Crab Lessons

My son Geordi was a rather spirited boy. Very little held his attention for long. He spent most of his spare time thinking up new ways to scare me half to death. Like the time he decided to “surf” on a tiny plastic table that was meant to hold a few drinks rather than a six-year-old boy. Geordi had just begun learning about the ocean in school and was surprisingly fascinated by it. We lived in Delaware, so any discussion about the ocean usually included horseshoe crabs, which crowded our coasts to mate in the late spring.

As part of the lesson, Geordi’s teacher brought horseshoe crab shells (壳) to school for the children to touch and examine. Hearing that horseshoe crabs had been around for over 300 million years, even before the dinosaurs, Geordi thought that was officially the coolest thing he had ever heard. He could not stop talking about it for days, and I decided it was time for us to take a drive to the Delaware Bay.

As we stepped out from the car, strong wind nearly blew my poor forty-five-pound child to the ground. Being a six-year-old mischievous (调皮的) boy, Geordi saw this as an opportunity to showcase his amazing talents, which included falling down, getting up, falling down and, yes, getting up again. This, of course, was always complete with giggles (咯咯笑). The drama came to a sudden stop as Geordi spied the dozens of army-truck-looking creatures in the sand. The next sound effect was “Wow!” as his body froze and his eyes widened with wonder.

Geordi ran around excitedly, not knowing which one to check out first. He settled on a horseshoe crab that was on its back, legs waving wildly in the air, desperate for water. “Mom, look at this one!” he screamed. “He’s cool!” I pointed out the different body parts of the crab for him, and he listened quietly and absorbed the information. He said, “I really liked him. I think I will name him Spike because he had all those really cool, spiky (尖的) things on his back.” Then I picked up the crab, turned it over to its proper position and placed it at the edge of the water.

Geordi asked what I was doing.

Geordi spotted many more horseshoe crabs on their backs.

2 . Who can imagine life today without an Automated Teller Machine (ATM)? They are available in considerable numbers throughout the world.

The first ATM was the brainchild of an enterprising Turkish-American inventor Luther George Simjian. When the idea of an automated banking machine struck him, he registered 20 patents before any bank agreed to give it a trial run. It is easy to assume that the inventor of such a popular machine was laughing all the way to the bank.     1     Within six months of its operation in New York in 1939, the device was removed due to lack of customer acceptance.

It was not until 1967, nearly 30 years later, that Barclays Bank, in a careful launch, rolled out a self-service machine in London, England, which proved successful.     2     The first cash machine relied on customers’ use of prepaid tokens (代币) to get envelopes with a fixed amount of cash inside.

    3     The banks’ principle was seemingly customer service. But it would be foolish to minimize the many advantages that cash machines provided to the banks themselves. By the late 1970s, the highest fixed cost for the average large bank was its branches. The greatest variable cost and loss to profits were its staff. Bank accounts swiftly recognized that self-service operations could reduce bank branch staff cost by70 percent.

Experts quickly determined that public acceptance of ATMs counted on convenience, simplicity, speed, security and trust.     4     For maximum efficiency, ATMs had to be located near public transport or in a shopping mall, not at a branch. The busier and more crowded the location, obviously, the better. Now, roughly 75 percent of all cash provided by banks to their customers comes from cash machines.     5    .

Public acceptance of deposits (存款) by machine was significantly slower than customers’ usage of ATMs for withdrawals. In general, it seems that customers sometimes still prefer and trust an over-the-counter transaction (交易) for deposits.

Smart, cozy and accessible, Beijing’s Winter Olympic Village has all the elements needed to provide athletes with a safe and comfortable home away     1     home during next year’s Games.

As promised in its bidding submission, Beijing's commitment to     2    (host) “athlete-centered” Games has materialized in     3     big way, with 20 residential buildings — all furnished and decorated to a high standard and fitted with fresh-air ventilation systems—    4    (complete) this month well ahead of the opening ceremony on Feb 4.

Situated in the northern part of the city’s downtown against the backdrop of the Bird’s Nest, the Beijing Olympic Village, which     5    (cover) an area of 330,000 square meters, is the largest of three official residential areas built for the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.

The Beijing village will undergo an operational test     6    (late) this month with all facilities,     7    (serve) and COVID-19 control and prevention measures to be evaluated. Should the test go well, the village will initiate a trial run on Jan 23 before     8    (official) opening on Jan27.

“We are trying to make the village a safe and comfortable home for every athlete and official,     9     they can enjoy themselves and be as relaxed as possible     10     experience some of the cultural characteristics of the host city at the same time,” said Yang Jingfeng, deputy director of resident services for the village operation team.

8 . How to improve social skills? Different people have different opinions. Social skills are an essential part of life but are not always easy to perfect. Improving takes time and some trial and error.

Don't try to improve all of your social skills at once.    1     After you feel comfortable in your understanding of body language, you might read a guide on small talk and practice that next.

Talk with people while carrying out daily activities at school,work or at any other place. Communication is powerful and as you enter into more conversations, you will become more experienced in chatting.

    3    You can help grow this feeling by building your sense of self-worth and finding your inner-strength. Remind yourself that you are a very special and worthwhile person.

Trying to improve your social skills is such a broad goal that it is hard to see progress towards it and it is easy to get discouraged.    4    For instance,you might decide "I want to successfully join a conversation at a party.”

Why do you think you see a lot of friends are people who share something in common? For example, the basketball group, the football group, the video games group.    5     So if you love football then talk about football. This is how most friendships start off.