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11 January All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
只工作不玩耍，聪明杰克也变傻。 Dull boy: 呆笨的男孩。可以看看下面的例子: You're not going to study all weekend, are you? Remember, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.你不会把整个周末都用于学习，是不是？要记住，有劳无逸，有害无益。 His conduct has always been above suspicion.His conduct has always been above suspicion. 他的行为一直无可质疑。 Above suspicion 无可怀疑[毫无可疑]。如 His loyalty is above suspicion.他的忠诚无可置疑。 10 January It's a lovely time to lieIt's a lovely time to lie
WHILE lies folded like dinner napkins, cut like paper snowflakes, settling like dust on fake Christmas trees. White lies told in the spirit of the season. She walked into the party in a red velvet dress. She had no idea that one string of her fake pearls had broken and was dangling down her cleavage. "You look simply marvelous," someone told her. She knew her shoes did not match her dress, so she smiled. She knew the person was lying. She tried to socialize, but guests eventually left her, heading for the sushi. Her feet hurt and she wanted to sit down. She balanced a paper plate on her lap and turned to a woman sitting in the corner. "Are you having a good time?" the woman in black velvet asked the woman in red. "I'm having a great time," the red velvet woman lied. "Are you ready for the holidays?" "Yes, I love this time of the year," red velvet lied again, not meaning to, but trying to fit in with what was expected. Lies painted white come around this time of year. Tiny, little ones, wrapped in indistinguishable smiles. Flickering lies under golden shades, flashing on and off like tiny strings of white Christmas lights. "Honey, what do you want for Christmas this year?" "Oh, nothing really. I have everything I want. Everything I need." Across the room a piano player is playing, "I'll be home for Christmas. You can count on me. Please have snow and mistletoe and presents under the tree." And you stand at the bar looking at the trio of musicians, wondering how they keep playing when no one seems to be listening. But at the end of the song, people turn and applaud as if they had paid attention. lying softly, "That was wonderful!" White lies wrapped in common courtesy, slippling between red lipstick or over Christmas ties. You've come to expect white lies, expect to navigate fabrications, lest you fall in that difficult terrain of lies so deep. Bewildered by the white lies, so much so that when someone actually tells the truth, it's hard to believe. "You look great!" "Really? Really? Come on, don't placate me." "No, you look great." White lies are told to spare hurting the innocent; they are issued with kidness and told to make the person saying them feel better, more comfortable. A lie told to help somebody doesn't have to be all bad. They all say that when given an undesired gift, it's better to lie than to look the giver in the eye and say the flat-out, honest-to-goodness truth that you hate it, that you have never seen anything so ugly in your entire life and "What were you thinking when you bought it for me?" Not that you want to be ungrateful. So you leave the gift underneath the tree and say you left it there for decoration. Weightlifting superhero in DohaWeightlifting superhero in Doha
WEIGHTLIFTING competitors aim to lift a weighted bar above the head, holding it under control until a referee signals they may replace it on the platform.
Weightlifting is split into two separate lifts -- the snatch, and the clean and jerk. Competitors have a maximum of three attemtps at each lift. With only three attempts allowed, tactics, such as deciding which weight to start with, are crucial. Alice: Dear Olly, I've got a new superhero!
Olly: Really? Who's that?
Alice: A mighty woman! Chen Yanqing!
Olly: So you watched her winning performance at the Asian Games?
Alice: Yeah, she won the 58kg women's event and clinched China's fourth consecutive weightlifting gold medal.
Olly: How much did Chen lift?
Alice: She opened the snatch portion of the competition with a lift of 103kg. She then lifted 108kg on her second attempt and 111kg on her third attempt to beat the previous snatch world record of 110kg. She set two more world records with her clean and jerk lifts.
Olly: Three world records -- that's not bad for a superhero. But can she fly or see through walls?
Alice: Don't joke around, or I'll give her a call and tell her to beat you up. Her nearest competitors, one from Thailand and the other from North Korea, both lifted a total of 224kg.
Olly: Haha, OK, I'll shut up. I don't want a black eye. But did the event need an extra round to decide who'd take the silver and bronze medals?
Alice: No, the referees decided that the athlete from Thailand got the silver.
Olly: Why?
Alice: Because she weights 0.33kg less than the one from North Korea. A Christmas I dreamed ofA Christmas I dreamed of
THE Christmas of my youth were almost Dickensian in their misery: an alcoholic, abusive stepfather; a cowed mother. Some years there were second-hand toys and canned food from a church basket. I vowed when I grew up that I would have Christmases like the ones I dreamed of -- a mantel festooned in velvet bows and pine cones, caroling, a Yule log. But the man I married was Jewish. The only serious fight of our courtship was over a Christmas tree. I insisted on having one. "It's like having a six-foot crucifix in the living room!" he argued. But in the end, he saw it was important to me and gave in. In the 18 years since, we celebrate a kind of Christmas Lite. The tree usually isn't put up until a week before and is taken down on New Year's. My daughter and I always select a small one (a five-foot crucifix). He gamely crawls under the boughs to tighten the screws in the stand, joking that he isn't genetically programmed to do this. He's probably wondering if his ancestors are spinning in their graves. I bake a lot of Christmas cookies, and our daughter's stocking hangs above the fireplace, but decking the halls consists of displaying holiday cards on the mantel and not much else. I listen to Christmas songs in the car, where he doesn't have to hear them. There are no outside lights, no midnight services and no tree-trimming parties. It's not that he would object to these things; it's just that I'm keenly aware that for him, December feels like a great big party he wasn't invited to. On December 25, our family celebrates "Jewish Christmas" -- going out for Chinese food and a movie. Although Christmases have been downsized from my early dreams, I gained a cool holiday I never imagined celebrating. Every year when the dreidels come out, my daughter patiently explains which Hebrew letter is the gimel and which is the nun. Every year, we have a party with old friends where the menfolk make the potato pancakes, but first the womenfolk have to show them how to operate the food processor. And every year, I look in wonder at the growing procession of lighted candles across the menorah -- especially on the eighth night, with all the tapers blazing and reflected in the dining room windows. It's a family-centred holiday still largely without the commercial hokum. When I look through magazines and see the evergreen garlands and shining table runners, I'm reminded that I didn't get the Christmases I once yearned for. But I wouldn't trade the December I have now for those ideal Christmases. |
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