The Everything-Goes-Wrong Camping Trip

Every year, my family go camping in the mountains, and it’s the best part of the summer. This year, on the way, we each talked about what we were __________. Mom’s favorite thing is canoeing (划独木舟) on the lake. Dad wanted to hike to the top of the mountain. I couldn’t wait to swim. Jack likes ghost stories around the campfire best. Jerry loves the campfire, too. We all agreed we had a(an) __________ plan.

We arrived at our campsite and put up the tent. Then we started our hiking. Before we reached the top, Dad was so busy enjoying the beautiful view that he didn’t see the rock in his way. He __________ and hurt his knee. Mom and I had to hold him up on either side down the path. So much for Dad’s special hike.

Back at our tent, I could hardly wait for my favorite part of the day. I changed into my swimsuit, then ran across the shore, splashed into the water, and —“ARGH!” I cried. “It’s freezing!” Because of the late snow this year, the water was terribly __________. So much for my special swim.

“At least we still have the canoe,” said Mom. But when we went to get the paddles (船桨), we found we had left them at home. So much for Mom’s __________ canoe wish.

After our meal, just as we were about to light the campfire, a heavy __________ came—it was pouring down in sheets! We rushed into the tent, totally wet. So much for our special campfire and ghost stories.

Then Dad shone a flashlight under his chin to make his face glow. “There was once an old house,” he began in a spooky (可怕的) voice. As our tent got darker and darker, Dad’s ghost story got scarier and scarier. At the very end, he shouted, “BOO!” and we all screamed and __________ . After that, we ate cold snacks in our cozy sleeping bags while listening to the rain pitter-pattering on the tent. It turned out that they tasted more delicious than before!

It’s been a whole month since that trip and we still keep laughing about the way everything went wrong. Sometimes the most “perfect” memories come from the least perfect __________. You really don’t need to worry. Camping is awesome no matter what.

Do you eat fish every week? Do you think eating fish may help protect our brains from air pollution? A new research studied some older women, who lived in places with high levels(等级) of air pollution. They found that those who had the lowest levels of omega-3 fatty acids(w-3脂肪酸) in their body had more brain shrinkage(脑萎缩) than women who had the highest levels.

“Fish is an excellent source of omega-3 fatty acids and easy to add to the diet,” said Ka He from Columbia University. “Omega-3 fatty acids have been shown to maintain brain structure(保持脑部结构) in aging brains. They have also been found to reduce brain damage caused by some neurotoxins(神经毒素). So we did the research to see if omega-3 fatty acids could help protect our brains from a certain toxin in air pollution.”

The research studied 1,315 women with an average age of 70. Researchers asked the women how much fish they had each week and tested the amount of omega-3 fatty acids in their blood. The researchers also used the women’s home addresses to work out their three-year average exposure to air pollution, and then scanned(扫描)different areas of the women’s brains to see the change in the structure.

After adjusting for(调控) age, education, smoking and other factors that could affect(影响) brain shrinkage, researchers found that women who had the highest levels of omega-3 fatty acids in the blood had less change in white matter and hippocampus than those with the lowest levels, which are associated with signal sending and memory.

“ It’s important to note that our study only found an association(联系) between maintaining brain structure and eating fish,” he said, “Higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids in the blood from eating fish may help maintain brain structure as women grow older and possibly fight against the bad effects of air pollution. However, more research is still needed.”

This year’s Nobel Prize for Literature (文学) has been awarded to the US poet (诗人) Louise Glück. Cliück was born in New York on April 22, 1943 and grew up on Long Island. Now she lives in Massachusetts. She is a professor of English at Yale University as well as the author of many books of poetry. Glück received the prize for ‘her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal.

The Academy said that Glück was surprised when she got their phone call. The Academy’s secretary Mats Malm said he had spoken to Glück just before giving the prize to her. “The message came as a surprise, but a welcome one as far as I could tell,” Mats Malm said.

Glück is the 16th woman to win the prize since the Nobel Prizes were first awarded in 1901. The last American to win was Bob Dylan in 2016, who was also creative in his works. Glück’s poetry pays more attention to the painful reality of being human, dealing with topics of death, love, childhood, and family life. She also takes inspiration(灵感) from Greek stories and their characters.

The Nobel Prize for Literature is given to the person who has “produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction”. The chair of the Nobel Prize Committee, Anders Olsson, also praised Louise Glück because of her sense of humor and justice.

Before Glück was awarded the Nobel Prize, she had won many other prizes in literature. For example, she got the Pulitzer Prize in 1993 for her collection The Wild Iris and then the National Book Award in 2014. Her other honors include the 2001 Bollingen Prize for Poetry, the Wallace Stevens Award, given in 2008, and a National Humanities Medal, awarded in 2015.

38. “志不求易者成，事不避难者进。”——《后汉书·虞诩传》

生活中难免会遇到问题，直面问题并想办法解决问题才是成功的基石。某英文网站正在开展题为“Face Problems with a Smile”的征文活动。请你给该网站投稿，谈谈自己面临的最大问题是什么，以及你打算如何解决它。

Everyone may face problems in life.