I have five months to travel before I write! I'm going to some countries where I can practice speaking English. Where am I going to start?
Canada It's the Rockies for me in November! There are mountains and beautiful lakes everywhere. I'd like to visit Nunavut, the home of the Inuit in the north of Canada, but unfortunately I'm not going to get there. |
Australia Australia is very hot from November to March. I love hot weather, so I'm going to arrive in Sydney in December. I'm going to sight see in Sydney — there are so many interesting buildings in the city. |
India Rajasthan is the perfect introduction to India with its festivals and monuments (古迹). There are also exciting markets, with beautiful clothes and jewelry. I'm going to spend the month of January there. |
South Africa South Africa offers safaris (狩猎旅行) and the chance to see wild animals. It also has a wonderful coastline, so, after the safari, I'm going to find a beach and go swimming there. I'm going in February. |
I work in a nursing home and my job is to take care of the elderly.
This year, an old lady that I cared for, Alice, had gone through a difficult time. She got dementia and so she had been in the hospital twice. In November I was finally able to get her back to her "home".
Alice had thought her daughter was coming to visit her on Christmas day and that they were going to have the whole family together like the old days. When she finally realized that the happy moment was not going to happen, she was very sad. Knowing that her daughter was not able to make her feel happy, I hated the idea of her being alone on the holiday!
On Christmas Eve, I gave her a surprise by asking if she would like to go to a candlelight service at church that night.
I took her to her old neighborhood church where all her friends were there. We got to the church early. Then soon some of her friends came and they went over to greet her and sit with her.
The candlelight service was beautiful and Alice got a lot of love from her old and new friends there.
The truth of the story is that I am the one who got the best gift: the smile on Alice's face.
Have you ever wondered how your favorite NBA team received its famous name? All NBA teams have an interesting story or a history behind their names. Some of the names reflected the city's culture or history, others came from previous owners and many were selected through "Name the Team" contests.
For teams like the Los Angeles Lakers and the Utah Jazz, the names were not always a reflection of the city. Even though Los Angeles has no lakes, the Lakers name has been a city treasure for almost 40 years. Before going to Los Angeles, the team originated in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In 1947, team officials changed the name to the Lakers to reflect the Minnesota State's nickname, "Land of 10,000 Lakes". The team name went unchanged after moving to Los Angeles in 1960.
Because the Utah's team originated in New Orleans, Louisiana, it was called the Jazz. In 1974, New Orleans club officials chose the name to represent the city for its reputation as the "Jazz Capital of the World". The name stayed with the team even after finding a new home in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1979.
The original owner of the Chicago Bulls, Richard Klein, named the team the Bulls. He picked the name because a fighting bull is relentless and never quits. Klein, who founded the club in 1966, believed these qualities were necessary for a championship team and hoped his Chicago athletes would live up to the team name. The Bulls, the winner of the six NBA championships, has definitely followed the belief.
In 1967, the Indiana Pacers selected their team name in a different way from most other teams. Their decision was based on what they wanted to accomplish in the NBA. Team officials chose the Pacers name because the organization wanted to set the "pace" in professional basketball.
It seems there's nowhere left to run from the microplastic (微塑料的) pollution. A small pilot study recently took microplastics from one of Europe's most distant places, the French Pyrenees mountains, and found as many microplastics in the soil as you might expect from a big city like Paris.
The reason? The wind. Researchers now fear that our planet's winds can pick up microplastics from about anywhere and transport them around the world, sometimes in large quantities. "We'd kind of expected it in a city getting blown around," said Steve Allen from the University of Strathclyde in the UK, one member of the team. "But way up there? We expected to find some," he said. "We didn't expect to find so many."
Microplastics are pieces smaller than a fifth of an inch that have broken down from larger pieces of plastic. The forces of nature don't distinguish (区分) between materials like stones and rocks, and plastics. Wind and waves hit plastics and break them down just the same, making them into dust that can then get swept up by the gentle wind and into the atmosphere. It's a continuing environmental concern, as more and more microplastics find their way into our food and air.
The fact that microplastics can be found in large numbers even in distant places is a sign that is has become a global pollution problem. Steve Allen and his team set up collectors 4,500 feet up in the mountains for five months to trap plastic particles (粒子) as they fell to the Earth. The team found that an average of 365 plastic particles fell on their square meter collector daily. This included bits from plastic bags, plastic film and packaging material, among other plastic sources. Many of these materials were small enough to be breathed in without even realizing it. They're in the air, and they're everywhere.
Want to improve your mind? A little bit of effort every day goes a long way. Here are some simple actions that could help you become a smarter person.
Think about how to make more money, how to solve a daily problem you have, interesting movie ideas' or anything else. It doesn't matter what subject your ideas fall into as long as you're working your brain.
Read newspapers. You'll learn to form your own opinions. You'll also have a lot more to talk about at parties or with friends.
