Lots of people find it hard to get up in the morning and put the blame on the alarm clock. In fact, the key to easy morning wake-up lies in resting your body clock{#blank#}1{#/blank#} Here is how to make one.

    ● {#blank#}2{#/blank#} In order to make a change, you need to decide why it's important. Do you want to get up in time to have breakfast with your family, get in some exercise, or just be better prepared for your day? Once you are clear about your reason, tell your family or roommates about the change you want to make.

    ● Rethink mornings. Now that you know why you want to wake up, consider re-arranging your morning activities. If you want time to have breakfast with your family, save some time the night before by setting out clothes, shoes, and bags.{#blank#}3{#/blank#}That's a quarter-hour more you could be sleeping if you bought a coffee maker with a timer.

    ● Keep your sleep/wake schedule on weekends. If you're tired out by Friday night, sleeping in on Saturday could sound wonderful. But compensating on the weekends actually feeds into your sleepiness the following week, a recent study found. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}

    ● Keep a record and evaluate it weekly. Keep track of your efforts and write down how you feel. After you've tried a new method for a week, take a look at your record.{#blank#}5{#/blank#}If not, take another look at other methods you could try.

    Do you often feel lonely? What do you do when you feel that way? Hide yourself away and spend your time reading, watching TV or walking around?

You might think that feeling lonely is just like feeling happy, sad or scared — that it's just one of your various moods. That is true. However, if you let yourself be lonely for too long without dealing with it, you could be making a serious mistake.

    Doctors have known for some time that feeling lonely is bad for the mind. It can lead to mental health problems such as depression, stress and reduce confidence. “Being lonely means not feeling connected or cared for, but it's not about being mentally alone,” Lisa Jaremka, scientist from Ohio State University, US, told Live Science in January. And there's growing evidence that not having friends is connected with physical illness as well.

    In 2006, for example, scientists studied 2,800 women who had cancer. They found that those who had few friends or family were five times more likely to die of their disease than women with many social contacts. Also, even healthy people had a better chance of falling ill if they felt left out by others, according to the BBC.

    The results have scientists thinking that loneliness might hurt the immune system(免疫系统), which protects the body from diseases.

    Hoping to prove this theory, Jaremka and her research team put volunteers(志愿者) through a stress test. During the test, volunteers were asked to make an unprepared speech in front of a group of stony-faced people. The researchers found that volunteers who said they were lonely in their daily lives felt more stress during the test. And their blood samples showed that all the stress had managed to cause harmful changes to their immune system.

     “Loneliness has been thought of in many ways as a chronic stressor(慢性增压器) — a socially painful situation that can last for quite a long time, ” explained Jaremka, who led the study.

    The number of people suffering from loneliness is increasing all over the world. However, solving the problem is easier said than done. It won't work to just “tell anyone to go out and find someone to love you”, said Jaremka. “We need to create support networks.”

Visiting Joshua Tree National Park, California

    Joshua Tree National Park is nearly 800,000 acres (英亩) large and surrounds parts of the Mojave and Colorado Deserts in South-central California. Although barren at first sight, the park is full of wildlife and provides a variety of entertainment activities from hiking to climbing. Within a three-hour drive, Joshua Tree National Park takes at least a full day to visit.

Things to do

    Hiking opportunities within the park include several choices, from 12 self-guided nature routines to all-day back-country hikes.

    Joshua Tree NP has nine camping grounds, and back-country camping is also allowed.

    Rock climbing is a popular activity in the park, which has 10 mountains greater than 5, 000 feet in height.

When to visit

    Joshua Tree NP is open 365 days a year, although the best time to visit is October through April, when temperature is milder. The peak season is when the wild flowers bloom, and the summer months are the least crowded.

What to bring

    In addition to your camera and telescope, be sure to carry lots of water. Park and guiding maps can be picked up at any of the three visitor centers.

Fees

    Parking fees: You can buy a seven-day vehicle permit (周票) for $ 15, a single entry permit for $ 5, or Joshua Tree National Park annual (每年的) pass for $ 60.

