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clean my room
Quiz by Joan Moncada
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DOT+DASH,LESSON 27,I CLEAN MY ROOM
______ you ______ (see) Anna yesterday?
I ______ (not eat) breakfast this morning.
______ he ______ (go) to work on Sunday?
They ______ (not play) football last weekend.
______ your parents ______ (travel) to Spain last summer?
We ______ (not watch) that film.
______ it ______ (rain) yesterday?
She ______ (not study) for the exam.
______ you ______ (like) the new restaurant?
He ______ (not come) to the meeting.
______ you ______ (finish) your homework yesterday?
We ______ (not visit) our cousins last week.
______ she ______ (call) you in the morning?
He ______ (not stop) at the red light.
______ they ______ (arrive) on time?
I ______ (not clean) my room yesterday.
______ your teacher ______ (explain) the lesson again?
She ______ (not understand) the question.
______ Tom ______ (help) you with your project?
They ______ (not stay) at the hotel.
✅ Answers:
Did you finish your homework yesterday?
We didn’t visit our cousins last week.
Did she call you in the morning?
He didn’t stop at the red light.
Did they arrive on time?
I didn’t clean my room yesterday.
Did your teacher explain the lesson again?
She didn’t understand the question.
Did Tom help you with your project?
They didn’t stay at the hotel.
🧠 დამატებითი სავარჯიშო
ინსტრუქცია: გადააკეთე წინადადებები Past Simple-ის კითხვით და უარყოფით ფორმებად.
(Rewrite the sentences in question and negative form.)
მაგალითი:
She watched a movie last night.
➡ Question: Did she watch a movie l
Create this questions into quiz: 1. Yesterday I ………………..(buy) a shirt and cargo trousers. 2. Ethan and Noa……………………(already/wait) for an hour before the bus arrived. 3. My parents……………….………(paint) the kitchen the whole morning. 4. It……………..(rain) very often in London 5. My brother………………….(clean) his room at the moment. 6. What…………………….…….(you/do) yesterday at 7 in the evening? 7. While my husband…………………..(cook) I ………..…………..(watch) TV. 8. She………………………….(not/study) for the exam yet. 9. I want you.……….………….(hand in) this assignment before Friday. 10. Students enjoy…………………(play) vocabulary games in class. 11. Can you afford………………..(buy) this expensive car? 12. We are looking forward to………………….(hear) from you.
Translator: Joseph Geni Reviewer: Morton Bast Before March, 2011, I was a photographic retoucher based in New York City. We're pale, gray creatures. We hide in dark, windowless rooms, and generally avoid sunlight. We make skinny models skinnier, perfect skin more perfect, and the impossible possible, and we get criticized in the press all the time, but some of us are actually talented artists with years of experience and a real appreciation for images and photography. On March 11, 2011, I watched from home, as the rest of the world did, as the tragic events unfolded in Japan. Soon after, an organization I volunteer with, All Hands Volunteers, were on the ground, within days, working as part of the response efforts. I, along with hundreds of other volunteers, knew we couldn't just sit at home, so I decided to join them for three weeks. On May the 13th, I made my way to the town of Ōfunato. It's a small fishing town in Iwate Prefecture, about 50,000 people, one of the first that was hit by the wave. The waters here have been recorded at reaching over 24 meters in height, and traveled over two miles inland. As you can imagine, the town had been devastated. We pulled debris from canals and ditches. We cleaned schools. We de-mudded and gutted homes ready for renovation and rehabilitation. We cleared tons and tons of stinking, rotting fish carcasses from the local fish processing plant. We got dirty, and we loved it. For weeks, all the volunteers and locals alike had been finding similar things. They'd been finding photos and photo albums and cameras and SD cards. And everyone was doing the same. They