HEARST CASTLE, CA

    Hearst Castle is open for tours daily, except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day.

Tour A — The Grand Rooms

    View the ground floor rooms of La Casa Grande where Mr. Hearst's guests met their host and were entertained during their stay. See the Assembly Room, where guests met for cocktails, the Refectory, where meals were served, the Morning Room, Billiard Theater. Your knowledgeable guide will bring this big house to life sharing stories about Mr. Hearst, his many guests, and the art collection it contains.

Prices: Adults: $25.00; Children: $12.00.

Tour B—The Upstairs Suites (套房)

    This tour features rooms on the upper floors of Casa Grande. Travel through guest suites on your way to the Library where Mr. Hearst housed a collection of 2,000-year-old Greek pots. Visit Mr. Hearst's private third floor suite including his bedroom and private study where he held business meetings. Learn about the genius of architect Julia Morgan and the way she put Mr. Hearst's art collection into the design.

Prices: Adults: $20.00; Children: $10.00.

Tour C—Evening Tour

    This tour allows visitors to experience the Castle at night as a visitor to the Castle in the 1930s might have. It features highlights from the experience, Upper Floors of Casa Grande, and Garden tours.

Evening tours are offered on most Fridays and Saturdays during March—May & October — December.

Prices: Adults: $36.00; Children: $18.00.

Tour D—Accessible Holiday Twilight

    This tour is wheelchair accessible. Visitors who have difficulty climbing stairs, or who cannot stand or walk for extended period, may also benefit from this tour. Accessible transportation is provided from the Visitor Center to all areas of the Holiday at Hearst Castle tour. Call 866-712-2286 for additional information.

Prices: Adults: $30.00; Children: $15.00.

    It is 6:00a.m.on the first day of the school year. In Chery brook Technology High School, mathematics teacher Eddie Woo is already at work.

    One of the first things before the first bell rings is to set up his tripod（三脚架）and iPad in the middle of the classroom. “I'm Mr. Woo. I record my lessons. I record all of them. In fact, I'm about to record this one,” he explains to his new maths class.

    He started posting videos online in 2012 for a student who was sick with cancer and missing a lot of school, so he started sharing them across the country and beyond. Wootube now has more than 38,000 subscribes(用户) and has attracted almost 4 million views worldwide.

    Cherybrook Technology High School principal(校长) Gary Johnson said Mr. Woo was helping maths teachers in Australia and making maths popular again. “He has an ability to simplify(简化) maths to a level where kids can really understand it.” Mr. Johnson said.

    12-year-old student Emily Shakespear said Mr. Woo's teaching style made maths easy and interesting. “I don't want to say it, but he sucked me into maths,” she said. Owen Potter, who attends high school in Cobar agreed. “It's difficult to understand how someone in Sydney can influence thousands of people across the whole country,” he said.

    Mr. Woo won the 2017 University of Sydney Young Alumni Award for Outstanding Achievement, and he was one of 12 Australian teachers honored at the Commonwealth Bank Teaching Awards.

    Jack threw the papers on my desk. “Next time you want to change anything, ask me first,” he said. I had changed a long sentence and corrected its grammar — something I thought I was paid to do.

    Several days later, he made me angry again. I went to his office, prepared to lose my job if need be, but not before I let the man know how I felt. “What?” he said nervously.

    Suddenly I knew what I had to do. “Jack, the way you've been treating me is wrong. And it's wrong for me to allow it to continue,” I said. “I want to make you a promise. I will be a friend.” The next day I brought some cakes to Jack's office. Every time I saw Jack in the hall, I smiled at him. After all, that's what friends do.

    One year after our talk, I was told that I had breast cancer . When I was in hospital, my friends tried to find the right words to say, but no one could. The last day of my hospital stay, the door opened and Jack walked over to my bed. “Tulips (郁金香),” he placed some bulbs  beside me and said, “If you plant them when you get home, you'll be there to see them when they come up.” Tears filled my eyes.

