While watching the Olympics the other night, I came across an unbelievable sight. It was not a gold medal, or a world record broken, but a show of courage.

    The event was swimming and started with only three men on the blocks. For one reason or another, two of them false started, so they were disqualified. That left only one to complete. It would have been difficult enough, not having anyone to race against, even though the time on the clock is important.

    I watched the man dive off the block and knew right away that something was wrong. I'm not an expert swimmer, but I can tell a good dive from a poor one, and this was not exactly medal quality. When he resurfaced, it was evident that the man was not out for gold—his arms were waving in an attempt at freestyle. The crowd started to laugh. Clearly this man was not a medal competitor.

    I listened to the crowd begin to laugh at this poor man who was clearly having a hard time. Finally he made his turn to start back. It was pitiful. He made a few desperate strokes and you could tell he was worn out.

    But in those few awful strokes, the crowd had changed.

    No longer were they laughing, but beginning to cheer. Some even began to stand and shout “Come on, you can do it!” and he did.

    A clear minute past the average swimmer, this young man finally finished his race. The crowd went wild. You would have thought that he had won the gold, and should have. Even though he recorded one of the slowest times in Olympic history, this man gave more heart than any of the other competitors.

    Just a short year ago, he had never even swum, let alone race. His country had been invited to Sydney.

    In a competition where athletes remove their silver medals feeling they have somehow been cheated out of gold, or when they act so proudly in front of their competitors, it is nice to watch an underdog.

    We offer five kinds of courses. Each course has been designed to help students according to their needs.

Course 1: General English

    General English is designed to develop students' basic communication skills in: Speaking and Pronunciation, Reading, Listening, Writing, Grammar and Vocabulary. Tuesday to Friday: 9:00 am to 11:00 am, $288 per week.

Course 2: Academic English

    Academic English is for students who want to take the IELTS exam or for those who need to use English in a professional area. Monday to Friday: 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm, $ 320 per week.

Course 3: High School ESL

    Why not make the most of your time studying in Australia with the help from TIES? We have High School ESL classes each week specifically designed for international students. Tuesday to Friday: 8:00 am to 11:00 am, $ 25 per hour.

Course 4: Night Classes

    Do you want to improve your English and get the best possible results in your GRE test? We have two night classes each week designed to meet your needs. Tuesday and Thursday evenings: 8:30 pm to 10:30 pm, $ 60 per day.

Course 5: One on One

    If you are interested in some One on One lessons with TIES teachers, we can design a course to meet your needs. One on One lessons can improve your English language skills more quickly and help students who want to take TOEFL. Tuesday to Friday: 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm, $ 80 per hour.

    Why Do People Blink Their Eyes?

    People blink(眨眼) their eyes tens of thousands of times every day. Scientists have long believed blinking was an involuntary movement and served mainly to keep the eyeballs wet. But a new study suggests it has a more important purpose.

    An international team of scientists from the University of California at Berkeley studied the blinking of human eyelids. The journal Current Biology published their findings. The team said they found that blinking “repositions our eyeballs so we can stay focused” on what we are seeing. They said that when we blink our eyelids, the eyes roll back into their sockets--the bony area that surrounds and protects the eyes. However, the researchers found the eyes don't always return to the same position. They said this causes the brain to tell the eye muscles to reorganize our eyesight.

    Gerrit Maus is the lead writer of the report. He serves as an assistant professor of psychology at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Maus says: “Our eye muscles are quite sluggish(迟缓的) and imprecise, so the brain needs to constantly adapt its motor signals to make sure our eyes are pointing where they're supposed to. Our findings suggested that the brain measures the difference in what we see before and after a blink, and commands the eye muscles to make the needed corrections.” The researchers said that without such corrections our surroundings would appear unclear and even jumpy. They said the movement acts “like a Steadicam(摄影稳定器) of the mind.”

    The researchers said they asked volunteers to sit in a dark room while staring at a small dot on a flat surface. They used special cameras to follow the volunteer's blinks and eye movements. After each blink, the dot was moved one centimeter to the right. The volunteers did not notice this, but the brain did. It followed the movement and directed the eye muscles to refocus on the dot. After the dot was moved in this way 30 times, the volunteers' eyes changed their focus to the place where they predicted it would be.

    Professor Maus says “Even though participants did not consciously register that the dot had moved, their brains did, and adjusted with the corrective eye movement. These findings add to our understanding of how the brain constantly adapts to changes, commanding our eye muscles to correct for errors in our bodies' own hardware.”

