Summer Holiday Fun 2014!

The summer holidays are upon us again. Here is our guide to summer holiday fun in Peterborough!

Peterborough Museum

    The Age of the Dinosaurs' is the museum's main attraction this summer. Get up close to prehistoric creatures via some great hands—on exhibits! Watch out for monsters lurking around every ember! The museum is open from 10:00am to 5:00pm Monday to Saturday, and from 12:00pm to 4:00pm on Sundays in August.

Call 01733 864663 for details

Saxon Youth Club

    School holiday fun：Young people aged 13—19 will be able to produce their own music, compete in spots activities, or try their hand at cooking at Saxon Youth Club, Saxon Community Centre, Norman Road. Peterborough every Monday and Wednesday from 3:00pm．PLUS an aero ball tournament will take place on Thursday 12th August between 3:30pm and 6:30pm.

Call 01 353 720274 for details

Houghton Mill

    The new play Alice through the Looking Class — a new production of the family favorite on Monday 30th August. Bring rugs or chairs to sit on and a picnic if you wish to eat during the play. Gates open 5:30pm, performance 6:30pm—8:30pm. Tea room will be open until end of the interval. Adult ￡10．Child ￡7．Family ￡20．

Booking advisable on 0845 4505157.

Farmland Museum and Denny Abbey

    Farmland Gaines：From Wellie Wanging to Pretend Ploughing matches, come and join the Farmland Team．Collect your sporting stickers and create a colorful rosette that is fit for a winner！No need to book, just turn up between 12:00pm and 4:00pm on Thursday 19th August Suitable for children aged four and above, each child should be accompanied by an adult and all activities are included in the normal admission price Tickets Cost￡7 per child.

For further information, call 01223 810080.

                                             Welcome to the Painting Competition for Woodlands Students

    The International Anti-Drug（禁毒） Day this year is coming soon. In order to raise teenagers' awareness （意识） to fight against drug taking, the City Art Council is going to hold a painting competition for the students in our city.

    Students who want to take part in the competition can hand in their own 2D paintings in either of the following two ways:

    Each school will be provided with a box for students to put in their paintings. Boxes will be picked up by the City Art Council on Thursday, June 23rd，2016, before the end of the school day.

    Paintings can be also handed in on Friday, June 24th, from 8:00 am to 10:00 am at the Woodlands Art Hall （175 Riverside Street）.

    All paintings are required to be 60cm wide by 80cm long or smaller. Larger sizes will not be accepted. Each student can only hand in one painting.

    The final decision on the competition results will be made on June 26th, the Anti-Drug Day. The name list of the winners will be made known on the website of the City Art Council on the same day. All winning paintings will be shown to the public at the City Youth Park from June 27th till the end of July.

Prizes：1st Prize（10 students）=＄300 Gift Card each

2nd Prize（20 students）=＄200 Gift Card each

3rd Prize（30 students）=＄100 Gift Card each

    For further information：

Visit http：//www. WoodlandsArtCouncil. org or call 2569-8632.

    A city child's summer is spent in the street in front of his home, and all through the long summer vacations I sat on the edge of the street and watched enviously the other boys on the block play baseball. I was never asked to take part even when one team had a member missing—not out of special cruelty, but because they took it for granted I would be no good at it. They were right, of course.

    I would never forget the wonderful evening when something changed. The baseball ended about eight or eight thirty when it grew dark. Then it was the custom of the boys to retire to a little stoop(门廊) that stuck out from the candy store on the corner and that somehow had become theirs. No grownup ever sat there or attempted to. There the boys would sit, mostly talking about the games played during the day and of the game to be played tomorrow. Then long silences would fall and the boys would wander off one by one. It was just after one of those long silences that my life as an outsider changed. I can no longer remember which boy it was that summer evening who broke the silence with a question: but whoever he was, I nod to him gratefully now. “What's in those books you're always reading?” he asked casually. “Stories,” I answered. “What kind?” asked somebody else without much interest.

    Nor do I know what drove me to behave as I did,for usually I just sat there in silence, glad enough to be allowed to reain among them; but instead of answering his question, I told them for two hours the story I was reading at the moment. The book was Sister Carrie. They listened bug-eyed and breathless. I must have told it well, but I think there was another and deeper reason that made them to keep an audience. Listening to a tale being told in the dark is one of the most ancient of man's entertainments, but I was offering them as well, without being aware of doing it, a new and exciting experience.

    The books they themselves read were the Rover Boys or Tom Swift or G.A.Henty. I had read them too, but at thirteen I had long since left them behind. Since I was much alone I had become an enthusiastic reader and I had gone through the books-for-boys series. In those days there was no reading material between children's and grownups'books or I could find none. I had gone right fromTome Swift and His Flying Machine to Theodore Dreiser and Sister Carrie. Dreiser had hit my young mind, and they listened to me tell the story with some of the wonder that I had had in reading it.

