In many countries of the world, people do what is called housesitting．It means that if owners of the house are going away, they wantsomeone to come into their home and look after the house and maybe pets whilethey are away．

        In Australia, many people travel．After peopleretire, they might buy a van and travel all over the country．{#blank#}1{#/blank#}．

        So if someone wants to travel or go away for some reason, theymight want someone in their home to care for it and keep the gardens tidy．House sittersmight have to care for pets．Also, quite afew people have swimming pools in their back yard and they need cleaning．{#blank#}2{#/blank#}． I feel it isa great way of seeing the country, because you go and stay in a new city, getto meet new people, and have time to go sightseeing in a new area．

{#blank#}3{#/blank#}．There arewebsites where you find the advertisements by people who want to travel, and byreplying to the advertisement, you can make arrangements to go and look aftertheir home．

        There are some requirements to be a house sitter．You must be atrusted person, so that the home owner knows you will not steal anything．You must beable to go when the house owner wants you to go, so you need lots of free time．{#blank#}4{#/blank#}．You need to begood with pets, able to care for cats and dogs, or other pets they may have．

        Some house sitting jobs are just for a few days or a couple ofweeks while the house owners have a short holiday．Sometimes itis for much longer．We have hadone house sit for six months, while the home owner travelled to Europe．

{#blank#}5{#/blank#} Then you can travel to many differentcountries and stay there．One of theimportant things to get is references from the home owners where you havestayed． A reference is a written letter to say that you are trustworthyand have looked after their home well．You can showthese letters to possible house sitting jobs and they know you will do a goodjob．

A．I have donehouse sitting many times．

B．Thousands ofpeople do this all the time．

C．It is alsopossible to do house sitting in other countries．

D．Generally youhave many opportunities to get a house sitting job．

E．You must takea little care over what your description says about you．

F．This is aninternational house sitting service for all city and country areas．

G．Youmust have a good car, so you can travel to different parts of the country．

    “Our aim is to take our art to the world and make people understand what it is to move,” said David Belle, the founder of parkour ( also called free running－a kind of extreme sport).

    Do you love running? It is a good exercise, yet many people find it boring. But what if making your morning jog a creative one? Like jumping from walls and over gaps, and ground rolls? Just like the James Bond in the movie Casino Royale? Bond jumps down from a roof to a windowsill and then runs several blocks over obstacles on the way. It is just because of Bond's wonderful performances that the sport has become popular worldwide.

    Yes, that's parkour, an extreme street sport aimed at moving from one point to another as quickly as possible, getting over all the obstacles in the path using only the abilities of the human body. Parkour is considered an extreme sport. As its participants dash around a city, they may jump over fences, run up walls and even move from rooftop to rooftop.

    Parkour can be just as exciting and charming as it sounds, but its participants see parkour much more than that.Overcoming all the obstacles on the course and in life is part of the philosophy(理念) behind parkour. This is the same as life. You must determine your destination, go straight, jump over all the barriers as if in parkour and never fall back from them in your life, to reach the destination successfully. A parkour lover said, “I love parkour because its philosophy has become my life, my way to do everything.”

    Another philosophy we've learnt from parkour is freedom. It can be done by anyone, at any time, anywhere in the world. It is a kind of expression of trust in yourself that you earn energy and confidence.

    Anaya Elick was born without hands – she has stubs（残端）where most people's wrists begin.

    To hold a pencil, she must balance it between her wrists, then use her arms to push it along the page. But that didn't stop her from winning a national handwriting contest when she was in first grade.

    In the two years since, she has taken on greater challenges. Last week, she won another national handwriting contest, this one for cursive（草书）. And by all accounts from her teachers at Greenbrier Christian Academy, she has become an accomplished artist.

    Anaya isn't one to boast about her successes. She unwillingly says they make her proud but adds that they come from “lots of practice.”

    Her friends at school said, “She inspires everybody by what she does and how she does it” child to fail, and raising one who was born with a disability can heighten that protective instinct.

    Before Anaya was born, doctors knew about her condition, although not its cause. Other than having no hands, she is a regular 9-year-old girl.

