5 . A 6.2-magnitude earthquake hit the Northern California coast on Monday, bringing significant shaking but likely slight damage to the less-populated area.

The earthquake occurred just after noon and was centered off the coast about 337 kilometers northwest of San Francisco, just off a tiny town called Petrolia that’s home to fewer than 1,000 people. The nearest population center, Eureka, is about 72 kilometers north. That left only about 25,000 people in the range of strong or very strong shaking, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS), though residents as far away as Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area reported feeling trembling.

The Humboldt County Sheriff’s office of emergency services closed a few roads. The USGs said the earthquake caused losses about less than $ 10 million and no deaths had been reported. The area last suffered an earthquake of a similar magnitude in 1993, when one person died.

“The shaking lasted for about 20 seconds. Glass bottles fell off the shelves at the store, breaking into pieces on the floor, but no one was hurt,” Petrolia General Store manager Jane Dexter said. “It was bigger than anything I’ve felt in my life, ” she added.

California’s Office of Emergency Services (OES) said 2,500 people were told about the earthquake before shaking began through the state’s early warning system called My Shake. “It is a very useful tool to announce warning tips. It saved us indeed. Yet, we still have to remain very careful...as large aftershocks (余震) will occur along the North Coast over the next few days, ” OES Director Mark Ghilarducci said in a statement.

6 .     1    

The best things in life are free. At least, creativity is free. Do you really want to spend $20 on popcorn and movie tickets when you can do much better things? Find out what other things you can do when your financial situation is not so good.

    2     Just have a look at the fashionable things. Window shopping can be an enjoyable way to relax.

Go for a bus adventure. Take the bus or subway. Plan a full-day trip with friends, get to your destination using cheap transportation, and you could discover all sorts of new places.

    3     Most museums have free days and give students discounts, so check out their websites before heading over.

Go for a picnic. There’s nothing like a picnic in a park with friends. Bring a huge blanket, homemade sandwiches/snacks, a ball, and have a good time under a nice, shady trees.

Host a movie night. Watching movies on DVD is a lot cheaper than going to the cinema. Invite some friends over.     4    .

Take a free class. Most yoga, dance, and art studios offer free trial classes or host walk-in days, so grab your friends and go try something new.

    5     Have all of your friends collect their old stuff, choose a proper place, and make some money selling the things. You’ll have a lot of fun, and in the end; each of you will have a little money to put into your pockets.

7 . Studies have shown a direct link between goals and improved performance in both sports and business. Earl Nightingale put it this way, “People with goals succeed because they know where they are going. It’s   as simple as that.”

Dr. Maxwell Maltz, author of the classic Psycho-Cybernetics, said that human beings have a built-in goal seeking “success mechanism (机制)” that is part of the subconscious (潜意识的) mind. This success mechanism is constantly searching for ways to help us reach our targets and find answers to our problems. According to Maltz, we feel better when our success mechanism keeps going after clear targets. All we have to do to use this mechanism is give it a target.

One important reason goal setters achieve such outstanding results is that they have learned how to focus and concentrate their time, energy and resources (资源)   on a single goal, even though it is just for a few hours at a time. One major time management challenge we are facing today is that there are more things available for us to do than anyone could possibly attempt, let alone accomplish, in an entire lifetime. If we are not careful, it is very easy to waste our time on unimportant things.

Most significant accomplishments are accompanied with difficulties, struggles and failures. Thomas Edison failed over one thousand times before he finally discovered a way to make the light bulb work. It is very rare for something important to be accomplished successfully on the very first try. If you want to achieve anything significant, it is likely that you will struggle and fail many times before you finally reach your target. One of the main reasons why people give up so easily in the face of failure is that they lose sight of their “why”. Goals can help you remember your “big why” when you need to pick yourself up and keep going in the face of difficult situations.

8 . Nowadays, taking no notice of protecting the environment leads to problems including global warming. While discussing with my daughter about going green, I remembered the daily practices in most households in India. What we did was actually helping our environment and also protecting our resources. We did all this naturally, without even realizing its importance.

We preferred reusing pens in the past. We used to have ball pens used again and again by changing the refills and we also used ink pens, which were refreshed now and then by filling ink in them when required. There was no such thing as a use-and-throw pen. We loved the process of cleaning the writing instruments. However, today, plastic pens that do not last long are ruling the stationery（文具）shops.

We recycled and reused newspapers without really thinking twice about it. Newspapers were kept carefully during those days because they were an important material used for packing and storing. Today plastic bags have become important, All these materials pollute our land and water and prevent all conservation(保护)efforts.

Public transport was a common thing in the old days and it was so much fun. Nowadays.no one seems to have the patience to take public transport and many consider it too silly for them. So people take their cars out every day and pollute the environment, thinking it makes the m look cool. Vehicular (车辆的) pollution in cities is the biggest contributor to environmental problems.

I am not against the usage of modern technologies. In fact, it has helped make our life casier. While we can use the same technology to go green instead of polluting the environment, we should also go back to a few old traditions that are ecofriendly.

9 . There are many idioms or sayings in English that we use when we want to describe relationships between and among friends. Here are a few to practice with your friends.

The idiom “through thick and thin” is used to describe a friend who is loyal and supportive during bad times as well as good times. It most often describes a friendship that has been strong for a long time. Here are two examples: John and Lisa have been friends through thick and thin. My best friend and I stayed together through thick and thin.

If two people are “like two peas(豌豆) in a pod”, it means that they get along very well. They are two very good friends and they are very similar to each other. I have never seen Lola and Camille argue; they are like two peas in a pod.

Some friends are especially sympathetic and easy to talk to. They are not judgmental or impatient. They are good at sharing our pain, which helps ease our pain. A friend like this is often called “a shoulder to cry on”.We can go to this person with a problem or sadness and they bring comfort to us.

“To hit it off” with someone means to immediately like or get along with someone. This usually happens the first time two people are meeting. They often share interests, goals, and beliefs. This can happen between friends who like each other at first sight. Carmen and Isabel hit it off at the party and are going to a movie together today. Mike and I did not hit it off on our first date but we are going to try once more.