Things to Do in Yorkshire This Summer
Harrogate Music Festival
Since its birth, Harrogate Music Festival has gone from strength to strength. This year, we are celebrating our 50th anniversary. We begin on 1st June with Manchester Camerata and Nicola Benedetti, presenting an amazing programme of Mozart pieces.
Dates:1 June-31 July
Tickets:£12-£96
Jodie's Fitness Summer Classes
As the summer months roll in, our Georgian country estate makes the perfect setting for an outdoor fitness session. Come and work out with our qualified personal trainer, Jodie McGregor, on the grounds of the Middleton Lodge estate.
We will be holding a free taster session on 23rd May, at 10 am, to demonstrate the variety of effective and active exercises. There are eight spaces available for the taster session. Advance bookings are required(info@middletonlodge.co.uk.paris)
Dates:23 May-11 July
Tickets: £7.50 per session
Felt Picture Making
Working from an inspirational picture, this workshop at Helmsley Arts Centre will teach you the techniques you will need to recreate your picture in wool.
We will also discuss the origins of felt, what enables wool fibres to become felt and how the processes we use work.
Dates: 12 June-12 July
Tickets: £40 including materials
Figure It Out!-Playing with Math
A new exhibition in Halifax uses everyday activities to explain the hidden math principles we all use on a regular basis. Pack a bag, cut a cake, guess which juice container holds the most liquid, and much more. Discover how architects, product designers and scientists use similar skills in their work.
Dates:7 May-10 June
Tickets: Free
Christine Rowsey didn't know how she would go on. The last three years had been hard, but she still felt that she was making progress toward her goal of becoming a nurse. "I didn't have any money. I didn't have anything—just a dream," she recalled.
That dream came out of the loss of her son, who was born 3 weeks in advance. Unfortunately, after a whole month in the intensive care unit, the boy left her. Christine's main source of support during that ordeal had been the hospital's nursing staff. "I really loved the way they helped me," she said. That's when Christine had a realization:She wanted to do something with her life that mattered. Christine became determined to become a nurse and help people the way she had been helped.
She was able to learn in Oakland University's one-year licensed practical nursing (LPN)program. She took out loans (贷款)and worried about how she would repay them. She became the star student but struggled to take care of her family and study at the same time. With scholarships, she was able to cover about half of her costs. For the rest, she couldn't find a way out. That's when Christine found out about a VOA program, which not only paid for her study but offered to cover gas and food. "The VOA program was a real blessing," said Christine. "I wouldn't have been able to continue if VOA hadn't been there for me."
Christine now works as an LPN in Detroit, where she cares for patients. Through VOA, she gives talks to young people about the nursing profession. "Nursing school was the hardest thing I've ever done, and VOA helped me through it," said Christine. "All these people helped me rewrite my life, the way I wanted it to be written."
Rainforests are home to a rich variety of medicinal plants, food, birds and animals. Can you believe that a single bush (灌木丛) in the Amazon may have more species of ants than the whole of Britain! About 480 varieties of trees may be found in just one hectare of rainforest.
Rainforests are the lungs of the planet-storing vast quantities of carbon dioxide and producing a significant amount of the world's oxygen. Rainforests have their own perfect system for ensuring their own survival; the tall trees make a canopy (树冠层) of branches and leaves which protect themselves, smaller plants, and the forest animals from heavy rain, intense dry heat from the sun and strong winds.
Amazingly, the trees grow in such a way that their leaves and branches, although close together, never actually touch those of another tree. Scientists think this is the plants' way to prevent the spread of any tree diseases and make life more difficult for leaf-eating insects like caterpillars. To survive in the forest, animals must climb, jump or fly across the gaps. The ground floor of the forest is not all tangled leaves and bushes, like in films, but is actually fairly clear. It is where dead leaves turn into food for the trees and other forest life.
They are not called rainforests for nothing! Rainforests can generate 75%of their own rain. At least 80 inches of rain a year is normal-and in some areas there may be as much as 430 inches of rain annually. This is real rain-your umbrella may protect you in a shower, but it won't keep you dry if there is a full rainstorm. In just two hours, streams can rise ten to twenty feet. The humidity (湿气) of large rainforests contributes to the formation of rainclouds that may travel to other countries in need of rain.
In a time when too much importance has been attached to utilitarianism (功利主义), it doesn't come as a surprise to me that we people no longer believe in poetry. Utility is now often the standard of what one should devote his or her time and energy to and what he or she shouldn't, but don't get me wrong. I am not saying that one should not consider utility at all when making crucial decisions. On the contrary, everyone should take it into account. Medicine, law, business and engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance and love, these are what we stay alive for.
