I feel very excited at the thought that in another week I'll be with you again on holiday.

    {#blank#}1{#/blank#} My host and my fellow-students are all very nice to me, but as they say in England, “There's no place like home”, and I think you will feel this above all at Christmas time.

    I'm leaving here early on Thursday, the 23^rd, and I'll be arriving in Paris on Friday morning. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Please meet me at the station. In some of my earlier letters I have told you all about the other students here. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}  Because he has no friends in England except me. He is a very nice boy. I know you will like him and I feel sure he will enjoy Christmas with us. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Please let me know soon if that's all right. I've got some Christmas presents for you all, but I'm not going to tell you what they are, so it will be a surprise.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} I hope you are all keeping well. See that father always puts on his big coat when he goes out so that he will not catch a cold. We don't want him ill for Christmas.

A. I will have him spend Christmas with us.

B. But I haven't invited him yet.

C. I enjoy my stay in England very much indeed.

D. How are you all at home?

E. So I'll be home about lunch time.

F. Well, I want to ask my Canadian friend, Jan, to come and spend Christmas.

G. Things at home are much better than things in other places.

    Instagram is a fast, beautiful and fun way to share your life with friends and family. Take a picture or video, choose a filter(修图) to transform its look and feel, and then post to Instagram— it's that easy. You can even share to Facebook, Twitter and more．It's a new way to see the world. So many photos of food are contained on Instagram— now a pop-up diner in London is taking advantage of this new trend by letting people settle the bill for their meals simply by uploading photos of their dishes to social networks．

    I always thought people's taking pictures of their food was kind of silly, but at this new pop-up restaurant in the UK, I'd probably do it too. “The Picture House” is the world's first pay-by-photo restaurant. You order, click a photo of the food, share on Instagram and eat for free!

    The restaurant belongs to frozen food giant(巨人) Birds Eye, who came up with the idea to cash in on people's addiction with photographing food and sharing the pictures online. They conducted a survey and found out that more than half of the British population regularly took pictures of their meals．So they realized it was a better way to advertise their new dining range．

    The pop-up diner was open in Soho, London for three days in May, and is now moving to other major UK cities. They serve two-course meals that customers don't have to pay for, if they photo and Instagram it.

    The restaurant is a part of Birds Eye's “Food for Life” campaign, a new marketing project that aims at changing the way people look at frozen food. “Taking photos of food enables people to show off and to share their mealtime moments—from the everyday to the special, ”said marketing director Margaret Jobling．

    The reaction to the Picture House has been great so far. And the pay-by-picture concept has proven to be an effective way. Alternative payment methods are actually gaining popularity among a lot of businesses. Last year in a cafe in Germany customers pay by how much time they spend there, not by what they eat．

    If a woman has an extra piece of cake，don 't blame it on greed, blame it on her brain.

Scientists have found that women's brains react to food very differently — and much more strongly — than men' s. Academics found that decades of dieting pressure on women and advertising have programmed certain parts of the female brain to react strongly when faced with any kind of food. Men，on the other hand, are not usually as obsessive (着迷的）about what they eat.

    Dr. Rudolf Uher and his colleagues at the Institute of Psychiatry in King's College London used brain scanning technology，known as functional magnetic resonance imaging ( FMRI)，to look at the brains of eighteen men and women.

    The volunteers were given images of food to look at, as well as food to taste. Their brain reactions were observed by the scientists. They found that the female brains reacted much more strongly than those of males. The same reaction did not happen when they were shown non-food images. The team believe this means women think more about food than men tend to. Dr. Uher said, “This could be related to biological differences between men and women. But the more likely explanation is that women have a more complicated reaction to food because of social pressure. ”

Professor Carey Cooper，psychology and health professor at Lancaster University，said，“for centuries women have had a providing role — preparing and cooking food for their families. And it's part of that role to make sure the food is safe. They will therefore be much more sensitive to food than men are, and I would not be surprised if that was now built into their DNA. If the female brain react to food because it historically has developed neural (神经的）pathways to do this, then food will be the way they express their stress. Food actually，is a comfort for women. ”

    But other experts have said that more research must be done before the results can be proved. American scientist Angelo del Parigi of the John B. Pierce Laboratory in New Haven, Connecticut, said, “Looking at an FMRI alone cannot make sure whether the stronger reaction in women is due to innate (天生的）differences or a learned process. ''

    Check out our tsunami (海啸) facts and lean some interesting information related to these great walls of water that can cause so much destruction. Find out what causes tsunamis and read about some notable recent examples of tsunamis that have occurred around the globe.

