What Is Your Next Destination?
Taste Tea in China
One of the oldest cultural landscapes in China is chosen to become one of the country's newest UNESCO World Heritage sites in 2022. The Ancient Tea Plantations of Jingmai Mountain in Pu'er features about 1.13 million tea trees. Located in China's Yunnan Province, the region was a sating point of the legendary Ancient Tea Horse Road. Many of the region's tea plantations remain, as do the four local ethnic minority groups — the Blang, Dai, Hani, and Wa people — who preserve their own languages, customs, and festivals.
Dive Deep in Palau
When you arrive here, the stamp in your passport will include the Palau Pledge (誓约), which all visitors must sign, promising that “the only footprints I shall leave are those that will wash away.” The eco-pledge was drafted by and for the children of these remote western Pacific islands to help preserve Palau's culture and environment from the negative impacts of tourism. Eighty percent of the nation's waters is preserved as the Palau National Marine Sanctuary.
Run Wild in Australia
Green shoots of regeneration are appearing in Australia, of which some 72,000 square miles were, burned during the 2019-2020 bushfires, leading to the deaths of nearly three dozen people and more than a billion animals. Drive the Great Ocean Road, in Victoria's Otways region, and then take a hike at Wildlife Wonders, an educational ancient forest and waterfalls. Wandering through bushes gives a chance to spot koalas unique to this ecosystem.
Go Green in Germany
Mining and steel production once dominated the crowded Ruhr Valley, in Germany's western state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Today, the region is repurposing previous industrial sites as parks and open air cultural spaces. The most famous is the UNESCO Word Heritage site of Zeche Zollverein, now home to an outdoor swimming pool, ice rink, and walking tails. You can rent a bike in Essen for a car-free Ruhr Valley trip along cycling routes.
Many of us have dreams of being our own boss and starting our own businesses, and one woman has been able to make her dreams a reality with the help of a complete change of lifestyle.
Catherine White, 46, spent her teenage years washing cars in order to make ends meet and now she owns a £20 million business empire. Speaking to the Manchester Evening News, she said, “My childhood was so unstable, so I always wanted and needed to be independent. I didn't believe working for someone else gave me that and my future would still rely on someone else.”
At 24, Catherine started her first business from a desk in her sister's art school but she was struggling with a panic disorder at the time and would find comfort in junk food, which led her to follow an unhealthy lifestyle. After the company reached a steady point a few years later, she decided to go travelling and in the process, completely changed her outlook on life. The woman said the “dramatic change” of scenery helped her mental health significantly, and she was even able to cut junk food out of her diet — dropping her from a size 24 to a size 12 by the time she returned to the UK. And the business mogul (大亨) believes changing her lifestyle also helped her succeed in her career as she is no longer scared of making decisions or speaking in public.
This year, Catherine aims to grow one of the companies under her Freedom Services Group umbrella, Stella Insurance. She set it up in Australia for women. With each deal, the business donates $5 to a charity, and plans are underway to launch in the UK.
The now-millionaire said, “In my wildest dreams, I wouldn't have thought it could become the size that it has.”
Pandas are famously picky eaters. They only consume bamboo — a poor quality diet low in fat. But the creatures appear to have evolved to get the most out of what they do eat, according to a new study.
Their gut (肠道) bacteria change in late spring and early summer when bamboo is at its most nutritious — while protein-rich green shoots are coming out. The bacteria make the panda gain more weight and store more fat, which researchers said may compensate for a lack of nutrients later in the year, when bamboo plants have only fibrous leaves to chew.
“We've known these pandas have a different set of gut microbiota during the shoot-eating season for a long time, and it's very obvious that they are chubbier during this time of the year,” said lead study author Guangping Huang, a researcher for the Institute of Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
To investigate how the gut bacteria could affect a panda's digestion, the team first collected the wastes of eight wild giant pandas in China's Qinling Mountains during both leaf eating season and shoot-eating season and then examined how the waste samples differed. They found a bacterium called Clostridium butyricum was more abundant in the pandas' guts during the season when they enjoy the fresh bamboo shoots.
To understand whether this bacterium helps the pandas gain and store weight, the researchers put the panda wastes they collected into lab mice. Then they fed the mice for three weeks with a bamboo-based diet that simulated (模仿) what pandas cat. Researchers found the mice Which were transplanted with panda wastes collected during shoot-eating season gained significantly more weight than the ones which were not, despite consuming same amount of food.
“The gut bacteria were the only variable (变量) in this research,” Wei explained. However, Felix Sommer at Christian-Albrechts-University in Kiel, Germany, noted the number of pandas studied was small and that the experiment had only been performed once. Sommer also stressed the researchers had found a link, not a causal relationship between the bacteria and weight gain.
There is a time when many Americans question whether a college degree is worth its cost. However, a recent study found Americans who completed college or university are more likely to have friends and are less lonely than those who only finished high school.
Daniel Cox, director of the Survey Center on American Life, said that in general Americans are experiencing a “friend recession”, meaning a decline in their number of friends. Cox noted “Americans have fewer close friends today than we did in the early '90s. But men and those without a college degree were particularly affected because they seem to have experienced a much more dramatic decline over that period.”
The Center questioned 5,054 people this past summer. It found Americans with a college degree feel more socially connected and are more active in their communities than people who didn't go to college. As a result, those who completed college report feeling less lonely.
