How can I fight laziness?

    Lazy people will never amount to anything in life. However, laziness can be defeated once a few changes have been made in your mind.

    {#blank#}1{#/blank#}. Many people lack sleep constantly, since they stay up too late and get up too early to prepare for work. These people have little motivation once they arrive home. Laziness works hand in hand with a lack of motivation and a tendency to put off things. By adjusting your sleep schedule to provide a few more hours of meaningful rest, you can fight laziness throughout the day.

    Another way to fight laziness is to change your mind from passive to active. Some people treat their lives as if they were pushed from task to task. Others take a more protective approach, viewing each task as a challenge they must overcome alone. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    Some people fight laziness by removing the temptations(诱惑) that surround them. A television in the living room may provide entertainment, but watching too much TV often contributes to laziness. Create a reward system for yourself, just as parents do for a child to promote responsibility. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#}Spouses(配偶) and children may all have different energy levels, but laziness can be spread if not dealt with immediately. To fight household laziness, lead by example. Be the first to collect and wash dishes after a meal. Others in the home may eventually follow your example and perform their own task. It is difficult to practice laziness when you are surrounded by motivated people.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} enough exercise and a balanced diet can help you to develop a healthy lifestyle, thus enabling you to have more energy and help lift your spirits.

    Elephants on the coast of Thailand are acting strange.They stamp their feet and motion toward the hills.The sea draws back from the beaches.Fish fall heavily in the mud.Suddenly,a huge wave appears.This is no ordinary wave.It is tsunami!

    Tsunami waves are larger and faster than normal surface waves.A tsunami wave can travel as fast as a jet plane and can be as tall as a ten-story building.Imagine dropping a stone into a pond.The water on the surface ripples（起涟漪）.A tsunami is like a very powerful ripple.Tsunamis begin when the ocean rises or falls very suddenly.Large amounts of seawater are displaced.This movement caused huge waves.

    For a tsunami to occur,there must be some kind of force that causes the ocean water to become displaced.Most tsunamis are caused by underwater earthquakes.However,volcanoes ,landslides（塌方）,large icebergs,and even meteorites（陨石）are capable of causing one of these mighty waves.

    Tsunamis are extremely powerful.Ordinary waves lose power when they break.Tsunami waves can remain powerful for several days.Because tsunami waves are so strong,they can kill people,damage property,and completely ruin an ecosystem in just one hour.

    Scientists have no way of predicting when a tsunami will hit.However,if a powerful enough earthquake occurs, scientists can send out a warning or a watch.A warning means that a tsunami will very likely hit soon.A watch means that conditions are favorable for a tsunami.When people are informed of a watch or a warning,they have more time to prepare.It is best not to get caught unaware when a tsunami is on the way.

    Spend any time in London, England's capital, and you'll quickly gather that it's a multicultural (多元文化的) community. Look around at your fellow passengers on the Tube（地铁）or the bus. They're of every skin color and dress differently to one another. Listen, and you'll hear many other languages besides English spoken. Some of these people, no doubt, will be tourists who are in London to see the sights. But others – in fact probably most – will be living their lives there, along with millions of others.

    Along with white British people, there are Britons from, or with parents and grandparents from, the Caribbean, India, China and most other places. This makes London a fascinating place in which to live. The reason is that when people settle in a place, they don't just buy a house and live there, but bring aspects of the culture of their “old country” with them.

    The most visible sign of this is the number of restaurants offering dishes from different parts of the world. In a city in which it's estimated 250 different languages are spoken, you can expect a similarly wide range of foods to be available. You would expect in one of the world's leading cities to encounter(遇到) French, Italian, Chinese and Indian eateries. But in London you'll also find Polish, Patagonian and Palestinian restaurants.

    However, London's multiculturalism isn't just about food. Many types of people are gathered in one space, but the way they live differently shows in that space. They worship(崇拜)differently, for one thing. Alongside the famous old English churches by Nicholas Hawksmoor and Christopher Wren – responsible for one of the capital's most famous landmark, St Paul's Cathedral—you'll find mosques(清真寺), temples and synagogues (犹太教堂).

      London even speaks its own special kind of English. Language experts created the term “Multicultural London English” to identify the dialect of English that appeared at the end of the last century.

    All of this makes London a very surprising and varied place to call your home. But, in a way, this has long been true. In the 18^th century, the compiler(编纂者) of the first English dictionary, Samuel Johnson, once said: “ He who is tired of London is tired of life.”

    Gadgets that make study fun

    Now in a world piled high with smart phones, tablets and e-readers, technology has entered the classroom in ways unimaginable. Taking classes can be fun too. All you have to do is swipe your fingers on your phone screen and download some apps, which can make your study more fun and efficient. Balancing study and play in a college setting has never been easy-and with the following few apps, it'll be tough to tell the two apart.

