1 .     1    . The legendary volleyball coach Lang Ping gave the answer in the recent documentary (纪录片) The Iron Hammer.

The documentary displays Lang’s inspiring journey from her gold medal victory as a volleyball player in the 1984 Olympics to her amazing career as a successful coach for both Team USA from 2005 to 2008 and China since 2013. She was the first person to win Olympic volleyball gold as a player and coach. Lang Ping revealed the secret to such remarkable achievements in the documentary. As she said, “    2    ”.

    3    . Troubled by severe injuries to her cervical vertebra, back, waist and knees, caused by intense exercise and hard work, the 60-year-old has undergone more than 10 surgeries. “No parts of my body function well,” she joked.

But illness is certainly not the only difficulty Lang has faced. In 2005, she struggled with balancing raising her daughter Lydia Bai Lang, who lived in the US, and her coaching career. She eventually decided to work for USA Volleyball that year.     4    “I’m proud of being Chinese”   Lang responded in an interview. Later she returned to head the Chinese women ’s volleyball team in 2013, leading the team successfully defending its World Cup crown with a perfect record of 11 straight wins last year.

There is no doubt that Lang is one of the greatest players and coaches in history. As an American athlete commented in the documentary,     5    .

2 . Welcome to the Painting Competition for Woodlands Students

The International Anti-Drug Day this year is coming soon. In order to raise teenagers’ awareness to fight against drug taking, the City Art Council is going to hold a painting competition for the students in our city. Students who want to take part in the competition can hand in their own 2D paintings in either of the following two ways:

Each school will be provided with a box for students to put in their paintings. Boxes will be picked by the City Art Council on Thursday, June 23rd, 2016, before the end of the school day.

Paintings can be also handed in on Friday, June 24th, from 8:00 am to 10:00 am at the Woodlands Art Hall (175 Riverside Street).

All paintings are required to be 60 cm wide by 80 cm long or smaller. Larger sizes will not be accepted. Each student can only hand in one painting. The final decision on the competition results will be made on June 26th, the Anti-Drug Day. The name list of the winners will be made known on the website of the City Art Council on the same day. All winning paintings will be shown to the public at the City Youth Park from June 27th till the end of July.

Prizes:

1st Prize (10 students) ＝$ 300 Gift Card each

2nd Prize (20 students) ＝ $ 200 Gift Card each

3rd Prize (30 students)＝ $ 100 Gift Card each

For further information:

Visit http://www. woodlandsartcouncil. org or call 2569-8632.

3 . Looking for work?

Tutors Wanted: Maths/Science/Humanities+Test Preparation

Wage: $27-30 per hour

Schedule: Afternoons, evenings, weekdays, weekends

Job description：

We’re looking for tutors to join us before the next school year starts. Our suitable candidate will be able to assist middle and high school students with test preparation and academic work in Maths, Science and/or Humanities.

We’ll pay for your training before this all and can also offer flexible summer tutoring chances, including teaching group classes. Once our fall semester starts on August 21, we’ll have even higher demands for tutoring sessions on Sundays from 1 pm to 8 pm as well as from 3 pm to 9 pm Monday — Thursday.

What we offer：

Flexible scheduling. Tutors work from 15 to 30 hours per week depending on availability and students’ demands. Free Sunday dinners during the academic year. Health insurance reimbursement (补偿) for staff working over 30 hours per week.

Applicants must：

Have a good command of the subjects they tutor.

Be willing to tutor students through the full academic year.

Application instructions:

E-mail us your CV. Tell us why you want to join Academic Trainers and describe your experience of tutoring students if you have any. Let us know your scheduling preferences and potential start date. Tell us which of the subjects you are able to tutor — Maths, Science and/or Humanities.

4 . For people who are interested in sound, the field of sound technology is definitely making noise. In the past, sound engineers worked in the back rooms of recording studios, but many of today’s sound professionals are sharing their knowledge and experience with professionals in other fields to create new products based on the phenomenon we call sound.

