As Ginni Bazlinton reached Antarctica, she found herself greeted by a group of little Gentoo penguins（企鹅）longing to say hello. These gentle, lovely gatekeepers welcomed her and kick-started what was to be a trip Ginni would never forget.
Ever since her childhood, Ginni, now 71, has had a deep love for travel. Throughout her career（职业）as a professional dancer, she toured in the UK, but always longed to explore further When she retired from dancing and her sons eventually flew the nest, she decided it was time to take the plunge.
After taking a degree at Chichester University in Related Arts, Ginni began to travel the world, eventually getting work teaching English in Japan and Chile. And it was in Chile she discovered she could get last-minute cheap deals on ships going to Antarctica from the islands off Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost tip of the South American mainland. "I just decided wanted to go," she says. "I had no idea about what I'd find there and I wasn't nervous, I just wanted to do it. And I wanted to do it alone as I always prefer it that way."
In March 2008, Ginni boarded a ship with 48 passengers she'd never met before, to begin the journey towards Antarctica. "From seeing the wildlife to witnessing sunrises, the whole experience was amazing. Antarctica left an impression on me that no other place has," Ginni says. "I remember the first time I saw a humpback whale; it just rose out of the water like some prehistoric creature and I thought it was smiling at us. You could still hear the operatic sounds it was making underwater."
The realization that this is a precious land, to be respected by humans, was one of the biggest things that hit home to Ginni.
Chuvina was 56 when she discovered knife throwing in 2007. She'd done a simple job in the coat check section of the local factory. One day, two young men discussed the possibility of opening a knife throwing club there. It was the first time that Chuvina had heard of knife throwing, so she desired to have a try and signed up for training. Just a month and a half later, she learned that her hometown would host a knife throwing competition. She signed up and shocked the audience by winning first place.
Her victory inspired many people, but there were also those who simply called it beginner's luck. Chuvina silenced the latter at the 2007 National Knife Throwing Championship in Moscow, where she beat the best knife throwers in the country. Her first prize had been a new heater, but for her win at the nationals, she received a mobile phone and an air mattress. These motivated her to participate in more competitions.
In 2008, Chuvina competed in the World Knife Throwing Championship, against 36 of the world's best knife throwers. She was the oldest player, but she won once again, becoming number one knife thrower all over the world.
Throughout her amazing career, Chuvina won 5 national championships, as well as 50 medals and titles. She was considered as a national treasure, getting much attention from the press, giving interviews and making appearances on television shows.
Student from Taiwan played a key role in safeguarding his community in Beijing during pandemic outbreak and is working to establish closer ties between young people across the Straits.
Chen Wencheng from Taiwan, a postdoctoral student at Peking University, had been doing volunteer work in his neighborhood since Spring Festival. This was the first Lunar New Year holiday he didn't celebrate in his hometown of Zhanghua, Taiwan, during his nine-year stay in Beijing.
Chen, 31, from the university's department of philosophy and religious studies, chose to stay in Beijing's Haidian District with his pregnant wife, who gave birth to their daughter last month. After the COVID- 19 outbreak hit Beijing in late January, he soon applied to be a community volunteer to help with pandemic prevention and control.
He started work on the day he signed as a volunteer on Feb4, with his duties including such tasks as checking passes and the temperature of people entering the community or delivering food and other necessities to his neighbors in self-quarantine.
The buildings in the community have five floors with no elevators. Chen sometimes had dozens of deliveries each day, including big rice bags and barrels of cooking oil, among other daily supplies.
"Those were heavy, and that's why the community needed us younger people to help, "Chen says.
"The volunteer job looks like petty work, but it matters as it enhances the safety of the more than 2, 000 residents in our community, "Chen says. "The work also allowed me to get to know more of my neighbors, which makes the whole community feel like a big family. "
Growing up in rural Jiangsu Province, Yu Jigao showed a strong interest in fine arts at an early age and studied on his own for years. His hard work paid off later. In the early 1950s, he made his way to Nanjing Normal University, where he learned painting theories and techniques from some famous artists. It was then that Yu found his lifelong artistic zeal for gongbi. Gongbi paintings usually describe birds and flowers, symbols of beauty and joy, in an artistic way with intense color.
After graduation from the art school in 1957, Yu began his professional career at the Chinese Painting Institute of Jiangsu. He has since published a series of art collections. Since 1959, Yu has contributed a series of works to many important sites. Yu's works have also been displayed in a range of national and international exhibitions. From 1986 to 1997, he held his exhibitions in such places as Beijing, Guangzhou and New York. Both the themes and artistic techniques have won widespread praise in the past years.
While observing traditional rules, he uses accurate lines, powerful brush movements as well as the interplay between dark and light to represent the harmony of nature. Though he adopts a realistic style, he tries to enrich his works with spiritual beauty through his brush. Yu says, "That feeling turns into the images of singing birds and elegant flowers in my paintings." Thanks to his careful observation of nature and artistic sensitivity, Yu is able to combine realistic description with artistic expression in his brushwork.