were collecting them up, and handing them in to various places around the different towns for safekeeping. Now, it wasn't until this point that I realized that these photos were such a huge part of the personal loss these people had felt. As they had run from the wave, and for their lives, absolutely everything they had, everything had to be left behind. At the end of my first week there, I found myself helping out in an evacuation center in the town. I was helping clean the onsen, the communal onsen, the huge giant bathtubs. This happened to also be a place in the town where the evacuation center was collecting the photos. This is where people were handing them in, and I was honored that day that they actually trusted me to help them start hand-cleaning them. Now, it was emotional and it was inspiring, and I've always heard about thinking outside the box, but it wasn't until I had actually gotten outside of my box that something happened. As I looked through the photos, there were some were over a hundred years old, some still in the envelope from the processing lab, I couldn't help but think as a retoucher that I could fix that tear and mend that scratch, and I knew hundreds of people who could do the same. So that evening, I just reached out on Facebook and asked a few of them, and by morning the response had been so overwhelming and so positive, I knew we had to give it a go. So we started retouching photos. This was the very first. Not terribly damaged, but where the water had caused that discoloration on the girl's face had to be repaired with such accuracy and delicacy. Otherwise, that little girl isn't going to look like that little girl anymore, and surely that's as tragic as having the photo damaged. (Applause) Over time, more photos came in, thankfully, and more retouchers were needed, and so I reached out again on Facebook and LinkedIn, and within five days, 80 people wanted to help from 12 different countries. Within two weeks, I had 150 people wanting to join in. Within Japan, by July, we'd branched out to the neighboring town of Rikuzentakata, further north to a town called Yamada. Once a week, we would set up our scanning equipment in the temporary photo libraries that had been set up, where people were reclaiming their photos. The older ladies sometimes hadn't seen a scanner before, but within 10 minutes of them finding their lost photo, they could give it to us, have it scanned, uploaded to a cloud server, it would be downloaded by a gaijin, a stranger, somewhere on the other side of the globe, and it'd start being fixed. The time it took, however, to get it back is a completely different story, and it depended obviously on the damage involved. It could take an hour. It could take weeks. It could take months. The kimono in this shot pretty much had to be hand-drawn, or pieced together, picking out the remaining parts of color and detail that the water hadn't damaged. It was very time-consuming. Now, all these photos had been damaged by water, submerged in salt water, covered in bacteria, in sewage, sometimes even in oil, all of which over time is going to continue to damage them, so hand-cleaning them was a huge part of the project. We couldn't retouch the photo unless it was cleaned, dry and reclaimed. Now, we were lucky with our hand-cleaning. We had an amazing local woman who guided us. It's very easy to do more damage to those damaged photos. As my team leader Wynne once said, it's like doing a tattoo on someone. You don't get a chance to mess it up. The lady who brought us these photos was lucky, as far as the photos go. She had started hand-cleaning them herself and stopped when she realized she was doing more damage. She also had duplicates. Areas like her husband and her face, which otherwise would have been completely impossible to fix, we could just put them together in one good photo, and remake the whole photo. When she collected the photos from us, she