Winters are long and unforgiving in North Dakota. The winter of 1996 was especially brutal. It was a hard time in my own life too. A neck injury had kept me flat in bed for nearly a year. “Just in time for Easter,”my husband, Dick, said. But how could I feel the joy when the snow was four feet deep and I had months of painful physical treatment ahead?

    I was doing the dishes one day, feeling hopeless when there was a tap against the glass. It was a branch of the troublesome cottonwood (棉白杨).Back in the fall of 1979, it was a new subdivision (分支）then, an eight-foot stick. The people who'd briefly occupied the house before us had placed the pipe from the pump next to it. The earth was so wet that the poor thing had fallen down, most of its bare root system pointing skyward, and blowing hopelessly back and forth in the cold wind. Dick decided to pull it out one day, but I protested.

    “Look at how hard it's trying!” I said, pointing to the way it strongly kept hold of the earth. “It deserves a chance.”

     Dick borrowed some tools. We packed dry soil around the tree and put up some stakes (桩) into the ground, making it stand upright. That winter was still terrible. Surprisingly,in the spring my “rescue stick”put forth a few leaves,then with lots of branches. The year after that, we were able to remove the stakes. By the 1990s that little stick was a giant, towering over the house.

    Now the tapping at the window continued, louder as the wind picked up, almost as though to tell me to look up. At last, I did. I caught my breath. In the window against the icy blue sky, thousands and thousands of fresh red buds were waving in the wind.

    The tree was bursting with life and I had a wonderful Easter.

    I study English literature at university and have always been proud of Britain's literary heritage（文学遗产）. Some British authors that you may have heard of are Charles Dickens and Jane Austen. These writers are famous all over the world because their books have been translated into many different languages. In the UK, their novels are celebrated as some of the best that have ever been written. We say that these novels are “classic” because they are still read and enjoyed years after their publication.

    I read classic novels because they are part of my university lessons but also because I enjoy them. They can teach you a lot about how people used to live and what society was like in the past. Novels like Hard Times by Charles Dickens remind us of the poverty in London during the Industrial Revolution while Jane Austen's fiction shows us what family life was like in the 18th century.

    Classic novels usually have memorable stories land interesting characters. One of my favourite books is Charles Dickens Great Expectations. It is about a boy called Pip who suddenly receives a lot of money from a mysterious supporter. As he grows up, his character changes: he becomes quite selfish and mean. Another important character is Miss Havisham. When she was young, her fiancé ran away on their wedding day. She lives in a dark house and still wears her wedding dress. She is a fascinating character, both sad and scary.

    Reading classic novels enriches my knowledge and life experience. And it has become part of life.

    Internet slang refers to a variety of slang languages used by different people on the Internet. It is difficult to provide a standardized definition of Internet slang due to the constant changes made to its nature. However, it can be understood to be a type of slang that Internet users have popularized, and in many cases, have coined. Such terms often begin with the purpose of saving keystrokes or to compensate(补偿)for small character limits. Internet slang consists of a number of different ways of speaking, sub-languages, expressions, spelling techniques and idioms that have obtained most of their meaning on the Internet.

    Love it or hate it, there is no escape from Internet slang. It has become popular among the teenagers. Just like US teenagers use “LOL”(laugh out loud) when commenting on a funny video, China's post-00s generation, a group born between 2000 and 2009, like to use “XSWL” (laughing my head off). Acronyms(首字母缩略词) and shortened expressions may be popular as they offer shorter ways of communicating. For teenagers, they could also allow them to communicate in their own way.

    Understanding the most common acronyms and texting symbols can help to decode and decipher any text message, email or instant message online. Here are some of the most popular symbols, abbreviations, and acronyms you are likely to stumble upon when texting or receiving messages and chatting on line. OMG: Oh my God; BRT: Be right there; TTYL: Talk to you later; JK: Just kidding; G2G: Got to go; NMU: Not much, you? RBAY: Right back at you; IDC: I don't care.

    Some people think that Internet slang affects the language negatively. However, Melbourne University linguist Rosey Billington doesn't agree.

    “When you are able to use language in a creative way, you show you are linguistically knowledgeable because you know the language rules well enough to use words in a different way.”Billington told News.com. Au .Her view is supported by two linguists, Lauren Spradlin and Taylor Jones.

    In its early history, Chicago had floods frequently, especially in the spring, making the streets so muddy that people, horses, and carts got stuck. An old joke that was popular at the time went something like this: A man is stuck up to his waist in a muddy Chicago street. Asked if he needs help, he replies, "No, thanks. I've got a good horse under me."