Instead of watching TV, watch educational videos. And you can learn a lot from other people's experiences. In videos, the information is often presented in an understandable, memorable way, so you can be sure it will stick in your mind.
If you find someone to discuss something with, you can add to each other's knowledge and gain new ideas. Also, when you can explain ideas to someone else, it means you've mastered them. You can even share what you learn on the Internet.
Hang out with people who are smarter than you. Every day, you should try to have a coffee date or walk with someone who inspires you. Always be willing to learn. Ask as many questions as possible. If you are always around people who are more knowledgeable than you, you'll have no choice but to learn more.
A. Try to be good at your job.
B. Come up with 10 ideas every day.
C. Don't always follow others' advice.
D. Share what you learn with other people.
E. Spend as much time as you can with wise people.
F. Sometimes, it's more exciting to watch something than to read it.
G. It will help you become more aware of the important things happening around the world.
In October, I said to my students, "Why not do some 1 to make some money? Then we'll buy food for someone in need."
Then early in that week they came with their hard-earned money at their homes, 2 to go shopping. We soon picked what we needed. As we headed toward the checkout, someone shouted, "Flowers!" The group rushed to the flowers. However, considering practicality, I said, "You can't send flowers." "But please, Mrs. Sherlock," someone begged, "we want flowers." Defeated (被打败了), I 3 them to buy some carnations (康乃馨).
An organization had given us the information of a 4 grandmother living alone for many years. After a long drive, we 5 arrived at a small, shabby (破旧的) house. An old lady came out to 6 us. Each box was 7 quickly. But when the woman noticed the carnations, she seemed 8 . "She's wishing it were a bag of rice," I thought.
"Do you like living here?" Michael asked. Hearing this, the woman 9 , "Of course. I'm quite fond of living here." She told the children about the birds flying to the bread she 10 . "Maybe that's why I could get the food from you," she said. "Because I 11 my food with the birds."
We returned to the 12 and saw her wave goodbye. Then she walked past the food, straight to the carnations. She put her face in the carnations, with a smile on her lips. The children were quiet. They had seen the 13 they had to make another's life 14 . And I had seen something too — sometimes a person needs lovely 15 on a cold winter.
It's well known that March 12th is China's annual National Tree Planting Day. On this day, people throughout China, will take spades and buckets (铲子和水桶) as well as young trees, and go out (green) their hometowns.
As a matter fact, China's Tree Planting Day could date back to a proposal (make) by Sun Yat-sen (孙中山) (1866—1925) and Qingming Festival (April 5th) was adopted (采纳) as Tree Planting Day then. However, April 5th was a late time for tree-planting in Southern China, so it was changed to March 12th in honour of Sun Yat-sen, passed away on March 12th.
In February 1979, the 5th National People's Congress of People's Republic of China (announce) that March 12th would be taken as Tree Planting Day, requiring the whole country to carry out tree planting (activity) on March 12th.
In recent years, the tradition of tree-planting in the spring (observe) by Chinese people. For those living in the big cities, National Tree Planting Day is unique moment for city skipping. It is (absolute) convenient for people to have access to nature with their family members. After their fieldwork together, they get much (satisfy) from better environment. They also harvest closer family relations as well as enthusiasm for the future.
It was a moral lesson on Tuesday afternoon. Jodie hadn't really heard anything, maybe a whisper (低语), but when she turned around, the girls in the back row of the class were looking at her, trying to hide smiles. Mr Smith was talking about people's jobs. He also wanted to find out what his students wanted to do when they grew up. He called on Billy Mitzer first.
''My daddy works in a bank,'' Billy Mitzer said. ''I want to work in a bank too. There's lots of money in the bank.'' ''My parents have a grocery store,'' Emmy Disalvo said. ''But I want to be an airline pilot.''
Jodie liked it when Mr. Smith asked them questions like this. Mr. Smith was about to call on Jodie when the girls in the back row started laughing. Shirley Danes shouted, ''Jodie's daddy is a garbage man!''
Everybody in the class laughed out loud except Jodie. She felt embarrassed and her face turned bright red. She looked around the whole classroom. Everyone was laughing. Some kids were even holding their noses.
Mr Smith was angry. He seldom raised his voice, but at that time he did. ''Silence! I want everybody to be quiet,'' he shouted. The laughter stopped immediately. The sound of cars and people going by on the street came through the windows. ''You should feel sorry for yourselves,'' Mr Smith said. ''Being a garbage man is a difficult and greatly useful job. We should be grateful to Jodie's father. Where would we be without him?''
A few kids started laughing again. ''It's not funny,'' Mr Smith went on. ''Garbage is a serious matter. I think you all should say sorry to Jodie. And after that, you're all going to write Jodie's father a nice letter to tell him how much you appreciate what he does for all of us—in other words, keeping our city clean.''
Paragraph 1:
Everyone did as Mr Smith asked them to.
……
Paragraph 2:
Jodie started crying out.
……
