Animals in Nature

Animals in nature     1    (consider) messengers for us. They share our planet, but they experience it differently. Each has its own gifts that allow them to interact    2    (success) with nature. When we feel the need for direction, we can turn     3    animals for guidance.

Among everyday routines     4     (lie) animals’ wisdom. For example,     5    (stare) out a window, we may notice a bird flying high in the sky, showing us how to look at our situation from a greater distance. Moreover, whether we see animals in     6    picture, a shape in the clouds,     7     a show on television, their symbolic meaning is the same.

Animals are closer to the cycles of nature and have     8    (few) distractions from it than humans do. That is why they are the perfect messengers when we are in need of advice. Just by being     9    (they), they remind us of the universal wisdom. Answers are available to us when we reconnect with our source and with those who know     10    to be nurtured(滋养) by it.

4 . How to Start a Garden

Having a garden at home adds color and life to your yard and also rewards you with fresh fruits, veggies, and herbs.    1    We’ll cover what you need to start a successful garden and give you the step-by-step guide to getting your plants in the ground.

Choose a location that gets direct sunlight.

Pick a well-draining spot that gets at least 6 hours of direct sunlight. Try to avoid parts of your yard that have puddles (水坑) after it rains.    2    It also helps to choose a garden spot that’s mostly level and open, so you don’t have to work around trees or shrubs.

    3    

Plan on growing veggies or herbs you like to eat. You want to be able to enjoy your harvest! Some of the easiest veggies to grow include tomatoes, potatoes, beans, cucumbers, leafy greens, lettuce, and squash. Radishes, spinach, and carrots are also easy plants that grow really quickly.

Get the basic tools and supplies you need.

Buy a shovel, rake, and hose or watering can. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when you’re shopping for garden supplies—there are so many tools!    4     At a minimum, you’ll need a shovel for digging, a rake for leveling the soil, and a hose or watering can for watering your plants.    5    

5 . Procrastination is one of the world’s worst time sucks: You have so much that you need to do, but when it comes to actually sitting down and getting it done, it seems basically impossible. But what if I told you that the opposite of procrastination, a phenomenon called pre-crastination, could be just as bad? A new study conducted by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania recently tackled the topic of pre-crastination — and it turns out that it could be a huge problem for many of us. If you’re wondering how the opposite of procrastination could be a negative thing, it’s because it means we’re completing tasks just for sake of completing them. Pre-crastination refers to the desire to do things immediately, but only to alleviate the anxiety surrounding leaving a particular task undone.

Let me give you an example: Say that you have to respond to an email. In your hurry to get the unread email out of your inbox, you make a bunch of spelling and grammar errors in your response because you typed it out so quickly. That would be an example of pre-crastination. I know that in my own life, I like to get through the easy tasks on my to-do list first, since they can be checked off more quickly, making me feel a lot more accomplished in the process. I just thought I was prioritizing, but I now know that this is an example of pre-crastinating the easy tasks just so I could say I got them done, while simultaneously procrastinating the more tedious tasks I left at the bottom of my list.

The discovery of pre-crastination leads to many kinds of questions about behavior. Now it seems that we have to not only worry about putting things off unnecessarily, but also doing things too quickly or completing easy tasks first just so that we can get them done.

The researchers touched on this in their article, published in Scientific American, in which they advise avoiding procrastination and pre-crastination by dividing your large tasks into smaller ones. That way, you can get through seemingly difficult tasks, but also avoid sliding through all of the simple ones first. I know that I’ll definitely be more careful when it comes to how I organize my to-do lit from now on.

7 . When imagining libraries, a quiet, well-lighted, and clean surroundings will automatically pop out in your head. However, the list of libraries you’re about to see are absolutely out of this mold. Some of them might not be ideal places to read, but I would definitely enjoy visiting them.

The Biblioburro: Delivering Books Via Donkey — Columbia

Biblioburro (the name of the library) is being operated by Luis Soriano, a primary school teacher during his spare time. Witnessing kids wearing a genuine smile each time he visits their villages in rural Colombia would surely warm anybody’s heart. Using two donkeys, Alfa and Beto to carry loads of books, Soriano spends four hours on each trip just to reach those remote places.

Biblioteca Sandro Penna — Perugia, Italy

Nope, that’s not an alien ship you are staring at. It’s not a pink bubblegum candy designed by hello kitty, either! That’s a power house of books providing library services for the people of Perugia, Italy. It features rose colored glass walls designed to let sunlight in during daytime and at night it creates a rare glow. The Architect who designed it, Italo Rota, made the three-story disc to exude (显现) an appearance of an alien flying saucer.

The Kenyan Camel Library: Serving Nomadic Populations — Kenya

The camels carry books and some camping gear. Traveling librarians need a place to rest after a long journey across the desert. The caravan (露营车) caters to nomadic communities which are mostly illiterate due to lack of access to books. The Kenya National Library Service unleashed the program in 1985.

Epos Book Boat: Floating Books In The Fjords

In the Fjords, a book boat known as Epos travels to more than 250 small communities on islands every year between September and April. On board the vessel are some 6, 000 volumes, a couple of librarians, a cook and a captain. During summertime, the boat/library turns into a leisure cruise ferry. It all started in 1959, and is funded by the libraries of the three counties it serves.