Living in the Ice Age
I’m a scientist and I arrived here in Antarctica three months ago in December. The temperature is cold but not unpleasant yet. Since arriving, I have worked with about 60 other people getting everything ready for the Antarctica winter. It's been a lot of hard work, but it was fun too. However, few days ago the ship left taking most of the staff with it and it won’t be back to fetch it until next December. So the hardest thing to get used to is that there are now just fourteen of us because I’m used to working in a large company.
I’m living on the same work station I was on ten years ago. It was new then and it’s still in good condition and unchanged. The dried food we get is also the same you forget what real food taste like after a few weeks. The people working here with me are different from then, but I’m always happy getting to know new people. Ten years ago, we were all able to send faxes to friends and family once a month, but today we can send emails and talk on the phone so we don't feel so far away.

Weather
Weather influences die lives (61) everyone. The climate of any country' depends on its position on Earth, its distance from the sea and how high it is. In countries (62) have sea all around them, like Britain and New Zealand, winters are mild and summers are cool. There is not a huge change from one season to another.
Countries near the equator have hot weather all year with some (63) rain, except deserts where it rains very little. Above the desert there are no clouds in the sky, so the heat of the sun can (64) warm the ground during the day, but it gets very cold at night. People are always (65) in unusual weather and pictures of tornadoes, for example, are shown on television. Strong winds and rain can cause a lot of damage to buildings, and in spite of modern methods of weather forecasting they can still surprise us.