From: terri @ wombat. Com. Au

To: (happylizijun) @ yaboo. com. cn

Subject: My school

Hi, Li Zijun,

    Thanks very much for your email. I really enjoyed reading it. I think we have a lot in common. I wonder if our school life is similar too.

    I go to a big high school in Sydney called Maylands High School. There are about 1000 students and 80 or so teachers. My class has 25 students in it, which is normal for a Year 11 class. In the junior school there are about 30 students in a class.

    In the senior high school we have lots of subjects to choose from, like maths, physics, chemistry, biology, history, German, law, geography, software design, graphic arts and media studies. (Different schools sometime have different optional subjects.) English is a must for everyone and we have to do least three other subjects in Year 11 and 12. At the end of Year 12 we sit for a public exam called the High School Certificate.

    As well as school subjects, most of us do other activities at school such as playing a sport, singing in the choir or playing in the school band. We can also belong to clubs, such as the drama club, the chess club and the debating society.

    We have a lot of homework to do in senior school to prepare for our exam, so unless I have basketball practice, I usually go straight home and start studying. I arrive home about 4 pm, make myself a snack and work till 6. Then I help the family to make dinner and we all eat together. I'm usually back in my room studying by 8 pm. I stop at about 10 o'clock and watch TV or read a book for half an hour to relax. On Saturdays, I usually go out with my family or with friends and I sleep in till late on Sunday morning. Then it's back to the books on Sunday afternoon.

    How about you? What's your school life like? Do you have a lot of homework? What do you do to relax when you're not studying? I'm looking forward to finding out.

Your Australian friend

Terrie

    Obama, Lady Gaga and Steve Jobs—what do they have in common? They are, of course, all Americans. And according to a survey by social networking site baidu. com, they all best illustrate(举例说明) the word “cool”.

    But just what does it mean to say someone is “cool”? Most would answer that it is something to do with being independent-minded and not following the crowd.

    Yale University art professor Robert Farris Thompson says that the term “cool” goes back to 15th century West African philosophy. “Cool” relates to ideas of grace under pressure.

    “In Africa,” he writes, “coolness is a positive quality which combines calmness, silence, and life.”

    The modern idea of “cool” developed largely in the US in the period after World War II. “Post-war 'cool' was in part an expression of war-weariness (厌战情绪), . . . it went against the strict social rules of the time,” write sociologists Dick Pountain and David Robins in Cool Rules: Anatomy of an Attitude.

    But it was the American actor James Dean who became the symbol for “cool” in the hugely successful 1955 movie Rebel without a Cause. Dean plays a tough guy who disobeys his parents and the authorities. He always gets the girl, smokes cigarettes, wears a leather jacket and beats up bullies. In the movie, Dean showed what “cool” would mean to American young people for the next 60 years.

    Today the focus of “cool” has changed to athletics (体育运动) stars. Often in movies about schools, students gain popularity on the athletics field more than in the classroom. This can be seen quite clearly in movies like Varsity Blues and John Tucker Must Die.

    But many teenagers also think being smart is cool. Chess and other thinking games have been becoming more popular in schools.

    “Call it the Harry Potterization of America—a time when being smart is the new cool,” writes journalist Joe Sunnen.

    One of the most exciting and interesting international cities to visit is London, England. Here is a look at four free things to do during a vacation to London.

    Visit the Trafalgar Square

    Built more than 200 years ago, Trafalgar Square is a popular gathering place for locals and travelers, too. The area is close to good shopping and dining opportunities, and there are usually some sorts of public events or celebrations going on there during most weekends.

    Wander Along the Thames

    Visitors wanting to sec some great architecture, attractions and views should spend an afternoon walking along the River Thames. The best place to start is at the world-famous London Bridge crossing over the river and you can walk all the way to Westminster Bridge a short distance away. Travelers doing this will find themselves passing by a great many historic buildings.

    Explore the Local Markets

    While purchasing items at any of the open markets in London is not necessarily free, walking through them to view the merchants（商人）, their products and the other shoppers is of great fun. Some of the popular open markets in London worth visiting include Spitafields Market, Portobello Road Market and Leadenhall Market.

     Visit the British Museum

    One of the top museums in the entire United Kingdom can be found in London, and it charges no admission（人场费）for entry. This museum is so highly regarded that it is not only popular with locals and tourists, it is also seen as a major and valuable scholarly resource.