    In a moment when I prayed for just the right words, a man with few words said the right thing. After all, that's what friends do. Now, I have seen those tulips push through the soil every spring for over ten years.

    Hummingbirds (蜂鸟) are very small birds. This small bird is quite an acrobat (杂技演员). Only a few birds, such as kingfishers and sunbirds, can hover, which means to stay in one place in the air. But no other bird can match the flying skills of the hummingbird. The hummingbird can hover, fly backward and fly upside down!

    Hummingbirds got their name because their wings move very quickly when they fly. This causes a humming sound. Their wings move so fast that you can't see them at all. This takes a lot of energy. These little birds must have food about every 20 minutes to have enough strength to fly. Their favorite food is nectar (花蜜). Nectar is the sweet water deep inside a flower. Hummingbirds use their long, thin bills to drink from flowers. When a hummingbird drinks nectar, it hovers in front of a flower. It never touches the flower with its wings or feet.

    Of all the birds in the world, the hummingbird's colors are among the brightest. Some are bright green with red and white markings. Some are purple. One kind of hummingbird can change its color from reddish-brown to purple to red!

    The hummingbird's nest is special, too. It looks like a small cup. The inside of the nest is very soft. This is because one of the things the mother bird uses to build the nest is the silk from a spider's web (蜘蛛网).

    After decades of playing catch-up with the U.S. and Russian space programs, China did something neither nation nor any other had done this December: land a spaceship on the dark side of the moon.

    Strictly speaking, of course, the moon has no dark side. But because of the way it orbits Earth, our natural satellite shows us only one side－the other is hidden from our view. No one even saw the far side until 1959, when the Soviet Luna 3 spaceship flew around for a look and sent back photos. No astronaut or spaceship went there until this December, when the China National Space Agency (CNSA) launched a 2,500-pound lander called Chang'e-4 to the southern end of the lunar far side.

    Chang'e-4 operated a small rover (探测车) to survey the geography there for the first time ever. By examining the geography of its landing area, Chang'e-4 could solve longstanding puzzles about the moon, including how it formed 4.5 billion years ago. Chang'e-4 also carried a very small lunar biosphere (生态圈) containing silkworm eggs and a tiny greenhouse designed to grow potatoes in order to study the growth of the seeds on the moon.

    Besides Chang'e-4, China plans to launch Chang'e-5 in 2019. Its mission will be to gather moon rocks using an orbiter, a lander or collector, an ascent stage (上升器) and a capsule that will separate from the orbiter and return the rocks to the earth. ―With these missions, the Chinese will have shown complete mastery of flight in the space between the earth and the moon, said Paul Spudis, an experienced lunar researcher based in Houston.

    CNSA has already outlined ideas for Chinese astronauts to follow the robots to the moon. Pei Zhaoyu, deputy director of CNSA's Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center, told that China plans a permanent robotic lunar station in about 10 years and suggested a human presence on the moon another decade or so after that. Spudis said China's ambitious Chang'e-4 and Chang'e-5 missions should send human's plans for lunar return into rapid development.

    These days, people who do manual (体力的) work often receive far more money than people who work in offices. People who work in offices are frequently referred to as "white-collar workers" for the simple reason that they usually wear a collar and tie to go to work. Such is human nature, that a great many people are often willing to sacrifice higher pay for the honor of becoming white-collar workers. This can lead to curious situations, as it did in the case of Alfred Bloggs who worked as a dustman for the Ellesmere Corporation.

    When he got married, Alf was too embarrassed to say anything to his wife about his job. He simply told her that he worked for the Corporation. Every morning, he left home dressed in a smart black suit. He then changed into overalls (工作服) and spent the next eight hours as a dustman. Before returning home at night, he took a shower and changed back into his suit. Alf did this for over two years and his fellow dustmen kept his secret. Alf's wife has never discovered that she married a dustman and she never will, for Alf has just found another job. He will soon be working in an office. He will be earning only half as much as he used to, but he feels that his rise in status (身份；地位) is well worth the loss of money. From now on, he will wear a suit all day and others will call him 'Mr. Bloggs', not 'Alf'.