Misery by Stephen King (1987)
On my first tour at 23, I bought Misery for one of countless flights. I found myself onstage thinking, occasionally, "This is an enjoyable and exciting experience, but I can't wait to get back to the hotel to read the next chapter." The film doesn't do justice to the original suspense (悬念) of King's novel. It made me a reader for life.
The Day After Tomorrow by Allan Folsom (2008)
All of Folsom's novels are worth your time, but his first, which is totally unrelated to the movie of the same name, is the most entertaining work of fiction I know. You're attracted from the first chapter, taken on a ride of action and passion right to the last jaw-dropping sentence.
As a Man Thinketh by James Allen (1903)
I've gifted this to countless friends. A century before Rhonda Byrne's The Secret came this brilliant exposition of how thoughts influence quality of life. It's a life-changing 64 pages. I always keep it in my bag when I travel and on my nightstand at home. I consider it my Bible (圣经).
America's Reluctant Prince by Steven Gillon (2019)
This bio (自传), written by a longtime friend of John F. Kennedy Jr., was a great companion during my tour in 2019. As someone with thorough knowledge of and deep affection for his subject, Gillon skillfully walks the line between exposure and respect.
A sunny morning was a great start to a cold day in a new city. I booked a taxi which, surprisingly, arrived in less than a minute, stopping at my feet.
Taxis aren't known for their exact arrival in this city. It's often a long wait and they always end up parking away from you, which often leads to a lot of conversations on the phone.
As I got in, I was warmly welcomed. The driver, Raju, started a conversation straight away as we set off. His conversation was full of polite English words and I could see that his vocabulary wasn't too bad for someone who hadn't gone beyond high school.
I was enjoying it. The only off-putting thing was the music. I asked him to turn it off and see if he liked the playlist on my phone. To my surprise, Raju knew names of the musicians and the singers. He told me his formative years were the early nineties — same as mine.
We enjoyed six old songs before we reached the destination. Raju thanked me for the music I played and refused to take any money. I knew there was no point in pressing him so I took out some chocolate and passed it to him. He was hesitant, but couldn't say no.
After spending an hour in the market, I decided to push off. I booked a taxi and to my surprise, it was Raju again. He welcomed me with a happy smile, "The Earth is round." I made him promise to accept the fare this time or I would cancel the booking. He agreed. I was glad there was no music playing in the taxi as I preferred to have a chat with him.
I learned Raju was a cancer survivor and the breadwinner of the family. I asked him if he needed help. He said no and told me that he would keep working hard as long as his body allowed.
Before saying goodbye, I asked if I could do anything for him. "Say something nice about taxi drivers," he laughed and drove away.
Entire towns in western Germany were destroyed last week by "the flood of the century", said Susanne Scholz in Express, and the whole country is in shock. The images on TV news looked like they were coming from a tropical monsoon zone (热带季风区), not our first-world nation. Never did we think we would see our own citizens "trapped in houses on the edge of crash, in danger of being swept away by masses of water".
Days of severe rain got rivers to burst their banks in the states of Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia, and in neighboring Belgium and the Netherlands. In the small town of Sinzig, the River Ahr reached its highest level at about 23 feet, flooding a nursing home and drowning 12 disabled residents who could not flee.
Authorities have so far confirmed some 200 deaths across Germany, but hundreds more people remain missing. While authorities say it's too early to put a price tag on the damage, the images of flooded homes and electrical stations, damaged bridges, and cars crumpled (变皱) by fallen trees tell a tale of vast material loss. "The German language hardly knows any words for the damage that has been brought about," said Chancellor Angela Merkel. She praised the thousands of volunteers who came to pump out water, load sandbags, and search for survivors.
"Disaster control clearly failed," said Peter Tiede in Bild. State and local authorities responsible for evacuation (疏散) warnings relied on smartphone apps that many Germans don't have — and service was out anyway because the storms had downed the cell towers. Only old-fashioned alarms work in such emergencies, yet our few loudspeaker vans never left the stations. Public radio, meanwhile, "was playing pop music while hundreds of people were being washed away, houses collapsing, villages torn down to the ground." It's simply unforgivable. "How bad will it get when such a flood hits a major city like Cologne or Hamburg instead of villages and small towns?"
The blue whale is the largest animal to ever live on our planet. You might wonder how much such a large creature eats. Well, you are not alone.
Scientists recently carried out a study to find out how much blue whales eat in a day. Their findings were not surprising. They found the whales eat a lot. In just one day, blue whales living in the North Pacific Ocean can eat about 14.5 metric tons of krill (磷虾). That means blue whales eat around 1450 metric tons of food every year.
Matthew Savoca of Stanford University said, "It's an unimaginable amount of food." Savoca also described the blue whales' size as "unimaginable." Blue whales are larger than even the biggest dinosaurs. They can grow to 33 meters long and weigh about 181 metric tons. The animal can grow to about the size of a Boeing 737 airplane. Nick Pyenson was the co-writer of the study. He said the amount of food blue whales eat in a day is about the weight of "one fully-loaded school bus."
