It's the seaside birds that deserve at least part of the blame for getting Nick Burchill blacklisted at the Fairmont Empress Hotel in Victoria, Canada.
Burchill was 1 at the hotel on business and planning to2 some friends in the area. They had asked him to 3 some pepperoni （辣香肠）from back east. So he4 a suitcase full of pepperoni. As he was 5 that it would be too warm, he 6 it out on the table near an open window. He thought his pepperoni was 7 and well chilled （冷却）and he 8 .
That's when things went 9 . "I remember walking down the long 10 and opening the door to my room to find an entire flock of seagulls, " Burchill said in a recent letter of 11 to the 4-star hotel. "The seagulls immediately went 12 . They rushed to the window, 30 or 40 birds all trying to 13 at the same time, and pepperoni-everywhere. The curtains were falling down, the lamps were falling down, It was a real 14 .
Older and wiser now, Burchill chalked up the incident to youthful indiscretion （莽撞）.
"I have 15 and I admit responsibility of my 16 , " he said in the letter. "I come to you, 17 , to apologize for the-damage I had 18 caused and to ask you to19 my lifetime ban from the hotel. "
His letter20 . Banned from the hotel since 2001. Burchill is now welcome to come back, the Fairmont said.
We all know that people have much more stress (压力) than before. Luckily, a new study has found an easy way to solve the problem. According to the researchers of the study, small green plants on the desk can greatly reduce people's stress.
60 people from different jobs took part in the study. Half of them worked without any plants, while the other half worked with plants on their desks. Then a standard test was used to find out their stress levels. More than 90% of the office workers showed a lower stress level after taking only a three-minute rest to look at their plants.
The study has also found that it does not matter whether people looked at their plants or only had the plants near their computers. Only if people could see green plants for about a week in their working places, their stress levels changed greatly. This finding worked for everyone no matter how old they were and what their jobs were.
"People used to go out of their houses and enjoy themselves in nature, but now they have less time to do so," one of the researchers said, "Lucky for them, our study has found out that a small green plant is as useful as a large forest. "
2023 English Speech Competition
The competition is for all the students in our school. Students from the first to sixth grade should give a speech for about 5 minutes, and students from the seventh to ninth grade should give a speech for about 8 minutes. The speech is about your dream.
● If you are interested in joining in the competition, you can meet your English teacher or Mrs. Wang to register（登记）.
● The registration will start on 21st October, and end on 15th November, 2023.
● The real competition will be on 10th December, 2023.
● The 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners will separately win a schoolbag, a dictionary and a pen. All the competitors（参赛者）will get a notebook.
● If you want more information about the competition, you can meet Mrs. Wang.
Xie Xiaohua is a special education teacher. She has won the hearts of hundreds of children and is called Mum Xiaohua by many of them.
"It is my greatest happiness to care for them," said 49-year-old Xie. She has been working at Yiyuan County Special Education School in Zibo, Shandong Province for 27 years.
Xie knows the difference between special education and general education. She takes care of each student according to their physical conditions. And she also helps them with learning and their daily life. She used to help carry a student to restrooms, the dining hall, classrooms and the dormitory for nine years until the student graduated（毕业）from the school.
In 2003, the school set up a rehabilitation（康复）centre and Xie worked harder. To make sure every child received the best training, she made special plans for them. Then she began to teach them patiently the basic skills of taking care of themselves. She also spent lots of time training the children with hearing and speech problems. That often made her throat ache.
2015, the school started offering door-to-door education to students with physical problems. Besides Xie, there are over 30 teachers teaching and helping those students. The teachers have walked over 60, 000 kilometres over the past seven years because many students live in mountain villages.
"Although we feel tired sometimes, we feel our work is valuable after seeing the students' progress, even just a little bit," Xie said.
Albatross (信天翁) is not a kind of bird. It is a collection of bird families. Some of them have short tails, some have black feet and some others have large bodies and wings. There are at least 12 different kinds of albatrosses, and the largest kind has 1.5-metre-long wings.
Like other sea birds, albatrosses drink seawater. They mainly live on squids (鱿鱼) and fish, and they sometimes follow ships to eat rubbish. Besides, they may also dive (俯冲) into water to catch their "seafood". One kind of albatross can dive as deep as 12.5 metres. Albatrosses spend most of their lives flying and can reach faraway places. They are also able to stay in air in windy weather for hours. Some large albatrosses have trouble keeping in air when there is no wind, and then they would rest on the water.
