“Long time no see” is a very interesting sentence. When I first read this sentence from an American friend's email, I laughed. I thought it was a perfect example of Chinglish.

    Obviously, it is a word-by-word literal translation of the Chinese greetings with a ruled English grammar and structure! Later on, my friend told me that it is a standard American greeting. I was too surprised to believe her. Her words could not convince me at all. So I did a research on google.com. To my surprise, there are over 60 thousand web pages containing “Long time no see.” This sentence has been widely used in emails, letters, newspapers, movies, books, or any other possible places. Though it is sort of informal, it is part of the language that Americans use daily. Ironically, if you type this phrase in Microsoft Word, the software will tell you that the grammar needs to be corrected.

    Nobody knows the origin of this Chinglish sentence. Some people believe that it came from Charlie Chan's movies. In the 1930s, Hollywood moviemakers successfully created a world wide famous Chinese detective named “Charlie Chan” on wide screens. Detective Chan likes to teach Americans some Chinese wisdom by quoting Confucius. “Long time no see” was his trademark. Soon after Charlie Chan, “Long time no see” became a popular phrase in the real world with thanks to the popularity of these movies.

    Some scholars refer to America as a huge pot of stew. All kinds of culture are mixed in the stew together, and they change the color and taste of each other. American Chinese, though a minority ethnic(少数民族的成员) group in the United States, is also contributing some changes to the stew! Language is usually the first thing to be influenced in the mixed stew.

    You can have some other examples than adoptions（采用）from Chinese, such as pizza from Italian, susi from Japanese, and déjà vu from French etc. There is a long list! Americans do not just simply borrow something from others. They will modify it and make it their own, so you would not be surprised to find a tofu and peanut butter hamburger in a restaurant, or to buy a bottle of iced Chinese green tea with honey in a grocery store. Since Americans appreciate Chinese culture more and more nowadays, I believe more Chinese words will become American English in the future. In this way the American stew keeps adding richness and flavor.

    In today's society, almost half of all marriages in America end in divorce, which means many children have divorced parents, and 1 am by no means a rare case. There are plenty of other people understanding the difficulty of having separated parents and living in two households. Despite this, people who haven't personally experienced divorce really have no idea what it's like.

    My parents have handled divorce and joint custody(监护) well, at least better than expected. Occasionally my parents put up the curtain to block my brother and I from the reality and I will get a glimpse of the not-so-bright-and-sunny reality, the fact that my parents simply don't like each other, let along get along. They try to make sure my brother and I don't overhear the argument and do their best to keep my brother and I out of their issues.

    Last Mother's Day I woke up at my dad's house with a text message from my mom saying, "Call me when u can." I rolled out of bed and dialed her number. On the other end of the phone I could hear my mom's trembling voice. "Your dad isn't letting me have you until 7 tonight." I knew Mother's Day was important to her and me. I began to get angry with my dad, but I told myself that getting mad and fueling my mom's anger towards my dad wouldn't help. Later my father told me that he had planned to spend time with my grandma and step-mom for Mother's Day, which I understood and accepted but I also understood why my mom wouldn't accept it.

    While having divorced parents is difficult, I have learned a lot about how to deal with conflict from an early age and I've been blessed with an extremely large family, which is an amazing network of support.

    There are many places to go on safari (观赏野生动物) in Africa, but riding a horse through the flooded waters of Botswana's Okavango Delta must rank as one of the world's most exciting wildlife journeys.

    Several safari camps operate as the base for this adventure, providing unique rides twice a day to explore deep into the delta. The camps have excellent horses, professional guides and lots of support workers. They have a reputation for providing a great riding experience.

    The morning ride, when the guides take you to beautiful, shallow lakes full of water lilies, tends to be more active. It is unlike any other riding experience. With rainbows forming in the splashing water around you and the sound of huge drops of water bouncing off your body and face, it is truly exciting. You are very likely to come across large wild animals, too. On horseback it is possible to get quite close to elephants, giraffes and many other animals. The sense of excitement and tension levels rise suddenly though, as does your heart rate, as you move closer to them.