    The next night and many nights thereafter, a kind of unspoken ritual (仪式) took place. As it grew dark, I would take my place in the center of the stoop and begin the evening's tale. Some nights, in order to taste my victory more completely, I cheated. I would stop at the most exciting part of a story by Jack London or Bret Harte, and without warning tell them that that was as far as I had gone in the book and it would have to be continued the following evening. It was not true, of course; but I had to make certain of my new-found power and position. I enjoyed the long summer evenings until school began in the fall. Other words of mine have been listened to by larger and more fashionable audiences, but for that tough and athletic one that sat close on the stoop outside the candy store, I have an unreasoning love that will last forever.

    For the first time, China's South Pole researchers can eat fresh vegetables grown regularly, according to Wang Zheng, the grower, who came home last month after a 400-day mission in Antarctica.

    "Growing vegetables in Antarctica reminded me of The Martian, a sci-fi movie about an astronaut who survives alone on Mars by eating potatoes he grows there," Wang said on Friday. "I totally understand the main character of the movie, I understand how he feels when he watches a small green plant grow in a fragile man-made environment,'' said the 40-year-old doctor. But he admitted that the conditions he faced in the Antarctic were much better than those in the film.

    Wang said the growth chamber(生长室) at the Zhongshan Station, had only a low yield when it was established in 2013. The amount was too small to make it possible for researchers to have vegetable dishes. To increase the yield, he reduced the number of vegetable varieties and focused on only some fast-growing ones, which makes the output stable. As a result, during much of his stay there, at least one vegetable dish, such as cucumbers, lettuce or cabbage, was served at every meal for a group of 18 researchers.

    Wang, an orthopedist, said he knew nothing about botany or farming before he arrived at the station in December, 2014. "I was given this job probably because my office is next to the growth chamber, and as a doctor, I had more spare time than others," Wang said. He considered many factors, such as light, temperature and humidity. Light music is played in the 16-square - meter greenhouse around the clock. "Mild music is good for vegetable growth," he said. "We also played Buddhist music, which has soft melody."

    "Growers before me did very good work. My job was to maintain the chamber and keep everything working." Before the  harvest, researchers had a very limited vegetable supply—mostly potatoes and cabbage, which taste awful after months of storage. "Because of our success in growing vegetables, we can have fresh vegetables every day," he said. "The Russian station is no more than one kilometer away from ours. We even had enough vegetables to invite our Russian colleagues for dinner."

    People can't see you when you're speaking on the phone, but they can hear you. So, the way you speak is especially important. In fact, researchers have calculated that 80% of communication over the phone is through your tone of voice; and only 20% is from the words you use. Here are our top tips on how to speak over the phone.

    ①Facial Expressions

    Your facial expression can influence your voice. For example, if you smile, your voice will sound warm and friendly, just the opposite, if you have an angry look on your face, it can make you sound unpleasant.

    ②Volume

    If you speak too loudly, you could sound angry. And if you speak too softly, it'll be difficult to hear you. So, speak loudly enough to be heard clearly, but not so loud that you're shouting.

    ③Pace

    The pace of your voice is how quickly you speak. And this can show how you feel. For example, an angry person might speak faster than normal. Or a downhearted person might speak very slowly. Try speaking a little more slowly than normal. This will make you sound confident, and it'll make it easier for the other person to understand you.

    ④Gestures

    Gesturing can influence the tone of your voice. When you gesture, you bring more air into the lungs, which can make your voice sound warmer. Gestures are also useful to help you stress the right words or even find the words you need. The best thing about gesturing during a phone call is that no one can see what you're doing, so you can gesture as wildly as you like!

    ⑤Movement

    If you're feeling nervous, stand up and move around. It will reduce the nervousness in your body and help your voice to sound more confident.

    ⑥Pauses (停顿)

    Using pauses every now and then can help you to slow down. This will make you sound more confident and in control. Also, if you pause after giving some new information, it'll give the other person time to understand it. At the same time, listen to how the other person uses pauses. They could tell you something about the speaker's feeling. For example, when a speaker is really angry, he might use pauses and says, "I…am…so…angry…"

    On her first morning in America, last summer, my daughter went out to explore her new neighborhood alone.

    Of course we were worried; we had just moved from Berlin, and she was just 8. But when she came home, we realized we had no reason to worry. She told us with pride how she had discovered the little park around the corner, and had made friends with a few local dog owners.

    When this story comes up in conversations with American friends, we are usually met with polite disbelief.

    A study by the University of California has found that American kids spend 90 percent of their free time at home, often watching TV or playing video games. Even when kids are physically active, they are watched closely by adults, either in school, at home, at afternoon activities or in the car. It seems that America's middle class has taken overprotective parenting to a new level, with the government even acting as a super nanny.

    Just take the example of the case of 10-year-old Rafi and 6-year-old Dvora Meitiv in 2015, in Silver Spring, Maryland, who were picked up by the police because their parents had dared to allow them to walk home from the park alone. The state's Child Protective Services said their parents were guilty.

    In reality, child abductions (绑架) by strangers in Silver Spring park are as rare as tiger attacks. Children are overprotected, which encourages dependency and affects their abilities to care for themselves and weigh risks. Mark Hemingway writes in The Federalist, "You know what it's called when kids make mistakes without adult supervision (监督) and have to struggle with the possible results? Growing up."

    At least, parents who want to give their children more room to walk around shouldn't be punished. Children are not easily damaged objects to be protected at all times.