The scars that Pat Pribble carried through life were formed nearly 50 years ago, caused by fellow students in Woodland, who picked on him because he was different.
Pat's parents had held him back in the seventh grade in secondary school, so he ended up in the same class as his younger brother, Leo. Forever the oldest kid in the class, Pat tried to fit in. He played sports. He went on dates. But he was always just not good enough for this; just not smart enough for that. Pat Pribble was a target.
After graduating, Pat drifted and lost his way. He was homeless, and he never married or had children. From a distance, with his long gray hair and beard, Pat appears tough, the kind of man you might cross the street to avoid. When talking with others, he shows a gentle side. He speaks quietly, measuring his words, careful to hide what he is thinking and feeling, as those were the very things others once seized upon to laugh at him.
Last November, as Carey planned for the 45th reunion in 2021, he decided to personally invite Leo. As the two men caught up on each other's lives, Carey learned that Leo had terminal (晚期的）brain cancer and had only months to live. Leo then made one more request—everyone should also call Pat. And so they did. '*Never underestimate (低估）people,” said Leo. “We're all different now than when we were kids.'* Leo passed away this past January. His former classmates had promised him that after he was gone they wouldn't lose track of Pat, and they have kept that promise. Healing wounds from the past has allowed Pat to look to the future. “I'll be at the next reunion,” he says.
War has long been understood as men's business. The memoirs (回忆录）of generals and front-line soldiers compete for shelf space with edited collections of letters from soldiers and military histories largely written by men. This book is a good reminder that it is not only men who experience wars, and it is not only men who report on them. War reporters such as the Sunday Times* Marie Colvin, killed in Syria covering the siege (包围）of Homs in 2012, have brought the realities of war into our homes.
Mackrell's lively book tells the stories of six of the female reporters who reported on the Second World War. Some, such as Martha Gellhom and Lee Miller, are well known, others, like Virginia Cowles and Helen Kirkpatrick, now less so. Clare Hollingworth, the only British war reporter included here, filed the first eyewitness account of the German invasion of Poland in 1939.
Mackrell also tells the story of the war through their writing. As France fell in the early summer of 1940, Cowles travelled to Paris. Her description of the mass escape from that city as Nazi troops approached - '*think of noise and confusion, of the thick smell of petrol, of shouts, curses and tears** - is still a vivid reminder of the impact of war today.
The women whose lives and work are recorded here regularly put their lives in danger - perhaps none more so than Sigrid Schultz, whose reports from Berlin conveyed the horror of Hitler's rule to an American audience. In 1945 she returned, with fellow reporters Kirkpatrick and Ed Murrow, to report on the liberation of Buchenwald concentration camp. Mackrell reveals the full extent of the danger faced by Schultz only at the end of this book. Like the copy by her subject, it is an essential read.
Scientists have long sought to prevent sharp memories from dulling with age, but the problem remains unsettled. Now research published in Scientific Reports suggests virtual reality might help older people recall facts and events based on specific details.
The study involved 42 healthy older adults from the San Francisco Bay Area. Half spent a dozen hours over four weeks playing a virtual-reality game called Labyrinth; they wore headsets and walked in place, walking virtual neighborhoods while completing small tasks. The other half, in the control group, used electronic tablets to play games that did not require recalling details. After 15 sessions (期）, the latter performed roughly the same as before on a long-term memory test. But the Labyrinth players gain an improvement in memory through the VR game. A scientist Peter Wais of the University of California said the improvements brought them up to the level of another group of younger adults taking the same memory tests.
Meredith Thompson, an education researcher, studies learning through VR games but was not involved in the new study. 4tIt would be great to actually follow people over time and see what this type of game does for long-term memory.*1 She says, adding VR can provide greater involvement than other games. Wais's team is now investigating how long the observed effects last and which elements of the training have the most impact.
A cognitive (认知）psychologist, Daniel Simons, who was also not involved in the study, notes experiments with other games that claim to train the brain have often failed to evaluate this. And it remains unclear how test performance in a laboratory setting might translate to real-world situations. The outcome, Simons notes, “needs to be repeated, ideally with a much larger group, before it*s treated as a strong finding.”
For now, Wais says, the team hopes its studies with similar-sized groups will help draw funding to test the game in a larger pool of participants.
Compared with the obvious environmental issues we hear about every day, littering (乱丢废物）is often taken lightly. But it's more severe than we may think.
This seems to be a completely harmless action due to the fact that if s part of a fruit-right? Actually, no. A banana peel (皮) can take up to two years to decompose (分解), and with a third of drivers admitting to littering while driving, that's a whole lot of banana peels, or much worse. An orange peel or a cigarette butt has a similar decomposing term to that of a banana. But tin and aluminium (铝）cans last up to 100 years.
