【推荐1】After a full week of working or studying, maybe you're too tired to get up early on Saturday morning. When you finally get up, you've already missed breakfast, but lunch is still a few hours away. So what do you do?

Well, brunch is a good choice. Brunch gets its name from the first two letters of breakfast and the last four letters of lunch. Sometimes, it makes breakfast an artistic（艺术的）level. For example. blueberry cakes might take the place of common cakes for brunch. Brunch is becoming more popular with young people. Beautiful brunches help them get more "likes" on Wechat. In Melbourne, brunch culture is also popular. I decided to try it with my friend. We visited a cafe that is famous for its flower theme. There was a wall full of different kinds of fresh and colorful flowers. The food and drinks also had this theme. They used rose petals（玫瑰花瓣）to decorate a cup of coffee. It tasted as sweet as it looked. The brunch tasted great. Though I was full after having such a big meal, I still wanted to have another one.

【推荐2】Frank is a fat boy. He likes eating hamburgers and ice-cream for lunch. Frank’s mom wants him to eat healthy food. She asks Frank to have salad for lunch.

It is fruit salad. The salad has apples, oranges and pears in it. Frank doesn’t want to eat it. He doesn’t think it’s delicious. “It is healthy and delicious. Eat it and you’ll like it!” says Mom.

Frank eats a piece(块) of orange first. It’s good. Then he eats a piece of apple. It’s good, too.

“Mom, the salad is really delicious! I love it!” says Frank. “Can I have it for dinner, too?”

【推荐1】Dragons(龙) are not real animals, but look like a combination(组合体)of many animals such as snakes, fish and deer. With fantastic powers, they fly in the sky or swim in the sea. They can make rain, too. The Chinese dragon is a symbol of power and good luck. The emperors of ancient China loved dragons. Their clothes were covered with pictures of dragons.

We are proud to call ourselves the “descendants of the dragon”. In Chinese culture, excellent and successful people are often called “dragons”. That’s why Chinese parents always want their children to be “dragons”.

There are also some traditional festivals about dragons in China, such Dragon Head-Raising Day and Dragon Boat Festival. We have different kinds of activities to celebrate them.

Dragons are not real animals, but look like a combination (组合体) of many animals such as snakes (角) and a long moustache (胡子) . With fantastic (极大的) , they fly in the sky or swim in the sea. They can make rain, too. The Chinese dragon is a symbol of strength and good luck. The emperors of ancient China loved dragons. Their clothes were covered with pictures of dragons.

We are proud to call ourselves the “descendants (传人) of the dragon”. In Chinese, “excellent” people are often called “dragon”. A number of Chinese sayings and idioms (习语) talk about dragons, for example, “Hoping one’s child will become a dragon.” which means he or she will be successful.

It is said that people born in the Year of the Dragon have certain characteristics (特质). They are creative, confident, brave and quick-tempered (脾气). There are some famous “dragons” who have done excellent things, for example, and the famous businessman Li Jiacheng. They are all successful.

There are also some traditional festivals about dragons in China, such as Dragon Head-Raising Day and the Dragon Boat Festival. We have different kinds of activities to celebrate them. These two festivals come every year, but the Year of the Dragon comes every twelve years.

The dragon is very important in Chinese culture. As the “descendants of the dragon”, it is necessary for us to know the views on dragons in our culture. It can help us understand why our parents always want us to be “dragons”.

The year 2024 is the Year of the Dragon. Good luck to you!

【推荐1】

【推荐2】What is inside Mars? Perhaps I may give you the answer in the near future. I am InSight (洞察号). I am a spacecraft. On Nov 27, I arrived on Mars. In fact, I am the eighth spacecraft in my family to successfully land on Mars. But I’m the first to study things inside it.

What do I look like? I have an arm. It is 1.8 metres long. At work, if I need to move the things from my body to the ground, the arm helps me. On my arm, I have my single eye. You are right—it’s a camera. I can use it to take pictures of Mars. As   for navigation (导航), I will be led to the right place because scientists on the Earth keep telling me about directions. With three legs, I can stand well. And look at my two big “wings”. Actually I get lots of power from the sun to make me work.

For the next 24 months—about one Martian year, I will stay on this red planet. Unlike brothers or sisters, I don’t move a lot when I’m working on Mars. I will just stay at one place use my heat probe (探热仪), I can get a lot of information about the inside without damaging the planet. Then I will send the information back to Earth. This may help scientists find out how Mars started.

【推荐3】Have you ever had trouble sleeping in a new place?

