With the summer holiday just around the corner, it seems like everybody is busy planning their vacations. Here are some tips that can helpyou enjoy your holiday without emptying your pocket:

Travel off-season

Go to your desired destination while the demand is low and takeadvantage of huge discounts. During the peak season, the hotel and flightprices increase quickly, and you'll likely spend more of your vacation timestanding in line due to the rush of tourists.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}

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      Websites can help you find discount hotel rooms. Look for placesthat do not charge extra for children if they use the existing bedding. Staywith the locals. If you and your family are going to stay for a longer period,renting a small apartment is a good choice.

Eat like a local

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During your family trip, try new food where the locals eat. Thiswill not just save money, but also provide you with a new and differentexperience. For smaller meals and snacks, avoid restaurants and try street foodor other takeout.

Don't hesitate to bargain

      Tourist- heavy places are known for overcharging for just abouteverything. Clothes, travel goodies, souvenirs, etc. are very expensive atthese places. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Bargain hard to get the best price.

Choose local transportation

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      Instead, take buses, railways or subways, which are alwayscheaper. If you are planning to stay for a while, you can consider renting acar. Hiring a car is much easier than carrying your bags everywhere if you aremoving around a lot.

A. Save on hotels.

B. Surf the Internet while traveling.

C. Therefore, avoid buying anything there.

D. So it's best to find out when the off-season starts.

E. Planning your meals is another way to reduce your travelcosts.

F. For this reason, you shouldn't feel ashamed to ask forbargains.

G .As a tourist, avoid taking taxis whenever possible, sincethey are expensive.

House Sitting

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

    In Australia, many people travel. After people retire, 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, they might want someone in their home to care for it and keep the gardens tidy. House sitters might have to care for pets. Also, quite a few people have swimming pools in their back yard and they need cleaning. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} I feel it is a great way of seeing the country, because you go and stay in a new city, get to meet new people, and have time to go sightseeing in a new area.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#} There are websites where you find the advertisements by people who want to travel, and by replying to the advertisement, you can make arrangements to go and look after their home.

    There are some requirements to be a house sitter. You must be a trusted person, so that the home owner knows you will not steal anything. You must be able to go when the house owner wants you to go, so you need lots of free time. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} You need to be good 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 of weeks while the house owners have a short holiday. Sometimes it is for much longer. We have had one house sit for six months, while the home owner travelled to Europe.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Then you can travel to many different countries and stay there. One of  the important things to get is references from the home owners where you have stayed. A reference is a written letter to say that you are trustworthy and have looked after their home well. You can show these letters to possible house sitting jobs and they know you will do a good job.

A. I have done house sitting many times.

B. Thousands of people do this all the time.

C. It is also possible to do house sitting in other countries.

D. Generally you have many opportunities to get a house sitting job.

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

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

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

    When asked about happiness, we usually think of something extraordinary, an absolute delight, which seems to get rarer as we get older.

    For kids, happiness has a magical quality: Their delight at winning a race or getting a new bike is unreserved (毫不掩饰的).

    In the teenage years, the concept of happiness changes. Suddenly it's conditional on such things as excitement, love and popularity. I can still recall the excitement of being invited to dance with the most attractive boy at the school party.

    In adulthood the things that bring deep joy－love, marriage, birth－also bring responsibility and the risk of loss. For adults, happiness is complicated (复杂的).

    My definition of happiness is “the capacity for enjoyment”. The more we can enjoy what we have, the happier we are. It's easy to overlook(忽视) the pleasure we get from the company of friends, the freedom to live where we please, and even good health.

    I experienced my little moments of pleasure yesterday. First I was overjoyed when I shut the last lunchbox and had the house to myself. Then I spent an uninterrupted morning writing, which I love. When the kids and my husband came home, I enjoyed their noise after the quiet of the day.

    Psychologists tell us that to be happy we need a mix of enjoyable leisure time and satisfying work. I don't think that my grandmother, who raised 14 children，had much of either. She did have a network of close friends and family, and maybe this is what satisfied her most.

    We, however, with so many choices and such pressure to succeed in every area, have turned happiness into one more thing we've got to have. We're so self-conscious about our “right” to it that it's making us miserable. So we chase it and equal it with wealth and success, without noticing that the people who have those things aren't necessarily happier.

    Happiness isn't about what happens to us－it's about how we see what happens to us. It's the skillful way of finding a positive for every negative. It's not wishing for what we don't have, but enjoying what we do possess.

    What is the hottest topic at your school recently? In Taiyuan No.55 Middle School,it's money.

