I'm Evan Ducker. I'm just like every other 15-year-old boy, except I was born with a red birthmark(胎记).
Some birthmarks are signs of serious medical conditions. I'm very fortunate—mine isn't. I pretty much live a regular life, except for people asking me about it all the time, which can get annoying(恼人的) sometimes.
When I was about 4 years old, I asked my mom why there weren't any characters with birthmarks in the books she would read to me. When we went to the library, we realized there weren't any available for little kids. Worse than that, the books available to older kids and adults described characters with birthmarks as unattractive. So I decided to write my own.
I based the story on all the real things that happened in my life. But instead of people, the characters in the book are real animals from the Galapagos Islands, including red-footed booby birds(鲣鸟). I picked a booby bird as the main character because the birds have red feet due to a vascular(血管的)condition, similar to a human birthmark!
It was really tough to get my book published. It took a long time because a lot of publishers refused to publish it. They would say there wasn't a big enough market for a book about birthmarks.
But my mom never gave up trying to help make my dream come true. And in 2005, she finally took her own money and self-published “Buddy Booby's Birthmark”. After it was published, I got letters from readers all over the world. They all shared their stories and thanked me for sharing mine. Teachers wrote to tell me that my book changed the way classmates treated each other and that my book was helping kids to accept and appreciate their differences.
Then, as more teachers started reading my book, I created a free global reading event, the “International Buddy Booby's Birthmark Read—Along for Tolerance and Awareness.”
Our library offers different types of studying places and provides a good studying environment.
Zones
The library is divided into different zones. The upper floor is a quiet zone with over a thousand places for silent reading, and places where you can sit and work with your own computer. The reading places consist mostly of tables and chairs. The ground floor is the zone where you can talk. Here you can find sofas and armchairs for group work.
Computers
You can use your own computer to connect to the wi-fi specially prepared for notebook computers; your can also use library computers, which contain the most commonly used applications, such as Microsoft Office. They are situated in the area known as the Experimental Field on the ground floor.
Group-study places
If you want to discuss freely without disturbing others, you can book a study room or sit at a table on the ground floor. Some study rooms are for 2-3 people and others can hold up to 6-8 people. All rooms are marked on the library maps.
There are 40 group-study rooms that must be booked via the website. To book, you need an active University account and a valid University card. You can use a room three hours per day, nine hours at most per week.
Storage of Study Material
The library has lockers for students to store course literature. When you have obtained at least 40 credits(学分), you may rent a locker and pay 400 SEK for a year's rental period.
Rules to be Followed
Mobile phone conversations are not permitted anywhere in the library. Keep your phone on silent as if you were in a lecture and exit the library if you need to receive calls.
Please note that food and fruit are forbidden in the library, but you are allowed to have drinks and sweets with you.
Recently I had a conversation in Beijing with an adult Chinese friend who was complaining how difficult it was to study English. No surprises there. It is a difficult language to master, just like Chinese. I made a few suggestions based on my experience. One involved a very valuable fact which I learned from my high school Latin and Greek teacher, Dr. Smith．He is a gifted linguist （语言学家），and has an amazing ability to remember things, like poetry, essays, speeches, etc．His advice to us students is that for memorization purposes, there is forty minutes each day in which our memory is more acceptable than it is during the other 23 hours and 20 minutes.
This 40-minute "super memory" period is divided into two parts: the 20 minutes before we sleep, and the 20 minutes after we first awake. The theory supporting this is pretty simple. First, the last information we input into our brain before bed has a better chance of taking root than information gained during the noisy daytime; and second, our mind is free of disturbance(干扰) when we first awake in the morning一so more receptive to inputs, like a blank slate（石板）．
I took the advice to heart and it served me well in my school years. In my university days, our Chinese teacher would assign us 200 new vocabulary words each day, on which we would be quizzed（测试）the following day. Without the "magic" 40-minute technique, there's no way I would have passed those daily quizzes.
As far as language study goes, it's not only useful for memorizing vocabulary. It's also a very useful window of time to listen to the language we're studying even with background noise, and even if it's at a level we find difficult to understand. It might be audio（声音的）language study, aids, or just radio, TV or whatever.
