1 . My brother Ken was born with a brain disease. Though Mama was extremely loving, she never babied Ken. She _________ him to do whatever we did.

I remember once we got a slide in our backyard. Ken was _________ at first sight. But unable to _________ the steps with the braces (支架) on his legs, Ken could only look up at the rest of us from the ground.

One day, Mama put Ken in the backyard, this time without his braces, and watched him _________ with great difficulty right over to the slide. For the next three hours, Ken climbed the ladder and fell, climbed the ladder and fell, _________. He skinned his knees, and his head was bleeding.

Our neighbor _________ at Mama, “What kind of woman are you? Look at the blood. Get that boy off that ladder!” Mama told her kindly that if it _________ her, she would have to close her curtains. Ken had decided to go down the slide, and down the slide he would go. It took a couple of days of _________ before he could go up the ladder and down the slide as well as the rest of us, and another week before he could do it with his braces on.

Ken was not supposed to make it to his tenth birthday but he has _________ his disease and is now a 42-year-old man who lives __________ and even holds down a job. He __________ everything the way he did that slide so many years ago. What a(n) __________ Mama gave him that day by expecting him to be the __________ he could be.   

Though I often feel I fall short when I compare my __________ to hers, it gives me great comfort to know that her spirit is ________ me, somewhere — preparing me to make “mothering magic” of my own.

4 . On many travelers’ lists of things to do before they die, you’ll find “See the northern lights” written down. Rightfully so these lights are one of nature’s most jaw-dropping views.

In Sweden, the northern lights usually appear from late March or early April. Your best chance of catching a glimpse of them is on cold winter nights when the sky is clear, dark with little to no moonlight, and cloudless. You need to be away from city lights and go to the countryside. For those willing to brave the cold on winter nights, here are some of the best locations.

Abisko National Park

Abisko Natinal Park is a main location. The scientifically confirmed “blue hole”, a piece of sky over the Tornetrask lake that usually remains clear despite cloudy weather nearby, gives Abisko its own microclimate (局部地区气候), which is suitable for catching the lights.

Jukkasjarvi

The village of Jukkasjarvi only has about 550 people. But don’t let the small population size fool you: Jukkasjarvi owns the world’s first ice hotel and is one of the best places to view the northern lights. The ice hotel organizes guided tours for guests to the Esrange Space Center. There you can eat at a camp outside and see the Arctic winter sky for aurora borealis (北极光). Or why not try to get closer to the northern lights and watch them through an aeroplane window? The ice hotel arranges flights for the amazing northern lights experience.

Gallivare

You can drive a snowmobile to the mountain top in Gallivare for a private light show, or head a few kilometers to nearby villages to watch those lights shining across the dark winter sky. But remember if you do get the chance to see the northern lights in person, never whistle to them. According to ancient Sumi fairy, it brings you bad luck.

5 . 2024 Arts Illustration Competition

Enter the competition most respected and admired in the industry for creativity in illustration, the Communication Arts Illustration Competition. Selected by distinguished professionals, the winning entries will be distributed worldwide in the Communication Arts Illustration Annual and on commarts.com, ensuring important exposure of the creations. Each winner will receive a professionalized Award of Excellence and an award certificate. Communication Art’s Award of Excellence is one of the most desired awards. If chosen, winning places you in the highest ranks of your profession.

What To Enter With

Any illustration first published or produced from Jan. 2023 to Jan. 2024 is qualified. Entries may originate from any country. Descriptions in English are necessary for the judges to read.

Entries Can Be Submitted In The Following Formats

Digital Images: RGB images in JPG format with a maximum file size of 2 MB. GIF images may be livelier, but would be turned down, and so would the PNG ones.

Motion Entries: In MOV, MP4 or MPG format, with a maximum file size of 500 MB.

Illustration Competition Categories & Entry Fees

For more categories, please download the category PDF.

Late Fees

Entries must be registered no later than Apr. 13, 2024. Entries registered after that date will be charged a fee of $10 each. No entries can be registered after Apr. 27, 2024.

6 . Many people have the habit of sleeping with a dim (昏暗的) light like a television or nightlight. Yet it is enough to the raise blood sugar and heart rates of healthy people, according to a new study. Light helps our body maintain an internal clock, but artificial light at night can have a negative impact on the rest and repair that should happen during the sleep. New research suggests that even when our eyes are closed, a small amount of light can disrupt the way our bodies normally keep our blood sugar within a healthy range.

