Coming home from school, I bounded up the steps, and burst into the living room. I was1by what I saw. Mother sat on the couch,2. I had never seen that.
I approached cautiously and touched her shoulder. "Mother? "I said "What's happened?" She wiped away tears and managed a weak smile."3important. Just that I'm going to lose the job at the radio station. I can't4fast enough."
"You have been practicing typing on your green typewriter recently and I believe you'll5" I said." you always said you could do anything6you set your mind to it." I reached out and put my arms around her.
"I7think I can in most things, but I can't do this." She said8.
She broke then. She put her face9my shoulder. Finding Mother in tears, I began very slowly to10the pressure on her.
She was still my mother, but she was something more: a person like me, capable of fear and hurt and11. I could feel her pain as she must have felt12on a hundred occasions when l had found comfort *in her arms.
A week later Mother took a job selling dry goods, but the evening practice sessions on that green typewriter13. I had a very different feeling now when I passed her door at night and heard her tapping away. I knew there was something more going on in there than a woman learning to type.
Several years later, Mother successfully accepted a job as a newspaper reporter with our hometown paper.
The14green typewriter sits in my office now, unrepaired. When I'm having trouble writing an article and think about giving up, I roll a piece of paper into that machine and type, word by painful word, just the way mother did. What keeps in my mind then is not her failure, but her15to go ahead.
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Nowadays, electric cookers are commonly used to make rice cooking easier and more efficient. You only need to press the button and wait for about half an hour, and then everything is ready. Things needed: An electric cooker, electricity, rice and water. Instructions in sequence: a. Put the rice into the inner pot and add water. The proportion*between rice and water is 1 to 1.15 or 1.2. b. Dry the surface of the inner pot and then put it on the heating plate. c. Press down the lid until you hear a click sound. d. Tun on the electric cooker. The button will bounce when it finishes. Warnings: Don't use the metal brush to clean the inner pot, so as not to damage it. Wait for at least ten minutes after the button tells you the rice is outright cooked. After using the electric cooker, don't forget to turn it off in time and dry the inner pot. If the rice cooker fails to function well, please feel free to call us at400-889-9315 for any help! |
The Silk Road was a network of trade routes between China and Europe in the 10th century. Merchants* carrying Chinese silk and other goods followed routes that crossed Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Far East.
Traveling the Silk Road could be gruelling. Warring soldiers Caravanserai10h Century bandits, and terrible weather such as sandstorms troubled the merchants. Caravanserais made the way easier for weary*tradesmen. These were huge guesthouses that welcomed traveling merchants. At a caravanserai, traders were safe from harm. There, they could enjoy tasty meals, rest, and ready themselves to journey on.
A caravanserai was surrounded with high, strong walls. The one entrance was big enough fora loaded pack animal to enter. Along the inside of the walls were guest rooms for merchants, their servants and their goods. Some guest houses provided stables*for animals. Others had open central courtyards where pack animals-horses, camels, yaks, oxen, and elephants—drank from stone water troughs.
Caravanserais were located within a day's journey of each other. This allowed merchants to avoid spending nights exposed to the Silk Road's dangers. In many regions, there was always a caravanserai every 20 to 25 miles.
A caravanserai provided more than a safe place to rest. There, traders could exchange goods and pack animals, buy local products, and socialize with other merchant travelers. Thus, the caravanserais provided places for people of different cultures to share knowledge about arts, crafts, literature, science, and technologies. Over hundreds of years; trade along the Silk Road allowed cultures, languages and religions to influence one another.
The water on Earth has been moving all the time for billions of years. It travels from ocean to air to land and back to the ocean. This continuous movement is called the water cycle, and it is the reason that earth has the same amount of water today as it did back in the days of the dinosaurs. The water cycle provides people, animals, and plants with life-giving water. Each stage of the water cycle is equally important. Here are some of the stages.