    There was a gardener who looked after his garden with great care. To water his flowers, he used two buckets（桶）. One was a shiny and new bucket. The other was a very old and dilapidated one, which had seen many years of service, but was now past its best.

    Every morning, the gardener would fill up the two buckets. Then he would carry them along the path, one on each side, to the flowerbeds. The new bucket was very proud of itself. It could carry a full bucket of water without a single drop spilled（溢出）.The old bucket felt very ashamed because of its holes: before it reached the flowerbeds, much water had leaked along the path.

    Sometimes the new bucket would say, "See how capable I am! How good it is that the gardener has me to water the flowers every day! I don't know why he still bothers with you. What a waste of space you are!"

    And all that the old bucket could say was, "I know I'm not very useful, but I can only do my best. I'm happy that the gardener still finds a little bit of use in me, at least. "

    One day, the gardener heard that kind of conversation. After watering the flowers as usual, he said, "You both have done your work very well. Now I am going to carry you back. I want you to look carefully along the path. "

    Then the two buckets did so. All along the path, they noticed, on the side where the new bucket was carried, there was just bare（光秃秃的）earth；on the other side where the old bucket was carried, there was a joyous row of wild flowers, leading all the way to the garden.

    While many Chinese watched movies at cinemas during the weeklong Spring Festival holiday, Zheng Wei explained the film The Spring Festival to an audience of visually impaired(受损伤的) people at cinema in Northern China's Tianjin.

    "Fireworks light up the dark on New Year's Eve, and children are playing in an open place covered with white snow, said Zheng to the audience, describing the visual elements of the movie while holding a micro-phone and a script.

    As the founder of "cinema for the blind" in Tianjin, the 55-year--old has insisted on brightening the dark world of the visually impaired in his own way for 11 years.

    Shao Yuxiang and her husband, who are both blind, are regular visitors of the cinema. She wore an elegant yellow sweater to attend the couple's significant "movie day".

    Since October 2007, the free movies, which are described through audio, start at 9: 30 am on the third Saturday of each month. More than 150 movies have been screened to more than 20,000 visually impaired.

    "The theater is equipped with lights a sound system, projector, and a big screen to give the blind a people so far complete and equal movie experience," Zheng said.

    In 2007, after having learned that a "cinema for the blind" established by Wang Weili had benefited many visually impaired people in Beijing, Zheng rushed to Wang's establishment for advice. Under Wang's guidance, Zheng built a new cinema in Tianjin and screened The Dream Factory by Chinese director Feng Xi-aogang. It attracted more than 50 visually impaired people from different districts and even suburban areas in Tianjin.

    Zheng always treats movie selections with seriousness He usually chooses Mandarin language movies with positive themes that reflect modern society. Special movies for certain Chinese festivals are also part of Zheng's selection criteria. "For example, The Founding of Republic is specially for National Day. Now, films for Spring Festival are on my agenda," Zheng said.

Sea, Sun, Sand and South Africa: Readers' Favorite Beaches

    The Wild Coast five-day hike from Kei Mouth to Coffee Bay in South Africa is surely the best experience for beach lovers.

    Robben Island beaches

    On a visit to the prison museum here, be sure to leave time to explore the island's beaches. Few visitors realize that the island's shores are the natural habitat of sizable penguins: enjoy watching them with far fewer tourists here. Bird life is plentiful and includes oystercatchers, ibis, egrets and cormorants. Sharks and dolphins can often be spotted offshore too.

    Sand, sea and sculpture, Durban

    There's more to Durban's Golden Mile than sunbathing and surfing. Not only is there a gallery of sand sculptures(雕像) and drawings, but Lucas, one of the best local artists, offers lessons. His amazing rhino(犀牛) is the only permanent item in a frequently changing exhibition. Lucas charges a modest R50 (£3) for a fun and surprisingly physical hour of creativity. Or, you could ask him to create a personalized sculpture for a special occasion.

    Paternoster, Western Cape

    Paternoster is a small beach community about 150 km north of Cape Town. The town has a number of rentals(租赁), all the Cape Dutch architecture you could want for a weekend away and some great food. Long walks on the beach, eating and drinking and watching the fishing boats make for a peaceful break. And, unlike in Cape Town, you can dip your toes in the sea without your legs freezing solid.