Lots of people do. And now researchers from Brown University in Rhode Island think they know why. They found that one half of the brain “remains more awake” than the other half when people are trying to sleep in a new place.

The findings were reported in Current Biology by Brown University. In their report, the researchers said many people say they have a harder time sleeping the first night at a hotel or other places outside their homes. They call it “first-night influence”. “In Japan, they say if you change your bed, you can’t sleep.” said Yuka Sasaki, one of the reporters.

The researchers measured (测量) brain waves for 35 volunteers over two nights in a laboratory. The two nights were a week apart (间隔). They found during the first night the left half of the brain was more active than the right half. This was during the first deep-sleep period, the researchers said.

Sasaki said a lot of questions still remain. Researchers did not keep measuring brain waves all night long. So they don’t know if the left half keeps “watch” all night, or whether it “works in shifts (轮换) with the right half later in the night”. They also do not know why brain activity, at least during the first period of deep sleep, is always on the left half.

For some, this research may be calming. It is good to know that our brain is “looking out for us” in a new place. But it may not help with sleep. That brain activity, at least according to this new research, makes it harder to get the sleep people wake up feeling well-rested in the morning.

【推荐1】A young man was taking a walk with a professor. As they went along, they saw a pair of old shoes lying in the path. They thought it belonged to a poor man who worked in a field nearby.

The student turned to the professor, saying, “Let us play the man a trick: we will take away his shoes, and conceal ourselves behind those trees, and wait to see what will happen when he cannot find them. That must be very interesting.”

“My young friend” answered the professor, “we should never play jokes on others because of their being poor. Put a coin into each shoe, and then we will hide ourselves and watch how the discovery changes him.”

The student did so, and they both hid themselves behind the bushes close by. The poor man soon finished his work, and came back. While putting on his coat, he put his foot into one of his shoes. Feeling something hard, he bent down to see what it was and found the coin. Surprise was seen on his face. And he looked it again and again and put the money into his pocket. When he put on the other shoe, he was surprised again to find the other coin, He then looked up to the sky and said aloud some thanksgiving words to the person who gave him the coins.

The student stood there deeply moved, and his eyes were filled with tears. “You have taught me a lesson which will never forget. I feel now the truth of these words, which I never understand before, “A small act of kindness brings great joy,” he said.

【推荐2】In China, there is a long history of using knots(结) for decoration(装饰品) on clothes or to hang on a wall.

Chinese knots can be in different shapes. Each shape has its own symbolic(象征性的) meaning, and nowadays you can find them as gifts for special celebrations, and decorations on clothes. Each kind of knot is named after its shape or the symbolic meaning that it carries. Though knots are made in many kinds of colors, red is the most popular color because red means good luck in China.

It’s known that knots were used for artistic(艺术的) decoration and to express thoughts and feelings in the Tang Dynasty(618－907). And the traditional art form was carried on by generations as part of their culture.

Even today, Chinese knots are rich in symbolic meaning. Knots mean love and marriage in Chinese culture. In ancient times and even now, lovers may give a knot as a symbol of their love. The “true love knot” and the “double happiness knot” are given or used at weddings(婚礼) to express love and getting old together.

Also, knots are still used if they wear traditional Chinese clothing. They are used as good luck charms(护身符). They are also used as jewelry(珠宝) such as earrings and necklaces. They are sold as handicrafts(手工艺品), too.

【推荐3】Shopping for clothes is not the same experience for a man as it is for a woman. A man goes shopping because he needs something. His purpose is decided in advance. He knows what he wants and his purpose is to find it and buy it; the price is a secondary consideration. Almost all men simply walk into a shop and ask the assistant for what they want. If the shop has it, the salesman immediately produces it and the business of trying it on follows at once. All being well, the deal can be completed in less than five minutes, with hardly any chat and to everyone’s satisfaction.

For a man, slight problems may begin when the shop doesn’t have what he wants. In that case the salesman usually tries to sell the customer something else; he does so with skill. “I know this jacket is not the style your want, sir, but would you like to try it for size? It happens to be the color you mentioned.” Few men have patience with this treatment, and the usual response is, “This is the right color and may be the right size, but I should be wasting my time and yours by trying it on.”

Now how does a woman go about buying clothes? Her shopping is often not based on need. She has never fully made up her mind what she wants, and she is only “having a look”. She is always open to others’ advice. She will try on any number of things. Uppermost in her mind is the thought of finding something that everyone thinks suits her. She is always looking out for the unexpected bargain. Faced with a room full of dresses, a woman may easily spend an hour walking aimlessly from one corner to another, backwards and forwards. It is a tiring process, but apparently an enjoyable one.