    The school held an activity called “making money” last weekend.About 200 Junior 1 and Junior 2 students were divided into 30 teams.They went out to make money by selling things.

    What did they choose to sell? Some sold newspapers;some chose bottled water;some sold environmentally friendly shopping bags and bamboo bamboo baskets.

    Hu Qing's team decided to sell some useful books in front of the Children Activity Center.They thought parents would like to buy the books for their children.But unfortunately,they met urban management officers（城管）.The officers asked them to leave.“ We played hide-and-seek（捉迷藏）with the officers for the whole morning”said Hu. “Finally we had to give up.”

    Wang Bing and her team sold ice cream in a square.They didn't meet any officers.But few people were interested in what they were selling.The team then put up a board saying “For Country Kids”.It worked.More people came to their stall（小摊）.A foreigner even gave them 100 yuan. “He didn't want any change.He said he wanted to help the children,” said Wang.“ We were touched.” Later that day they gave the 100 yuan and more to the “Project Hope” office.

    Meng Zhaoxiang and his team were luckier.They sold all their cakes in four hours,spending 39.5 yuan and getting back 80 yuan.They made 40.5 yuan.“It was not easy to make the money,” said Meng.“ Some people just looked.Others just tasted but didn't buy.Now I know how hard it is for our parents to make the money we need to lead happy lives.”

    Australian electronics and homewares retailers are preparing for the invasion (涌入) of American giant Amazon, but some have decided to take the fight up to the online-based store when it comes to local shores.

    Last week, Amazon confirmed its rapid Australia expansion by announcing that it was searching for a site to build its “fulfillment center”—a large warehouse(仓库)for storing and shipping goods purchased online—but local retailer, including one of Harvey Norman's founders Gerry Harvey, have said they will make it hard for Amazon to succeed in Australia.

    Harvey Norman sells electronics, furniture and bedding—all markets in which Amazon hopes to hold a stake, but Harvey has said that he will happily go toe-to-toe with the American behemoth to hold his ground in the Australian market.

    “In America and other parts of the world, they have just demolished (彻底打败) other retailers, no question about that, and they send a lot of retailers broke,” Harvey told News Corp on Monday. “There is no question they have one ambition and like Attila the Hun, or Alexander the Great, they just want to demolish everything in front of them and then at the end of the day claim to be victorious and make their own rules. So this is a company that is extraordinary by any measure and challenges every rule that has ever been written about a business.”

    Some analysts have said that Amazon could take in as much as 3 billion U. S. dollars in sales in its first five years in Australia (around I percent of the total 225 billion U.S. dollar market), but Harvey has refuted those claims, saying that local retailers would be putting up “one hell of a fight” when Amazon launches is main retail services in Australia. “We will be over there fighting them like no American retailer has ever fought them,” he said. “Any price that they put we will beat or equal.”

    Meanwhile, Harvey's thoughts were backed up by the former CEO of supermarket chain Woolworths. Roger Corbett, who said Amazon would struggle to keep its lower wages and claims of lightning fast delivery to rural parts when it opens in Australia. “Amazon will have an impact on the market place, but they are coming into an already very competitive market,” he told News Corp.

Emilia Dobek traces her interest in space and the universe back to third grade when she and her father watched a blood moon—a total lunar eclipse (月蚀)—on the roof of their house.

    Now a seventh-grader at East Prairie Elementary School, Dobek recently won the national Discovery Education Lockheed-Martin Beyond Challenge by designing a space station for travelling to Mars.

    She says that night watching the lunar eclipse started a strong desire in her that has yet to run out of fuel. So when her teacher Andrea Smeeton received information about the national challenge, Smeeton said she immediately had one student in mind.

    "I knew she would love the challenge and that she would go way beyond in her search," Smeeton said. "She immediately started researching bone density (密度) of astronauts and how to have food on Mars."

    "My design will ensure the safety of the astronauts but also make sure their comfort is out of this world," Dobek says.

    Dobek's design calls for building the MSS or Mars Storage Station to put the supplies in. It also includes the SGF or Self-Crowing Farm, and she details how it would work with the elements on Mars.

    Then there is physical and leisure activity for the astronauts under Dobek's design. A simulation (模拟装置) allows astronauts to choose their exercise machine and virtual (虚拟的) reality environment. Rooms have circular ceilings so astronauts will be able to watch downloaded shows and even see places on Earth, such as their homes.

    "I want to tell other kids to follow their passions." Dobek said. "Whatever they want to do they should push for it and always try their best."