Now many young people are traveling around the world on their own，not because they have no one to travel with，but because they prefer to go alone.

    Kristina Wegscheider from California first traveled alone when she was at college and believes that it is something everyone should do at least once in their life. ＂It opens up your mind to new things and pushes you out of your comfort zone.＂ Wegscheider has visited 46 countries covering all seven continents.

    In foreign countries，with no one to help you read a map，look after you if you get ill，or lend you money if your wallet is stolen，it is challenging. This is what drives young people to travel alone. It is seen as character building and a chance to prove that they can make it on their own.

    Chris Richardson decided to leave his sales job in Australia to go traveling last year. He set up a website，The Aussie Nomad，to document his adventures. He says he wished he had traveled alone earlier. ＂The people you meet，the places you visit，or the things you do，everything is up to you and it forces you to grow as a person，＂ said the 30-year-old man.

    Richardson describes traveling alone like ＂a shot in the arm＂，which ＂makes you a more confident person that is ready to deal with anything＂. He said，＂The feeling of having overcome something on my own is a major part of what drives me each day when I'm dealing with a difficult task. I walk around with my head up because I know deep down inside that nothing is impossible if you try.＂

    The great 19th century explorer John Muir once said，＂Only by going alone in silence can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness.＂

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    The haunting paintings of Helene Schjerfbeck, on show in the final leg of a travelling tour that has already attracted thousands of visitors in Hamburg and the Hague, may come as a surprise to many. Few outside the Nordic(北欧的) world would recognize the works of this Finnish artist who died in 1946. More people should. The 120 works have at their core 20 self-portraits, half the number she painted in all. The first, dated 1880, is of a wide-eyed teenager eager to absorb everything. The last is a sighting of the artist's ghost-to-be.

    Prematurely gifted, Schjerfbeck was 11 when she entered the Finnish Art Society's drawing school. “The Wounded Warrior in the Snow”, a history painting, was bought by a private collector and won her a state travel grant when she was 17. Schjerfbeck studied in Paris, went on to Pont-Aven, Brittany, where she painted for a year, then to Tuscany, Cornwall and St Petersburg. During her 1887 visit to St Ives, Cornwall, Schjerfbeck painted “The Convalescent”. A child wrapped in a blanket sits supported up in a large wicker(柳条编制的) chair, toying with a sprig(小枝条). The picture won a bronze medal at the 1889 Paris World Fair and was bought by the Finnish Art Society. To a modern eye it seems almost sentimental(感伤的) and is made up for only by the somewhat astonished, sad expression on the child's face, which may have been inspired by Schjerfbeck's early experiences. At four, she fell down a flight of steps and never fully recovered.

    In 1890, Schjerfbeck settled in Finland. Teaching exhausted her, she did not like the works of other local painters, and she was further isolated when she took on the care of her mother. “If I allow myself the freedom to live an isolated life”, she wrote, “then it is because it has to be that way.” In 1902, Schjerfbeck and her mother settled in the small, industrial town of Hyvinkaa, 50 kilometres north of Helsinki. Isolation had one desired effect for it was there that Schjerfbeck became a modern painter. She produced still lives and landscapes but above all moody yet sharp portraits of her mother, local school girls, women workers in town.

    “I have always searched for the dense depths of the soul, which have not yet been discovered by humans themselves”, she wrote, “where everything is still unconscious -- there one can make the greatest discoveries.” She experimented with different kinds of underpainting, scraped and rubbed, made bright rosy red spots; doing whatever had to be done to capture the subconscious — her own and that of her models. In 1913, Schjerfbeck was rediscovered by an art dealer and journalist, Gosta Stenman. Once again she was a success.

    It was a quiet village in which there was a military camp(军营). It was far from the towns and cities and there were some high mountains around. Of course it was a good place for training the new soldiers. But it was difficult for the young men to go outside. Mr White, an officer of forty, was strict with them and he hardly let them leave the camp.

    Once Mr White was ill in bed. He couldn't work and a young officer, Mr Hunt, began to train the new soldiers instead of him. He knew the young men well and let nine soldiers go to the nearest town to have a holiday. But night fell and none came back to the camp. He was worried about it and stood at the gate. It was five to twelve when Mr Hunt decided to go to the town and see what was happening to the young men. He started the car quickly and set off. At that moment the nine soldiers came back. It seemed they drank wine. Of course they found the officer was angry.

    "I'm sorry, sir," said the first soldier. "I left the town on time. But something was wrong with my bus on my way here. I had to buy a horse and made it run fast. Bad luck! It died and I had to run back."

    And the other seven soldiers said they were late for the same reasons. It was the last soldier's turn. He said, "I'm sorry, sir. I got on a bus on time, but……"

    Having heard this, the officer became even angrier and stopped him at once. He called out, "If you say something was wrong with your bus, I'll punish you at once!"

    "No, no, sir," said the young man. "My bus was all right, but the dead horses were in its way!"

    The term "crocodile tears" refers to insincere sadness. This term has an etymology dating back several centuries. As early as the fourth century, crocodile tears are referenced in the literature with the meaning of insincere sorrow. It is said that crocodiles weep while eating their hunted animals because they are sad; however, this sadness is not honest.

    The term crocodile tears became widely popular after it was documented in a fifteenth-century book titled The Voyage and Travel of Sir John Mandeville, Knight. A passage from the book reads: "These crocodiles kill men and they eat them weeping."

    As you may already know, crocodilians(鳄目动物) likely feel bad about little—especially feeding. However, the assumption of the crocodile-tears metaphor may be true. In a 2007 paper published in BioScience titled "Crocodile Tears: And they eat them weeping", researchers observed 7 crocodilians in cages during feeding time at a reserve (4 caimans and 3 American alligators). The researchers observed the crocodilians outside of water at feeding stations to better find out whether tearing developed.

    Five of the 7 crocodilians developed something like tears in their eyes before, during or after feeding. The researchers suggest that these crocodile tears occur because a crocodilian hisses (发出嘶嘶声) while it eats, and this hissing forces air through the spaces in the bone behind the nose and out the eye, in the process picking up nasolacrimal secretions (鼻泪管分泌物.)

    In humans, crocodile tears is a medical condition that causes a person to tear up while eating. Crocodile tears typically occur because of a temporary loss of facial control due to damage of the facial nerve. Specifically, when the facial nerve grows again, it does so incorrectly thus resulting in tears during chewing food.

Poetry{#blank#}1{#/blank#} (communicate) in words. To do that{#blank#}2{#/blank#} (successful), it must have something important to say, expressing it in a unique way. Whether you are writing poetry yourself or analysing (分析) poems {#blank#}3{#/blank#} (write) by someone else, you should be thinking about these two broad categories: what is being said, and how it is being expressed.

What is being said may be something unforgettable or something funny, something deeply emotional or something that has just made the writer stop and think. Whatever it is, the theme of the poem will be something worth {#blank#}4{#/blank#} (say). If you are writing a poem yourself and are not very{#blank#}5{#/blank#} (experience), it's best to choose a topic you feel deeply about. Writing a poem {#blank#}6{#/blank#} begins with ‘I remember' is a good way to focus your attention  {#blank#}7{#/blank#} something really memorable.

However, two poems could easily have {#blank#}8{#/blank#} same theme and yet be completely different. What makes {#blank#}9{#/blank#} (they) different? How they are expressed is the key. It is the way the poet writes that you need to analyse if you are writing about a poem, and if you are writing one yourself, you must choose the form and the words which suit what you want {#blank#}10{#/blank#} (express).