To American visitors, Iceland is a very interesting country, partly because it is different in so many ways from he or she is used to seeing at home. There are quite a few things that are not done, or that do not exist on the island—quite a few “No's”．

    There is no pollution, for instance, no dogs are permitted in Reykjavik, the capital. There is no television on Thursdays or during the whole month of July, and only three hours of black­and­-white TV the rest of the time. There is no hard liquor（酒） on Wednesdays and no beer at any time. There is no handguns; only one prison of thirty­ five rooms in the whole land—an admirable figure, even for a small country of 313,376 people.

    There is no army, air force or navy. There is no tipping（给小费） for anything. There are no large stores open on Saturdays or Sundays. Since Iceland is located just under the Arctic Circle, there is no darkness in summer and no daylight in winter. But thanks to Gulf Stream, the climate is rather mild, with temperatures between 34 degrees and 52 degrees in July.

    The rules on television liquor and guns are the result of government decisions. But the absence of pollution is because of in great part the fact that Iceland gets its power from the thousands of hot springs(泉水) that come out of the ground. They provide all the energy needed by the country. In fact, Iceland uses only 3 percent of all its available power.

    Iceland has been described as a democratic（民主的） independent country where more fish are caught and more books published per person than anywhere else in the world. The Icelanders have always felt a particular love for literature. They wrote their first books in the ninth and tenth centuries AD. These works were poems and tales about the kings, heroes, and heroines of Iceland and Norway. At first, the stories were remembered and passed from generation to generation. They were finally written down between 1140 and 1220. The Icelanders have never stopped writing ever since. “Rather shoeless than bookless，” they proudly say.

Get a Better Night's Sleep

    You're trying to get a good night's sleep, but why do you still find yourself staring at the ceiling? It's time to listen to what some unexpected experts have to say.

Get the Basic Equipment Right.

    There's really good study on the basic equipment for sleep. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}Firstly, most people prefer a mattress （床垫）that is not too hard and not too soft. Secondly, if your mattress is eight to ten years old, you should get a new one. Seventy-two percent of people said they slept better on their new mattress than they did on their old one.

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    Watching TV at night may seem relaxing. However, it beams light into your eyes, which is a “warning” signal for the brain.{#blank#}3{#/blank#}Besides, the cooler white and blue light from a computer screen encourages brain activity and makes your brain difficult to calm down. Download the software at stereopsis.com /flux. It gradually makes your screen less bright at sunset, turning its colors a warmer red one.

Keep you Cool.

    One of the best signals from the body to go to sleep is a decrease in body temperature. I suggest sleeping in a very cool environment, about 19℃. A hot bath will increase your skin temperature, which finally decreases your main body temperature. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}

Make Sleeping Pets Lie.

    Sometimes your dogs might need the noise of machines. Many dogs are sensitive to noises outside, like other dogs barking or neighbors coming home late. A noisy machine will drown out the noises that are keeping your pet up, which keep your pet from waking you. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} If you keep them awake during the day, they're more likely to sleep at night.

 A. Read a book before bed instead.

 B. Take a bath a half-hour or so before bedtime.

 C. You also learn dogs sleep when they're bored.

 D. The dog is very loyal to his master.

 E. It proved two theories.

 F. You don't need a really beautiful mattress.

 G. Switch off the Box.

    Still seeking a destination for your weekend break? There are some places which are probably a mere walk away from your college.

King's Art Centre

    A day at the Centre could mean a visit to an exhibition of the work of one of the most interesting contemporary artists on show anywhere. This weekend tees the opening of an exhibition of four local artists.

You could attend a class teaching you how to 'learn from the masters' or get more creative with paint —- free of charge.

    The Centre also runs two life drawing classes for which there is a small fee.

The Botanic Garden

    The Garden has over 8,000 plant species; it holds the research and teaching collection of living plants for Cambridge University.

    The multi-branched Torch Aloe here is impressive. The African plant produces red flowers above blue-green leaves, and is not one to miss.

    Get to the display house to see Dionaea muscipula, a plant more commonly known as the Venus Flytrap that feeds on insects and other small animals.

    The Garden is also a place for wildlife-enthusiasts. Look for grass snakes in the lake. A snake called 'Hissing Sid' is regularly seen lying in the heat of the warm sun.

Byron's Pool

    Many stories surround Lord Byron's time as a student of Cambridge University, Arriving in 1805, he wrote a letter complaining that it was a place of "mess and drunkenness". However, it seems as though Byron did manage to pass the time pleasantly enough. I'm not just talking about the pet bear he kept in his roans. He spent a great deal of time walking in the village.

