【推荐1】The UK has many strange traditions.    1    This tradition comes Shrove Tuesday, or, as many like to call it, Pancake (薄饼) Day. The day falls on the last Tuesday of February this year.

    2    As contestants (参赛者) run, they have to toss the pancake in the air so that it flips and lands back in the pan on the other side. The winner is the first to reach the finish line, although they should also be careful to make sure that the pancake is complete and that it hasn’t broken along the way.

One of the most famous pancake races is the Rehab Parliamentary Pancake Race. This takes place on the morning of Shrove Tuesday in London, outside the Houses of Parliament.    3    One team is made up of Members of Parliament, and the other is made up of journalists. Most of them take part in the race wearing their work suits! The race is shown on the news and is covered on TV all around the world.    4    It raises awareness for the charity Rehab, which works with people with disabilities and others who suffer from social exclusion in the UK.

Another important aspect of the race is the official starter.    5    This is seen as an important role and is usually given to a British news presenter. But whoever is chosen usually has a hard time trying to control the race—the MPs are known for cheating every year!

【推荐2】Thirteen, for me, was a challenging year. My parents divorced and I moved to a new town with my father, far from my old family and friends. I was terribly lonely and would cry myself to sleep each night. To ease my sadness, my father purchased an old horse for me at a local auction. I named him Cowboy.

Cowboy was undoubtedly the ugliest horse in the world. But I didn’t care. I loved him beyond all reason.

I joined a riding club and suffered rude comments and mean snickersabout Cowboy’s looks. I never let on about how I felt, but deep inside, my heart was breaking. The other members rode beautiful, registered horses.

When Cowboy and I entered the events where the horse is judged on appearance, we were quickly shown the gate. No amount of preparation and love would turn Cowboy into a beauty. My only chance to compete would be in the speed events. I chose the jumping race.

One girl named Becky rode a big brown horse in the race events. She always won the blue ribbons. Needless to say, she didn’t feel threatened when I competed against her at the next show. She didn’t need to. I came in next to last.

The stinging memory of Becky’s smirks(得意的笑) made me determined to beat her. For the whole next month I woke up early every day and rode Cowboy five miles to the arena. We practiced running and jumping for hours in the hot sun and then I would walk Cowboy home totally exhausted.

All of our hard work didn’t make me feel confident by the time the show came. I sat at the gate and sweated it out while I watched Becky and her horse charge through the course and finish in first place.

My turn finally came. I put on my hat, rubbed Cowboy’s neck and entered the arena. At the signal, we dashed toward the first fence, jumped it without trouble and raced on to the next one. Cowboy then flew over the second, third and fourth fences like a bird and I turned him toward the finish line.

As we crossed the line the crowd was shocked into silence. Cowboy and I had beaten Becky and her fancy horse by two seconds!

I gained much more than a blue ribbon that day. At thirteen, I realized that no matter what the odds, I’d always come out a winner if I wanted something badly enough to work for it.

【推荐3】Two years ago, Beijing became the first city ever to hold both Summer and Winter Olympic Games after winning the 2022 Winter Olympics bid with co-host city Zhangjiakou, bringing snow and ice sports into public spotlight. Now, let’s take a look at some of the most popular events in the Winter Olympic Games.

Figure skating

Figure skating is one of the most popular sports at the Winter Olympics, in which ice skaters, singly or in pairs, perform freestyle movements of jumps, spins, lifts, and footwork in a graceful manner. The figure skating competition is one of the strongest at the Winter Olympics-one slight error, and a competitor’s chance of a medal goes up in smoke. To win the game, the skater has to be perfect.

Curling

Curling is one of the most unique sports at the Winter Olympics-a winter sport played by two teams of four players on a rectangular sheet of ice. The two teams take turns to slide large round flat stones towards a target. Members of each team use brooms to sweep the surface of the ice in the path of the stone to control its speed and direction. And while curling may be a “slow” sport, it’s still full of skill and excitement!

Snowboarding

Snowboarding is a popular winter sport that involves sliding downhill on snow with a snowboard firmly attached to a rider’s feet. The sport is said to have been inspired by surfing, skiing and skateboarding.While snowboarding is one of the newer events-first included at the 1998 Winter Olympics, it has become one of the most popular and exciting sports at the Winter Olympics.

Ice hockey

Ice hockey is a game between two teams who wear skates and compete on an ice rink (溜冰场). Each team usually has six players. The object is to push the puck (冰球) past a goal line and into a net guarded by a goalkeeper. Ice hockey is popular for its speed and frequent physical contact. Worldwide there are more than a million registered Ice hockey players performing regularly in leagues.

【推荐2】Everyone has a phone in their pocket nowadays, but how often do we really use them for their original purpose — to make a call? Telephone culture is disappearing. What brought us to this moment, and what are its effects?

“No one picks up the phone anymore,” wrote Alex C. Madrigal on The Atlantic. “The reflex(习惯性动作) of answering-built so deeply into people who grew up in 20th-century telephonic culture — is gone.

The shift is of course due in large part to more communication options: Texting with photos, videos, emojis, reaction gifs, links and even voice messages can be a more attractive option.

Texting is light and fun, not nearly as demanding of your attention as a phone call. It can also be done with multiple people at the same time. Social media, email and video calls have also eaten away at traditional phone calls.

In recent years, another reason has caused people to ignore phone calls completely: robocalls. Robocalls are automated(自动化的) messages from organizations verifying(核实) your phone number or telemarketers trying to sell something. Americans received 22.8 billion robocalls halfway through 2020, equaling an annual rate of 45.6 billion, slightly below 2018 numbers, according to YouMail, a robocall protection service and blocking app.

As telephone culture disappears, what is the loss of a singular family phone doing to the family unit? Early landline phones unified family members, whereas mobile phones isolate(使隔绝) them.

“The shared family phone served as an anchor (给以安全感的物品) for home,” said Luke Fernandez, a Weber State University computer-science professor and co-author of Bored, Lonely, Angry, Stupid: Feelings About Technology, From the Telegraph to Twitter. With smartphones, “we have gained mobility and privacy. But the value of the home has been diminished, as has its capacity to guide and monitor family behavior and perhaps bind families more closely together,” Fernandez said.

Of course, as technology progresses, lives always change for better or for worse. With the loss of telephone culture, families will need to find other ways to unite.

【推荐3】If you are reading this, you were probably born in the 2000s. The oh-ohs. The 21st century. That would make you young, creative, connected, global, and no doubt smart. Maybe good-looking, too. Right? But what do other people think about your generation?

Some adults worry that you’re more interested in the screen in front of you than the world around you. They think of you as the “face-down generation” because you use your phone so much and they wonder how you will deal with school, friends, and family. Are today’s teenagers too busy texting and taking selfies to become successful in real life—or “IRL”, as you would say?

Other adults worry that today’s youth are spoilt and don’t want to face the challenges of adult life. Many children born in the 1990s and 2000s were raised by “helicopter parents", who were always there to guide and help their children with a busy schedule filled with homework and after-class activities such as dancing, drawing, or sports. With parents who do everything for them, today’s youth seem to prefer to live like teenagers even when they are in their 20s or 30s.

With these taken into account, does the face down generation need a warning? Well, probably not. The fact is that many of today’s teenagers are better educated and more creative than past generations. They seem to be enthusiastic and willing to be become leaders. More young people than ever volunteer to help their communities. There are also brave young people such as Malala Yousafzai, the teenager who won the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize for pushing girls’ rights to go to school.

So if you’re one of the oh-ohs, there are reasons to be hopeful about the future. Things are looking up for the face-down generation. Chances are that you will do GR8 (great) and LOL (laugh out loud).