Four new books to read
The books that are included in this list can meet your reading needs at any time of year.
Nobody Will Tell You This but Me Bess Kalb
In this book, the author shares the advice her beloved grandmother Bobby left her. Bobby was a powerful woman who should never be underestimated, and she was very knowledgeable about the family's traditions and secrets. The book proves that family bonds can endure through generations and beyond death.
A Star Is Bored
Byron Lane
Favored by television star Jonathan Van Ness, this novel is partly based on the author's experiences as the former personal assistant to Carrie Fisher, a legendary American actress. The book follows Charlie Besson, the new assistant to the Hollywood icon, Kathi Kannon. Their three-year journey together is an unforgettable adventure that is funny, heartbreaking, and hopeful.
Fast Girls
Elise Hooper
The story in Fast Girls took place during the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where Betty Robinson, Louise Stokes, and Helen Stephens overcame difficult pasts to attain Olympic glory as the world's fastest female athletes. Beyond the athletic journey, they also aimed to challenge the social standards of what females can achieve.
"Anyone knows single parents who can't afford to get their child's hair done for school? I will braid (编辫子) it for free!" Brittany Starks wrote on a Facebook post.
She decided to offer her hair braiding services after a family friend delivered backpacks full of school supplies, clothing and shoes for Cayden and Ceniyah in early August. "At the time, I didn't have anything for my kids to start school," said Starks, who is in between homes and staying with her mother. "It meant so much to me."
The unexpected gift made a big difference to Starks and her children, and it motivated her to pay it forward. Starks, who works two receptionist jobs, also braids hair part-time. "The hair-braiding process involves washing, blow-drying, and finally dividing the hair into small sections and braiding it. It also requires multiple supplies — including combs, brushes, hair jam and additional pieces of hair to weave in. It costs anywhere from $150 to $400 at a salon (美发厅), depending on the style," Stacks explained. "But it can last for months and is a huge timesaver in the mornings."
When she wrote the Facebook post, she assumed only a handful of people would reach out, but before she knew it, she had 35 appointments booked. Her Facebook inbox was suddenly full of messages from single parents, whose stories of hardship and financial challenges mirrored her own.
"There's a huge need for this. I could really relate to a lot of the women who reached out, and it made me realize that what I was doing was really important," said Stacks. "What got me the most was seeing the kids smile." Given that there was less than two weeks before the start of school, Starks knew she needed to enlist help.
Solar farms offer one way to meet the world's decarbonization (脱碳) targets, but they could also be used to deal with another of the planet's big problems: loss of biodiversity. The approach is starting to take off. Residents of Barnsdale, for example, will soon play host to a new solar farm lined with grass field of wildflowers and native grasses, which Banks Group, the developer, says will promote pollinating (授粉) insects.
The idea comes from the combination of two long-term trends: declining numbers of pollinating insects and the growing amount of land distributed to solar farms. According to the Center for Biological Diversity in Arizona, more than 40 percent of insect pollinators globally are listed as "highly threatened"—an issue that could seriously threaten food security. Meanwhile, solar-energy competence has been increasing. Matthew O'Neal, a scientist at Iowa State University, would like to see more solar developers seize this opportunity.
The benefits of such projects don't stop at the insects. Research from Yale's Center for Business and the Environment indicates that pollinator-friendly solar farms can raise crop output on nearby farmland, increase the recharging of groundwater and reduce soil erosion ( 侵 蚀 ). In 2018, a US Department of Energy study found that if all existing and planned solar facilities near soybean and cranberry crops included pollinator home and increased output by just one percent, annual crop values could rise by US $1.75 million, US $4 million and US $233,000, respectively.
"Farmers could identify unprofitable areas, such as poor, highly erodible lands, as candidates for a pollinator-friendly solar farm. There's the potential to increase their net income with pollinator motivation projects," says O'Neal.
With enough forward thinking, these studies show, clean energy can provide new environmental opportunities. "We're at a turning point with energy production and we're seeing more opportunities to provide extra benefits that wouldn't have been considered with older methods of energy generation," says O'Neal. "You never heard of a coal mine planning pollinator conservation."
LOVE it or hate it, there is no escape from Internet slang.
This is especially true among young people in some English-speaking countries such as Australia, the UK, and the US. These days, if they haven't caught up with the latest popular Internet slang, chances are that they often feel out of the loop on social media.
Take these posts by The Washington Post for example: "David Bowie dying is totes tradge" and "When Cookie hugged Jamal, it made me totes emosh". What on earth do these mean? Well, "totes" is a short form of the adverb "totally". Likewise, "tradge" means "tragic" and "emosh" means "emotional".
It seems that for millennials (those born between the early 1980s and late 1990s), typing in this abbreviated form is not only time-saving but also hip. Many millennial slang words are formed by what linguists call the practice of totesing — the systematic abbreviation of words, according to a recent article in The Washington Post.
Some people think that millennial slang affects the English language negatively. However, Melbourne University linguist Rosey Billington doesn't agree.
"When you are able to use language in a creative way, you show you are linguistically knowledgeable because you know the language rules well enough to use words in a different way," Billington told News.com.au. Her view is backed up by two linguists, Lauren Spradlin, and Taylor Jones, from the City University of New York and the University of Pennsylvania respectively. The two believe that totes-speak is a highly-organized system that can only be used by speakers who have mastered English pronunciation.
"The ability to break apart syllables and mix different sounds together is key. Totesing is about sounds, and it follows the sometimes-complicated sound system of English," Jones told The Washington Post. Totesing is not random. On the contrary, it has strict rules to follow. You need to be very fluent in the English language to be able to understand totes-speak.