shared a bit of her story with us. Her photos were found by her husband's colleagues at a local fire department in the debris a long way from where the home had once stood, and they'd recognized him. The day of the tsunami, he'd actually been in charge of making sure the tsunami gates were closed. He had to go towards the water as the sirens sounded. Her two little boys, not so little anymore, but her two boys were both at school, separate schools. One of them got caught up in the water. It took her a week to find them all again and find out that they had all survived. The day I gave her the photos also happened to be her youngest son's 14th birthday. For her, despite all of this, those photos were the perfect gift back to him, something he could look at again, something he remembered from before that wasn't still scarred from that day in March when absolutely everything else in his life had changed or been destroyed. After six months in Japan, 1,100 volunteers had passed through All Hands, hundreds of whom had helped us hand-clean over 135,000 photographs, the large majority — (Applause) — a large majority of which did actually find their home again, importantly. Over five hundred volunteers around the globe helped us get 90 families hundreds of photographs back, fully restored and retouched. During this time, we hadn't really spent more than about a thousand dollars in equipment and materials, most of which was printer inks. We take photos constantly. A photo is a reminder of someone or something, a place, a relationship, a loved one. They're our memory-keepers and our histories, the last thing we would grab and the first thing you'd go back to look for. That's all this project was about, about restoring those little bits of humanity, giving someone that connection back. When a photo like this can be returned to someone like this, it makes a huge difference in the lives of the person receiving it. The project's also made a big difference in the lives of the retouchers. For some of them, it's given them a connection to something bigger, giving something back, using their talents on something other than skinny models and perfect skin. I would like to conclude by reading an email I got from one of them, Cindy, the day I finally got back from Japan after six months. "As I worked, I couldn't help but think about the individuals and the stories represented in the images. One in particular, a photo of women of all ages, from grandmother to little girl, gathered around a baby, struck a chord, because a similar photo from my family, my grandmother and mother, myself, and newborn daughter, hangs on our wall. Across the globe, throughout the ages, our basic needs are just the same, aren't they?" Thank you. (Applause) (Applause)
好的,根據您提供的表格 [NEW SOURCE],以下是表格中例句的中文意思: * **1. all** * **全部的**:**All** my friends were here with me. (我所有的朋友當時都在這裡。) * **全部**:**All** of us enjoyed the movie. (我們所有人都很喜歡這部電影。) * **都**:He got **all** wet. (他全身都濕透了。) * **2. along** * **沿著**:We walked **along** the river yesterday evening. (我們昨天傍晚沿著河邊散步。) * **帶……一起**:When my mother goes out, she takes my little brother **along**. (我媽媽外出時,會帶著我的小弟弟一起去。) * **3. angle** * **觀點**:We should look at the problems from different **angles**. (我們應該從不同的觀點來看待這些問題。) * **角度**:The picture is hanging at an **angle** of 45°. (這張畫以 45 度的角度懸掛著。) * **4. answer** * **答案**:Do you know the **answer** to the question? (你知道這個問題的答案嗎?) * **回答;回應**:Could you **answer** the phone for me? (你可以幫我接一下電話嗎?) * **5. back** * **後面**:She wrote her cellphone number down on the **back** of the paper. (她把她的手機號碼寫在紙的背面。) * **後面的**:Open the **back** door, please. (請打開後面的門。) * **回原處**:It’s time to go **back** home. (該回家了。) * **6. bat** * **蝙蝠**:Did you ever see a **bat** flying quickly in the sky at night? (你曾經看過蝙蝠在夜空中快速飛行嗎?) * **球棒**:Swing the **bat** higher. (把球棒揮高一點。) * **擊**:It’s your turn to **bat**. (輪到你打擊了。) * **7. bite** * **一口的量**:Jane took a **bite** of the