SP: English Study Group

source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8651057.stm 

article2: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8653426.stm

The World Expo is opening in the Chinese city of Shanghai - the first time a developing country has hosted the event.

Chinese state media says the country has spent much more on the event than was spent on the Beijing Olympics.

At least 70 million visitors - almost all of them Chinese - are expected to visit pavilions and exhibitions staged by more than 240 countries and organisations from around the world.

Teaching Work Values to Children of Wealth

By PAUL SULLIVAN

Published: May 28, 2010

 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/your-money/29wealth.html?pagewanted=1&ref=general&src=me

source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/health/18mind.html?ref=health

In sixth grade they were unlikely friends, the good kid and the bad one, the girl who studied and the one who smoked in the alley. They hung out; they met for lunch. They even walked home from school together, one watching, awestruck, while the other ducked into drugstores to shoplift lip gloss, cigarettes, candy.

It couldn’t last. One morning in seventh grade, a nasty note appeared on the tough girl’s locker — and someone told her the writer was her cautious friend.

“I would never, ever have done that,” said the friend, Bonnie Shapiro, 45, now a mother of two in Evanston, Ill., who works as a recruiter for a design agency. “But it didn’t matter.”

Brushing aside Bonnie’s denials, the tough girl told her she was in for it. Sure enough, after school “she and her friends were outside waiting for me, and I had no one, no gang, no one there to support me,” Ms. Shapiro recalled.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/realestate/23habi.html?ref=garden

By CONSTANCE ROSENBLUM

Published: May 19, 2010

ERICA BUCKLEY has long since left the ranch house near Saratoga Springs, N.Y., where she grew up. But she has vivid memories of trotting across the yard and visiting her grandmother’s house, which was just next door.

source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8646236.stm

People in most parts of the world do not think about their blood group much, unless they have an operation or an accident and need a transfusion.

But in Japan, whether someone is A, B, O or AB is a topic of everyday conversation.

There is a widespread belief that blood type determines personality, with implications for life, work and love.

It is Saturday night and a speed dating session is under way in a small building in the backstreets of Tokyo.

Trouble Falling Asleep – Sleep Better Without Nightmares!
by Chang
http://stopyoursleeplessnights.com/trouble-falling-asleep-sleep-better-without-nightmares/

While most of the people are having trouble falling asleep because of their mind is just too overwhelmed with thoughts or they feel either anxious or irritated, there are others who are simply afraid of sleeping, because of nightmares… This is what I am going to talk about in this post. How to get rid of nightmares and how to enjoy a better sleep once again. When having troubles sleeping because of bad dreams it doesn’t mean that you are suffering from insomnia. You are just being obsessed by something that recently happened and that you want and need to forget as fast as possible. However, instead of getting rid of this information it comes back again over and over again, each and every night. Some people are really scared and don’t know how to get their sleep back. Nevertheless, I’m not going to go into any mysticism and will interpret nightmare as nothing more than sleep disorders. While kids also have these bad dreams, mostly adults are suffering from excessive nightmares.

Usually, when people go to sleep all they want I just to be able to rest and never think about something bad again. Your work has exhausted you too much and you can’t afford to spend more time thinking about unnecessary things. However, the least thing you need in such a situation is to experience some kind of sleeping problem because of nightmares. In most of the cases, dreams happen when you sleep, so in this particular case you are more likely to fall asleep in time. Anyways, don’t worry, because as soon as your favorite nightmare begins, you’ll soon end up with your eyes open starring at the ceiling. It seems that you don’t have any luck to rest tonight. Unfortunately, something called a nightmare exists and is keeping adults away from sleeping like they should. Most of the people are dreaming negative aspects of their immaterialized failures. The idea of this post is that adults need to learn how to save themselves from such sleeping stress and be able to calmly fall asleep again.

source: http://mashable.com/2010/03/01/twitter-classroom/

Professors who wish to engage students during large lectures face an uphill battle. Not only is it a logistical impossibility for 200+ students to actively participate in a 90 minute lecture, but the downward sloping cone-shape of a lecture hall induces a one-to-many conversation. This problem is compounded by the recent budget cuts that have squeezed ever more students into each room.

Fortunately, educators (including myself) have found that Twitter() is an effective way to broaden participation in lecture. Additionally, the ubiquity of laptops and smartphones have made the integration of Twitter a virtually bureaucracy-free endeavor. This post describes the two main benefits professors find when using Twitter in lecture.

Classroom shyness is like a blackhole: Once silence takes over, it never lets go. In my own experience, in a class of hundreds, the fraction of students who speak up is small, and a still tinier fraction contribute regularly.

That’s why, Dr. Monica Rankin of the University of Texas at Dallas was pleasantly surprised when her experiment with Twitter began pulling more students into discussion. “It’s been really exciting because, in classes like this, you’ll have three people who talk about the discussion material, and so to actually have 30 or 40 people at the same time talking about it is really interesting,” said Megan Malone, Teaching Assistant to Dr. Monica Rankin’s United States history course, in the video below.

source: http://www.usnews.com/money/careers/articles/2010/04/08/how-to-turn-volunteering-into-a-job.html


By Liz Wolgemuth

Source：http://www.celebrities-with-diseases.com/celebrities/padma-lakshmi%E2%80%99s-struggle-with-endometriosis-4558.html
Padma Lakshmi’s struggle with endometriosis
Published: April 10, 2010
Padma Lakshmi is an accomplished actress, author, jewelery designer and TV presenter. She is also a chronic sufferer of endometriosis – a condition whereby cells lining the womb grow outside of it potentially causing severe abdominal pain and fertility problems.

source:  http://artofmanliness.com/2008/06/24/gentlemans-guide-how-much-should-tip/

A gentleman knows when and how to tip those who serve him. The unmannered and uncouth do not. Tipping an individual, while not mandatory, should always be done. The only occasion you should not leave a tip is if the service was completely horrendous and the person providing the service made no attempt to remedy the situation. When tipping, you should do so discreetly. Showing off how much you tip does not impress people, but only shows you are a shallow cad. Nonetheless, gray areas in regards to tipping often exist. So read on gents, as The Art of Manliness answers all your tipping questions.

Why Tip?

The difference between regular jobs and many jobs that require tips is that they are service jobs, and they are called service jobs because they are directly serving you. They personally and intimately affect you. You do not need to always tip people like tow truck drivers or baristas, and you do not have to tip people for doing their job per se. But you might think about tipping people for the following reasons:

1) If the person went above and beyond regular service. It is just a way of showing gratitude for a job well done and going the extra mile. Some people say, “Why do I have to tip people for doing their job?” To them I respond, “Does the company you work for give bonuses after a project is completed successfully?” And what is a bonus if not just a very large tip? When bonuses are offered, people do not generally say “There is no need to give me a bonus. I was just doing my job.”