1 . Where to Eat in Bangkok

Bangkok is a highly desirable destination for food lovers. It has a seemingly bottomless well of dining options. Here are some suggestions on where to start your Bangkok eating adventure.

Offering Thai fine dining. Nahm provides the best of Bangkok culinary (烹饪的) experiences. It’s the only Thai restaurant that ranks among the top 10 of the world’s 50 best restaurants list. Head Chef David Thompson, who received a Michelin star for his London-based Thai restaurant of the same name, opened this branch in the Metropolitan Hotel in 2010.

Issaya Siamese Club is internationally known Thai chef Ian Kittichai’s first flagship Bangkok restaurant. The menu in this beautiful colonial house includes traditional Thai cuisine combined with modern cooking methods.

Bo.lan has been making waves in Bangkok’s culinary scene since it opened in 2009. Serving hard-to-find Thai dishes in an elegant atmosphere, the restaurant is true to Thai cuisine’s roots, yet still manages to add a special twist. This place is good for a candle-lit dinner or a work meeting with colleagues who appreciate fine food. For those extremely hungry, there’s a large set menu.

Earning first place on the latest “Asia’s 50 best restaurants” list, progressive Indian restaurant Gaggan is one of the most exciting venues (场所) to arrive in Bangkok in recent years. The best table in this two-story colonial Thai home offers a window right into the kitchen, where you can see chef Gaggan and his staff in action. Culinary theater at its best.

2 . PRACTITIONERS

3 . When Mexican artist Frida Kahlo’s paintings were put on display in a gallery in London, it attracted much attention. A poet and essayist described her paintings as “a ribbon around a bomb”-a quote that went on to provide the title for a documentary about her life. Such a/an _________ comment about her work seems to _________ Kahlo had a big impact on the art world of her time. Sadly, this was not the _________.

Kahlo, born in 1907 in a suburb of Mexico City, was greatly affected by two terrible events early in her life. At the age of 7, she _________ polio. The disease _________ her foot so that it always pointed out, and caused her right leg to grow to a shorter length than her left leg._________, Kahlo’s spine and pelvis became twisted as she grew older. Then in 1925, she was riding in a school bus that was _________ in a traffic accident; her pelvis and back were broken in several places. Throughout the rest of her life, the artist underwent more than 30 _________, but nothing was able to cure the severe _________ in her back and leg. However, the accident did have an __________ side effect: it led Kahlo to begin painting. While lying in her bed recovering in her parents’ home, Kahlo taught herself to paint and created her first self-portrait.

Despite the tragic events in her life, Kahlo had a __________ for inspiring excitement, happiness, and drama wherever she went. She often wore elaborate native jewelry and bright clothing, making her a highly __________ student at school. She also __________ wore her hair tied up on top of her head with bright ribbons in the style of the native people of Oaxaca, Mexico. Her preferred fashion and hairstyle are __________ in the various self-portraits she painted.

Kahlo died in 1954 in her parents’ home. The final words in Kahlo’s diary were, “I hope the __________ is joyful-and I hope never to come back.”

4 . Sometimes I scratch my head when I read about the government’s efforts to improve schools: new standards and tests to be applied, strict teacher evaluations, and threats of school closures and job losses. They frighten the school employees, not to mention the students. Instead of making people unable to solve problems or try new ideas-which is what fear does to us-research on school reform strongly suggests that policy-makers should encourage school leaders to take a more humane approach. In their study on the reform efforts of twelve Chicago public schools, Bryk and Schneider found that enabling positive social relationships between the adults was the key to successful school improvement and that trust was at the heart of those relationships.

Trust in schools comes down to one thing: psychological safety or safety to speak one’s mind, to discuss with openness and honesty what is and isn’t working, to make collective decisions.

Yet this kind of safety doesn’t come easily to schools. According to Bryk and Schneider, the adults in school rely on each other to do their jobs correctly and with integrity (正直). The challenge is that our expectations are very diverse based on our unique backgrounds.

At one school where I taught, each teacher had different expectations about how much effort teachers should put into their work-a big difference between the teachers who left at the last bell and those who worked into the evening. And when expectations are unspoken, it becomes impossible for others to live up to them.

We also make assumptions about the intentions behind a person’s behavior. As we all know, assumptions are often wrong. For example, parents and teachers may think the principal takes particular decision based on his career advancement rather than that is best for the students, who don’t feel psychologically safe to question our assumptions, trust files out the window and our relationships suffer.

5 . Yellowstone National Park offers a variety of ranger programs throughout the park, and throughout the year. The following are descriptions of the ranger programs this summer.