It's true that longer-lasting materials will damage the environment and its animals for longer. For example, despite its fairly short decomposing term, more than 120 tons of cigarette-related litter is discarded (丢弃) in the UK every day. Besides, our annual littering, which has increased by 500 percent since the 1960s, has caused the UK's rat population to increase by 60 million.
It's not a cheap habit either: So, ifs not surprising that if caught littering you could face a £20,000 fine or even jail time and, if you throw away something dangerous, the court could give you five years to serve. The punishments might seem severe. So we still have some way to go in making sure people follow the rules.
To take back our beautiful countryside and cities we need to do more than simply not littering. We need to truly care more about the world around us.
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A. Banana peels are among the most frequent littered stuff. B. But fear of the environmental impact of litter is on the rise. C. Imagine throwing a banana peel out of your car while driving. D. UK taxpayers pay £500 million in order to keep our streets clean. E. And plastic bottles last forever, as do glass bottles and plastic bags. F. However, among the reported cases only 2,000 out of 825,000 were punished. G. But we can't simply measure the seriousness of a certain type of rubbish by its lifetime. |
We tried to stop Anna from jumping, but she made no response. Obviously, she ignored our warnings, which led to a1that would change her life forever. She2off a rock into a river none of us was sure was3enough. When she hit the bottom, she broke her back.
I4Anna at the hospital every day for the next few weeks. I saw her5vary between anger and quite depression. Her whole life seemed6. She was too confused and demoralized (意志消沉）to think reasonably about her7.
Within about a month,8, I began to see a change in Anna. She had moved to Henner House to participate in a comprehensive9, designed to meet all the needs of10like Anna. The program rehabilitates(使.康复）accident victims so that they can11fulfilling lives. Anna gained12once she saw she could learn to do such everyday tasks cooking, cleaning, and bathing. After learning how to get around indoors, she13tried travelling around the city in her wheelchair. The more she did, the14she felt. The staff also helped Anna plan for her future. They urged her to think about her goals and how she might 15them. At times, it was16for her to keep going with the program, but she didn't quit.
Now ten months later, Anna is about to live a somewhat17life. Her disability is not a18: she is able to do many of the ordinary things she used to do — work, drive, and live in an apartment with a friend. Yes, her life had19forever. But Anna is once again glad to be20.
Researches (identify) two main ways in which we learn a foreign language since the 1950s. Firstly，experts talk of us acquiring (习得）language. This means same as picking up language. They say that to learn a foreign language successfully, we need lots of exposure to it and that we learn when we (surround) by language. We need to hear and read language which is rich in variety, interesting to us and just difficult enough for us (for example, just beyond our level) not too difficult. We acquire language over a period of time without realizing that we are learning. Secondly, experts believe that to learn language successfully, we need to use it in communication other people. We need to use language to express (we) and make our meanings clear to them, and to understand them. The person we are talking to will let us know, directly or indirectly, if they have understood us or not. If they have not understood, we need to try again, (use) other language until we manage to communicate (effective). It is this process of struggling to make meaning clear helps learners experiment with language and try out structures and vocabulary (learn) in daily interactions to see if they help them get their message across.
Old Jim was without doubt the best hair stylist I'd ever known. He designed every haircut so artistically that it would be an understatement (低估）to say the magics created by him were “beautiful”. But there was one strange thing about his shop: there was no mirror in it, so customers were kept in suspense (悬念）until they reached home.
I entered Old Jim's hairdresser's, sad and disappointed, having just been rejected a role in the school play. I was ordinary-looking and boring, and that's why they didn't want me — I was convinced. “I want to be beautiful,” I said to Old Jim, tears almost dropping. After having a haircut, I thanked him again and walked out through the door, his words remaining in my head: “There's magic in your new hair. Now start your journey to beauty.”
Sunlight dropped down through the overlapping leaves above my head as I walked on the street. I shook my head but didn't feel a difference. I could only slightly feel that something was different, like a little voice that had long been suppressed (抑制）that desired to be heard.
Suddenly, I heard someone calling out to me. “Susan! Susan” I turned around. It was Jennifer, the most popular girl in the whole school. “It really is you, Susan. You look great today!” 'Thanks.” Jennifer was everything I wanted to be. What a sweet victory to get such admiration from a girl like her! We had a conversation on school and parted at a crossing, where she turned left and I right.
As I walked, I could see a boy walking toward me. We went to the same school but hadn't talked to each other much. If it weren't for the new hair, I would have looked down and pretended not to see him. I had always been shy.
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But at that point, I intended to test out Old Jim*s magic.
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At the sight of home, I started to go faster, desperate to see my new hair in the mirror in my room.