    What makes a gift special？Is it the price you see on the gift receipt？Or is it the look on the recipient's face when they receive it that determines the true value? What gift is worth the most?

    This Christmas I was debating what to give my father. My dad is a hard person to buy for because he never wants anything. I pulled out my phone to read a text message from my mom saying that we were leaving for Christmas shopping for him when I came across a message on my phone that I had locked. The message was from my father. My eyes fell on a photo of a flower taken in Wyoming, and underneath a poem by William Blake. The flower, a lone dandelion standing against the bright blue sky, inspired me. My dad had been reciting those words to me since I was a kid. That may even be the reason why I love writing. I decided that those words would be my gift to my father.

    I called back. I told my mom to go without me and that I already created my gift. I sent the photo of the cream-colored flower to my computer and typed the poem on top of it. As I was arranging the details another poem came to mind. The poem was written by Edgar Allan Poe； my dad recited it as much as he did the other. I typed that out as well and searched online for a background to the words of it. The poem was focused around dreaming, and after searching I found the perfect picture. The image was painted with blues and greens and purples, twisting together to create the theme and wonder of a dream. As I watched both poems passing through the printer, the white paper coloring with words that shaped my childhood. I felt that this was a gift that my father would truly appreciate.

    Christmas soon arrived. The minute I saw the look on my dad's face as he unwrapped those swirling black letters carefully placed in a cheap frame, I knew I had given the perfect gift.

    Skeptics are a strange lot. Some of them refuse to admit the serious threat of human activities to the environment, and they are tired of people who disagree with them. Those people, say skeptics, spread nothing but bad news about the environment. The "eco-guilt" brought on by the discouraging news about our planet gives rise to the popularity of skeptics as people search for more comforting worldviews.

    Perhaps that explain why a new book by Bjorn Lomborg received so much publicity. That book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, declares that it measures the "real state of the world" as fine. Of course, another explanation is the deep pockets some big businesses with special interests. Indeed, Mr. Lomborg's views are similar to those of some Industry-funded organizations, which start huge activities though the media to confuse the public about issues like global warming.

    So it was strange to see Mr. Lomborg's book go largely unchallenged in the media though his beliefs were contrary to most scientific opinions. One national newspaper in Canada ran a number of articles and reviews full of words of praise, even with the conclusion that "After Lomborg, the environmental movement will begin to die down."

    Such one-sided views should have immediately been challenged. But only a different review appeared in Nature, a respected science magazine with specific readership. The review remarked that Mr. Lomborg's "preference for unexamined materials is incredible (不可信的)".

    A critical (批判的) eye is valuable, and the media should present information in such a way that could allow people to make informed decisions. Unfortunately, that is often inaccessible as blocked by the desire to be shocking or to defend some special interests. People might become half-blind before a world partially exhibited by the media. That's a shame, because matters concerning the health of the planet are far too important to be treated lightly.

When your boss calls and tells you to send $100,000 to a supplier, be on your toes. It could be a fake call. As if fake emails weren't enough, on the rise now is the deep fake audio (虚假音频) that can be cloned to sound almost real and perfect and is easy to create. "It's on the rise, and something to watch out for," says Vijay Balasubramaniyan, the CEO of a company called Pindrop.

Balasubramaniyan stated during a safety meeting how easy it is to use machine to create sentences that a person probably never said from recorded words. "All you need is five minutes of audio, and you can create fake audio," says Balasubramaniyan. Then, he showed a database (数据库) of voices, typed a sentence, and connected it to a famous people's name on the list. A few seconds later, he clicked "play", and it sounded quite real.

More costly are fake phone calls, where cheaters are able to fake the phone number of real contacts and make calls that result in workers sending off lots of money. He mentioned the example of a United Kingdom energy company in 2019 that got attacked by deep fake audio in a call that asked a worker to send $243,000 to a supplier. Reported by the Wall Street Journal, the worker was directed to pay it within an hour.

Balasubramaniyan says if you were to get that kind of call from a "boss" be doubtful and ask to call back right away to prove authenticity (真实性). Besides this, in his opinion, companies need to use more safety measures for keeping up with deep fake artificial intelligence (AI) that produces phone calls and software to check authenticity versus fake calls. "This is a threat that's waiting to happen," he says. "It's a very small number now, but it's very real."