Sound can be used as a weapon. Imagine that a police officer is chasing a thief. The thief tries to escape. And the officer can’t let him get away. he pulls out a special device points it at the suspect, and switches it on. The thief drops to the ground. This new weapon is called a Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD, 远程定向声波发射器). It produces a deafening sound so painful that it temporarily disables a person. The noise from the LRAD is directed like a ray of light and travels only into the ears of that person, but it is not deadly.

For those who hunger for some peace and quiet, sound can now create silence. Let’s say you are at the airport, and the little boy on the seat next to you is humming（哼唱）a short commercial song. He hums it over and over again, and you are about to go crazy. Thanks to the Silence Machine a British invention, you can get rid of the sound without upsetting the boy or his parents. One may wonder how the Silence Machine works. Well, it functions by analyzing the waves of the incoming sound and creating a second set of outgoing waves. The two sets of waves cancel each other out. Simply turn the machine on, point it at the target, and your peace and quiet comes back.

Directed sound is a new technology that allows companies to use sound in much the same way spotlights（聚光灯） are used in the theater. A spotlight lights up only one section of a stage; similarly, a “spotsound” creates a circle of sound in one targeted area. This can be useful for businesses such as restaurants and stores because it offers a new way to attract customers. Restaurants can offer a choice of music along with the various food choices on the menu, allowing customers more control over the atmosphere in which they are dining. Directed sound is also beginning to appear in shopping centers and even at homes.

6 . Leaving everything behind to go after true happiness takes courage, and Sophie Matterson has enough to go around. The 3l-year-old enjoyed a good life in Brisbane, Australia, with a job in the TV and film industry, but it didn’t make her heart sing. That’s why she decided to try a different path. Now she’s trekking (跋涉) across the continent with five camels (骆驼) — and is the happiest she’s ever been!

In 2016, Sophie changed jobs and ended up somewhere she never expected: milking camels on a farm in Queensland.

“What I wasn’t anticipating was how much I would end up falling in love with these animals,” she wrote. “What was only going to be a six-month break from my ‘real job’ turned into five years of running after camels around Australia and other parts of the world.”

After taking tourists on camel treks for a while, Sophie decided to have an adventure of her own. She planned out a 5,000-kilometer trip from Shark Bay to Byron Bay before catching and training five wild camels in January 2019. Then she was finally ready to explore her country with Mac, Delilah, Clayton, Jude, and Charlie!

As one might imagine, the trip can be lonely at times, but Sophie’s camels make surprisingly good companions.

“It’s quite lovely and relaxing camping with camels,” she said. Best of all, she can see great views!

Sophie hopes to arrive in Byron Bay in the next nine months. In the meantime, she’ll be enjoying every second with her camel friends.

8 . Today it is common to see people who walk about with colored wires hanging from their ears wherever they go. They move about in their personal bubbles，sometimes unaware of what’s happening around them.     1     Outside life is shut out. So are you one of “them”?

For me, walking around in my own personal bubble is perfect.     2     What’s even better, wearing earphones seems to give a signal to people which says：“I'm not available for chatting at the moment.”

Suppose you’re at work and about to make an incredible breakthrough，but a colleague suddenly turns up. At this precise moment，the slightest disturbance would break your concentration.     3     Once again，those wires hanging from your ears would be sure to give that “Go away!” signal.

    4     It’s probably part of the growing up stage when they just want to ignore their whole family. While their mothers give them lectures about why they should do their homework，they can just turn up the volume on their MP3 player, smile and say “Yes, Mum.” Problem solved.

Pretty soon，not only will we have pretty colored wires hanging from our ears，but also our brains will be directly plugged into some new high-tech instrument. We’ll be in a virtual world，communicating with everyone else，as we like. In this world，we will all be permanently plugged in.     5     And they are changing our social habits along the way.

In the end, there is a thin line between using technology as a tool for making life better and being a slave to it! It’s so strange—suddenly. I don’t feel like wearing my earphones anymore.