guava. (珍咬了一口芭樂。) * **咬**:The dog **bit** the woman’s leg. (那隻狗咬了那個女人的腿。) * **8. book** * **書**:I’ve just started reading a **book** by Stephen King. (我剛開始讀一本史蒂芬·金的書。) * **預訂;預約**:They **booked** two seats at the theater. (他們在劇院預訂了兩個座位。) * **9. block** * **街區**:Nancy and I live on the same **block**. (南希和我住在同一個街區。) * **阻擋**:Those heavy boxes **blocked** my way to the restroom. (那些沉重的箱子擋住了我去洗手間的路。) * **10. bow** * **蝴蝶結**:David chose a gray **bow** tie to go with his black suit. (大衛選擇了一個灰色蝴蝶領結來搭配他的黑色西裝。) * **鞠躬**:The actor **bowed** to everyone before he left the stage. (那位演員在離開舞台前向大家鞠躬。) * **11. break** * **暫停;休息**:I’m tired. Can we take a **break**? (我累了。我們可以休息一下嗎?) * **分解**:These plastic forks are hard to **break** down. (這些塑膠叉子很難分解。) * **打破**:The glass is very expensive. Don’t **break** it. (這個玻璃很貴。不要打破它。) * **12. bright** * **晴朗的**:It’s a **bright** morning. Why not take a walk along the river? (這是個晴朗的早晨。何不沿著河邊散步呢?) * **明亮的**:The room isn’t **bright** enough. Let’s not read here. (這個房間不夠明亮。我們不要在這裡閱讀。) * **13. call** * **打電話**:I got a **call** from my old friend last night. (我昨晚接到我老朋友的電話。) * **打電話**:Tina **called** me last night. We talked a lot about music. (蒂娜昨晚打電話給我。我們聊了很多關於音樂的事。) * **呼喊**:Listen! Is that a **call** for help? (聽!那是求救的呼喊嗎?) * **呼喊**:Why did you **call** my name then? (那你當時為什麼喊我的名字?) * **14. camp** * **營隊**:Patrick joined a science **camp** this summer. (派屈克今年夏天參加了一個科學營隊。) * **露營**:They **camped** by the river yesterday. (他們昨天在河邊露營。) * **15. case** * **箱;盒**:The kids drank the whole **case** of Coke. (孩子們喝掉了一整箱可樂。) * **實例;情況**:The number of new **cases** of Covid-19 is growing. (新冠肺炎的新增病例數正在增加。) * **16. catch** * **接球**:Nice **catch**! My good dog. (接得好!我的好狗狗。) * **罹患(病)**:My head hurts. I may **catch** a cold. (我頭痛。我可能感冒了。) * **抓住**:I didn’t **catch** the ball. (我沒有接到那個球。) * **17. change** * **零錢;找零**:I think you’ve given me the wrong **change**. (我想你找錯錢了。) * **改變;交換**:The leaves **change** (in color) from green to red in the fall. (秋天時,樹葉的顏色從綠色變成紅色。) * **18. clean** * **打掃;清理**:Tom **cleans** the toilet once a week. (湯姆一週打掃一次馬桶。) * **乾淨的**:The water isn’t **clean**. Don’t drink it. (這水不乾淨。不要喝。) * **19. close** * **關;闔**:**Close** your books, students. Let’s have a pop quiz. (同學們,把你們的書闔上。我們要進行隨堂測驗。) * **靠近地**:Jane sat **close** to her husband at the party. (在派對上,珍緊挨著她的丈夫坐著。) * **20. cold** * **感冒**:I had a **cold** a week ago. (我一個星期前感冒了。) * **寒冷的**:It was **cold** last night. (昨晚很冷。)
A BAD CASE OF THE STRIPES By David Shannon Parts(18): Camilla Narrator 1 Narrator 2 Narrator 3 Narrator 4 Mr. Harms Mother Father Dr. Bumble Old Woman Environmental Therapist Dr. Grop Dr. Gourd Dr. Sponge Mr. Mellon Dr. Cricket Dr. Young <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Narrator 1: A BAD CASE OF THE STRIPES By David Shannon Narrator 2: Camilla Cream loved lima beans. But she never ate them. Narrator 3: All of her friends hated lima beans, and she wanted to fit in. Camilla always worried about what other people thought of her. Narrator 4: Today she was fretting even more than usual. It was the very first day of school, and she couldn't decide what to wear. There were so many people to impress! Narrator 1: She tried on forty-two outfits, but none seemed quite right. She put on a pretty red dress and looked in the mirror. Then she screamed. Narrator 2: Her mother ran into the room, and she screamed, too. Mother: "Oh my heavens! You're completely covered with stripes!" Narrator 3: she cried. This was certainly true. Camilla was striped from head to toe. She looked like a rainbow. Narrator 4: Mrs. Cream felt Camilla's forehead. Mother: "Do you feel all right?" Narrator 1: she asked. Camilla: "I feel fine, but just look at me!" Narrator 2: Camilla answered. Mother: "You get back in bed this instant. You're not going to school today." Narrator 3: her mother ordered. Camilla was relieved. She didn't want to miss the first day of school, but she was afraid of what the other kids