Wine and beaches, fireworks and music...our readers recommend some fantastic festivals.
Festa deirtlva e del vino, Italy
Set on the beautiful shores of Lake Garda, this grapes and wine festival takes over the small town of Bardolino for four days every October. With local wines, food, art projections, fireworks and live music, people come from miles around to celebrate. First and foremost, it's about great wine, but it's worth visiting to soak up the great atmosphere.
Free, 1-5 October
Quest festival, Vietnam
This is a weekend camping festival held just a 40-minute drive from Hanoi, bringing together locals and visitors in a celebration of underground live and electronic music culture. Held in the beautiful Son Tinh campsite, there are usually about 30 local and international DJs and 10 bands. There are also workshops, pop-up cafes, fire performances, dancing and much more.
Weekend tickets about £25, 6-8 November
Estival, Switzerland
This is a free festival of jazz which takes place in the first weekend in July in the pretty squares and lakeside beaches and parks around the southern Swiss town of Lugano. The palm trees and summer air to see some of Europe's up and coming jazz bands and enjoy Swiss
Free, every July
Irish Redhead Convention, County Cork
A friendly gathering for all red-haired people is held in the small seaside village of Crosshaven where redheads from all over the world take part in light hearted events. There's live music, art exhibitions, lectures and of course the traditional Parade of Redheads through the village led by the newly crowned Redhead King and Queen.
Free, Every August
On Saturday 24 August 1918, it was raining cats and dogs and thundering over a city called Sunderland on the northeast coast of England. The storm lasted for only about ten minutes. People were surprised to see that it was not just rainwater falling from the sky. There were fish falling down, too! People came out to find out what was happening. They could not believe their own eyes. There were thousands of fish — sand eels— lying on the ground. They were about seven centimeters long, and all were frozen solid.
Sand eels swim together in large groups, often in sandy water, and are often found in large numbers in the North Sea, which reaches out to the east of Sunderland. How was it possible for these sand eels to fall from the sky and land on Sunderland?
Scientists believed the heavy thunderstorm that afternoon may have caused a waterspout. Waterspouts can be formed when strong winds move quickly in a circle over water. They are so powerful; anything less than one meter in length can be taken into them and forced into the clouds. The clouds carry whatever has been taken into them for long distances — sometimes over 150 kilometers. It's very cold up there and everything soon freezes solid.
For hundreds of years there have been reports of small animals being taken into the sky through waterspouts. In 2009, dead tadpoles rained down on the city of Nanao in Japan. In 2012, fifty kilos of prawns fell from the sky over Sri Lanka. In 2017, fish fell on the coastal city of Tampico in Mexico.
It must be a very strange experience to see fish raining down on you. It would probably hurt if one fell on your head! With climate change, global warming and many reports of terrible natural disasters, will the time ever come when it may really begin to rain cats and dogs?
I keep remembering unusual things: the way she loved daffodils, jokes she told at the dinner table, the look in her eyes when she talked about my future. I knew about college before I'd never heard of high school; I was Mom's second chance at the degree she never had.
Her parents pushed her too much, too hard, and she always wished she hadn't let the pressure defeat her. She dropped out of college after one term for marriage and a secretarial job. While she never regretted marrying my father, she always regretted giving up her dream of becoming an accountant. She was determined her eldest daughter would never miss an opportunity.
One of the most extremely special times of my life was Christmas in my second school year, when I played Tiny Tim in a local community theater production of "A Christmas Carol." Mom delighted in my endless rehearsal (排练) stories and spent hours helping me work out ways of disguising my long hair. There's a line in the show: "And it was always said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive had the knowledge." Change the pronouns and that sentence describes Mom perfectly.
She was the one person I could talk to about anything. She was right about so much, so often—much more than I gave her credit for at the time.
I never imagined she wouldn't be here now. I never thought cancer could strike so quickly, could kill someone so strong and determined in only a year. She's the only person I couldn't imagine living without; now, since last January, I've had to. Suddenly, I have no one to talk to about meaningless little things, no one whose advice I trust completely to help me with decisions. When I come home from school, I come home to an empty house, troubled by memories of the year she spent here dying. I remember the disastrous Thanksgiving when she was feeling terrible, and our wonderful last Christmas Eve together.
What I feel cheated of is the future we'll never have.
For caffeine addicts, a morning without a pot of coffee is a no-go. But it hasn't always been as easy to make coffee as it is today — and as Rebecca K. Shrum writes, the dawn of coffee machines came along with a lot of manly marketing(营销).
Mr. Coffee, the first electric drip coffee machine for home use, appeared in1972, forever changing the way Americans made coffee. Before its rise, women used percolators (渗滤式咖啡壶) to make their coffee on the stovetop or on the counter — a method that produced bitter, scorched (烧焦的) coffee. Despite the availability of complex, non-electric drip systems, percolators ruled American kitchens.