To measure the amount of food the whales ate and to study eating behaviors, the researchers used many devices. Electronic tag devices were attached to the animal's back. They also used cameras, microphones, a GPS locator device and an instrument that follows movement. They used drones (无人机) to estimate the size of a whale's mouth area and how much food it could eat at one time. And they used instruments that recorded sound waves to estimate the amount of food in the waters near the whales.
Because they eat so much, they also produce much more excrement, than scientists had thought. This provides important nutrients for ocean ecosystems. These nutrients help to form phytoplankton (浮游植物), which serve as the base of ocean food webs. Whale hunting during the 20th century caused sharp drops in whale populations. Pyenson added that supporting whale recovery may help repair "ecosystem functions lost in the past hundred years."
The traditional Chinese lunar calendar divides the year into 24 solar terms. Major Snow, the 21st solar term of the year, begins this year on Dec 7 and ends on Dec 20. . Here are five things you should know.
Snowy winter
, breaking tree branches and blocking the road. In the south, snowflakes fall and the world turns white. A proverb about the snow says, "A timely snow promises a good harvest". As the snow covers the ground, the low winter temperature kills pests.
Appreciating plum blossoms
Plum blossoms usually flower in mid-to-late December in some southern cities of China, and sometimes bloom even earlier. The plum blossom is admired in Chinese culture for its toughness during severe winters.
Eating lamb
Lamb is a favorite food for Chinese people during Major Snow. . People in Chongqing like to have potted lamb soup or stewed lamb soup with their families and friends.
Eating porridge
Hot porridge could help warm you and nourish (滋养) your body in cold weather. In China, it's customary to eat red bean porridge on the first day of Major Snow. , such as wheat porridge, sesame porridge, radish porridge, walnut porridge and tuckahoe porridge.
Preventing lung illness
During this period, Chinese people watch for outbreaks of lung illness, which can be prevented by properly drinking water. During Major Snow, it's drier and colder, so people should drink more water. But you should not drink too much water at once. .
A. In addition, there are other varieties
B. People in southern China make sausages
C. The snow falls at night and melts in the day
D. Don't drink cold water after exercise, either
E. The snow in North China may last a whole day
F. It's excellent for protecting the body against the cold
G. During this period, the temperature drops significantly
As an eco-minimalist, Su Yige has developed an environmentally friendly lifestyle for the past three years while studying in Canada. 1, her eco-friendly actions have often led to the 23-year-old being 2 as Japanese. At first, she believed it was a result of similarities in Asians'
3 in the eyes of many Westerners, but after long observation she has 4 that it is based on "environment-related racism (种族偏见) 5 Chinese people".
That conclusion 6 her to create an environmental video blog as a platform to 7this noticeable racism. The idea of 8 an environmental blog came when she 9 to find many examples of such content on Chinese social media platforms, though it is common on the 10in the West.
She probably would not have put the idea into 11 so quickly if she hadn't been mistaken as Japanese 12 in March last year, when she was cleaning up an area filled with litter while taking a walk.
A Canadian man, who stopped running and 13 her, asked if she was from Japan. Dressed in regular clothes, she could find no 14 for the mistake. "I suddenly realized that it's 15
to break the prejudice (偏见)," she said.
However, she wants to keep her environmental blog 16 to make full use of her spare time, and hopes to 17 with vloggers (视频博主) by sharing her personal experiences to make her platform more 18.
What drives her to 19 the time-consuming activity that provides no 20 benefit is the hope of stopping the longstanding environmental prejudice against Chinese people.
Alfred Nobel was born in Stockholm in 1833. His father, a (success) engineer and inventor, was able, in 1842, to bring his family to St. Petersburg, where Alfred was given the first-class education by private teachers. By the age of 17, Alfred was fluent in several (language).
To widen Alfred's horizons, his father sent him abroad for further (train) in the chemical engineering. In Paris, he met the young Italian chemist Ascanio Sobrero, invented nitroglycerine (硝化甘油) three years earlier, a highly explosive liquid. (interest) in nitroglycerine, over the years, Alfred himself performed so many experiments to make sure it could (put) into practical use in construction work. Eventually, he (found) factories and labs in 90 different places in more than 20 countries. Though he lived in Paris much of his life, he was (constant) traveling. When he was not traveling, he focused on the development of explosive technology and other chemical inventions. By the time his death in 1896, he had 355 patents (专利).
Alfred Nobel died in Sanremo, Italy, on December, 1896. When his will (遗嘱) was opened, it came as surprise that his fortune was to be used for Prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Peace.
增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号(∧)，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：在错的词下划一横线，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。
Whenever we are faced with problems, cooperation play an important part in getting us out of trouble. There was a time when I was too proud that I overlooked my classmates, refusing work together with them. Therefore, there was no doubt that I was left alone, suffer from loneliness and failure. Unfortunately, a teacher impressed on me the value of cooperation. From then on, I learned to help others or turn to my friends for help whenever I had difficult finishing a task on my own. Surely cooperation made a great difference. Now I am getting on well to my friends. My experience has been taught me that only if we attach great importance to cooperation can we go beyond myself.
1）告知变化的时间和地点；
2）简述变化的原因；
3）表达歉意与愿望。
注意：
1）词数100左右;
2）可适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
Notice
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The Students' Union