would say. And she had no idea what to wear with those crazy stripes. Narrator 4: That afternoon, Dr. Bumble came to examine Camilla. Dr. Bumble: "Most extraordinary! I've never seen anything like it! Are you having any coughing, sneezing, runny nose, aches, pains, chills, hot flashes, dizziness, drowsiness, shortness of breath, or uncontrollable twitching?" Narrator 1: he asked. Camilla: "No, I feel fine." Narrator 2: Camilla told him. Dr. Bumble: "Well then, I don't see any reason why she shouldn't go to school tomorrow. Here's some ointment that should help clear up those stripes in a few days. If it doesn't, you know where to reach me." Narrator 3: Dr. Bumble said, turning to Mrs. Cream. And off he went. Narrator 4: The next day was a disaster. Everyone at school laughed at Camilla. They called her "Camilla Crayon" and "Night of the Living Lollipop." Narrator 1: She tried her best to act as if everything were normal, but when the class said the Pledge of Allegiance, her stripes turned red, white, and blue, and she broke out in stars! Narrator 2: The other kids thought this was great. One yelled out, Narrator 3: "Let's see some purple polka dots!" Narrator 4: Sure enough, Camilla turned all purple polka-dotty. Someone else shouted, Narrator 1: "Checkerboard!" Narrator 4: and a pattern of squares covered her skin. Soon everyone was calling out different shapes and colors, and poor Camilla was changing faster than you can change channels on a T.V. Narrator 2: That night, Mr. Harms, the school principal, called. Mr. Harms: "I'm sorry, Mrs. Cream, I'm going to have to ask you to keep Camilla home from school. She's just too much of a distraction, and I've been getting phone calls from the other parents. They're afraid those stripes may be contagious." Narrator 3: he said. Camilla was so embarrassed. She couldn't believe that two days ago everyone liked her. Now, nobody wanted to be in the same room with her. Narrator 1: Her father tried to make her feel better. Father: "Is there anything I can get you, sweetheart?" Narrator 2: he asked. Camilla: "No, thank you," Narrator 3: sighed Camilla. What she really wanted was a nice plate of lima beans, but she had been laughed at enough for one day. Dr. Bumble: "Hmm, well, yes, I see. I think I'd better bring in the Specialists. We'll be right over.” Narrator 4: said Dr. Bumble to Mr. Cream on the phone. About an hour later, Dr. Bumble arrived with four people in long white coats. He introduced them to the Creams. Dr. Bumble: "This is Dr. Grop, Dr. Sponge, Dr. Cricket, and Dr. Young." Narrator 1: Then the Specialists went to work on Camilla. They squeezed and jabbed, tapped and tested. It was very uncomfortable. Dr. Grop: "Well, it's not the mumps." Dr. Sponge: "Or the measles." Dr. Cricket:"Definitely not chicken pox." Dr. Young: "Or sunburn." Narrator 2: replied the Specialists. Specialists:"Try these. Take one of each before bed." Narrator 4: said the specialists. They each handed her a bottle filled with different colored pills. Then they filed out the front door followed by Dr. Bumble. Narrator 1: That night, Camilla took her medicine. It was awful. Narrator 2: When she woke up the next morning, she did feel different, but when she got dressed, her clothes didn't fit right. She looked in the mirror, and there, staring back at her, was a giant, multi-colored pill with a face on it. Narrator 3: Dr. Bumble rushed over as soon as Mrs. Cream called. But this time, instead of the Specialists, he brought the Experts. Narrator 4: Dr. Gourd and Mr. Mellon were the finest scientific minds in the land. Once again, Camilla was poked and prodded, looked at and listened to. Narrator 1: The Experts wrote down lots of numbers. Then they huddled together and whispered. Dr. Gourd finally spoke. Dr. Gourd: "It might be a virus," Narrator 2: he announced with authority. Suddenly, fuzzy little virus balls appeared all over Camilla. Mr. Mellon: "Or possibly some