    In the evening, rides are usually at a more relaxed and unhurried pace, with golden light streaming across the grassy delta and the animals coming out to eat and drink. Sedate though they are, rides at this time of day are still very impressive. As the sun's rays pass through the dust kicked up by the horses, the romance of Africa comes to life.

    Back at the camp you can kick off your boots and enjoy excellent food and wine. Looking back on your day, you will find it hard to deny that a horseback safari is as close as you will ever come to answering the call of the wild.

    Have you ever imagined what it would be like to see the world through an animal's eyes? For example, what a chimpanzee sees as it sits at the top of a tree, or a penguin's view as it dives into the sea to catch its dinner?

    These questions are answered in the nature documentary Animals with Cameras, produced by the BBC. The three-part series was first aired in the UK last month. To explore animal stories "told" by the animals themselves, the documentary's filmmakers worked with scientists to develop cameras that wild animals could wear.

    "Never before have we seen such high-quality footage (连续镜头)directly from the animal's point of view, " BBC Nature executive producer Fred Kaufman told PBS." This miniseries greatly expands our comprehension of animal behavior and this camera technology opens up new possibilities for discovering so much more."

    Indeed, the groundbreaking technology provides a new viewpoint of the animal kingdom. New cameras with enough battery life to shoot for hours at a time were designed to be comfortable enough for animals to wear, according to the documentary's camera designer Chris Watts.

    The technical challenges didn't stop there. Some animals were very curious about the equipment, with some even fighting each other for the chance to wear a camera. In the case of chimpanzees, "we had to create dummy (仿造的)cameras, so that every chimpanzee could get one", the miniseries' wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan told Live Science.

    For animals that were comfortable enough to be with human beings, the cameras could be fitted and removed by hand. But for others, the cameras came off automatically using a timed release and were collected afterward. This meant that the cameras needed to be as tough as possible.

    To avoid disturbing the animals, scientists who were good at dealing with wildlife came to help by putting the cameras on the animals." The last thing we want to do is cause them distress." the documentary's producer Dan Rees told the BBC. "To follow an animal in the first place, there had to be a clear benefit in terms of knowledge about it that might be useful to protecting a species in the future.

    Their efforts certainly paid off. " Footage that captures (捕捉)these rare and exciting glimpses of animals bidden habits is important to scientists, but documentaries like Animals with Cameras also resonate with (引起共鸣)audiences, connecting them with the beauty - and danger - of wildlife in their natural environments," Live Science noted.

    At a comedy night at Johns Hopkins Univerity in Maryland, members of the school's comedy(喜剧) club bring lots of laughter to their classmates with funny speeches and humorous body movements. These college student comedian's humour entertains busy, young people and eases their stress.

    Yet the club member Arella Shua says comedy is serious work. Every comedy starts as an individual project-- each member writes their own material. Then they try it out in weekly club meetings where all club members read the material, going joke by joke and seeing what works and what doesnt. Nothing unsatisfactory will be compromised(妥协). In this way comes a satisfying comedy.

    Ariella joined the club last year. Now she does not go anywhere without bringing something on which she can take notes. "Whenever I just have a thought in my head or when I see something or overhear someone saying something in the library, I just put it down, "Arielae explained. "when I'm trying to write my own set, I go through that……to see if there is anything in there that I can use."

    Club president Nicholas Scandura finds writng one of the many skills he has developed since joining the club."Writing jokes takes a lot of critical thinking." he said. The club gives its members a sense of community. When they meet, they share funny experiences. tell jokes and laugh.

    Harry Kuperstein discovered the club was a natural fit. Noticing the funny qualities of different situations improved his way of looking at the world. Becoming an active member also helped him work on the future skills he'll need as a medical doctor. "Having jokes ready to go might help smooth these interactions and make you a better public speaker, " he said.