Most albatrosses live in the Antarctic and the North Pacific, and you can find them in Shandong, Taiwan and other seaside provinces of China. They give birth to babies by laying eggs. The mother albatross lays one egg every two years. The egg is taken care of by the parents in turn.
Albatrosses are popular sea birds but their population is small. They are the first class protected birds in China. We should try our best to protect them.
Lots of people find it hard to get up in the morning and put the blame on the alarm clock. In fact, the key to easy morning wake-up lies in resting your body clockHere's how to make one.
● In order to make a change, you need to decide why it's important. Do you want to get up in time to have breakfast with your family, get in some exercise, or just be better prepared for your day？Once you are clear about your reasons, tell your family or roommates about the change you want to make.
●Rethink mornings. Now that you know why you want to wake up, consider re-arranging your morning activities. If you want time to have breakfast with your family, save some time the night before by setting out clothes, shoes, and bags. That's a quarter-hour more you could be sleeping if you bought a coffee maker with a timer.
●Keep your sleep/wake schedule on weekends. If you're tired out by Friday night, sleeping in on Saturday could sound wonderful. But compensating on the weekends actually feeds into your sleepiness the following week, a recent study found.
●Keep a record and evaluate it weekly. Keep track of your efforts and write down how you feel. After you've tried a new method for a week, take a look at your record. If not, take another look at other methods you could try.
A. Get a sleep specialist.
B. Find the right motivation.
C. A better plan for sleep can help.
D. And consider setting a second alarm.
E. If the steps you take are working, keep it up.
F. Stick to your set bedtime and wake-up time, no matter the day.
G. Reconsider the 15 minutes you spend in line at the café to get coffee.
Zhao Yafu is an old agricultural（农业的）researcher in Jiangsu Province. He spends most of the year working （介词）the fields.
Born in 1941, Zhao's childhood dream was to become （冠词）news reporter. When he was at college, Zhao saw how hard lives were in the countryside, （连词）he decided to do something to help. He began to teach agricultural science to the farmers in a primary (school) in the village. "The villagers needed someone to help (they) change their minds and learn new techniques（技术）," Zhao said.
Zhao kept on (encourage) the farmers to use the new techniques and to plant new kinds of rice, which brought in a lot of money. As time went by, more new (house) and roads were built in the village. And the villagers came to understand that Zhao (real) wanted to help them.
Besides working in Jiangsu, Zhao and his team are also (active) in Western China. Since 2013, they have helped many farmers in Western China become rich.
"I saw how poor villagers used to be, and I also see how they have (change) over the years. I will continue with my work if my health is not too bad," said Zhao.
Five rules for a healthy life
Thanks to better health care, most people are living healthier and longer lives. It's even thought that in the future more and more people will celebrate their hundredth birthdays. Here are five rules for a healthy life.
⒈Get off the sofa!
Sure, it's comfortable to sit on the sofa and watch TV. But doctors say you should get off the sofa. 要保持健康，你每天至少应走10000步。In the past, people's jobs required more physical effort. They often had to walk for miles every day. When farmers were working, they were keeping fit at the same time. Think about it: Do you get the same amount of exercise today as they did in the past?
⒉Eat healthy food!
It's important to eat food that is fresh and natural, for example, fruit and vegetables. Fast food is not healthy. You should only have it once in a while. Eating too much of the wrong food will harm your health.
⒊Rest while you can!
When we were babies, we slept for much of the night. Teenagers do not need as much sleep as babies, but it's important for you to get about eight hours' sleep a night. At weekends, you've got more time, so use it not just for your friends, but for rest too.
⒋Don't worry. Be happy!
Many people believe that happiness is important for our general health. Sometimes it is not easy to be a teenager because of the difficulties of school, exams or friendships. If you're worried about something, talk to your parents or your teacher.
⒌Say no to smoking!
Yes, you knew I was going to say this! It's so important. Smoking is not cool. It is dangerous. It harms nearly every part of your body. Think about how your family and friends will feel, and think about what it will do to your health.
If you eat too much of the wrong food, your health will be harmed.
How many kinds of difficulties are mentioned in the part "4. Don't worry. Be happy!"?
What does the underlined word "It" in the last paragraph refer to (指)?
提示：1. 你父亲经常用电脑跟顾客交谈、上网查看火车信息，等等。2. 你在周末用电脑听音乐、看电影，但很少玩电脑游戏。3. 你对玩电脑游戏的看法。
注意事项：1. 短文词数：80 左右。2. 短文必须包含以上内容，但可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。3. 短文的开头部分已给出，不计入总词数。4. 文中不得出现真实的人名和地名。
We have a computer in our home, and my father and I share it.