It is also said that on occasion Byron swam naked by moonlight in the lake, which is now known as Byron's Pool. A couple of miles past Grantchester in the south Cambridgeshire countryside, the pool is surrounded by beautiful circular paths around the fields. The cries of invisible birds make the trip a lovely experience and on the way home you can drop into the village for afternoon tea. If you don't trust me, then perhaps you'll take it from Virginia Woolf一—over a century after Byron, she reportedly took a trip to swim in the same pool.

    Driverless technology will soon enter another major global industry: shipping. Several companies recently announced plans to start self-sailing ships to improve safety and efficiency（效率）.

    One of them is Norwegian chemical company Yara International. Yara has designed to build an autonomous ship expected to start next year. The ship is fully electric to reduce air pollution. It is designed to carry containers normally transported by truck. This means the ship will also improve road safety by replacing about 40,000 truck trips a year.

    Yara plans to operate the ships by remote control beginning sometime next year. By 2020, the ships should be loading and sailing themselves. Another company focusing on self-sailing ships is the world's largest mining company, Australia's BHP Billiton. The company's Vice President of Freight, Rashpal Bhatti, recently spoke about the technology. He said, “I believe automation（自动化）will be one of the biggest changes for shipping in the future.” Autonomous ships offer important chances to improve safety and provide better efficiency results to the marine supply chain. He added that self-sailing ships could become a reality within the next decade.

    Rolls-Royce, the British automobile and engine manufacturer, is also developing unmanned shipping technologies. Oskar Levander is the company's head of marine operations. He told a conference last year, “This is happening. It's not if, it's when.” Several shipping companies have invested hundreds of millions of dollars to develop self-sailing ships expected to be used by 2025. These ships will be equipped with technology to collect weather and sea data. They will then use the data to plan out the safest, shortest and most fuel-efficient route.

    I owe my father a huge thank you! Sure, I need to thank him for all those years of paying my bills, fixing my bikes, and providing a shoulder to cry on. But this year I realized that his contributions to my childhood were much more than that.

    I grew up as Daddy's Little Girl. If I had a problem that needed fixing or a question that needed answering, he was the one I ran to. He helped me get through everything from math homework as a high school student to career choices as a young adult. He always expected that I do my best in whatever I did, and he believed I could succeed in anything I put my mind to. As a result, I learned to hold myself to those same standards. He always showed me unconditional love, which helped me learn to love myself. It was something I'd taken for granted until I realized from talking with my friends that they had no similar view of their self worth. Having fathers that didn't believe in them left them to grow up not believing in themselves.

    As I was growing up, my father also modeled how a woman should be lavished. He treated my mom with love and respect. As a result, I grew to expect nothing less than that from the men I dated and from the man I would eventually marry. Dad was a living picture of godliness (虔诚), honesty and responsibility. It was only recently that I realized what a deep effect fathers have on their daughters' lives. That is why I want to thank my dad for the godly example of love that he has been to me throughout my life.

In recent years American society has become increasingly dependent on its universities to find solutions to its major problems. It is the universities that have been to blame for developing the expertise to place men on the moon; for dealing with our urban problems and with our worsening environment; for developing the means to feed the world's rapidly increasing population. The effort involved in meeting these demands presents its own problems. In addition, however, this concentration on the creation of new knowledge significantly impinges on the universities' efforts to perform their other principal functions, the transmission and interpretation of knowledge-the imparting of the heritage of the past and the preparing of the next generation to carry it forward.

With regard to this, perhaps their most traditionally acknowledged task, college and universities today find themselves in a serious situation. On one hand, there is the American commitment, especially since World War Ⅱ, to provide higher education for all young people who can profit from it. The result of the commitment has been a dramatic rise in enrollments(登记入学) in our universities, coupled with a striking shift from the private to the public sector of higher education. 

On the other hand, there are serious and continuing limitations on the resources available for higher education. While higher education has become a great "growth industry", it is also at the same time a tremendous drain(耗竭) on the resources of the nation. With the vast increase in enrollment and the shift in priorities away from education in state and federal(联邦的) budgets, there is in most of our public institutions a significant decrease in expenses for their students. One crucial aspect of this drain on resources lies in the persistent shortage of trained faculty(全体教师), which has led, in turn, to a declining standard of competence in instruction.

Intensifying these difficulties is, as indicated above, the concern with research, with its increasing claims on resources and the attention of the faculty. In addition, there is a strong tendency for the institutions' organization and functioning to fulfill the demands of research rather than those of teaching.