Beyond our years of formal(正式的) education, memory skills are hugely important in any career. How many times have we heard a speaker read their speech from a prepared text, or read the word-by-word content of a PowerPoint presentation as they present each slide（投影片）? These are annoying, boring, and less effective ways of communicating. They are almost guaranteed(保证) to lose the audience's close attention and interest, let alone persuade or inspire anyone to do anything. And yet lots of people still make this mistake.
If we use the 40-minute technique, we may not succeed in memorizing our presentation content on a 100% word-by-word basis, but we'll be familiar enough so that we can spend much more time making eye contact with our audience. We will get them in the process, while looking at our text instead of staring at it. This will also free up our hands and arms to convey some extra messages through gesture．
As you see, the technique really works, but like many things, it takes practice to perfect it. Therefore, we'd better find ways to use the language outside of the classroom, as regularly and frequently as possible. One basic rule of language learning is, "Use it, or lose it·”
Seize the forty-minute learning window and we'll bring in a rich harvest of language learning.
My grandparents believed that you were either honest or you were not. They had a simple saying hanging on their living-room wall: “Life is like a field of newly fallen snow. Where I choose to walk every step will show.” They didn't have to talk about it; they showed this truth by the way they lived.
They understood that honesty is an inner(内部的) standard for judging your behavior. Unfortunately, honesty is in short supply today. But it is the real bottom line in every area of society and a discipline (自制能力) we must demand of ourselves.
There's a story told about a surgical nurse's first day on the medical team at a well-known hospital. She was responsible(负责) for all surgical instruments and materials during an operation. At the end of the operation, the nurse said to the doctor, “ You've only removed 11 sponges（海绵）, and we used 12. We need to find the last one.”
“I removed them all,” the doctor assured her. “ No, you didn't , sir,” insisted the nurse. “ Think of the patient.”
Smiling, the doctor lifted his foot and showed the nurse the twelfth sponge.
So when you know you're right, you can't yield. Don't be afraid of those who might have a better idea or who might even be more intelligent than you are.
Self-respect and a clear awareness (意识)of right and wrong are powerful parts of honesty and are the basis for enriching your relationships with others. Honesty means you do what you do because it's right and not just fashionable or politically correct. A life of principle, of not easily yielding, will always take you forward. My grandparents taught me that.
Today Dante had a small skating competition in his class. Before we went to the competition, I asked him if he wanted to wear something nice for the competition and he said, “Who cares? It's not important.” When we showed up at the rink(溜冰场), we found that most of the kids were dressed up. One boy who was around nine years old was my son's friend, wearing a dress shirt and a pink vest. I walked over to his mother saying how beautifully dressed he was. But his mother said, “He didn't want to dress up. He said that this competition was not important for him to dress up.”
I thought it was interesting that neither Dante nor his friend viewed the competition as important and neither wanted to dress up. I started to wonder if this was how a child learned what was “important” and what wasn't.
Interestingly, this boy won two medals and Dante won none.
Parents and teachers often instill (灌输) what they think is important: then children will accept the opinions of the adults. Gradually, they grow up stressing about how they look, how many medals they get, what color the medals are, how good their grades are, what a great “job” they can get in life, what a big house they can live in... etc.
Dante taught me an important lesson today. He taught me what was unimportant. Life goes on long after the medal ceremony whether you win a medal or not.
On the third Sunday in June, Americans take time to recognize and thank a special person in the family -fathers! Father's Day celebrates the importance of fathers, young and old and the men thought of as father figures.
The words "the child is father of the man" come from William Wordsworth's poem My Heart Leaps Up. "It means people's personalities form when they are children. They will most likely have the same qualities as an adult that they had as a child.
Used in everyday speech, one could say, "In his case, the child was father of the man; he loved nature as a child and now works as a botanist(植物学家)".
Let's say you want to tell a child a story about something that happened long before they were born. You could say it happened when they “were just a twinkle in their father's eyes.” This expression has a humorous and dreamy feel. Here, the word “twinkle” suggests the interest your father had in your mother.
When a much older man is interested in a much younger woman and supports her with his money, he is called he “sugar daddy.” The money part is very important-that's the sugar.