Now as deputy director of the Academy of Chinese Gongbi Painting of Flowers and Birds and a national top-level artist, Yu maintains a simple and easy-going style. In addition to artistic creation, Yu has devoted himself to promoting his painting style as the cultural heritage of China. "Art is part of my life," Yu says. "I am proud to be a flower-bird painter. I hope to create a bright future for it through my efforts."
If you tried to give rock 'n' roll another name, you might have called it Chuck Berry.
Chuck Berry was 29 years old in 1955. He'd been playing mostly blues and R&. B standards in a St. Louis club for several years. But he had started writing his own songs, combining elements of white country music. On a Friday night in May, 1955, he drove up to Chicago to catch a show by the blues great Muddy Waters. After the performance, he casually asked him," How do you get in touch with a record company?"
"Why don't you go and see Leonard Chess on 47th?"Muddy Waters replied.
So early Monday morning, Berry went to Chess Records and positioned himself in a store across the street. When Leonard Chess arrived, Berry ran over and made a pitch. Chess was impressed by the young man's self-confidence and told him to comeback with a tape of his own material.
Berry returned the following week, bringing with him the other members of the club and four new songs. "And we set the band up, and we played all four of them, " Berry said. "We don't know what they were saying, but they listened."
Berry thought they were listening to "Wee Wee Hours", a blues song. After all, Chess Records was known around Chicago as a blues label（商标）. But Leonard Chess was fascinated by "Ida Mae" that Berry had adapted from a traditional country tune called" Ida Red".
Chess was sure the new song could be a hit，but he didn't like the name. It was too rural（土气的）. But nobody could think of a name. They looked around and saw a shoe box with Maybellene printed on it. Leonard Chess said," Why don't we name it' Maybellene'?"
"Maybellene" quickly rose to No. 1 on the R&. B chart. Two weeks later, it hit No. 5 on the all-important pop chart.
In the years following" Maybellene", Chuck Berry produced an astonishing string of hits, such as "Roll Over Beethoven"" School Days" and" Sweet Little Sixteen".
In 1972, Chuck Berry finally scored a number-one hit on the pop chart with an even more rural name:" My Ding-A-Ling".
Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and Anna Maria Chavez, chief of American Girl Scouts, are leading a campaign to discourage the use of the word "bossy". Does the term destroy the confidence of young girls?
The campaign claims that terms like "bossy" are improperly applied to females, preventing schoolgirls from seeing themselves as future "leaders". From its first application, the word has been definitely connected more with women than with men. It first appeared in 1882, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, mentioning "a lady manager who was extremely bossy". As late as 2008, the word appeared in reference to females four times more often than males, claim the Ban Bossy campaigners. "To me, the reference is always in association with women," says Helen Trim, director of Fresh Minds. "I have three brothers and my family still call me 'bossy' today." Her father is the only other family member who could be considered in that way, says Trim, but nobody would ever call him so.
Some educators recommend that the word should be reclaimed, rather than banned. "But the thing with 'bossy' is that there's an infantile (幼稚的) element to it", says Sara Mills, professor at Sheffield University. "You think of 'bossy' as being like a little kid who's claiming more than he has the right to claim."
It's not just "bossy" under fire. "Pushy" is another target. The implication is that women shouldn't present themselves as powerful and confident, Mills suggests, which some women are willing to listen to and accept. Trim points out that many modern female business role models are able to be bosses without being labeled "bossy". And she rarely, if ever, hears the word used within her company. But she says that the damage may be done much earlier in a woman's life. "It does come about from those early teenage years." she says. "I think it's impossible to ban a word, but if people are replacing it with words like 'confidence' or 'assertiveness', we would all be in a much better place."
Have you ever heard about Alice Moore? She is a teenager entrepreneur (创业者), who in May 2015 set up her business AilieCandy. By the time she was 13, her company was worth millions of dollars with the invention of a super-sweet treat that could save kids' teeth, instead of destroying them.
It all began when Moore visited a bank with her dad. On the outing, she was offered a candy bar. However, her dad reminded her that sugary treats were bad for her teeth. But Moore was sick of missing out on candies. So she desired to get round the warning, "Why can't I make a healthy candy that's good for my teeth so that my parents can't say no to it?" With that in mind, Moore asked her dad if she could start her own candy company. He recommended that she do some research and talk to dentists about what a healthier candy would contain.
With her dad's permission, she spent the next two years researching online and conducting trials to get a recipe that was both tasty and tooth-friendly. She also approached dentists to learn more about teeth cleaning. Consequently, she succeeded in making a kind of candy only using natural sweeteners, which can reduce oral bacteria.
Moore then used her savings to get her business off the ground. Afterwards, she and her father their first business meeting with a supermarket owner, who finally agreed to sell Moore's product - CanCandy.