Previous research showed that Americans who didn't go to college are less likely to marry. A 2012 study found that college-educated women were much more likely to get married than women who dropped out of high school. A 2013 study of people born between 1957 and 1964 found that both men and women who didn't finish high school were less likely to marry than those with more education.
Today, 65 percent of college-educated Americans over age 25 are married. About 50 percent of people with a high school diploma, or who dropped out of high school, are married. Those numbers were different in 1990, when marriage rates among the college educated were at 69 percent, compared with 63 percent for those who did not go to college, says a Pew research report.
The American Community Life Survey found around 1 in 10 college graduates say they have no close social connections. That number rises among Americans without a degree, where almost 1 in 4 say they have no close friends.
Ways to Step Out of Your Comfort Zone
There's not a lot of room for adventure and excitement in your comfort zone. To add a little excitement to your life, it's important to try new and sometimes scary things. , facing unfamiliar challenges can make you happier and more fulfilled in the long run.
●.
Think about a few things that scare you or make you nervous. Write them down in a list, and put a star next to the one you want to start with. You can handle the others later Rather than just thinking about it, coming up with specific ideas forces you to put these plans in motion.
●Turn every day into a learning experience.
. Look at each day as a chance for you to learn something new. This can only happen if you're stepping outside your comfort zone. You can do this by always making an effort to find ways to grow. You never know what you'll learn about the world when you explore different sides of it!
●Think positively to overcome fear.
Regard challenges as chances to grow. The biggest barrier keeping you from stepping out of your comfort zone is fear, especially fear of failure. , just think of stepping outside your comfort zone as opportunities. You may be right around the corner from changing your life for the better.
●Turn to your friends for some added support.
Doing something new alone can be even more challenging. There's no reason you can't rely on friends or family to help you get out of your comfort zone! Pick someone who's naturally adventurous to be your partner in trying new experiences.
A. Pick challenging activities
B. Do some research to get more information
C. Change the way you view your day-to-day life
D. Instead of focusing on the possibility of failure
E. Unless you've stepped out of your comfort zone
F. Though getting outside of your comfortable box may be tough at first
G. They can make you feel more comfortable exploring the unfamiliar field
On Feb. 23, student group Grassroots hosted its monthly clothing exchange. It is a 1 activity on campus where students can 2 clothes in exchange for new ones.
“One of the 3 things about sustainability (可持续发展) is reuse,” Zein Tynon, Co-President and Clothing Exchange Chair, said in an interview with CT. “Instead of 4 old clothes or buying new clothes, you can donate them and give them a new 5. You might be done with that clothing item. 6, someone else might not be.” According to Tynon, about 100-150 items are 7 and 100-150 items are taken at the exchanges each month.
Tynon told CT that the clothing exchange has been 8 by Grassroots for many years. In response to how the clothing exchange has an effect on the campus' 9 of sustainability, Tynon said there is a 10 influence. “It does make a big 11. Throughout the semester when students realize we have these exchanges, they bring clothes and 12 a lot more. So it does create a 13 where everyone can share their 14.”
Grassroots begins 15 their clothing exchange two weeks in advance via posters around campus.
Co-President of Grassroots Alan Rojas said the club not only 16 sustainability on campus, but off campus as well. Another Grassroots 17 is bringing speakers to campus to talk about sustainability and environmental protection.
“The clothing exchange is 18 our most known activity in our club, and I think its nice because there're a lot of 19 who don't know what to do with their clothes,” Rojas said. “I think it's a really 20 way to get students more involved with sustainability.”
In ancient times, builders and (architect) in Beijing relied on five colors to add life to their creations: red, yellow, blue, white, and gray. These colors were connected five different elements: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. The Chinese sage (圣贤) Laozi said that five colors make people blind, so in architectural art, it's suggested that no more than three main colors should (use) for a design; otherwise, it would look too busy. Then red, yellow and blue gradually (become) the main colors in the Forbidden City.
Red, the color of fire and blood, has long been important in Chinese symbolism. Traditionally, red represents (warm) and the highest amount of energy. The association of red with good fortune is the reason the color red is important in weddings, New Years, and other important celebrations.
Yellow was another obvious color in old Beijing, (stand) for the power of emperor. The Yellow Emperor is the mythological (神话的) forefather of the Chinese nation while archaeologists find the (early) examples of Chinese civilization to the Yellow River Basin.
The color blue symbolized heaven and heavenly blessings with the best example of the rooftops of structures at the Temple of Heaven. was discovered that blue had a unique sensitivity to light, and was the perfect color used (create) copies of drawings.
增加：在缺词处加一个漏词符号（∧），并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用斜线（\）划掉。
修改：在错的词下面画一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意： 1．每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；
2．只允许修改10处，多者（从第11处起）不计分。
Can you feel the coming of spring? When you have to take on your thick jacket and carry them in the hand, you have spring. I know spring is here when I casual think about ice cream and hear great deal of laughter all around. Oh, it is one of the best part of the season. During this time, beautiful birds' songs, sweet flowers and shy sunshine always touched people s hearts gently. Fortunately, I can't bring you sounds, smells or sunshine. So just stand up, opening your windows and breathe in fresh air. What wonderful it is to find spring has already come, even if it's too much late to lose extra weight for wearing a T-shirt!
1）活动目的；
2）内容安排；
3）邀请观看。
参考词汇：舞动青春Dance for Youth
注意：
1）词数100左右；
2）可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