Evaporation is the stage of the water cycle when water moves into the air. Water in oceans, seas, lakes, rivers, and streams is in liquid form. The sun's radiation heats the water and causes it to change into vapor. It rises into the atmosphere.Areas that receive more heat from the sun experience more evaporation.
Condensation is the stage of the water cycle that follows evaporation. In this stage, vapor changes back into liquid while it is still in the air. Vapor in the atmosphere moves to different regions of Earth. When vapor moves to cooler regions, it also cools. Cooling causes vapor to change back into liquid. It turns into many tiny water droplets.The water droplets collect, making them visible in the air. Clouds and fog are collections of water droplets that result from condensation. The water droplets can remain in the air as long as they are light enough for air currents to carry them.
Precipitation occurs after condensation. This is the stage of the water cycle when water travels back to Earth's surface. Water droplets in the atmosphere collect in clouds and become heavy. They become so heavy that air currents can no longer carry them. The droplets fall to Earth's surface as rain. If the air is cold, the water droplets may be snowflakes, hail, or sleet. Some of the precipitation soaks into the ground and some of it goes directly back into the same oceans, seas, lakes, rivers, and streams from which it had evaporated.
Although the water cycle has kept water usable for billions of years, the fresh water that we depend on is limited. It is necessary that we think about ...
An old banker was walking up and down his study and recalling how, fifteen years before, he had made a bet with the young lawyer. Here was the bet: if the lawyer could stay in a room, which would be under the strictest supervision, without, going out for fifteen years, he would receive two million dollars from the banker. It was also agreed in the bet that the lawyer could read books during the fifteen-year imprisonment. Now, only several hours were left of the fifteen-year bet.
"That bet!" said the banker, "Why didn't the lawyer die? He will take away my last money, marry, enjoy life, and I will look like a poor penniless. No, it's too much! The only escape from the condition -- is that the lawyer should die."
In the darkness of that night, the old banker unlocked the door which had not been opened for fifteen years.
Behind the door, the banker was surprised to see open books lying on the table, on the two easy-chairs, and everywhere on the floor. At the table a man was sitting silently. On the table, in front of his bowed head, lay a sheet of paper on which something was written. "Poor man," thought the banker, "he's asleep and probably seeing millions in his dreams. I only have to kill him. But, first, let me read what he has written."
"Tomorrow at twelve o'clock midnight, I shall be free. But before I leave this room, I think it necessary to say some words to you. For fifteen years I saw neither the earth nor the people, but in the books, 1 drank wine, sang songs, hunted deer in the forests. It was books that gave me wisdom. I know that I am wiser than you all. And I want to show you my contempt for that by which you live, so l give up the money of which I once dreamed, and which I now look down upon. Therefore, I shall escape five minutes before the end of my 15 years as a prisoner and break the agreement."
The banker put the sheet back, kissed the head of the strange man, and began crying. Never at any other time, not even when he was dirt poor, had he felt so great a contempt for himself as now. He had the hardest time sleeping that night. The next morning, after knowing the lawyer hardscaped, the banker took the letter and locked it in his safe, to avoid unnecessary trouble.
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Born into a poor farmer's family in 1930, Dr Yuan graduated from Southwest Agricultural College in 1953. Since then, finding ways to grow more rice had been his life goal. Dr Yuan searched for a way to produce more crops in the same(田地). In 1974, he became the first agricultural (先锋) in the world to grow rice. Now more than60% of the rice produced in China each year is from this hybrid rice.
Yuan Longping is one of (著名的) scientists in China. (然而),he considered himself a farmer and he was quite satisfied with his (简单的) life. He didn't care about being rich. He felt it gave him less freedom to do his research. He would much rather keep time for his (爱好). He enjoyed listening to violin music, playing mahjong, (游泳) and reading. .
Spending money on himself or leading a comfortable life also meant very little to him. Indeed, he believed that a person with too much money had more rather than (更少的)troubles. He therefore gave (千) of yuan to support others in their research in agriculture.
Dr. Yuan's work for the Chinese people made him a hero in China. He (记得) by us Chinese people forever.