In the study published in Sciences on Monday, scientists asked 20 participants aged 19 to 36 to spend two nights in their lab. On the first night of sleep, the volunteers slept in a very dark room. For their second night of sleep, half of the group slept with streetlights through a window, and half spent their second night in a dark room.

During the trial, all participants were connected to devices that measured different markers of their sleep quality. They were each connected through a special tube, allowing researchers to collect samples without waking the individual. Researchers also recorded participants’ heart rates and brain waves.

When the volunteers awoke in the morning, the team tested their blood sugar and found that participants that slept in rooms with a dim light spent less time in deep sleep. In addition to having slightly worse blood sugar control, the group exposed to dim light had a higher heart rate on average. By comparison, those that spend two nights in the dark room had little difference in their blood sugar control. “They thought they slept well, but your brain knows that the lights are on,” says Zee,“ you should clearly pay attention to the light in your bedroom. If you can’t give up your night light, keep it dim and at floor level.”

Earlier work has linked exposure to light during sleep to an increased risk of obesity (肥胖) in women. Zee recommends, “Make sure that you start dimming your lights at least an hour or two before you go to bed to prepare your environment for sleep.”

7 . Every year about 40,000 people attempt to climb Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa. They bring with them lots of waste. The_________ might damage the beauty of the place. The glaciers (冰川) are disappearing, changing the_________ of Kilimanjaro.

Hearing these stories, I’m_________ about the place — other destinations are described as “purer” natural experiences.

However, I soon discovered that much has changed since the days of disturbing reports of_________ among tons of rubbish. I find a clean mountain, with toilets at camps and along the paths. The environmental challenges are_________ but the efforts made by the Tanzania National Park Authority seem to be_________ .

The best of a Kilimanjaro_________ , in my opinion, isn’t reaching the top. Mountains are regarded as spiritual places by many cultures. This_________ is especially evident on Kilimanjaro as climbers go through five ecosystems (生态系统) in the space of a few kilometers. At the base is a rainforest. It ends abruptly at 3, 000 meters,_________ lands of low growing plants. Further up, the weather__________ — low clouds envelope the mountainsides, which are covered with thick grass. I __________ twelve shades of green from where I stand. Above 4, 000 meters is the highland __________ : gravel (砾石), stones and rocks. __________ you climb into an arctic-like zone with__________ snow and the glaciers that may soon disappear.

Does Kilimanjaro deserve its__________ as a crowded mountain with lines of tourists ruining the atmosphere of peace? I found the opposite to be true.

9 . My faith in human nature has never been so great as it was last weekend after our family get-together in the town of Vail.

On Saturday, we all went to the market right in the middle of the town. Near the end, we all _______ at the fountain near the bridge, and the kids waded (蹚水) around in the fountain until we _______ . This is one of the busiest walking streets.

After we returned to the hotel late in the afternoon, my 7-year-old son Ponder _______ that nowhere could he find his backpack, which _______ his Gameboy and his watch. After a thorough _______ we determined that he must have left it at the fountain.

Ponder has never lost anything. So we just take for granted that he needs no guidance on managing his _______.

He was upset, not about the Gameboy, but about the watch. “But Dad,” he said, through massive _______, “they don’t make that kind of watch anymore.” We were all very sad.

Our dinner reservation was at a restaurant just on the other side of the bridge, so I _______ him that we would not only search the area around the fountain when we went back for dinner, but we would also find the police and ask them if the backpack had been _______ .

As we exited from the parking garage, we could see the fountain as we walked down the long staircase. I saw something black ________ there, but it was right next to a woman standing by the fountain, so I could not ________ what it was or if it was hers.

“See it, Dad?” Ponder shouted. “Don’t get too excited because that may not be it,” I said. But that was it. It had been five or six hours since we left the fountain, and it was still there. There was no ID in it, and it looked like someone had looked through it and then set it right out where all could ________ it.

I literally ________ when we reached it and it was his! Everyone in our party was blown away by this “miracle (奇迹)”. In my wildest ________ , I would never have imagined that this could happen nowadays.

What a charmed life, eh? I believe this was a perfect lesson for a child in losing something important. . . lose it and feel the full ________ of that loss, and then to miraculously get it back.