John was part of my childhood growing up in the 1970s and a link to sunny, fun-filled days spent on the beach at Bangor in Northern Ireland where we went for our summer holidays. To many, he was a mystery. Every afternoon John would wander to the end of the pier (码头) where he fed the seagulls and delighted in the sound of their excited cries as they flew around his head.

    Often I asked my family questions regarding John. Eventually I gave up as no one could tell me anything about him. As I grew up, my visits to the beach became less frequent, and my memories of John buried in a child's imagination.

    Last year memories came flooding back as I walked along the coastline, where I noticed a lady feeding the seagulls on the pier, and I decided to introduce myself. Then I came to know that the lady was John's daughter, and after John left this world she carried out the ritual (惯例), which had held such importance for her father.

    In some strange way I felt we shared a bond, each needing to remember. In return, Lucy told me of John's life, his days in the British Navy (海军) during World War I and how he almost lost hope when his ship was attacked by a German U-boat in the North Sea and he found himself in a lifeboat with five others.

    Close to death, he thought he heard the sound of wings. He put up his hands, only to catch a seagull that had landed on the side of the boat. The seagull saved the lives of the six men as it was used to catch fish, which kept them alive until they reached land. This period of John's life was one he never talked about. But the ritual he first performed as a young man remained a part of him until he died.

    Now I visit Lucy as often as I can, just to chat or very often walk along the beach to the pier end. We enjoy the comfortable silence, each lost in special memories.

    As a boy, Charles Robert Darwin(达尔文) collected anything that caught his interest: insects, coins and interesting stones. He was not very clever, but Darwin was good at doing the things that interested him.

    His father was a doctor, so Darwin was sent to Edinburgh to study medicine, and was planned to follow a medical career. But Charles found the lectures boring. Then his father sent him to Cambridge University to study to be a priest. While at Cambridge, Darwin's interest in zoology and geography grew. Later he got a letter from Robert FitzRoy who was planning to make a voyage around the world on a ship, the Beagle. He wanted a naturalist to join the ship, and Darwin was recommended(推荐). That voyage was the start of Darwin's great life.

    As the Beagle sailed around the world, Darwin began to wonder how life had developed on earth. He began to observe everything. After he was home, he set to work, getting his collection in order. His first great work The Zoology of the Beagle was well received, but he was slow to make public his ideas on the origin of life.

    Later Darwin and Wallace, another naturalist who had the same opinions as Darwin, produced a paper together. Darwin's great book “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection”(《物种起源》) appeared. It attracted a storm. People thought that Darwin was saying they were descended from monkeys. What a shameful idea! Although most scientists agreed that Darwin was right, the Church was still so strong that Darwin never received any honors for his work.

    Afterwards, he published another great work, The Descent of Man. His health grew worse, but he still worked. “When I have to give up observation, I shall die,” he said. He was still working on 17, April, 1882. He was dead two days later.

    Maybe you are aware that the latest job markets news isn't promising: Unemployment is still more than 9 percent, and new job growth has fallen close to zero, which is bad for economy, of course. And it may be especially discouraging if you happen to be looking for a job or hoping to change careers right now. But it actually shouldn't matter to you nearly as much as you think.

    That's because job growth numbers don't matter to job hunters as much as job turnover data. After all, existing jobs open up every day due to promotions, resignations, terminations, and retirements. In both good times and bad, turnover creates more openings than economic growth does. Even in June of 2007, when the economy was still falling along, job growth was only 132,000, while turnover was 4.7 million!

    And as it turns out, even today — with job growth near zero — over 4 million job hunters are being hired every month.

    I don't mean to imply that overall job growth doesn't have an impact on one's ability to land a job. It's true that if total employment were higher, it would mean more jobs for all of us to choose from. And it's true that there are currently more people applying for each available job opening, regardless of whether it's a new one or not.

    But what often distinguishes those who land jobs from those who don't is their ability to stay motivated. They're willing to do the hard work of identifying their valuable skills; be creative about where and how to look; learn how to present themselves to potential employers; and keep going, even after repeated rejections. The Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed that 2.7 million people who wanted and were available for work hadn't looked for a job within the last four weeks and were no longer even classified as unemployed.

    So don't let the headlines fool you into giving up. Four million people get hired every month in the U.S. You can be one of them.

    Buttons are found on all sorts of clothing. They are usually small and round and made of metal or plastic. They fasten, or connect, one piece of clothing to another. They make sure your clothes don't fall off. When we are speaking or writing m English, buttons can be just as useful.