They also gave American women a reputation for making terrible coffee. Part of that was based on the coffee supply itself, writes Shrum. Due to wartime shortages and poor quality, "coffee tasted bad no matter what method consumers used."
At the time, women were households' primary coffeemakers, and cultural pressures such as the popularity of percolators as wedding gifts kept the task in a firmly female sphere(领域). Coffee ads described coffee-caused family issues and threatened women who made bad coffee with relationship problems. This cultural pressure cooker presented the perfect opportunity for Mr. Coffee.
Mr. Coffee looked and worked differently than percolators. It also made better coffee. In order to get consumers to give up their familiar percolators for this expensive new product, not only was Mr. Coffee given a masculine (男子气概的) name, writes Shrum, but its marketing suggested that it would produce a man's preferred coffee. The company hired Joe DiMaggio to give his masculine endorsement (宣传) to the product — adding an additional layer of masculine advice to a product that claimed to teach women how to make better coffee.
Mr. Coffee encouraged men to get into the kitchen themselves. Since it was so easy to use, men no longer had an excuse to avoid coffee-making. Mr. Coffee played into existing ideas about gender and domesticity. It all goes to show that everything around us has historical and cultural significance — even that morning cup of coffee.
Between school, homework, sports, your after-school job, and hanging out with friends, it may feel like there's no time for healthy eating. And when you have time, you may simply eat snacks like potato chips.In fact, if you have a busy schedule, it's even more important to eat healthy foods that give you the energy you need to keep going.
For example, you may feel hungry in a long afternoon of classes or during your swim meet. Knowing how much food your body needs to satisfy this hunger is important. A few walnuts(核桃) are great brain food before sitting down to do your math homework.
Healthy snacking is important to you. During teenage years, the body needs more nutrients to grow. Snacks are a great way to satisfy your hunger and get all nutrients your body needs.Do not eat foods with lots of added sugars like candy bars or soda. That's because eating these foods may help you stop feeling hungry for a moment, but they are bad for your health in the long term.
Choosing healthy snacks means shopping smart.We may find "all natural" on the side of a package but it doesn't necessarily mean it's nutritious. For example, "all natural" juice drinks can be filled with sugar, which means they'll make you fat easily and give you little nutrition.
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A. It's natural to feel hungry at certain times. B. Healthy snacking doesn't have to be boring. C. But you need to pay attention to what you eat. D. If you're really feeling hungry, don't pay no attention to it. E. But it is possible to treat yourself to a healthy snack. F. But a whole bag only makes you put on weight easily! G. Be careful of the health information on food packages. |
When young, I loved going on trail runs. It was my favorite way to1stress.
So, when I was back in my hometown after a2first year of my Ph. D. program. I thought a trail run was just what I needed. But instead of helping me relax, the run did just the3.
After I moved to the city for college, where my runs were on flat concrete paths instead of4dirt trails, I used a GPS watch. When I went on trail runs again in the country, it constantly reminded me of the fact that I wasn't5up with my usual pace. I6my watch, thinking that would allow me to enjoy my7and find the peace I expected, but I found myself under performing. "Why can't I let go and just enjoy myself?" I wondered. But after some8, I realized why I was9both on trail runs and in graduate school.
Going into my Ph.D., I had thought that I would do well. To my surprise, I was wrong. I10confidence in my research abilities which I thought stopped me performing well and I constantly felt my progress was too slow. Other students' self-confidence and their excellent results made me feel11.
Then came my visit home. I was having12because I hadn't properly13my expectations to the differences between an urban run and a trail run.
A Ph. D. is like a trail run. Sometimes you can run fast. Sometimes you might climb at snail's pace. And that's OK. Barriers are14. Sometimes it's best to take a deep breath and do your best to15the challenge.
How can people live in a country for years and not learn the language? I'd heard of such people and, if I'm(complete) honest, I judged them. Then, the time came for me to move to China and I decided I wouldn't waste my opportunityothers.
After two years, I'm embarrassed to report that I've not made significant progress.I work mostly with Chinese colleaguesoffer to help me, I simply don't make the time. Why, though? How is it possible? Well, life is so interesting in Beijing that I get (catch) up in anything and everything else.
One would think that living in a foreign country would practically press you (study) the language, but it's more complex than that. First, when your job is to use your native language, the majority of your day (spend) in and around native language material. Second, let's not forget that we live in the (advance) era (时代) of translation apps. Yes, it is easy indeed to go about the majority of your day and not hear or need to use much Chinese at all. Thirdly, it must be recognized that learningnew language takes time.
In short, it has taught me how to abandon my opinions about how people "should" interact with the world. It has increased my (able) to empathize(共情).
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concentrate, misunderstand, frighten, apology, seek, achieve, judge |
