet her? She doesn't know anyone here and she'd like to meet you. She does tricks. Would you like to see?"
Sally nodded. I motioned with my hand. Bella lay down and then rolled over. Sally's eyes cheered up. "She'll do it for you too," I said. "I can teach you."
I showed Sally the hand signals for various commands. She was a natural with Bella. Soon Sally was able to take Bella at her pace all on her own. I could see her standing taller, more sure of herself each time we met.
One morning, when she was working with Bella, I heard a tiny voice, barely a whisper: "Good dog." Sally didn't take her eyes off Bella, but I wanted to jump for joy. Sally spoke a little more each week, only to Bella at first, but then to me. Later, she started giving voice commands with her hand signals and her confidence rose. Still, she hadn't spoken in her classroom.
"Could you bring Bella to my class and show the other kids her tricks?" Sally asked me one day. An idea struck me. "Why don't you do it?" I said. "I know you can. You're as good with Bella as I am." Now, Sally stood nervously in front of her kindergarten class, with Bella sitting calmly by her side. Her classmates focused on Sally, waiting for her to speak.
注意：所续写短文的词数应为150左右；
Paragraph 1:
But not a word came out.
Paragraph 2:
The next week, she told me she wanted to try again, looking up at me with determination.