form of bacteria," Narrator 3: said Mr. Mellon. Out popped squiggly little bacteria tails. Dr. Gourd: "Or it could be a fungus," Narrator 4: added Dr. Gourd. Instantly, Camilla was covered with different colored fungus blotches. The experts looked at Camilla, then each other. Experts: "We need to go over these numbers again back at the lab. We’ll call you when we know something," Narrator 1: said the Experts. But the Experts didn't have a clue, much less a cure. Narrator 2: By now, the T.V. news had found out about Camilla. Reporters from every channel were outside her house, telling the story of "The Bizarre Case of the Incredible Changing Kid." Narrator 3: Soon a huge crowd was camped out on the front lawn. Narrator 4: The Creams were swamped with all kinds of remedies from psychologists, allergists, herbalists, nutritionists, psychics, an old medicine man, a guru, and even a veterinarian. Narrator 1: Each so-called cure only added to poor Camilla's strange appearance until it was hard to even recognize her. She sprouted roots and berries and crystals and feathers and a long furry tail. But nothing worked. Narrator 2: One day, a woman who called herself an Environmental Therapist claimed she could cure Camilla. She said, Environmental Therapist: "Close your eyes, breathe deeply, and become one with your room." Camilla: "I wish you hadn't said that," Narrator 3: Camilla groaned. Slowly, she started to melt into the walls of her room. Her bed became her mouth, her nose was a dresser, and two paintings were her eyes. The therapist screamed and ran from the house. Mother: "What are we going to do? It just keeps getting worse and worse!" Narrator 4: cried Mrs. Cream. She began to sob. Narrator 1: At that moment, Mr. Cream heard a quiet little knock at the front door. He opened it, and there stood an old woman who was just as plump and sweet as a strawberry. Old Woman: "Excuse me, but I think I can help." Narrator 2: she said brightly. Narrator 3: She went into Camilla's room and looked around. Old Woman: "My goodness, what we have here is a bad case of the stripes. One of the worst I've ever seen!" Narrator 4: she said with a shake of her head. She pulled a container of small green beans from her bag. She said, Old Woman: "Here. These might do the trick." Mother: "Are those magic beans?" Narrator 1: asked Mrs. Cream. The old woman replied, Old Woman: "Oh my, no, there's no such thing. These are just plain old lima beans. I'll bet you'd like some, wouldn't you?" Narrator 2: she asked Camilla. Camilla wanted a big, heaping plateful of lima beans more than just about anything, but she was still afraid to admit it. She said, Camilla: "Yuck! No one likes lima beans, especially me!" Old Woman: "Oh, dear, I guess I was wrong about you." Narrator 3: said the old woman sadly. She put the beans back in her bag and started toward the door. Narrator 4: Camilla watched the old woman walk away. Those beans would taste so good. And being laughed at for eating them was nothing, compared to what she'd been going through. She finally couldn't stand it. Camilla: "Wait! The truth is...I really love lima beans." Narrator 1: she cried. The old woman smiled, popping a handful of beans into Camilla's mouth, and said, Old Woman: "I thought so." Camilla: "Mmmmmmm," Narrator 2: said Camilla. Suddenly the branches, feathers, and squiggly tails began to disappear.Then the whole room swirled around. When it stopped, there stood Camilla, and everything was back to normal. Camilla: "I'm cured!" Narrator 3: she shouted. The old woman said, Old Woman: "Yes, I knew the real you was in there somewhere." Narrator 4: She patted Camilla on the head and went outside and vanished into the crowd. Narrator 1: Afterward, Camilla wasn't quite the same. Narrator 2: Some of the kids at school said she was weird, but she didn't care a bit. Narrator 3: She ate all the lima beans she wanted, and she never had even a touch of stripes again.