    Men or women often wear button-down clothes to the office. Button-down as an adjective means to be conservative（保守的）or traditional. People who are described as buttoned-down stay close as possible to the normal way of dressing and behaving. They don't wear crazy clothing or do unusual things. People and events can both be described as buttoned-down.

    If someone is buttoned-up, he or she seems very business-like. In personal relationships, a buttoned-up person is cold and standoffish, meaning they physically and emotionally keep away from others. Buttoned-up people are not warm or friendly. And they do not share their inner thoughts and feelings with others.

    In the expression “button up”, button is a verb. It means to stop talking. Now, let's say you find yourself buttonholed in a conversation at a party. The person just keeps talking and talking and talking! Finally, you can't take it any longer. You tell the person to button it! This is a direct, but unacceptable way of saying “stop talking”. Button you lip is another equally rude but effective to stop a person who talks too much.

    Another kind of difficult person is someone who pushes your buttons. To push someone's buttons means to know exactly how to get that person angry or upset. People who like to push other people s buttons usually do it for selfish reasons. First they find a person's weak point. Then they use it to upset him.

    The National Day holiday is a great opportunity to do something a little different. Many people use the National Day for a getaway, a short trip to leave the stress of their everyday lives behind and explore, learn, or relax.

    Hotel Romance

    Many hotels and resorts feature something special to start the getaway, such as champagne, flowers, or a fruit basket in the room on arrival. Getaway packages usually include a room with something special, a heart shaped bed, for example. Additional benefits could be room service meals or other private dining, plus tickets or discounts for local attractions.

    Visit a Spa

    Spa getaways can take place at a location that focuses only on spa services or at a hotel that offers a spa as one of its features. Some spas emphasize treatments fit for their geographic area or a local attraction. A spa in a grape growing region might provide grape juice masks, or a hotel near a hot spring could offer mineral baths. Most spas offer a range of massage, health and beauty treatments, so a spa getaway can be relaxing with other benefits.

    Learn a Skill

    The National Day holiday may not be enough time to become an expert at something new, but it provides a way for people to begin their explorations. Some organizations offer intensive courses that last five or six days. People with special interests can get away from their routines while learning such things as how to make beer, speak a new language, or take better photos.

    Help Others

    Some organizations cooperate with businesses to have accommodations and activities for short-term volunteers. Most volunteer vacations involve ecology friendly or charity activities. A volunteer getaway is a way to relieve stress and help others at the same time.

    Stay in a National Park

    For those who want to relax in a rural environment, a national park fits the bill. Most national parks provide camping areas for tents and trailers. Several have cabins within the parks available to rent. A getaway to a national park provides privacy, stress relief, and the time to get to know some important natural resources.

    No one is sure how the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids near Cairo. But a new study suggests they used a little rock 'n' roll. Long ago builders could have attached wooden poles to the stones and rolled them across the sand, the scientists say.

    "Technically, I think what they're proposing is possible." physicist Daniel Bonn said.

    People have long puzzled over how the Egyptians moved such huge rocks. And there's no obvious answer. On average, each of the two million big stones weighed about as much as a large pickup truck. The Egyptians somehow moved the stone blocks to the pyramid site from about one kilometer away.

    The most popular view is that Egyptian workers slid the blocks along smooth paths. Many scientists suspect workers first would have put the blocks on sleds. Then they would have dragged them along paths. To make the work easier, workers may have lubricated the paths either with wet clay or with the fat from cattle. Bonn has now tested this idea by building small sleds and dragging heavy objects over sand.

    Evidence from the sand supports this idea. Researchers found small amounts of fat, as well as a large amount of stone and the remains of paths.

    However, phyficmt Josepn West thought there might have been a simpler way, who led the new study. West said, "I was inspired while watching a television program showing how sleds might have helped with pyramid construction. I thought, "Why don't they just try rolling the things?" A square could be turned into a rough sort of wheel by attaching wooden poles to its sides, he realized. That, he noted, should make a block of stone "a lot easier to roll than a square".

    So he tried it.

    He and his students tied some poles to each of four sides of a 30-kilogram stone block. That action turned the block into somewhat a wheel. Then they placed the block on the ground.

    They wrapped one end of a rope around the block and pulled. The researchers found they could easily roll the block along different kinds of paths. They calculated that rolling the block required about as much force as moving it along a slippery path.

    West hasn't tested his idea on larger blocks, but he thinks rolling has clear advantages over sliding. At least, workers wouldn't have needed to carry cattle fat or water to smooth the paths.