As CanCandy's success grows, so does Moore's credibility as a young entrepreneur. Moore is enthusiastic about the candy she created, and she's also positive about what the future might bring. She hopes that every kid can have a clean mouth and a broad smile.
Meanwhile, with her parents, help, Moore is generally able to live a normal teenage life. Although she founded her company early on in life, she wasn't driven primarily by profit Moore wants to use her unique talent to help others find their smiles. She donates 10% of AilieCandy's profits to Big Smiles. With her talent and determination, it appears that the sky could be the limit for Alice Moore.
After 195 countries in two years, one traveler has become the first black woman to visit every country in the world. Jessica Nabongo ended her journey in the Seychelles, off the coast of East Africa—just as she said she would be on "Good Morning, America" back in March. Friends and family joined her in the Seychelles to celebrate the incredible achievement.
Nabongo was born and raised in Detroit by Ugandan-immigrant parents. She has been traveling internationally since she was four. In addition to her U. S. passport, Nabongo carries a Ugandan passport, which helped her gain access to different nations around the world.
The idea to visit every country on earth came to her in February 2017. At that point, she had visited about 60 countries. But Nahango didn't tell anyone her plan, at least not at first. Nabango did some research and discovered that she could become the first black woman to visit every country. "I didn't want anyone to beat me to it," she said.
Nabongo had been writing a travel blog since 2009, before social media was so , as a way to keep family and friends updated. Today, she documents much of her travel on Instagram, where she has almost 200, 000 followers who have watched her journey around the world.
What makes it to her Instagram is just a part of her life. There's a lot that goes on behind the scenes. Seasoned traveler as she was, she got ripped off (被敲诈) during her journey when exchanging her money for the local currency. More often than not, though, people tried to be helpful, especially when Nahongo would tell them what she was trying to accomplish.
Through her travels, Nabongo broke down barriers about many countries, particularly those that people are afraid to visit, and highlighted (突出) the countries that are often unseen and overlooked.
Rollins College's graduate, Elizabeth Bonker gave a powerful speech at the school's graduation ceremony using text-to-speech technology. "You have a voice. Use it," she advised graduates. It seems funny that a non-speaking autistic (孤独症患者)encourages you to use your voice. However, her moving speech touched not only her fellow classmates but also the worldwide audience with a powerful message of hope.
Throughout her academic career, Elizabeth has studied hard to reach her goals at school and in life. She wrote a book, I Am in Here, which highlights the abilities of people like her with non-speaking autism. She also founded a non-profit organization called Communication4 All.
Elizabeth has a form of autism that resulted in her losing the ability to speak when she was 15 months old. After she lost her speech her family helped her learn to communicate by typing. She has become a supporter of assistive communication and typing instruction for those with non-speaking autism.
"I have typed this speech with one finger with a communication partner holding a keyboard, "shared Elizabeth. She gave her persuasive speech through text-to-speech technology.
Elizabeth majored in social service with the purpose of helping the 31 million people in the world who have non-speaking autism. She strongly believes that service to others gives meaning to each individual and to those they serve.
Throughout her life, Elizabeth has sought a platform where others would hear and accept her. She ignored negative comments and the low expectations others had for her life. Instead, she walked down her own path and set out to realize her dreams using intellect, talent and determination. She encouraged her fellow classmates to use their education and the power of their own minds to help make their dream a reality.
Douglas Smith, n gardener from Hertfordshire. the U.K., recently set a new Guinness World Record for the most tomatoes grown on a single stem (茎), 1,269.
Up until last summer, the record for the most tomatoes grown on a single stem had stood unchallenged for over a decade. Then English farmer Douglas Smith set his sight on breaking it, thinking that he could grow more than 488 fruits on s single stem. He proved that last year, when he managed to break the old record by growing 839 tomatoes on a greenhouse -grown plant. It was quite an achievement, but he was only getting started, as only a few weeks later Douglas Smith broke his own record by growing no less than 1,269 tomatoes on a single stem.
Is Douglas Smith a gardening addict? He spends up to four hours a day in his back garden tending his plants, and has been working hard on becoming the best possible gardener the world has ever seen. To maximize his chances of setting a new world record. he read various scientific papers and even took soil samples to be tested in a laboratory. And in the end, they all paid off.
"I am over the moon," Douglas said. "This year was only meant to be an experimental year to see which varieties would produce the most fruits and we had to fight with early blight (疫病), which put paid to a number of other tomato plants. I'm amazed by how many tomatoes were on the plant in the end."
Growing 1,269 tomatoes on a single stem is only Douglas Smith's latest achievement. In 2020, he grew a 20-foot-tall sunflower, and also set a new national record for the heaviest tomato, with a 3.106 kg tomato. He likes to run little experiments on other vegetables and crops, and he is currently experimenting on peas, aubergines and potatoes.
