I'm a 20-year-old boy,and the following is my story.

    A month after I graduated from high school in August,2007,I was coming home from swim practice in the training centre of the city and was involved in a car accident.I was so seriously injured that I was in a coma for more than two months at Prince Georges Hospital.

    I suffered a lot from the experience of dying eight times during my coma and I couldn't open my mouth to talk or to communicate when I eventually came around.At that time,it seemed that walking was never going to happen again due to all the extreme injuries.Just like my body,my dreams were completely destroyed.But I was not going to let my injuries stop me from realizing my dreams.

    After receiving a total of 15 operations and 36 blood transfusions,I had to make every great effort to learn to talk,eat,walk,shower,and live on my own again.When I was out of hospital,I still had to Go to outpatient therapy in Waldorf,Maryland.After I spent a few months in a wheelchair,I took baby steps to walk on my own.It was a miracle that I was able to walk again,but I still wanted to prove that I could not only walk,but also run.When it came true,I wanted to get back into the pool again.After having a few lung tests,I was able to go in the pool a little bit each week. After a few months of swim training,I began my freshman year at St.Mary's College of Maryland and then became a proud member of the swim team.

    By telling my story,I want to make a positive influence on the world.I am just trying to live every day to the fullest and inspire other people never to give up their dreams no matter how bad a situation is to them.I remember when I was still in my hospital bed,I would have my mom and dad push me round in my wheelchair to the other rooms to see the other patients and chat with them and their family members.I wanted to let them know that everything was going to be okay.Somehow,things would work out for the best.

    The most exciting storms are the ones with flashes of lightning.Unfortunately,those are scarce,unless you are near the Catatumbo River in Northwestern Venezuela.Here,nature's grandest sound and light show is often seen, because it happens about 160 nights a year.And it lasts for as long as 10 hours at a time.And unlike other lightning storms that cause just one or two flashes,this one is with as many as 280 per hour.It is the highest in the world. Besides,each one of them is so powerful that each can power every light bulb in South America.Not surprisingly,they can be seen for almost 250 miles.Fishermen and sailors often use them to guide them across the waters during dark nights.

    What's even more surprising is that the lightning has been happening above the same spot where the Catatumbo River meets Lake Maracaibo for thousands of years.The best part is that the show is different every night.That's because the color of the lightning changes,depending on the amount of water in the atmosphere.On dry nights,the lightning appears white.When the air is not dry,it helps split up the bright light into red,orange and even purple.

    Strangely enough,though this has been going on for centuries,scientists have still not been able to figure out the cause of this phenomenon.Some say that the storms are the result of the interaction of the area's unusual topography（地貌）,wind and heat.Others,however,believe that the storms are caused by a kind of gas in the area.The locals simply think that it is the "spirit of Catatumbo" that lights up the night sky.

    When I was younger, I was ridiculously shy to the point where I could not even make eye contact with people I didn't know. If someone greeted me in the hallway, I would lower my head and hurried past. I had always been somewhat anti-social, but, in sixth to eighth grade. I hit rock bottom. After transferring to a new school, halfway through my sixth grade year, I found myself in a room of people I had never met before, with no one to lean on.

    Funnily enough, this would not have been such a big deal if I had connected with their values and interests. However, everyone in my school was much wealthier than me, and focused on partying and fashion which were contrary to my academic interests. Although I had a few acquaintances(熟人), no one seemed to understand me beyond the superficial(表面的)level, unable to share my sometimes dark humor and interest in science fiction.

    Halfway through ninth grade, I was once again thrown into a school of strangers. Making Friends was incredibly difficult, and I sat alone at lunch for the rest of the year. In tenth grade, however, I enrolled in my school's theatre program, where I met some of my closest friends. The theatre forced me to overcome my shyness and taught me to speak up for myself. Furthermore, pretending to be someone else gave me a sense of previously unknown confidence

    Although I have a lot going for me right now, I will never forget the struggles I had to overcome when I was younger. This is why, whenever I see someone struggling or standing by themselves, I always invite them to sit with my friends and me. I may not be able to give hem my full attention all of the time, but the, main point is to let them know someone recognizes their existence and is willing to connect with them.

    As I was thinking about language learning the other day, the image of baking bread came into my mind. I compared some of the exercises and drills that we put ourselves through in order to learn a language to the various ingredients that go into baking a loaf of fresh bread.