Growing up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, a small city surrounded by endless plains, I've found unexpected echoes of home in China's smaller towns — from the warmth of locals in Huaihua, Central China's Hunan province, to the quiet charm of Yangshuo, South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. With an itch to see more of China's lesser-visited regions, I began planning a trip to the northwest with seven friends — five Americans, one Pakistani, one Zimbabwean, and one Colombian. We bought round-trip tickets from Shanghai to Yinchuan, Ningxia Hui autonomous region, for less than $120 each. From there, we planned to rent a car and drive to Xining in Qinghai, then on to Qinghai Lake, and finally to Lanzhou, Gansu. To make that possible, several of us applied for Chinese driver's licenses, a process that involved translating our US licenses into Mandarin and passing a short test on traffic laws. Within a day, we were licensed. As we piled into two rental cars in late March to begin our eight-day journey, it became clear that this wasn't just a road trip — it was the culmination of our four years in China, the Mandarin we had so diligently studied, and our ongoing effort to contribute to US-China people-to-people relations. Right away, we drew curious reactions. At the Yinchuan airport, taxi drivers offered us rides into the city, only to stare in astonishment when we told them we had rented cars. "You're driving? In China?" one driver asked, visibly surprised. It was a reaction we'd encountered multiple times during our trip, as foreign drivers are rare in China, especially in remote regions. In Yinchuan, we stocked up on snacks and adjusted to the chilly desert air. From there, we headed west, navigating wide highways framed by dramatic landscapes: arid plains, jagged mountains, and occasionally, a herd of sheep crossing the road. The vastness of the Northwest was humbling — and as someone who grew up on the wide-open prairies of South Dakota, it felt oddly familiar. One of the highlights of our trip was camping by Qinghai Lake, the largest saltwater lake in China. A few summers ago, Santiago Solano, one of my classmates from the US, cycled from Xi'an in Shaanxi to Urumqi in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region over the course of a month and met many kind strangers along the way. One of them was Geng San, a Tibetan lamb herder who managed a piece of land right next to Qinghai Lake and graciously invited us to camp there. "That's what China is — it's the people. The quiet generosity of an old Tibetan nomad who, years after we first met, still offered us a place to rest on his land," said Solano, who is also part of the group on this trip. But apparently, we underestimated just how cold it would be to camp next to Qinghai Lake in late March. It was deathly freezing. In preparation for the trip, we had ordered two tent kits and eight sleeping bags. However, when the temperature eventually dropped to — 10 C, all of us piled into the cars and turned the heaters on. So much for camping. From Qinghai Lake, we drove to Lanzhou, where we visited many food markets and tried every type of noodle on offer. Since we are college students, we rented a gaming hotel room — something I've only ever seen in China. At night, instead of attending local parties as we had before, we stayed in the hotel and gamed late into the morning. For me, the trip was as much about the journey as it was about the destinations. Driving through Northwest China gave us a unique perspective on the region's natural beauty and its people. At gas stations, shopkeepers greeted us with curiosity and kindness, often offering recommendations for nearby attractions. At roadside carts, we sampled local specialties, grabbing a quick skewer and a mango for the road. And at every stop, we were touched by the warmth and hospitality that make traveling in China so rewarding. As an American who has lived in China for several years, I'm often asked about my experiences here. Trips like this one remind me of the similarities between the two countries, despite their differences. Just as road trips are a quintessential part of American culture, they've become my favorite way to explore China. Whether it's driving through the rolling hills of South Dakota or the deserts of Ningxia, there's something universal about the freedom and camaraderie that come with having complete control over where you end up. Written by Charlie Howes, a 22-year-old American who has lived in China since 2019. He completed his final year of high school at Beijing No 80 High School and is currently studying at New York University Shanghai. He has founded a company in China focused on facilitating US-China trade and plans to continue living in Shanghai long term. He enjoys road trips, cycling around the world, learning languages, and meeting new people.
Going to the dentist I’m going to the dentist. I’m a little scared. A friendly woman named Jamie asks me to wait. She says I can read, play with toys, or watch a movie. After a few minutes, Dana calls my name. Dana is the dentist’s helper. Dana shows me around the office. She teaches me how to clean my teeth at home. Dana says she will make my teeth super clean. She shows me the tools she will use. Some of the tools look scary, but the cleaning doesn’t hurt. Next, Dana takes special pictures of my teeth. The dentist comes to check my teeth. She looks at the pictures of my teeth. The dentist says I need a filling. I will have to come back another day. I ask if getting the filling will hurt. The dentist says it won’t hurt much because it will be small. The dentist says it’s good we found the problem early. I’m not happy I need a filling, but I’m glad I went to the dentist!