My dad once told me that "life is suffering", which now I think is probably a unanimous (无异议的) opinion among most people. With a tough life inevitably comes a tough language—and that is what poetry is and why poetry is needed. It offers people a way to talk about the difficult, to describe things in life, like death, suffering, profound joy and transformation. So whenever I hear someone say that poetry is not a must, or it's an option, or it's only for the educated middle classed, I suspect that he or she must have had things pretty easy.
But how can people live without poetry? Unlike what the academics may tell you, my suggestion about bringing poetry into your lives is that don't analyze it and don't ask others to analyze it. Don't deconstruct (解构) it or try to make meaning of it. Just find the poems that wake you up, that make you feel as if you've submerged (沉浸) yourself in a hot spring or an ice bath. Find the poems that make you feel almost irrational joy or sadness. Find the poems that make you want to roll around in them or paint their colors all over your bedroom ceiling. Those are the poems you want to play with. Find the poems that communicate with the deepest parts your being and welcome them in.
If finding others' poems no longer satisfies you, compose your own! You don't have to be a poet to compose poetry. After all, poetry is not a luxury. It's about searching for the real meaning of life and also about giving meaning to life. Just like Walt Whitman's "O Me! O Life!", a poem that ends by speaking directly to its readers: "the powerful play goes on and you may write a verse (诗)," poetry is about everyone. And now I want to ask you the mother of all inspirational questions; "What will your verse be?"
— Inspired by Jeanette Winterson's book:
Why Be Happy When You Could be normal?
Some individuals are born with a gift for public speaking.Do you want to be a good public speaker? Here are some principles you must master.
People want to listen to someone who is interesting, relaxed and comfortable. Too often when you stand up to give a speech, you focus on the "public"at the expense of the "speaking. " Focus on the speaking. Talk directly to your audience, be yourself and make a connection.
Even the most successful public speaker will make mistakes. Yet, the only one who cares about any mistake is the one who is speaking. People's attention wanders constantly. In fact,most people only absorb about 20 percent of a speaker's message. So, don't stop speaking when you make a mistake unless it's a truly serious one.
Your goal is not to be a perfect public speaker.And like everything else in life, that takes practice. Remember, even world champion athletes practice their skills on a consistent basis.
It's rare to hear someone say, "I wish that speaker had spoken longer. "On the other hand, you probably can't count the times that you've thought, "I'm glad that talk is over. It seemed to go on forever! "So surprise your audience. Always make your presentation just a bit shorter than anticipated. It's better to leave your listeners wishing for more than shifting restlessly in their seats waiting for your speech finally to end.
A．Do the opposite.
B．You want to be an effective public speaker.
C．You don't need to apologize for a minor slip.
D．When it comes to public speaking, less is usually more.
E．The objective of most speeches is to benefit the audience
F．Take the fear out of public speaking by focusing on your listeners
G．However, the majority of people are effective speakers because they train to be.
The British love to think of themselves as polite, and everyone knows how fond they are of their "pleases" and "thank you". Even the simplest business such as buying a train ticket requires 1 seven or eight of these. Another 2 of our good manners is the queue. New-comers to Britain could be 3 for thinking that queuing rather than football was the 4 national sport. Finally, of course, motorists generally stop at crossings. But does all this mean that the British should consider themselves more 5 than their European neighbours? I think not.
Take forms of address(称呼) for example. The average English person -- 6 he happens to work in a hotel or department store--would rather die than call a stranger "Sir" or "Madam". 7 in some European countries this is the most basic of common address. Our universal "you" 8 everyone may appear more democratic, but it means that we are forced to seek out complicated ways to express 9 . I am all for 10 to the use of "thee" and "thou" (Thee and thou are old-fashioned poetic words for "you"); "you" would be reserved for strangers and professional relationships.
And of course, the English find touching and other shows of friendship truly 11 . Have you noticed how the British 12 ever touch? Personally, I find the Latin habit of shaking hands or a friendly kiss quite charming. 13 kissing the average English person, and they will either take two steps backwards in horror, or, if their 14 is blocked you will find your lips touching the back of their head. Now what could be 15 than that?
Some time after 10，000 BC，people made the first real attempt to control the world they lived ，through agriculture. Over thousands of years，they began to depend less on could be hunted or gathered from the wild，and more on animals they had raised and crops they had sown.
Farming produced more food per person hunting and gathering，so people were able to raise more children. And，as more children were born，more food (need). Agriculture gave people their first experience of the power of technology (change)lives.
By about 6000 BC，people (discover)the best crops to grow and animals to raise. Later，they learned to work with the (season)，planting at the right time and，in dry areas， (make)use of annual floods to irrigate(灌溉)their fields.
This style of farming lasted for quite a long time. Then，with rise of science，changes began. New methods (mean)that fewer people worked in farming. In the last century or so，these changes have accelerated. New power machinery and artificial fertilizers(化肥)have now totally transformed a way of life that started in the Stone Age.