    Real language learning takes place in human relationships. No one sits down and eats a cup of flour, even if he is hungry and in a hurry. You don't become bilingual（双语的）by learning lists of vocabulary. You don't become a speaker of a language by memorizing verb conjugations（动词的词形变化）and agreement rules. You become bilingual by entering a community that uses that other language as its primary means of communication.

    I am not suggesting that we can make bread without ingredients. Flour is necessary, as are yeast, salt, water and other ingredients. Vocabulary is part of any language and will have to be learned. Grammatical rules exist in every language and cannot be ignored. But merely combining the appropriate ingredients in the recommended proportions does not result in bread. At best, you only end up with a ball of dough（面团）.

    In order to get bread, you have to apply heat to the dough. And in language learning, that heat comes from the community. Anyone who has learned a second language has experienced that heat. It creeps up your neck when you ask the babysitter, “Have you already been eaten?” when you meant to say, “Have you already eaten?” When you try to say something quite innocent and the whole room bursts into laughter, you are experiencing the heat that turns raw dough into good bread.

    Remember the old saying, “If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen”? This is where language learning often breaks down because we find the heat uncomfortable and we stop the baking process. In other words, we can't stand the heat, so we get out of the kitchen.

    However, the language learner who stays in the kitchen—in the heat—until the combined ingredients are thoroughly transformed will enjoy the richness of a quality loaf of bread. He said that he did not “get out of the kitchen” at the critical moment when the oven seemed too hot. The dedicated language learner knows that becoming bilingual cannot be achieved without the heat!

    That people often experience trouble sleeping in a different bed in unfamiliar surroundings is a phenomenon known as the 4Tirst-nighf, effect. If a person stays in the same room the following night they tend to sleep more soundly. Yuka Sasaki and her colleagues at Brown University set out to investigate the origins of this effect.

    Dr. Sasaki knew the first-night effect probably has something to do with how humans evolved.

    The puzzle was what benefit would be gained from it when performance might be affected the following day. She also knew from previous work conducted on birds and dolphins that these animals put half of their brains to sleep at a time so that they can rest while remaining alert enough to avoid predators (捕食者). This led her to wonder if people might be doing the same thing. To take a closer look, her team studied 35 healthy people as they slept in the unfamiliar environment of the university's Department of Psychological Sciences. The participants each slept in the department for two nights and were carefully monitored with techniques that looked at the activity of their brains. Dr. Sasaki found, as expected, the participants slept less well on their first night than they did on their second, taking more than twice as long to fall asleep and sleeping less overall. During deep sleep, the participants' brains behaved in a similar manner seen in birds and dolphins. On the first night only, the left hemispheres (半球) of their brains did not sleep nearly as deeply as their right hemispheres did.

    Curious if the left hemispheres were indeed remaining awake to process information detected in the surrounding environment, Dr. Sasaki re-ran the experiment while presenting the sleeping participants with a mix of regularly timed beeps (蜂鸣声) of the same tone and irregular beeps of a different tone during the night. She worked out that, if the left hemisphere was staying alert to keep guard in a strange environment, then it would react to the irregular beeps by stirring people from sleep and would ignore the regularly timed ones. This is precisely what she found.

    Introduction

    Blenheim Palace is one of the Europe's largest and greatest palaces. It was built between 1705 and 1722 as a reward of the British government to John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, for defeating King Louis XlV's army at Blenheim, a small Bavarian village on the Danube River. The palace was designed by Sir John Vanbrugh, which displayed strength and arm glory. It is the largest non-royal building in England and is now listed by the UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

    Winston Churchill

    In 1874, the palace was the birthplace of the duke's most famous descendant. Winston Churchill, who was to become the UK's Prime Minister (some would say Britain's greatest 20th-century politician) and Nobel prize winner for literature. It is also in Blenheim that Winston got married to Clementine Hozier in 1908.

    A lasting exhibition is devoted to the man's life, work and writings. Winston and his wife are buried in Bladon Church within the palace.

    Opening Hours & Admission

    Blenheim is still the home of the 11th Duke of Marlborough and is therefore not open all year round (although the park is). The palace opens its doors to visitors from 12 February to 11 December. Entry to the palace, park and gardens cost £11.50 during the low season and £13 during the peak season (Easter weekend and from 28 May toll September), or £6/£8 for the park and gardens only.

    The park is open all-year round from 9am to 4:45pm (last entry). Admission is £2.50 for adults and £1.50 for children.

    Note that numerous discounts exist for seniors, students, children and groups. Please refer to the official website for more details.