Camping fees: They vary by camping ground

    Scientists used to explore (探测) on the surface of the ocean. Now they are exploring below the surface, too. They want to know about ocean water and the plant and animal life deep in the ocean.

    In 1934 the scientist William Beebe dived 3000 feet below the surface in a hollow steel ball. In 1935 August Piccard dived 10330 feet In I960 his son Jean dived to a depth of 35800 feet. All these early dives were deep. But the divers could not stay down for very long. They had to come back up to the surface after a few seconds. Scientists needed to stay down longer to study life below surface. Gradually they succeeded. Cousteau, a Frenchman, was able to keep men down to a depth of 36 feet for one month and to a depth of 90 feet for a week.

    Now scientists are developing even better equipment. With this new equipment, men can stay below the surface for days or even weeks. In 1962 Cousteau set up a research station 35 feet below the surface. Then, in 1964, he set up another station on the ocean floor of the Red Sea. This was the first undersea station to operate without help from the surface.

    Many countries are now studying undersea living. The former Soviet Union has an undersea laboratory in the Crimean Sea. The United States has a laboratory 50 feet down on the ocean floor off the Virgin Islands. In 1970 five men lived there for two weeks. Then a team of five women scientists stayed in the laboratory. Next came other teams of men. All were there to explore the ocean depths and to make plans for the use of its resources. Scientists hope to find enough mineral, vegetable, and animal wealth there to provide food for the entire world.

    A rabbit and two ducks were good friends. They used to meet on the bank of a river and play together. One day the ducks told the rabbit that they had found a carrot farm on the other bank of the river. The rabbit was excited and quickly asked for the help of his friends to cross the river, reach the farm and enjoy the carrots. The ducks agreed to carry him across the river.

    They made a wonderful plan to cross the river. The two ducks entered the river and stayed close to each other. The rabbit carefully got on their backs and stayed still. Then the ducks slowly swam across the river, staying close to each other. The rabbit cautiously stayed on top of the moving birds.

    Right before they reached the center of the river, the ducks suddenly saw a large number of fishes swimming together. In the excitement of finding a delicious meal in the water, the ducks quickly swam to either side to catch the fishes. They forgot about the poor rabbit on their backs, who fell down into the deep river as the ducks moved away. The ducks remembered their job only after they finished their meal. However, by that time the poor rabbit had already drowned (淹死). The foolish ducks were sorry to miss their good friend.

    From this short story, we know love should not be just words and talk; it must be true love, which is shown it in action.

    Explorers had been landing in America for some time before English settlers arrived in what is now Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. But it was in that spot on the James River that English colonization(殖民化) began, and with it, the history of America.

    James I was the king of England at that time, and he had granted approval for a group of businessmen who were part of the Virginia Company to settle in this new land. In all, 214 people set sail for America. They reached it on May 14, 1607. Very soon after they landed, the English found themselves under attack from Algonquins, a native American tribe(部落) who had been living in that area for some time. The English managed to drive off the attackers and stay there.

Under the leadership of Captain John Smith, the English built a fort(城堡)and other buildings designed to protect their new colony. They also found friendly native Americans, like Powhatan, who was willing to trade with them.

    There was a terrible winter in 1609 and only 60 of the 214 settlers survived, which was also hard on Powhatan's tribe and other neighboring native Americans.

    One of the main crops grown by the English settlers was tobacco, which they sold to native Americans and to people back in England, beginning in 1612. Tobacco became a very popular crop because it was easy to grow and because it brought in so much money.

    Once the money started flowing in regularly, the Jamestown colony grew, as did other settlements in Virginia and in other states along the eastern coastline.

    America's first elected assembly (议会), the House of Burgesses, met in Jamestown for the first time on July 30, 1619. The year 1619 also saw another significant development: the first arrival of black workers on boats from Africa. These men and women were originally servants, who worked a small piece of land for a few years and then got to keep the land as owners. Jamestown was also the capital of Virginia and remained so until 1698.