Cheap and even free volunteering programs are everywhere. Don't worry about a budget that may stop you from volunteering abroad! Kindred Spirit Elephant Sanctuary (保护区) is the right place for you.
Highlights
Volunteer with elephants and bring them back into their natural habitat.
Make a difference in the conservation efforts to save elephants living under awful conditions.
Help teach English to the communities and raise awareness about the captive (圈养的) elephant situation.
Wander the forests and observe elephant's natural behaviours in their home environment.
Our Sanctuary
Our sanctuary has rescued 5 elephants from the tourism industry and we have now brought them home to live out their lives in the forest, in semi-wild conditions. We need volunteers to help us keep these elephants happy and healthy in their natural habitat. With volunteer support. we hope to return more elephants to the forest soon.
Your tasks
Performing research on the natural elephant behaviours and the surrounding forest.
Taking part in community projects such as teaching English at the school and to other locals.
Carrying out litter pick-ups with the kids to educate on waste management.
Your Rough Schedule:
Day 1: Pickup from Chiang Mai at 9 am. Travel through a national park and stunning mountains until you arrive in our unique village. Meet your homestay family and the other volunteers, and immerse yourself in hill tribe culture.
Day 2: Wake up early to hike in the forest and find our elephants. Spend the morning recording and learning about these amazing animals and their natural behaviours. Return to the village in the late afternoon and take part in our community & teaching projects.
Day 3: Another early start to like to observe our elephants one last time. Return to Chiang Mai in the afternoon.
In artist Roy Wang's photos, mythical (神话的) creatures from The Classic of Mountains and Seas emerge in front of historical sites of Guangzhou.
The series of photographs is created by light painting in which the photographer uses light sources to produce different images which are captured by a camera, as if drawing on the photos. Roy Wang, the representative figure of light-painting photography in China, says, "What attracts me most about light painting is that, by using a simple light and against a dark background, I can paint in a free style."
Wang was a professional athlete. However, his sports career ended in 2012 because of injuries. His travels led to his interest in photography. Once he saw light-painting photos by Spanish master Pablo Picasso online and was introduced to the technique. He began to try in this field.
In 2013, he started adding the dragon and other creatures from ancient texts to light painting. Wang's work is inspired by mythical creatures that add a sense of mystery to his photography but at the same time it proves to be difficult to create such images with light."The mythical creatures are as mysterious as light painting. They both emerge in the darkness, and without an exact shape or form, they are free. I let loose my imagination,based on the descriptions in ancient books," said Wang.
To Roy Wang, the technique has a wide application in expressing different ideas. Apart from mythical creatures, he has been showing themes relevant to more recent events, such as a series in praise of medical workers during the outbreak of COVID-19.
Tradition will continue to be a creative force for Wang as he wants to add more Chinese elements in his works, including his next series, creating photos that have both aesthetic (美学
) and cultural values.
The surface of Mars is etched (蚀刻) with ancient river valleys and lake basins,Some re searchers think that liquid water once flowed on the Red Planet. Today, Mars is too cold for much, if any,liquid water to exist, And 3.8 billion years ago,when the flowing water formed, the sun was fainter than it is today, making it even harder to imagine a warm Martian climate, That's why many researchers think Mars may have gone in and out of deep freezes,
Some researchers have suggested that early Mars only melt when large asteroid (小行星) impacts or volcanic eruptions temporarily warmed the planet.But Kasting, a geologist at Pennsylvania State University thinks warm windows from such dramatic events would have been too brief to carve the vast valleys that exist on Mars .Now, Kasting and his colleagues have come up with an alternative explanation: They think Mars may have experienced a series of climate cycles caused by changes in the strength of the greenhouse effect.
The idea goes like this: When Mars was cold and frozen volcanoes continued to erupt the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and hydrogen into the atmosphere.There, the gas blanket trapped heat and warmed the planet up until liquid water began to flow,forming Mars rivers and lakes. However, warm temperatures and abundant water would also have sped up certain chemical reactions that consumed carbon dioxide,mitigating the greenhouse effect and cooling the planet back down again.Then the cycle would repeat.
Kasting shared his theory with other astronomers at the December meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, and in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters. So far, Kasting's team has only shown that such an explanation is possible.But the researchers say field trips could help test the idea by looking for evidence of multiple warm events, and their duration.
When humans are feeling lonely, we can call or video chat with friends and family who live far away. But, scientists asked, what about pet parrots? New research suggests that these chatty creatures may also benefit from virtually connecting with their peers.
The idea for this study was not random: In the wild, parrots tend to live in large groups. But when kept in as pets, these social birds are often on their own. Feeling bored and lonely, they may develop psychological issues and can even turn to self-harming behaviours like pulling out their feathers.
In the study, researchers wanted to see whether 18 pet parrots could learn to make and receive video calls when they needed to help reduce loneliness. In the initial stage, the birds learnt to ring a bell and then touch a photo of another bird on a tablet screen to start a call to that bird. Calls would only work when caregivers were able to assist at both ends. In the second stage, the parrots could choose to call other birds at their own will by ringing the bell then selecting the bird they wanted to call. During a two-month study period, owners said they recorded 147 deliberate calls between birds.
"We saw some really encouraging results from the study," said researchers. The parrots seemed to grasp that they were truly engaging with other birds onscreen and their behaviour often mirrored what we would expect from real-life interactions between these types of birds. "She came alive during the calls," one pet owner said about her bird, according to a Northeastern University statement.
