1 . I checked my equipment one final time. It was my first ______to climb the highest volcano in the world, Ojos del Salado, in South America.

I’d ______ to climb with a local guide. I left camp just after midnight. “You go first and I’ll be behind you,” he said. As the hours passed and the terrain (地形) became more dangerous, I wondered if I’d made a huge ______ . Looking into the_______ behind me, I listened out for the sound of my guide’s steps but I was all_______ . Finding my way by ______, I knew the icy conditions were merciless. Breathing heavily, I realised I’d run out of ______ soon.

Back home, 11,000 km away in Melbourne, my dad was following my ______with my GPS tracker. ______ , now alone on the side of a volcano, all I could do was to ______ my energy as I climbed higher and higher.

Reaching the top was the ultimate goal, but really it was only half the ______ . As my breathing became more laboured, ______ set in. Had I gone too far this time? I knew all too well how frightening it was to be ______ , for I’d suffered from chronic asthma (慢性哮喘) as a child.

Pushing on, I ______ made it to the top, where I ______ the breathtaking views. But I only spent a few minutes taking photos before I went down the mountain. I was ______ to see my guide on the way down and it turned out that he had______ a climber in danger and had to ______ our exploration to save him.

Through blood, ______ and frozen tears, the last 10 years had taken me all over the globe. And with every high and painful low, I learnt more about myself. I’d pushed my ______ , both in body and mind.

2 . Sugar-free cookies, reduced-sugar cereal, sugar-free candy, diet soda... are these better for you? Since sugar became a taboo (禁忌) in the nutrition and wellness world, sugar-free food items and drinks have acted as alternatives for once beloved sweet drinks and snacks. Claiming to be ZERO sugar means it is healthier, better for diabetics, and helps you slim down... Right?

In fact, sugar-free is worse. Sugar-free means that artificial sweeteners (甜味剂) are used instead of real sugar. The problem: these sweeteners do not come from natural sources and they can cause you more harm than good.

Let’s get into what these artificial sweeteners actually are. Sugar-free sugar sounds wrong and that’s because there is no such thing as sugar-free sugar. Some of these sugar-free alternatives still contain sugar and the ones that don’t contain sugar have chemicals your body often does not know how to process.

Most artificial sweeteners are a lot sweeter than sugar, so only a tiny amount is needed. That’s why they can market sugar-free alternatives as “low-calorie” or “no-calorie”. It also means that you get no nutritional value from consuming them, which is why many sugar-free substitutes are classified as “non-nutritive”. These artificial sweeteners tend to hide under sneaky names. Actually, they are 200-600 times sweeter than sugar.

When you eat sweet stuff, your body continues to desire it and, even though your body cannot metabolize (代谢) these sugar-free alternatives, your brain does not know the difference. In turn, sugar-free alternatives connect to weight gain and type 2 diabetes (糖尿病).

Artificial sweeteners also damage your gut’s ability to break down sugar, which impacts everything you eat. In other words, your body doesn’t know how to handle artificial sweeteners because they have nothing real to process.

A good rule of thumb: stay away from artificial sweeteners and look for non-sugar, natural sweeteners like Stevia or date sugar. In the war against artificial sweeteners and real sugar, both lose. Satisfy your sweet tooth with natural sugars that come from fruits and stay away from products claiming to be sugar-free or diet!

4 . In the blue-green depths of the sea off the coast of Tuscany, Italy, an unusual seafloor sculpture park is defending its watery setting.

Since fisherman Paolo Fanciulli’s teens, he has been heading out daily to fish in these coastal waters along the Maremma coastline. It was in the 1980s that he began to notice the clear signs: a seabed that was becoming barren (贫瘠的), with exhausted fish stocks. Until recently, he has been forced to share catches with a threatening part: illegal “bottom trawlers (拖网捕鱼的人)”, who randomly spoil a large quantity of ocean life as they fish, dragging a weighted net along the seafloor behind their boats.

Fanciulli’s style of artisanal fishing (手工捕鱼), in contrast, needs to be friendly to nature as damaging the ecosystem could reduce fishermen’s income. Fanciulli understood that the success of his fishing activity was linked to the good state of the environment. The underwater “House of Fish” sculpture park, which was started in 2015 was encouraged by this fisherman. “One of the most effective solutions is to physically prevent trawling through artificial reefs…so I started working on this project, trying to combine the protection of the seabed with something that could also give an added value to our environment, something as beautiful as a sculpture,” he said.

Rocks or sculptures can break weighted trawler nets. They can also play a role as artificial reefs, giving corals and other sea life a place to live. Thanks to the underwater sculptures, some species not seen in a long while such as groupers and lobsters have returned. The sculpture park represents both an artistic statement and a physical barrier to seafloor trawling.

Today, 39 huge stone sculptures dot the seabed along an area of Tuscan coastline near the town of Talamone. In the immediate future, Fanciulli hopes to continue his great solution in coastal waters. “Man is still destroying the seas,” he says, “and my task continues.”

9 . Languages like Italian or Finnish can be spelled more easily because each letter of the alphabet matches to one sound. Students studying these languages can have 90 percent reading accuracy after the first year. However, students even after years of learning English are still far below Italian or Finnish students in reading accuracy.

English started as a Germanic language. It is most closely connected to German and Dutch, especially in grammar and basic vocabulary. During the Norman invasion in the 12th century, Old English was spoken but French was used in government and legal documents. And Latin was used in religious and educational activities. As a result, more French and Latin words entered the English language. The printing press invented in the late 1400s helped to establish English spelling. The English of today is how the language was written at the time. However, the spoken language started to change in the 1500s with the pronunciation of all long vowels (元音). For example, “bite” was pronounced closer to “beet” in the 1400s, before changing through the years to its current sound. The effect was that the English language had old spellings, but new sounds.

English has 26 letters in the alphabet, but over 44 individual sounds depending on the variation of spoken English. There are several sounds represented by only one letter. For example, the letter “C” can sound like an “S” as in “city”. And it also sounds like a “K” as in “cat”.

There are only 5 or 6 vowel letters in the English alphabet. They include A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y. But there are 20 different ways to sound them. At the centre is the most common vowel sound of “uhhh”. It is the most relaxed and natural sound. It takes almost no effort of the tongue or throat to create the sound. Since it takes little effort, the sound “uhhh” often makes its way into pronunciations. For example, the word “please” often turns into “PUH-lease” when someone is trying to call attention. This is another reason why spelling in English is so difficult!

10 . Join Us in Creating the Sweetest Candy Experience

Search Engine Copywriter

Pay: $80, 000 every year

Job Description:

We are looking for a creative, hardworking person to join our team as a content developer. The responsibilities of the content developer include creating new and interesting content for our website and popularizing that includes product descriptions, social media and technical work.

Shopify Developer

Pay: $120, 000 every year

Job Description:

Candy Funhouse is looking for a Shopify Developer to manage, and improve the e-commerce (电商) store hosted on Shopify. Reporting to the Chief Technology Officer, you’ll be responsible for developing new product pages, and running A/B tests to continuously improve site performance.

Chief Candy Officer

Pay: $100, 000 every year

Job Description:

We are looking for the world’s first and only Chief Candy Officer! This chance is work-from-home. The job includes deciding whether or not to give each treat with the official “CCO (Chief Candy Officer) Stamp of Approval”.

Social Media Personality

Pay: $110, 000 every year

Job Description:

We’ve got a pretty sweet brand, and we want someone to help make that brand as wonderful online as it is in real life. We’re looking for someone with good knowledge of both candy and pop culture, a natural ability to relate to fans, and someone who is willing to do the work necessary to help the brand be great on social media.