    The city planner decided to build an underground drainage （排水） system, but there simply wasn't enough difference between the height of the ground level and the water level. The only two options were to lower the Chicago River or raise the city.

    An engineer named Ellis Chesbrough convinced the city that it had no choice but to build the pipes above ground and then cover them with dirt. This raised the level of the city's streets by as much as 12feet.

    This of course created a new problem: dirt practically buried the first floors of every building in Chicago. Building owners were faced with a choice: either change the first floors of their buildings into basements, and the second stories into main floors, or hoist the entire buildings to meet the new street level. Small wood-frame buildings could be lifted fairly easily. But what about large, heavy structures like Tremont Hotel, which was a six-story brick building?

    That's where George Pullman came in. He had developed some house-moving skills successfully. To lift a big structure like the Tremont Hotel, Pullman would place thousands of jackscrews (螺旋千斤顶) beneath the building's foundation. One man was assigned to operate each section of roughly 10jackscrews.At Pullman's signal each man tured his jackscrew the same amount at the same time, thereby raising the building slowly and evenly. Astonishingly, the Tremont Hotel stay open during the entire operation, and many of its guests didn't even notice anything was happening.

    Some people like to say that every problem has a solution. But in Chicago's early history, every engineering solution seemed to create a new problem. Now that Chicago's waste water was draining efficiently into the Chicago River, the city's next step was to clean the polluted river.

The terraced rapeseed(油菜)flower hills of Jiangling,Wuyuan is well-known as one of the four "seas of flowers" in China,attracting thousands of plant-loving tourists to come and appreciate and photograph the vast and endless rapeseed flower fields.

"Rapeseed flowers are the messenger of spring," said Bin Zhan,manager of Jiangxi Wuyuan Tourism."Jiangling is the best place for a relaxing spring trip to enjoy the most visually impressive views of golden seas of rapeseed blossoms covering layered terrace fields."

The rapeseed blossom in the terraced fields of Jiangling,located 45 kilometres to the northeast of Wuyuan County,Jiangxi Province,reached full bloom in the second week of March.

This year,Wuyuan restores ancient farming traditions and practices to give visitors an idea or the history,culture and folk customs of the county by adding scarecrows(稻草人) in the rapeseed flower fields.The creative scarecrows of Wuyuan County are designed in the shapes of popular cartoon characters,Hui-style architecture and folk customs.They are placed in the rapeseed fields to provide more fun and interactions for visitors on flower-viewing tours.

"As flower viewing is becoming more popular in recent years,Jiangling is seeing a growing number of returning visitors,especially professional photographers who come back every year for the dramatic rapeseed blossoms," Zhan said."The blossoms only last one to two months.April is the last chance to catch a flower-viewing tour this year."

In addition to flower viewing,Wuyuan County is also home to the most well-protected ancient Hui-style architecture in China.As one of the most beautiful countryside villages in China,it attracts photographers from around the world every year to document not only the natural scenery,but also the unique farming culture and folk traditions.

There was an encounter that later sparked scientists' investigations into using jellyfish as a greater source of food, as well as a potential ingredient in medicines and nutraceuticals. In the summer of 2013, while Stefano Piraino was wandering along the rocky shoreline, he noticed a washed-up jellyfish. Then, he tore off a piece and put it in his mouth. It was salty, crunchy and crispy from the sun. "It was very tasty, " remembers Piraino, a zoologist. After a few days of lying on the shore, their stinging cells(刺细胞)are deactivated, Piraino explains. Still, he warns that people should not eat jellyfish straight out of the sea, because raw jellyfish contains bacteria that can cause food poisoning. 

Recently, there have been numerous reports of jellyfish blooms—seasonal events where there is a large and sudden increase in jellyfish numbers. These population explosions break the balance of ocean ecosystems, and have the potential to harm biodiversity and reduce fish stocks. 

Some scientists, such as Piraino, believe one solution is broadening our palates(口味)since the world is in urgent need of sustainable food resources. Jellyfish can be integrated into traditional recipes and local cuisine. Not only are they high in protein, but the microalgae inside the cells of some jellyfish are rich in fatty acids. In fact, jellyfish is already eaten across Asia. In China, jellyfish has been eaten for more than 1, 000 years, with jellyfish salad a popular delicacy. 

Jonathan Houghton, a senior lecturer in marine biology, believes that jellyfish can be a better source of collagen(胶原蛋白). There are a number of companies already using jellyfish as a substitute(替代品) for cow and pig collagen, which is often used in medical treatments for humans. One British company says collagen from jellyfish offers a better choice, because their collagen can work with a wide variety of human cell types.