    Anaya succeeds because she is not afraid to fail, Middleton said. The two began practicing cursive last year, when Anaya was in second grade. She struggled sometimes, because unlike traditional penmanship, which allows for breaks after each letter, cursive words are written straight through – and added effort for someone who must balance rather than hold the pencil.

    Middleton could see her daughter thinking through the challenge, figuring out how she could do better. She'd get frustrated at times, but she never hesitated to do things as often as it took to get them right.

    “I don't think I've ever heard Anaya say I can't do something,” Middleton said.

    That attitude carries over to her other interests.

    Recently, Anaya and her classmates sat in Cheryl Leader's art room, working on an exercise. The goal was to get them thinking about different concepts, like color combinations and how an image can be formed by fully coloring inside straight and diagonal lines.

English Language Courses at ELC Los Angeles

At the English Language Center (ELC) Los Angeles you will find a variety of English courses and programs that meet the highest academic standards of any English language school in the United States. Through its 40 years of teaching students at all levels from all over the world, ELC has developed teaching and training techniques and programs that really work for everyone.

ENGLISH COURSES OFFERED AT ELC LOS ANGELES

● GENERAL ENGLISH COURSES

Intensive English Course

Semi-intensive Course

Individual Intensive Course

● TEST PREPARATION COURSES

Cambridge Preparation Course

TOEFL Preparation Course

● BUSINESS ENGLISH COURSE

Individual Executive Business English Course

ENGLISH CLASSES LOS ANGELES FACT FILE

● Length of lesson: 50 minutes

● Number of levels: 12

● Average number of students per class: 8-9

Maximum number of students per class: 10 (14 during July and August only)

ADDITIONAL SERVICES AT ELC LOS ANGELES

The ELC Los Angeles staff is eager to assist international students in achieving their long-term learning goals. ELC offers the following support services to ensure each student's time at ELC is enjoyable, effective and worry-free:

● Student Visa

ELC has been approved by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)to issue the SEVIS Form I-20. Students enrolling in a minimum 24-lesson-per-week course are eligible (有资格的) to receive an I-20 form in order to apply for an F-1 student visa in their country.

● English Level Evaluation with Multi-level- Placement

Each student benefits from our English level evaluation with multi-level placement. Our method means students usually have different teachers for different levels and ensures that students study English in the learning environment that is best for them.

● University Admission Services

ELC is pleased to offer free counseling and university placement services to all ELC students interested in continuing their education at an American college or university in California and around the United States.

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.

Photo Research

"If you want to be a better photographer, stand in front of better stuff." Photographer Jim Richardson shared it with others. He spends a great deal of time doing photo research, looking for great locations to shoot.

Seeing a wonderful place is bread-and-butter photography—it's just part of the job. Getting there is only half of any great photograph's story. The other half is how the photographer prepares to capture the subject once in front of it. It is believed that groundwork is part of photography, as essential as knowing exposure and lighting or recognizing the decisive moment to take the shot. Research sounds like a boring task for many photographers, while for others digging into a subject in advance is part of the pleasure.

Philosophically, photographers seem to divide along that line. On one side are those who desire only to be in the moment. On the other side are the planners. They would never dream of going out the door without a full list of how they're going to approach the shoot. Actually, there is a third group nowadays. They just take photos of the whole scene and do all the creative work in Photoshop after the event. Most photographers do both: research carefully to prepare their schedule and then act in the moment once on site.

Photographers should do a lot of research in order to get ready for a photographic trip. This includes creating a file for each location they are due to visit. They start a file for each place and begin to make a list of the pieces of information. Knowing what the place looks like in advance is invaluable, so it is good to hit several Internet photo sites. Besides clueing them into the photographic possibilities of the location, this can also show what angles have already become overused and which they should therefore avoid. But photographers will also find angles they didn't expect from locations they hadn't imagined. Armed with these they will be better prepared to push the boundaries of what they expect.

"Above all, I'll look for places and events that are seasonal and timeless. I open my mind to what might make a great subject for a picture," Jim said. "Most travelers tend to think only of places they're visiting, without looking deeper into culture, history or meaning. I try to get in time with the rhythm of the place and in tune with its melody. But most of all I just want to be ready. If I'm ready, I can just about count on being lucky."