Experiencing Wildlife in Yellowstone (May 26 to September 2)

Whether you’re hiking a backcountry trail (小径), camping, or just enjoying the park’s amazing wildlife from the road, this quick workshop is for you and your family. Learn where to look for animals and how to safely enjoy your wildlife watching experience. Meet at the Canyon Village Store.

Junior Ranger Wildlife Olympics (June 5 to August 21)

Kids can test their skills and compare their abilities to the animals of Yellowstone. Stay for as little or as long as your plans allow. Meet in front of the Visitor Education Center.

Canyon Talks at Artist Point (June 9 to September 2)

From a classic viewpoint, enjoy Lower Falls, the Yellowstone River, and the breathtaking colors of the canyon (峡谷) while learning about the area’s natural and human history. Discover why artists and photographers continue to be drawn to this special place. Meet on the lower platform at Artist Point on the South Rim Drive for this short talk.

Photography Workshops (June 19 & July 10)

Enhance your photography skills — join Yellowstone’s park photographer for a hands-on program to inspire new and creative ways of enjoying the beauty and wonder of Yellowstone.

6/19 — Waterfalls &Wide Angles: meet at Artist Point.

7/10 — Wildflowers &White Balance: meet at Washburn Trailhead in Chittenden parking area.

7 . One day, Vinod Menon, the head of the physics department at the City College of New York, who had to face the unpleasant task of going through almost a year of COVID-lockdown office mail, opened a 9-month-old package, only to find it contained $180,000.

Piled notes in 50s and 100s wrapped in paper bands, a letter, and a return address to an alias were all that accompanied the parcel addressed to “Head of the Physics Department.” “I’ve never seen this kind of money in real life in cash form except in movies,” Menon told CNN. “That really floored me, so I just did not know how to react.”

The sender evidently had unshakable faith in the US postal system, and desired to send the cash to poor students looking to pursue physics and other sciences. City College of New York is one of the most-productive public university systems, and the physics department is particularly outstanding. Three Nobelists in physics received their education there, and in 1921 Albert Einstein gave one of his first lectures at the campus.

“Assuming that you are a bit curious as to why I am doing this, the reason is straightforward,” the letter read, continuing to explain that its writer had, many years ago, taken advantage of the “excellent educational opportunity” available at City College to study physics, earn a master’s, and pursue a “long, productive, rewarding scientific career.”

The alias return address was to Kyle Paisley, a name absent from the university’s graduation logs, at a house in Pensacola, Florida, whose owners apparently had no idea of the donation. After a two-month long investigation revealing nothing linking the money to criminal activity, the Board of Trustees held a vote and decided to keep the money. Dr Menon noted that the gift would provide for two fully-funded scholarships every year for a decade.

8 . The plot of the story of “The Million Pound Bank Note” centers on the impossibility of encashing (兑现) a high valued bank note by a common man. Within this story it is narrated (叙述) that only two such notes were ever issued and anyone who walks into a bank to cash that note will get himself in trouble. So, do such million pound bank notes really exist? Let’s do a bit of digging around for the purpose of satisfying the curiosity over this question.

Such high valued pound bank notes do exist, and they were usually used for transactions (交易) within banks. The Bank of England used “one million” and “hundred million” pound bank notes to keep parity (等价) with bank notes issued by Scottish and Northern Irish banks. These notes — the one million ones were called “giants” and came in A5 size and the hundred million ones were called “titans” having an A4 size — were more like IOU documents (legal forms that describe a loan between a lender and a borrower) and they were special issues from the Bank of England to meet the requirement of backing the value of everyday notes issued by banks in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Nine such one million pound notes were issued in connection with the Marshall Plan (the US’s post-war aid program to Western Europe), equal to the loan from the US after World War II (WWII) in 1948. After cancellation (取消), of these nine only seven were destroyed and two survived with private collectors. Such high valued notes are not usually found in the normal transactional scenes and it is believed that notes worth eight billion pounds were printed in these heavy denominations (面额) in total.

Mark Twain can create humor from narrations of unrealistic (不现实的) and often funny simple situations and “The Million Pound Bank Note” is a nice example of his storytelling abilities.

9 . The Great Wall of China is one of the greatest wonders of the world. With a ________of more than 2, 000 years, some parts of the Great Wall have disappeared. ________, it is still a very popular place of interest.

It is the ________wall ever built. It is about 8 meters high. The top is 8 meters wide and it ________even wider at the bottom. It is made ________stone and brick. People built it by ________and it took a long time to finish.

No one knows ________when the building of the Great Wall was started. It is believed that the wall was built to ________parts of the country in the old days. It also made people live a (n) ________life.

Today, many of the visitors go to see the Great Wall. ________they stand on top of a tower and look down on this wall, they can’t help saying, “Wow, that’s fantastic!”