On the day the tornado hit, there was no indication that severe weather was on its way—the sky was blue and the sun bad been out. The first alert my husband,Jimmy,67,and I,65,got came around 9 p.m., from some scrolling text on the TV Jimmy was watching. He ran upstairs to find me in our third-floor bedroom, and we changed the channel from the presidential primary debate I had been watching to our local Pensacola, Florida, station.

    No sooner had we found coverage of the tornado than it was on top of us. It was the loudest thing I have ever heard. The bones of the house shook, and the power went out. The wind began to roar through the house, most likely through blown-out windows and the door to our garage. We had three flights of steps to navigate to get to the relative safety of the first floor, because the cupboard down there is underneath a brick staircase.

    I didn't know how or if we would make it down the steps. It felt as if there were no floor underneath me as the wind lifted me off my feet. I tried to move forward, but this intense pressure held me in place.

    As we reached the last flight of steps, our front door blew out. Pieces of glass that looked like crushed ice flew everywhere. Suddenly, a three-foot-long tree branch crashed into the door frame. It flew over our heads, missing us by inches. Had we been one step up, it would have hit us.

    By the time I reached the cupboard, the tornado had been over us for about a minute. Jimmy pushed me down to the cupboard floor, but he couldn't get inside himself because of the wind. I held Jimmy's arm and tried to bring Jimmy with it. My knees were full of glass, but at that moment, I felt no pain. If I had let go, Jimmy would have flown right out the back of the house and into the bay.

    All of a sudden, Jimmy lifted off his feet like people in tornadoes do in the movies. I thought he was gone. And then everything stopped. He landed on his feet. In those first quiet moments, I couldn't believe it was over, Jimmy said he'd go outside to check. "No,"I said. "Don't leave me. Don't leave me."

    Our neighbor says the storm lasted four minutes. In that time, four of the twelve town houses in our unit were completely destroyed. Of the houses left standing, ours suffered the most damage. Amazingly, none of us were severely injured.

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    American and British people use different greetings. In the USA the commonest greeting is “Hi”. In Britain it is “Hello!” or “How are you?”. “Hi!” is creeping(不知不觉地进入) into British, too. When they are introduced to someone, the Americans say, “Glad to know you.” The British say, “How do you do?” or “Pleased to meet you.” When Americans say “Good-bye”, they nearly always add, “Have a good day.” or “Have a good trip.” etc. to friends and strangers alike. Britains are already beginning to use “Have a good day.”

    The British usually use “got” in the sense of “have”. The Americans hardly ever do.

AmE: Do you have a car, room, etc.? Yes, I do.

BrE: Have you got a car, room, etc.? Yes, I have.

    There are a number of differences between American and British English in the spelling of words, e.g. check(US)/cheque (UK). Many American words ending in “or”, e.g. honor, labor are spelt in British English with an “our,” e.g. honour, labour. Many verbs in American English with “ize” or “izing” forms, e.g. organize, realizing are spelt in BrE with “ise” or “ising”, e.g. organise, realising. In American English, “practice” is used both for the verb and noun. In BrE, the verb is spelt “practise”, and the noun “practice.” In American English, one writes “traveler,” while in British English, one writes  “traveller”.

    It was once predicted that British and American English would become separate languages finally. But the opposite has happened. The links(联系) between the two countries are so strong that linguistically(语言上地),and probably culturally(文化上地) too, they are closer together than ever.

    The majority of successful senior managers do not closely follow the classical rational (理性的) model of first clarifying goals, assessing the problem, formulating options, estimating likelihoods of success, making a decision, and only then taking action to carry out the decision. Rather, in their day-by-day tactical maneuvers(战术动作), these senior executives rely on what is vaguely termed intuition(直觉) to manage a network of interrelated problems that require them to deal with ambiguity, inconsistency, novelty, and surprise; and to integrate action into the process of thinking.

    Generations of writers on management have recognized that some practicing managers rely heavily on intuition. In general, however, such writers display a poor grasp of what intuition is. Some see it as the opposite of rationality; others view it as an excuse for capriciousness(变化无常).

    Isenberg's recent research on the cognitive processes of senior managers reveals that managers' intuition is neither of these. Rather, senior managers use intuition in at least five distinct ways. First, they intuitively sense when a problem exists. Second, managers rely on intuition to perform well-learned behavior patterns rapidly. This intuition is not arbitrary or irrational, but is based on years of painstaking practice and hands-on experience that build skills. A third function of intuition is to combine isolated bits of data and practice into an integrated picture. Fourth, some managers use intuition as a check on the results of more rational analysis. Most senior executives are familiar with the formal decision analysis models and tools, and those who use such systematic methods for reaching decisions are occasionally alert of solutions suggested by these methods which run counter to their sense of the correct course of action. Finally, managers can use intuition to bypass in-depth analysis and move rapidly to engender a plausible solution. Used in this way, intuition is an almost instantaneous cognitive process in which a manager recognizes familiar patterns.

