The University of St Andrews is the oldest university in Scotland and third oldest in the English-speaking world, having been founded between 1410 and 1413. The University is situated in the town of St Andrews, in Fife, on the east coast of Scotland.
St Andrews is a member of the 1994 Group, a network of smaller research-intensive British universities. (more…)
The London School of Economics and Political Science, commonly referred to as the London School of Economics or LSE, is a specialist constituent college of the University of London in London, England.
Founded in 1895, the School joined the federal University in 1900 as the Faculty of Economics, beginning to issue its degrees from 1902. Today it remains a specialist single-faculty constituent college of the University, the only such institution in Britain. It describes itself as “the world’s leading social science institution for teaching and research”.
The School is a member of the Russell Group, the European University Association, Association of Commonwealth Universities, the Community of European Management Schools and International Companies, The Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs and Universities UK as well as the Golden Triangle of British Universities. (more…)
Imperial College London (officially The Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine as titled in its Royal Charter) is a British university in London specialising in science, engineering, medicine and business.
Imperial was placed 5th overall in the world in the 2009 THE – QS World University Rankings of universities worldwide, and 27th in the world by the Shanghai Jiao Tong Academic Ranking of World Universities.
Imperial College London is a member of the Russell Group of Universities, a part of the Golden Triangle, the IDEA League, the European University Association, AMBA, the Association of Commonwealth Universities, and the League of European Research Universities.
Imperial’s main campus is located in South Kensington in Central London, on the boundary between the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the City of Westminster (the Knightsbridge part), with its front entrance on Exhibition Road. Including Imperial’s other campuses, there is a total of 525,233 square metres (5,653,560 sq ft) of property which is the largest operational estate of any higher education institution in the UK.
Formerly a constituent college of the University of London, Imperial became independent of the university on 8 July 2007, the 100th anniversary of its founding. (more…)
The University of Oxford (informally Oxford University, or simply Oxford), located in the City of Oxford, Oxfordshire, Great Britain, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world.It is also regarded as one of the world’s leading academic institutions. The name is sometimes abbreviated as Oxon. in post-nominals (from the Latin Oxoniensis), although Oxf is sometimes used in official publications. The University has 38 independent colleges, and 6 permanent private halls.
The university traces its roots back to at least 1167, although the exact date of foundation remains unclear, and there is evidence of teaching there as far back as the 10th century. After a dispute between students and townsfolk broke out in 1209, some of the academics at Oxford fled north-east to the town of Cambridge, where the University of Cambridge was founded. The two universities (collectively known as ‘Oxbridge’) have since had a long history of competition with each other. (more…)
The University of Cambridge (often Cambridge University), located in Cambridge, England, is the fourth oldest university in the world. The name is sometimes abbreviated as Cantab. in post-nominals, a shortened form of Cantabrigiensis (an adjective derived from Cantabrigia, the Latinised form of Cambridge).
The University grew out of an association of scholars in the city of Cambridge that was formed, early records suggest, in 1209 by scholars leaving Oxford after a dispute with local townsfolk there. The universities of Oxford and Cambridge are often jointly referred to as “Oxbridge”. In addition to cultural and practical associations as a historic part of British society, the two universities also have a long history of rivalry with each other.
