Changing weather conditions
Climate is different everywhere. There are countries where the weather changes very often and extremely. The extreme weather includes hurricanes, tornados, storms, blizzards, droughts, earthquakes, heavy rains or snowfalls. For some areas extreme weather is usual, for example Florida. The most famous disaster was Hurricane Katrina. Strong winds and heavy rain hit the coast and it makes hurricanes bigger and faster. Research shows that the number of strong hurricanes is increasing and that they are getting stronger. Some scientists say this is because of global warming. The sea is getting hotter and warm seas cause hurricanes.
Of course, there are places with rather comfortable climate and stable weather conditions. One of such places is Mallorca. It has an average of 300 days of sunshine a year. The best time to visit Mallorca is the spring when the sun is not very strong. At this time prices (except during Easter week) are still quite low, but the weather is often warm and it is possible to enjoy the beaches. From mid-June temperatures rise. By July and August the island is extremely hot and, inland, the countryside becomes very dry. During these months Mallorca is very crowded. As for winter many hotels close. It may snow during this period. This is also the rainy season. A lot of activities available there, such as mountain biking and trekking, sea kayaking, horse riding, wildlife watching.
Creativity and personality (on the example of a well-known person)
Frida Kahlo
Creativity refers to the phenomenon whereby a person creates something new (a product, a solution, a work of art, a novel, a joke, etc.) that has some kind of value. What counts as "new" may be in reference to the individual creator, or to the society or domain within which the novelty occurs. What counts as "valuable" is similarly defined in a variety of ways. Creativity requires special features of the character. Person should be hard-working, inspirational, talented, strong-willed, dedicated, determined, patient.
It is interested to know the story of a very creative and famous personality - Frida Kahlo. She was a Mexican painter. Her colourful paintings show her powerful feelings about herself and the world around her. Some of her recent fans include Madonna and Robert de Niro. Her life began and ended in Mexico City. When Kahlo was six years old, she had a serious disease (polio) that damaged her right leg forever. However, she was a clever and determined young woman and went to one of the top schools in Mexico. When she was fifteen, she met the famous painter Diego Rivera. He was doing a painting on a wall at her school at that time. Then, at the age of eighteen, Kahlo was in a terrible accident. She was travelling on a bus when a tram crashed into it. She began to paint while she was recovering from the accident because she was bored in bed. During the rest of her life she had over 30 operations to try to correct her physical problems.
In 1929, she married Diego Rivera but their relationship was often stormy. Soon after she got married, Kahlo started to wear traditional Mexican clothes and jewellery, and she also started to wear her hair high on her head. She visited the United States and France, and met many important people. While she was staying in Paris, she appeared on the front cover of Vogue magazine. When she wasn't working, she liked singing and telling jokes at parties.
Kahlo produced about 200 works in her life. Many of them were self-5 portraits - a mixture of dreams and reality. In them, we can see that she was very proud of Mexico. Her paintings also tell us about politics, power relationships between rich and poor countries, Eastern and Western philosophy and the position of women in society. Many people admired her work, including Pablo Picasso.
Mass media
After a long flight, you finally arrive in your hotel room and throw your bag on the bed. You turn on the TV and watch an international news channel that probably comes from the UK or the USA. The main international broadcasters are BBC World and CNN. With an audience of over 1.5 billion people, these are popular channels that offer good quality news programmes. In both companies, the journalists are experienced writers that produce journalism of a high standard.
However, there are alternative news channels which people watch because they want a less traditional or non-western view on world events. Al Jazeera International is an Arabic television news company that started an English language international channel in 2006. With more than 15 offices and professional journalists all over the world, it says it gives a fresh view on the big stories and it shows the news that we don't normally see.
The Internet offers even more variety. One World is an Internet site which has stories about the developing world and human rights, rather than the usual stories about US politics and business. The writers for this company are often local people who write the stories for free. This non-professional journalism is increasing and it certainly offers more choice. AllAfrica.com and WNN.com are also Internet news sites, but they don't produce the news stories. Instead, they have links to more than 4,000 news organisations across the world. On sites like these, with a click of the mouse, you select the news that you want to see.
So, next time you are in a hotel room, before you turn on the TV, perhaps you should turn on your laptop and discover the world's news yourself.