    One of the implications of the intuitive style of executive management is that thinking is inseparable from acting. Since managers often know what is right before they can analyze and explain it, they frequently act first and explain later. Analysis is tightly tied to action in thinking-acting cycles, in which managers develop thoughts about their companies and organizations not by analyzing a problematic situation and then acting, but by acting and analyzing in close concert.

    Given the great uncertainty of many of the management issues that they face, senior managers often instigate (发起) a course of action simply to learn more about an issue. They then use the results of the action to develop a more complete understanding of the issue. One implication of thinking-acting cycles is that action is often part of defining the problem, not just of implementing the solution.

    Confident, smart and high-tech, they're followers of pop culture and know what social networking is all about. They're tweens, children between the ages of 10 and 12. These young people are no longer little kids but they are not yet teenagers, because tweens are in a state of transition (转变).

    The tween years are hard for children. From a social point of view, tweens are dealing with quite a lot. They have to face changing relationships, middle school and a whole lot of pressure (压力) to succeed and fit in. They may become angry over seemingly small things. A bad test grade, an argument with a friend, a bad day on the ball field, or a request to clean a bedroom might set them off.

    Elizabeth Hartley-Brewer, a parenting expert in London and author of Talking to Tweens, says, "The tween years are when young people begin to realize the wider world and to see themselves as separate from their families."

    Right now, tweens' friends are everything to them. It's universal for the age, but they show it in different ways. For boys, the whole friendship thing is through technology and sports. Girls like to talk.

    Tweens are also a hot market. What do tweens consider cool? Music is at the top of the cool list, followed by going to the movies. "Being smart" comes third, tied with video games, followed by electronics, sports, fashion and protecting the environment, according to a report.

    Undoubtedly, tweens have great spending power in the United States. It was the tween market that made Justin Bieber and Harry Potter household names. Retailers(零售商) know tweens are a hot market for clothes, music and entertainment. Tweens have their own sense of fashion and enjoy their own parts of popular culture.

    Scientists have created a scent(气味)-delivery system that releases a pleasant fragrance when you sweat. Apply it to your skin, and the more you sweat, the better you'll smell. That's because the perfume only gets released upon contact with moisture(湿气).

Chemists from Harvard University combined two compounds to create their new system. One chemical is alcohol-based. This is the nice-smelling perfume. The other chemical is an ionic liquid(离子性液体), which is a type of salt that is liquid at room temperature. Ionic liquids are made of ions—molecules(分子) that have lost or gained one or more electrons(电子). If the molecule loses electrons, it will have a positive charge(正电荷). If it gains electrons, it gets a negative charge. Ionic liquids contain the same number of positive and negative ions, which makes them neutral, with no overall electric charge. In general, ionic liquids have no smell.

    When the perfume and ionic liquid are mixed together, a chemical reaction occurs. This bonds the molecules to each other. The reaction also temporarily inactivates the perfume's molecules. So when applied to the skin, the new perfume has no scent in the beginning. But adding water or sweat breaks the bond between the molecules. That releases the scent into the air.

    "The rate of the release of the fragrance depends on how much you sweat, in other words, how much water is available," explains chemist Nimal Gunaratne from Harvard University, who led the research. "Sweat is like the command to let the fragrance go."

    Christian Quellet is a chemist who has worked in the perfume industry for a long time. He is now an independent consultant based in Switzerland. "Gunaratne's perfume opens the door to new developments and applications of fragrance controlled-release systems," he says. Controlled-release systems allow small quantities of some compounds that they hold to enter the environment slowly.

    The system also traps some chemicals in sweat that are responsible for the bad sweat smell. These compounds are called thiols (硫醇). Just as water does, thiols break apart the bond that ties the perfume to the ionic liquid. When this happens, the thiols attach to the ionic liquid and their bad scent is inactivated as the perfume had been. This means the water in sweat and its thiols are both able to release the fragrance from the newly developed perfume.

It is almost five years since I begin to learn English.I'm glad to say I'm getting along good with it.But first I came across a lot of difficulties.I couldn't pronounce English words well,so could I remember the words I had learned.In class,I couldn't understand that the teacher had said.I almost lost heart when the teacher told me,"Keeping on,and you'll do well." I was great encouraged.I started working hard at English.Under the help of him and my classmates,I made some progresses.I'm very pleasing,and I will work harder.