    Evernote

    Use: note-taking

    Can be used on: Phone/iPad/iPod touch, Android, BlackBerry, Palm OS and     Windows, Phone 7

    Price: free

It's hard to imagine that with all the magical gadgets, the eager, studious types would still take out a notepad, a pencil, and a highlighter—and take notes in class. While it's not an actual planner or a calendar App, if you take notes to stay organized, then Evernote is for you．The main thing about Evernote is that all of your notes are automatically sent into the cloud—and then you can access them from any web-connected computer via the Evernote app or a web browser. Evernote also supports audio and photo notes-rather handy if you want to record your lecture or take photos of any projected notes. But, of course, ask for permission first.

    Wikipanion

    Use: research database

    Can be used on: iPhone/iPad/iPod touch

Price :free ( Wikipanion Plus for $4.99,or 31.87 yuan )

    Now, you don't necessarily have to go to a library or anywhere with computer services to do research work for your paper anymore. You can get access to the research databases just on your smart phone or tablet. Wikipanion gives you a simplified version of Wikipedia without leaving out any of the site's extra features. The normal links that you'd see to each section of an article are no longer on the main screen. Instead, there's small icon located at the bottom of the App, which can be used to access all the sections of an article. You can also open the links in Safari(苹果浏览器). According to the developers' site, loading Wikipedia pages with Wikipanion is a lot faster than accessing the Wikipedia site from the iPhone's browsers. To be honest, we agree.

    Conquering Bilingual News Listening in 7 Days

    Use: English learning application

    Can be used on: iPhone/iPad/iPod touch

    Price: For a limited time you can get the App for only $0.99—half price.

    Still learning English with a workbook? If so, you are behind the times. Get 21st Century Newspaper's new iPhone App, “Conquering Bilingual News Listening in 7 Days”. When you download the App on your iPhone, you can listen to the hottest bilingual news selected from the newspaper's official website (w. w. w. i2lst. cn) and read by native speakers. User can enjoy the audio bilingual news with synchronized subtitles and fantastic pictures while immersed in an authentic language environment. With a simple tap, the sentence you choose will be repeated. “Conquering Bilingual News Listening in 7 Days” has ranked No 1 on the Chinese education App list.

    We all know the names of certain famous male inventors throughout history, from Galileo to Alexander Graham Bell to Steve Jobs. Do you know the outstanding ladies listed below?

    Margaret Knight (1838-1914)

    Margaret Knight was nicknamed “the lady Edison'' for her productive inventions which included a safety device for textile looms, shoe manufacturing machines, a rotary engine and internal combustion engine (内燃机), among many others. Knight received 27 patents in her lifetime.

    Josephine Cochran(1839-1913)

    Cochrane, a wealthy woman who entertained often, wanted a machine that could wash dishes faster than her servants, and without breaking them. When she couldn't find one, she built the first dishwasher herself in 1886. She received a patent for her famous invention and started a company to sell her invention to restaurants and hotels.

    Katharine Burr Blodgett (1898-1979)

    Katharine Blodgett was the first woman to receive a Ph.D in physics at England's Cambridge University and the first woman hired by General Electric. Her most influential invention was non-reflective glass, which today is still essential for eyeglasses, car windshields and computer screens.

    Stephanie Kwolek (1923-2014)

    In 1965, Stephanie Kwolek created an unusually lightweight and durable new fiber which was later developed by a chemical company DuPont into the synthetic Kevlar (凯夫拉尔纤维), used in everything from military helmets and bulletproof vests to work-gloves, sports equipment, and building materials. Kwolek was awarded the National Medal of Technology for her research on synthetic fibers and was admitted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1994.

    Organic(有机的)farming is a type of agriculture that benefits from the recycling and use of natural products. Use of dried plants not only saves money，but also ensures the growth of crops. The technique is characterized by the use of green manure(肥料), biological pest control methods and special farming techniques to keep soil productive. Limiting the use of man－made chemicals or completely doing away with them reduces the risk of diseases. Today，organic farming is a major and preferred industry around the world. Organically grown food products have a huge market，with farmlands covering about 10% of the total world－farmland cover. The hard work of Sir Albert Howard, the Father of Organic Farming, has paid off.

    Advantages of Organic Farming:

    ⑴The economics of organic farming are characterized by increasing profits through reduced water use and reduced soil erosion(侵蚀).

    ⑵Organic farming produces the same crops as those produced through traditional farming methods，but uses half the energy，and holds 40% more top soil

    ⑶Farming the organic way enables farmers to get rid of weeds without the use of any chemicals.

    ⑷The use of green pesticides(杀虫剂) is environmentally friendly and does no harm to human's health.

    Disadvantages of Organic Farming：

    ⑴Organic methods of farming produce less，compared to traditional farming techniques.

    ⑵Organic agriculture does little to fight global climate change. Though organic farming practices are recognized as giving out less CO₂ ， but not to a significant degree.

    However，though there are some disadvantages of organic farming，farms where organic methods for cropping have been used have more advantages than traditional farms. Organic agriculture is surely better in the long term.