Ireland has had a very difficult history. The problems started in the 16th century when English ruler tried to conquer(征服) Ireland. For hundreds of years, the Irish people fought against the English. Finally, in 1921, the British government was forced to give independence to the south of Ireland. The result in that today there are two “Irelands”. Northern Ireland, in the north, is part of the United Kingdom. The Republic of Ireland, in the south is an independent country.

    In the 1840s the main crop, was affected by disease and about 750,000 people died of hunger. This, and a shortage(短缺) of work, forced many people to leave Ireland and live in the USA, the UK, Australia and Canada. As a result of these problems, the population fell from 8.2 million in 1841 to 6.6 million in 1851.

    For many years, the majority of Irish people earned their living as farmers. Today, many people will work on the land but more and more people are moving to the cities to work in factories and offices. Life in the cities is very different from life in the countryside, where things move at a quieter and slower pace.

    The Irish are famous for being warm-hearted and friendly. Oscar Wilde, a famous Irish writer, once said that the Irish were “the greatest talkers since the Creeks”. Since independence, Ireland has revived(复兴) its own culture of music, language, literature and singing. Different areas have different styles of old Irish songs which are sung without instruments. Other kinds of Irish music use many different instruments such as the violin, whistles, etc.

    We offer five kinds of courses. Each course has been designed to help students according to their needs.

    Course 1：General English

    General English is designed to develop students' basic communication skills in speaking and pronunciation，reading，listening，writing，grammar and vocabulary. Tuesday to Friday：9：00 am to 11：00 am，$288 per week.

    Course 2：Academic English

    Academic English is for students who want to take the IELTS exam or for those who need to use English in a professional area. Monday to Friday：4：00 pm to 5：00 pm，$320 per week.

    Course 3：High School ESL

    Why not make the most of your time studying in Australia with the help from TIES？We have High School ESL classes each week specifically designed for international students. Tuesday to Friday：8：00 am to 11：00 am，$25 per hour.

    Course 4：Night Classes

    Do you want to improve your English and get the best possible results in your GRE test？We have two night classes each week designed to meet your needs. Tuesday and Thursday evenings：8：30 pm to 10：30 pm. $60 per day.

    Course 5：One on One

    If you are interested in some One on One lessons with TIES teachers，we can design a course to meet your needs. One on One lessons can improve your English language skills more quickly and help students who want to take TOEFL. Tuesday and Friday：2：00 pm to 5：00 pm，$80 per hour.

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    Cold weather can be hard on pets, just like it can be hard on people. Sometimes owners forget that their cats are just as used to the warm shelter (住所) as they are. Some owners will leave their animals outside for a long period of time, thinking that all animals are used to living outdoors. This can put their pets in danger of serious illness. There are things you can do to keep your animal warm and safe.

    Keep your pets inside as much as you can when the weather is bad. If you have to take them out, stay outside with them. When you're cold enough to go inside, they probably are too. If you must leave them outside for a long time, make sure they have a warm, solid shelter against the wind, thick bedding, and plenty of non-frozen water.

    If left alone outside, dogs and cats can be very smart in their search for warm shelter. They can dig into snow banks or hide somewhere. Watch them closely when they are left outdoors, and provide them with shelter of good quality. Keep an eye on your pet's water. Sometimes owners don't realize that a water bowl has frozen and their pet can't get anything to drink. Animals that don't have clean and unfrozen water may drink dirty water outside, which may contain something unhealthy for them.

    When it comes to the most famous 20^th century painters of the United States, Grandma Moses should be mentioned, although she did not start painting until she was in her late seventies. As she once said to herself:" I would never sit back in a rocking chair, waiting for someone to help me." No one could have had a more active old age.

    She was born on a farm in New York State, one of five boys and five girls. At 12 she left home and was in domestic service until at 27 she married Thomas Moses, the hired hand of one of her employers. They farmed most of their lives, first in Virginia and then in New York State, at Eagle Bridge. She had ten children, of whom five survived; her husband died in 1927.

    Grandma Moses painted a little as a child and made embroidery(刺绣) pictures as a hobby, but only changed to oils in old age because her hands became too stiff(僵硬的) to sew and she still wanted to keep busy and pass the time. Her pictures were first sold at the local drugstore and at a market and were soon noticed by a businessman who bought all that she painted. Three of the pictures were exhibited(展览) in the Museum of Modern Art, and in 1940 she had her first exhibition in New York. Between the 1930's and her death, she produced some 2,000 pictures: careful and lively portrayals of the country life she had known for so long, with a wonderful sense of color and form. "I think really hard till I think of something really pretty, and then I paint it" she said.

    Older women who walk a little over three kilometers each day might live longer than less active women of the same age, a new study suggests.

    Many Americans hoping to stay healthy set a daily goal of 10, 000 steps, or about eight kilometers. They often have this goal because they are wearing electronic devices which set that target, note researchers in the United States. Their findings appeared recently in the publication JAMA Internal Medicine.

    But it is not clear how much intensity(强度)or speed matter when counting the health benefits of every step, the researchers write. They add that 10,000 steps per day might not be the right goal for everyone.

    For the study, researchers observed 17,000 women, all in their early 70s. They asked the women to wear accelerometers for at least four days. Accelerometers are small devices that measure the number of steps and the intensity of movement. The researchers followed up with the women much later, around 4. 3 years later, on average. Since the beginning of the study, 504 women had died. Compared to women who took no more than 2, 718 steps daily, the women who took at least 4,363 steps per day were 41 percent less likely to die.

    "Even a modest amount of steps is associated with lower death rates," said I-Min Lee, the lead writer of a report on the study. "The rate of stepping did not matter in these older women: it was the number of steps that mattered.

    The study had a few limitations. For example, the researchers only measured women's movements once, at the start of the study period. It is possible that the women's behaviors changed over time. Still, the results are "good news for older adults who may have difficulty walking at faster paces, "said Keith Diaz, a researcher at Columbia University. He was not involved in the study.

    "Any walking is better than nothing," Diaz said by email. "With even small amounts of walking, your risk of death will be sharply reduced "For those who have difficulty walking, other research shows that any form of aerobic activity provides health benefits," he added. "Swimming, bicycling or any form of activity that is continuous in nature will provide health benefits.

Two women going on a journey to green their city is the best way to describe the founders of Utility, Portland's low-waste and reuse company. It started in January 2019 and opened its first retail shop in April. Its founders, Rebecca Rottman and Nadine Appenbrink, are deeply committed to sustainability and supporters of zero waste.

They started Utility as a second job for both and as a personal journey, looking for clean products that didn't come in plastic. Their goal is to reduce the amount of single-use plastics by allowing people to bring their own reusable containers when they buy environmental friendly home and personal care items.

Every week the women teamed up with local stores to sell their goods and to refill products for returning customers. Now they are operating only online for pickup or local delivery in the Portland area. It is really easy, the company said. Just shop online and choose a container. Then select pickup or delivery. The products include all-natural dish bar soap and a wide variety of plastic-free kitchen tools.

While not completely zero waste, Utility is striving to get extremely close. Appenbrink said, "We are all on a journey. And we want to be as approachable as possible. Utility is to raise awareness about this lifestyle." They are focused on careful growth because Utility will never ship products because of the carbon footprint involved in shipping.

There are zero waste stores in other communities, like Clean Kilo in Birmingham UK, but they are real brick and mortar (实体的) buildings. Utility's concept is so simple that it can be followed almost anywhere. Zero waste markets are the way to the circular economy that is needed to stop plastic waste, reduce our carbon footprint and have a sustainable future.