Academically, Cambridge is consistently ranked in the world’s top 5 universities. It has produced 83 Nobel Laureates to date, more than any other university in the world according to some counts. (more…)
很多年轻的学生或白领都会遭遇英语学习的瓶颈——在掌握大量必要的词汇量和语法之后，虽然能够流畅无碍的阅读大多数英文材料和文章，但是如果想自己用英文写一篇具有一定长度的文章时，经常会感到难以下笔，即使勉强完成也毫无亮点可言。有句诗是这样讲的：“书上得来终觉浅，绝知此事要躬行”，在技巧上虽然已经接近炉火纯青，然而限于自己的知识水平和文字历练，在不懂得如何高度结合语言和语境的情况下，将英语作为直接语言进行创作，难免会出现“提笔忘字”的现象。
学习英语应该遵循由简入繁、由易到难、由粗至细的原则，将其当作一个长期的生活方式来培养——而不是将其视为应试的一块敲门砖。作为表现工具的语言，随着掌握精度和水平的提高，其带来的乐趣会越来越强烈，当学习成为了生活习惯的一部分时，所吸取的便不是语言——而是知识了。
英语作为英美国家的母语，我们在学会它的过程中会自然的汲取英美国家的社会、经济、人文、历史等各方面的信息，英语并不等于汉语的翻译，而汉语也不等于英语的翻译，知识量的丰富最终带来的是文化的交流。有一种说法是：Language＝Information＝Knowledge，我们购买教材、订阅英文博客、下载无字幕版的美剧等等行为，都是为了知识这个目的而得以努力与完成。
心理学研究指出，人会自然记住自己感兴趣的东西，遗忘自己不感兴趣的东西，当理解自己感兴趣的东西时，无需时时刻刻想着，也会深深印在我们心底深处。选择英语材料应该因人而异，选择自己感兴趣的英文材料才行，否则吸收的效果肯定不好。同时，多阅读启发性强的文字，对自己的提高会有很大帮助，有数据显示，“每天两小时”的阅读时间，在连续60天，也就是120小时以上的阅读量后，英文创作能力会达到第一阶段内质的飞跃。
这里推荐一个可以作为英文学习的优秀平台：Asiaing.com（亚洲进行时），该网站收集和提供了互联网上的免费eBooks与电子杂志等英文材料资源，网站色调以朴素白为主，多栏布局，继承了典型的Web2.0风格，在网站右上角还能通过按钮来自由调整全站字体的尺寸，英语爱好者可以以订阅RSS或者注册会员的方式即时获取英文资源的收录和更新，包括商业、计算机科学、医学、生物、哲学、时尚等行业内容。个人感觉Asiaing.com的更新速率和资源质量还是很卓越的，也很方便通过检索的方式有目的性的寻找适合自己的信息，在FeedBurner上已有超过4000名订阅用户，不同于商业网站，作为互联网资源贡献渠道的补充，Asiaing.com由一个松散的志愿者联盟进行运作，他们致力于让知识变得随手可得、使每一个有能力上网和有能力阅读的人都能得到和分享知识——这是一个相当宏大的梦想，但是互联网就是诞生奇迹的原生乐土，谁敢说下一个维基百科式的辉煌不会在明天诞生？而且Asiaing.com也是一个节省成本的手段，琳琅满目的英文实体杂志和书籍会随着订购数量的攀升而对个人财务造成负担，充分利用互联网中的免费资源是一项值得灵活运用的技巧，而且Asiaing.com还提供注册会员的Free subscriptions（杂志免费订阅）服务，在填写一份申请表格后，便有机会得到商业版权杂志的免费订阅服务，包括印刷版和电子版两种，这亦是这个网站吸引我的地方之一。
互联网时代意味着社会化网络的普及，在梦想随时都在变为现实的今天，世界各地的人都有机会成为语言学习伙伴，学习英文不再是一个枯燥而乏味的进度表，相反，各类平台和工具的鲜活应用让它成为习惯的一部分，摩西英语的作者摩西信奉来自公元九世纪时查理曼大帝的一句名言：“学习另一种语言就是去拥有第二个灵魂。（To learn a second language is to own another soul.)”。同以这句名言，与所有英语爱好者共勉。
来源：网易
President-Elect Transition Team Grapples With Maintaining Pre-Victory Support
By JOHN BERMAN
Nov. 15, 2008
There were throngs of fans, an army of supporters and a sea of volunteers working, sacrificing much of their lives to help Barack Obama emerge victorious from the presidential election.
When he won, it was pure exhilaration. But now what?
“Honestly, the next day there was a little bit of a deflation,” Obama volunteer Zeba Khan told “Good Morning America,” “like we were down a little.”
Khan, 28, is one of a number of Obama activists who have found themselves at a loss. Their mission accomplished, there is no longer that cause to throw their enthusiasm behind.
“It became my life,” said Khan, who knocked on doors in Ohio and even set up a Web site to solicit support from Muslim Americans. “It literally was.”
The Obama campaign built an unprecedented network of support, which included an e-mail list with 10 million names and cell phone numbers, had 3 million donors and 1.5 million active volunteers.