    Tsunamis are huge waves of water that are usually caused by earthquakes or volcanic eruptions.

    As a tsunami approaches the shore, water may move back from the coast. If it is shallow enough, the water may be pulled back hundreds of meters. If you are in the area, observing this is a good indication that a tsunami is on the way.

    Regions in tsunami danger zones often have warning systems in place to give people as much time to evacuate (撤离) as possible.

    When tsunamis hit shallow water (often near the coast), they slow down but increase in height.

    An earthquake in the Indian Ocean off Indonesia in December 2004 caused a tsunami that killed over 200, 000 people in 14 countries.

    In March 2011, the Tohoku earthquake off the eastern coast of Japan caused a tsunami that was a major factor in the death of over 15, 000 people.

    The tsunami waves created by the Tohoku earthquake reached heights of over 40 metres (131feet) in mine areas, wiping out coastal towns and causing a number of nuclear accidents.

    The Japanese word "tsunami" literally means "harbour wave".

    Tsunamis are sometimes referred to as tidal waves but this term has fallen out of favour because tsunamis are not related to tides.

    The Environmental Film Festival has become one of the world's grandest supporters of the environmental film. To offer fresh views on global environmental issues, this year's festival will include a record of 190 films from 50 countries. including 110 premieres(首映). Here are just a few of the highlights.

⒈Hot Water

    Featured among the festival's opening night films is the highly expected "Hot Water, " a look 2 the depressing destructive effects of uranium铀) mining in the American West. Former US. Rep Denis Kucinich. who ran for president in 2004 and 2008, is featured in the film, along with filmmakers Elizabeth Kucinich and Lizabeth Rogers Directed by Kevin Flint and

⒉To the Wonder

    To the Wonder is the latest film by will-known American Director Trrence Malick. The film, "an exploration of love set against the power of nature," stars Ben Aleck, Olga Kurylenko. Rachel McAdams and Javier Bardem The film premiered in competition at the 2012 Venice Film Festival and is making is Washington D.C premiere during the festival.

⒊Revolution

    This Washington D.C. premiere presents the Canadian filmmaker and environmental activist, Rob Stewart's new work, "Revolution" an urging cry to today's youth to change the planet before it's too late. The award-winning documentary takes Stewart through 15 countries over four years, in an effort to find the secret to save the ecosystems we rely on for survival.

⒋The Fifth Season

    Beautiful and mystery, Jessica Woodworth's latest feature, "The Fifth Season", is a poetic meditation (EA) on nature in battle against humans." The dramatic narrative takes place in Belgium's secret Ardennes, where the locals rely on the land, but nature takes a turn and seems to go on mysterious strike, In French and Flemish with English subtitles. Directed and produced by Woodworth and Peter Brosens.

A casual walk along the Beijing Central Axis, connecting the Drum Tower and the impressive Forbidden City — this was Zhao's first city-walking journey in the spring of last year. Since then, the 21-year-old student from Beijing Foreign Studies University has remained a city-walk fan, believing it to be the best way to "rediscover a city". 

"I visited Beijing before the start of my college life here, and it was a typical package tour during which going to scenic spots and taking photos was a big thing. The crowded tourist attractions gave me the impression that Beijing was a noisy place," Zhao said. 

With the increasing variety of travel choices, traditional group tours no longer satisfy people who are looking for a more personal and different travel experience and hoping to explore every part of the city in a more immersive （沉浸式的） way. 

Compared with tightly scheduled routes （路线） and picture-taking tours, city-walking focuses on free, casual and spontaneous （自发的） experiences. The trending city-walk culture, which encourages experiencing urban life with no transportation means except one's legs and feet, has also made splashes on various social media platforms. 

On the video-sharing app Douyin, the Chinese version of Tik-Tok, a recent video about citywalk routes in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, has gained more than 171,000 likes, with 72,000 viewers of all ages adding the video to their favorites. According to a report from lifestyle-sharing platform Xiaohongshu, in the first half of this year, searches about city-walks increased 30-fold from the previous year. "The route offers a glimpse （瞥见） into the culture and landscape in different historical stages, as well as its beautiful natural scenery," it said. 

Following his experience in Beijing, Zhao has also explored Wuhan in Hubei province, Hangzhou in Zhejiang province and other cities through city-walking tours. "City-walking is all about doing whatever you want in your own exploration of a city, and it is actually the kind of slow-paced, low-carbon lifestyle that I relate to so much," he said.