My husband and I had been married nearly twenty-two years when I acquired Stevens-Johnson syndrome, a disorder where my immune system (免疫系统) responded to a virus by producing painful blisters (水疱). Although my long-term evaluation was good, I, who had been so fiercely independent, rapidly became absolutely helpless.

    My husband, Scott, stepped up to the plate, taking care of kids and cooking dinners. He also became my personal caretaker, applying the medicine to all of my blisters because my hands couldn't do the job. Needless to say, I had negative emotions, bouncing from embarrassment to shame caused by total reliance on someone other than myself.

    At one point when I had mentally and physically hit bottoms I remember thinking that Scott must somehow love me more than I could ever love him. With my illness, he had become the stronger one, and I the weaker one. And this disturbed me.

    I recovered from my illness, but I couldn't seem to recover from the thought that I loved my husband less than he loved me. This seeming distinction in our love continued to annoy me for the year following my illness.

    Then recently Scott and I went on a long bike ride. He's an experienced cyclist; I'm quite the green hand. At one point with a strong headwind and sharp pain building in my tired legs, I really thought I couldn't go any further. Seeing me struggle, Scott pulled in front of me and yelled over his shoulder, “Stay close behind me.” As I fell into the draft of his six- foot- three- inch frame and followed his steps, I discovered that my legs quit burning and I was able to catch my breath. My husband was pulling me along again. At this very moment I woke up to what I now believe: during these and other tough times, love has the opportunity to become stronger when one partner learns to lean on the other.

    I pray my husband will always be strong and healthy. But if he should ever become the struggling one, whether on a bike ride or with an illness, I trust I'll be ready to call out to him: Stay close behind me-my turn to pull you along.

    India has a very vast history and heritage（遗产）. The country has witnessed some of the most important events in the past and every event has an effect of its own on the culture, religion, lifestyle, and economy of the country. This is one of the leading reasons why tourists prefer India to travel and explore. Historical tours in India provide everything that a traveler expects from his/her journey. These historical tours give an opportunity to study and explore Indian history.

    Historical tours of India generally consisted of four phases: ancient, medieval（中世纪的）, modern India and contemporary（当代的）India. Some of the historical travel packages are:

    Forts and Palaces

    The rich cultural past of India is reflected in the countless（无数的）forts and palaces across the country. Most of the forts were constructed as a defense device to keep the enemy away and palaces were made on the names of the kings and queens. Some of the famous forts and palaces are: Agra Fort (Agra), Fatehpur Sikri (Agra), Hawa Mahal (Jaipur), Amber Fort (Jaipur), City Palace (Jaipur), Gwalior Fort (Gwalior), Mysore Palace (Mysore), Red Fort (Delhi), etc.

India Heritage Tours

    The main purpose of India Heritage tours is to make Indians as well as tourists familiar with the rich Indian legacy（遗产）. The heritage of the country is at least 5000 years. Some of the heritage tours are: medieval heritage, Rajput heritage, Golden Triangle, splendid Gujarat, etc.

    South India Historical Tours

    The Southern India is known for its diversity and there are many places, which attract tourists, not only from the country but also from all around the world. The famous tourists' destinations（景区）in South India include Goa, Cochin, Kerala, Munnar, Periyar, Kottayam and the list goes on and on.

    A punctual person is in the habit of doing a thing at the correct time and is never late for anything.

    An unpunctual man never does what he has to do at the right time. He is always in a hurry and in the end loses both time and his good name. A lost thing may be found again, but lost time can never be got back. Time is more valuable than material things. In fact, time is life itself. An unpunctual person is always wasting his most important things as well as others'. An unpunctual person is always saying unhappily that he finds no time to answer letters or return calls. But the man who really has much to do is very careful of his time. He knows that he cannot finish all his work unless he carefully does every piece of work.

    Being unpunctual is the sign of disrespect towards others. If a person is invited to dinner and arrives later than the time when he should be there, he keeps all other guests waiting for him. Usually this will be thought as a great disrespect for the host and all the other guests.

    Not like a punctual person, an unpunctual one cannot do his duty wonderfully, whether it is public or personal. Imagine how it would be if those who should do important tasks failed to be on time. A man who is known to be unpunctual is never believed by his friends or fellow men.