The team has previously designed similar technology such as DogPhone, which allowed pet dogs to shake a ball to communicate with their owner. "The animal Internet is already here—there are hundreds of products on the market that let pet owners interact with their animals remotely over the net, but their design is primarily focused on what humans want, not what their pets need," Hirskyj-Douglas from the University of Glasgow added.
Let's face it, most of us are really busy. So busy that we don't make time for creativity. Even those who work in creative fields are probably at a point where true creativity is being pushed behind more pressing tasks. This doesn't necessarily have to be so.
Schedule It
Put your creativity tasks into your calendar-you have a very important meeting with yourself! All you really need is about 15 minutes a day and that can really start to swing the pendulum (钟摆) in the other direction. I find that 15 minutes in the morning after a fresh cup of coffee is an ideal time for some creative work. You can plan a day to go out and explore something new to get inspired, whatever you feel is going to fuel your creative energy. Schedule these into your month, as well.
Shift Your Mindset
Like I mentioned, sometimes it has to start with your own belief. , then it's not going to happen. I found that once I redesigned my business to free up more time for me, I was able to really let go of guilt and realize that creativity is self-care. Even if it's not going to better your career, it's likely going to "better" you, and that makes it all worthwhile.
Make Space
, but how about physical space? Is there a place in your home that you can devote to your creativity? Maybe it's in your office. You can have a spot with your art utensils. musical instruments, your favorite books. Or maybe it's in your backyard and you have a spot where you drink tea and practice writing. Sometimes it may be a corner of pillows in your bedroom that you snuggle in and listen to music. Having a devoted spot helps to foster it as a daily practice that you look forward to.
Just like all your good habits, you have to make them routine. Once you get used to carving out time and space for your creativity, you will wonder how you ever lived without it!
A. Be Curious
B. Make It Routine
C. It can be such a waste of time
D. But seriouslv, this really helps
E. We've talked about mental space
F. If you're not valuing your creative time
G. Here are some easy tips for making it a priority
In 2001, Tropical Storm Allison hit Houston. As a result, more than 70,000 houses were 1 , including the home of Sarah Feldman and her family.
At the time, they were in Connecticut on vacation, so they didn't know what kind of 2 they were going to face when they got home to Texas. But then Feldman's grandparents called with 3 news: all of her books had been destroyed in the flooding. Feldman was 14 at the time and loved 4 .
To cheer her up, Feldman's father 5 her to the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. When they arrived, she met Bill Carver, an elderly 6 .
"I asked him a bunch of questions like, ‘How do you 7 all these rare books in the library? What's the oldest book you have?'" Feldman remembers.
Carver 8 answered all of Feldman's questions. When she told him about her books being 9 , he told her that he would send her a book in the mail, so she could 10 her collection. After returning to Houston, she 11 his gift, titled "The Medieval(中世纪的) Book" by Barbara A. Shailor.
Feldman is in her 30s now. But Carver's 12 has made a lifelong impact. Feldman has tried to 13 Carver, with no success. "I actually sent the library a 14 during the pandemic(大流行病), but I never heard back," she said. "I'm not sure if he's 15 still, but I just would love to tell Bill Carver that he changed my life."
Why do Chinese people drink hot water? Many westerners find it so interesting that they always see Chinese people carry a vacuum cup(保温杯) no matter which season it is.
For lots of Chinese people, nothing is (common) than drinking hot water every day. But for most of the Westerners, idea of drinking plain hot water is really odd since they drink cold water even in winter. Why do Chinese people drink hot water? Hot water vs cold water, which one is better? Follow us (find) an ideal answer.
It is well known Chinese people prefer hot meals every day, and they're also used to (have) hot drinks with it. Moreover, some parents always teach (they) children to drink hot water with meals, because they think mixing cold liquids with hot meals (be) really bad for the stomach. And cold liquids may solidify fats in your stomach, which cause digestive problems, whereas hot liquids aid in (digest).
According to the eating habits in western countries, they prefer "raw" food, they also prefer their water "raw". At the same time, they are fond hamburgers, cheese and fried stuff, which are all with high calorie. As a matter of fact, they need cold drinks to cool them off.
注意： 写作词数为80 词左右。
In high school, I was an editor of the school newspaper at the student union. And I won two national awards. I've been so focused on my dream of being a magazine editor that I've never wasted my time being fake-friendly to people—I was too busy for that. I almost didn't socialize much in school, which meant I almost didn't have any real friends in school. Unexpectedly, that annoyed a lot of people out of my expectation, so they began to talk aboutme behind my back. The gossip (流言蜚语) never bothered me since I was so into my goals and had no time to care much. But then I appeared on TV, and things changed.
When the show first broadcast last May, I received dozens of mean posts about me on the media sites, calling me "crazy", and even some dirty words were used. Worse still, some strangers shot their fingers at me. How could they say such terrible words to me when they'd never met me? I still tried to focus on my work and told myself not to care about this, but that didn't stop their comments from streaming in. Every day, mess messages continued to come in and it seemed no sign of end.
When I walked into class on a Monday morning, some girls actually pointed and whispered that I broke down the TV program. I wish I could have faced all negative things calmly or even ignore the gossip, but I couldn't. Each time I went out of or into the classroom, there would be people I knew or total strangers, staring at me or whispering, only adding to my sense of shame, and I just wasn't able to shake any of it off. All the negative attention started to overwhelm me physically and mentally.
注意：1.续写词数应为150左右;2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Soon after, all the negative words started to destroy me.
……
I saw a quote in the journal. "Once you choose your way of life, be brave to stick it out and never return."