Four Common Communication Mistakes
It can be embarrassing to make mistakes in communication. For example, if you send an email with a grammatical error, you can end up looking unprofessional. For example, they can push away colleagues or customers. Now let's look at some common communication mistakes.
Spelling, tone and grammatical mistakes can make you look careless. That's why it's essential to check all of your communications before you send them. Sometimes, it can be difficult to see errors in your own work. So consider asking a colleague to look over key documents before you distribute them.
You always deliver bad news by email.
Would you announce something bad to others by email? If you did, you could upset them! Written communication channels don't allow you to soften difficult messages with non-verbal（非言语的）clues, such as body language. So if you need to deliver bad news, do this in person.
You tend to avoid difficult conversations.
At some point, you will need to give negative feedback（反馈意见）. It may seem wise to avoid such conversation. For instance, you may find that a small problem you "let go" soon grows into a big one. Preparation is the key to handling difficult conversations. Learn to give clear, actionable feedback.
You are reacting instead of responding.
Have you ever shouted at a colleague in upset, or sent a brief and unfriendly reply to an email, without thinking your point through? If so, you're likely to have reacted emotionally, instead of responding calmly. The kind of emotional reaction can damage your reputation.
A. You fail to have your work edited. B. But this can cause further problems. C. Difficult conversations can cause upset. D. You assume others understand your messages. E. You may give others the impression of lacking self-control. F. And they don't allow you to immediately deal with strong emotions. G. Other communication mistakes can have more serious consequences. |
On CHRISTMAS Eve 2020, fire trucks rushed to the Chuck's home in Manton, Michigan. But it wasn't because of a Christmas nightmare. Far from it.
Winters can be1 this far north, especially in the full swing of COVID-19. Scott Chuck knew something had to be done to bring some2 to the 1, 555 people calling Manton home.
Chuck, 51, owns a house with a yard. When he was three, his father built a(n) 3 in their backyard, where Chuck and his buddies would spend4 hours playing hockey. That, thought Chuck, is what the children in this community need.
One problem: Chuck had no5 how to expand the ice-skating rink that had been abandoned for years and was6 too small for his intention. Luckily, there's YouTube. After watching a video, he was7 a 3,000-square-foot shallow pool in his yard, and buying logs to create the walls. Now he needed the ice. That's where those fire trucks came in. It took 12 of them to spray enough water to8 the pool. Then he waited for Mother Nature to do9 .
It wasn't long before Chuck's back yard became a Manton hot10 . The smell of grilled hot dogs in the air, the sparkle of lights over the ice and the laughter of children playing hockey11 everyone.
But the kindness didn't stop with Chuck. When12 got out that he'd spent S1, 400 out of his own pocket to build his rink, neighbors, even strangers, donated $3, 000 to13 the costs and more.
For Chuck, the rink was always14 about kids playing merrily. It was about 15 even the darkest times.
When the fire alarm woke her up at 6：50 a．m., Cloe Woods immediately took action. 5yearold girl jumped out of bed and found herself (surround) with heavy smoke. Remembering she'd learned on a school field trip to the local fire department in Kenner, Louisiana, she went to wake up her blind grandmother, Claudia Arceneaux, 76, who had lost her sight nine (month) earlier.
Cloe told her grandmother to hold her shoulder as they walked out of their home. Once outside, she started looking for water, (think) she could put the fire out herself.
The fire was eventually put out. A firefighter praised Cloe for her (brave)．
"Cloe is ahead of my time，" Shone Arceneaux, Cloe's mom, said (proud). "Who knows what could have happened it hadn't been for Cloe? Of course, we owe great thanks Cloe's school for providing Cloe with the chance to learn about fire safety."
The family is now at a hotel while the house (repair). Meanwhile, Cloe's school is raising money to help the family recover.
假如你是李华，你的英国朋友Tom 在你和家人去英国旅游的时候给你提供了很多帮助。请你写一封电子邮件表达感谢，内容包括：1. 告知已平安回国；2. 回顾帮助与收获；3. 邀请来中国游玩。
注意：1. 词数80左右；2. 适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
When my husband Randy died in late fall, deciding what to do with his garden was way down on the list of necessary tasks. During the first few months, I cried with our daughters, planned a memorial, cried with my family, celebrated a quiet Thanksgiving, and panicked over not having bought Christmas presents.
As the calendar turned to a new year, the often rainy days and long nights deepened my sorrow. I found myself exhausted at the end of February, both physically and mentally. Then the daffodils bloomed (开花) in the garden.
Years before, Randy had planted dozens of these lemon-yellow flowers. To him, they served as a reminder of hope, a promise that light and warmth would soon replace cold and dark. Looking at those dauffodils, I thought about how Randy had considered our garden a living work of art, carefully choosing plants so we'd see new blooms every month.
Then I noticed all the weeds that had taken root and spread everywhere. The neglect (疏于打理 ) showed, for Randy's illness had lasted a couple of years, a time when he didn't have energy for yard work the way he had before.
Faced with the neglected garden, I felt overwhelmed in the beginning. My daughters suggested I hire a service to clean everything up. I didn't respond.
Every time I sat in the garden alone, the memories of the lively garden came flooding, like the numerous scenes in an unforgettable film. Many days Randy came home from work, changed into old clothes, and headed out the door to mow or prune (修剪). Orange dragonflies followed him around the yard as he worked. Honeybees buzzed among the flowers, birds sang beautiful songs, and gentle breezes carried the sweet smell of dirt. No matter how cold or wet it was, the fresh air and physical activity made him energized and refreshed. For Randy, the work was quiet and comforting, which was a relief, as well as a pleasure.
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。
The days grew warmer and lighter, and I started the work myself.
Weeks later, my daughters returned to visit me.