Incredible experiences in Bucharest

    Admire one of the world's largest buildings

    The world's biggest parliamentary building, Palace of Parliament, happens to be in Bucharest. Hour-long guided tours manage to take in just a fraction of the building's three-million-plus square feet (there are more than a thousand rooms) and focus on the tons of marble, hardwood, and gold used in the building's construction in the 1980s, a time when Romania was trying to feed its own people. Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, both played a direct role in the construction. It was originally intended to house the presidential offices and the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party but was never finished.

    See remains of old “Paris”

    “Paris of the East” was Bucharest's nickname in the decades before World War II. Decades of communist misrule and a tragic earthquake in 1977 brought much of the old city down but there are places here and there where that former elegance can still be glimpsed. The Cismigiu Gardens in the center of the city is a pearl of park built around a romantic lake and featuring old-growth trees and gracious, wrought-iron signposts and benches.

    Learn about Romania's roots

    Walking though Bucharest's busy streets, it's easy to forget that outside the capital and a U large cities, Romania is a largely agricultural country, with a long and rich peasant tradition. The amazing Museum of the Romanian Peasant shows off the elaborate woodworking, pottery-making, egg-painting, and weaving skills of the peasantry in a way that's both educational and amusing. Small tongue-in-cheek signs at the entrance to each room poke fun at modern life, bring a chuckle, and draw you in. Downstairs there's a side exhibition on the Communists' efforts to nationalize the peasantry in the 1970s and 1980s.

    Appreciate 21st-century art

    Romania has exploded onto the contemporary art scene in recent years. The excitement was generated initially by a group of young painters and visual artists from the northern city of Cluj-Napoca, but at least some of the action has shifted to the capital as new galleries and design centers open up. It's hard to pinpoint precisely what constitutes Romanian contemporary art, though critics point to shared elements of wit and dark humor, a somber mood, and bits of surrealism in defining a common style.

Daphne Soares, a biologist, makes an amazing discovery about alligators. The first time she got really close to an alligator (短吻鳄) was when she was helping to bold down an eight-foot American alligator. It was then that she noticed is face was covered with little black spots. This led to the discovery of the little black dots.

She started her study of the black dots. When she read the books and scientific journals, she learned that people had noticed the dots, but no one really knew what the dots were for.

To find out the secret she placed electrodes (电极) on nerves coming from some of the dots. When the nerves fired, they sent a message to the brain and created a tiny electric current. Just then she heard a small sound over a loudspeaker. She tired to see if the dots acted like eyes and temperature sensors, but nothing worked.

One day she was careless with dropping a tool into an alligator's tank. When she put her hand in the tank to get the tool out, she made small waves in the water. When they reached the alligator's face, she heard a noise over the speaker. She then realized that the dots must be sensitive to the changes in pressure when hit by waves of water.

After that, she is now studying blind cavefish. She is trying to learn whether they are blind from birth or lose their sight as they grow up. She is also doing more research on crocodilians (鳄目). She wants to find out how the genes of alligators with pressure sensors only on their faces differ from the genes of crocodilians that have pressure sensors all over their body.

Exploring nature allows us to catch sight of rare animals and come across special places of beauty. Of course, none of this would be possible {#blank#}1{#/blank#} protected nature areas. This is {#blank#}2{#/blank#} national parks are so important. A few national parks allow things like hotels and recreation areas {#blank#}3{#/blank#} (construct) within them, but most parks do not allow any development at all. 

The very first national park {#blank#}4{#/blank#} (be)also one of the most famous in the world—Yellowstone, in the western USA. Nineteenth-century explorers {#blank#}5{#/blank#} (amaze) by what they saw in Yellowstone. Apart from the beautiful mountains, {#blank#}6{#/blank#} (rush) rivers, and tall waterfalls, there were geysers, which sent boiling water as high as 91 meters into the air. Then there were the hot springs, as colourful as rainbows. These explorers wanted to protect the natural {#blank#}7{#/blank#} (feature) of the area from development so that future generations could enjoy the area. And so, in 1872, Yellowstone was established as {#blank#}8{#/blank#} national park. Today, around four million people a year visit it. Many come hoping to see wildlife, {#blank#}9{#/blank#} is no longer as common in the American West as it once was. Everyone comes to see the geysers, {#blank#}10{#/blank#}(especial) Old Faithful, which sits near the centre of the park, and sends 95. 6 ℃ water up to 56 metres into the air every 44 to 125 minutes.