Sometimes fathers are not a good influence or active in the lives of the children. In that case, a person may look for a father figure, a man who is not actually the person's father but who acts like one.
The relationship between a man and his son can be complex. But the relationship between a father and daughter is often simpler. The expression “daddy's little girl” is understood to mean that, in a father's eyes, his daughter can do no wrong.
There is usually not a dry eye at any wedding during the traditional father-and-daughter dance, especially if they are dancing to a song like Michael Buble's “Daddy's Little Girl.”
Love to sink into your chairs and relax when you get to school. Then you will not be happy to hear that schools all over the world are seriously considering exchanging traditional desks for ones with no seats at all — Yes, that means you will be encouraged to stand through those already too long math and science lessons! Why would anyone even think of putting kids to such cruelty. Experts say it improves their health and helps fight obesity. While that may seem a little far-fetched (牵强的), the officials at the few schools around the world seem to agree.
Among them are educators from the College Station Independent School District in Texas, who recently completed a week-long experiment involving 480 students across three elementary schools. The 374 kids that agreed to participate in the study were provided a device that helped record step count and calorie consumption over the entire period.
All 25 teachers involved in the study reported that students appeared to be more alert and concentrate better, when allowed to stand. The one thing that did surprise the researchers was that younger kids were more willing to stay standing than kids in higher grades. They believe this may have something to do with the fact that after years of being asked to “sit still”, older kids have a harder time adjusting to this unexpected freedom.
American schools are not the only ones reporting success with stand-up desks. Four schools in Perth, Australia, which have been testing them since October 2013, have seen similar results. In May 2014, Grove House Primary School in West Yorkshire, became Europe's first test one, with a seven-week trial that involved the use of desks made by Ergotron in their fifth-grade classrooms. While official results are not out yet, early reactions from both teachers and students, have been extremely encouraging.
The findings of these studies and others done previously, all seem to mean that allowing kids to move around in classrooms is a win-win for students and teachers — it helps kids get healthier and provides educators with a more attentive audience.
Nowadays everybody seems to think that they know English. Many people speak it but few speak it really well. Practice is necessary in speaking English well.
Reading is also one of the things that will help you to speak English better. Read whenever you can and whatever you like! Read papers and Internet sites that you like in English every day. Then, you will see that the number of known words is increasing and you are able to speak with more skills. Then you will have made the foundations and a good basis of English. It is not good to stop and get stuck there.
Going to England or an English-speaking country is a good choice, but many people cannot afford it. If you cannot go, reading and speaking with your friends will also help you to practice your English. However, I think it is very good to visit some English-speaking country to see and test your knowledge in everyday life. You will understand the everyday usage of the language in its natural environment. There your level of English is going to improve even faster. Your ability to speak English is better. Nothing can match the excitement and happiness when a native speaker tells you that your English is very good!
Finally, in order to speak English well, you must be persistent and do it every day. It is like playing the piano. Pianists play it every day and so should you. Include English in your life and you will see where it is going. Practice, Practice! Read, write and improve your language skills and you are on your way when you will be able to speak it with more and more confidence!
Can you remember the day when you spoke your first word? If you can, you are unusual. Try to imagine what first few months of your life were like. I am sure you just spent most of your time eating, sleeping and crying. As you grew older, you were awake more of the time. It took your parents more time to play with you and talk to you. You watched and listened curiously (好奇). You began to know that people made certain sounds to go with certain things.
Then you began to try making the sounds you heard. And step by step you were able to make the right sound for one thing. On that day you came to understand the secret of language. The secret is that a certain sound means a certain thing. One sound might be as good as another. But it is no good as a word unless everybody agrees on its meaning. Only when a group of people use the same set of sounds of things, can they understand each other. Then, and only then do these people have a LANGUAGE.
After you found the secret of language, you learned words. Some of the words meant things, such as BOOKS, CHAIRS and SHOES. Some words meant doing things, such as GO and SWIM, and other words describe things, such as GOOD and DIRTY. Soon you learned to put words together to express your idea, such as “I want to go out and play with my friends.” This is language. By means of language people can communicate. So we say languages are means of communication.
For nearly thirty years I did parent programs in all of the fifty states, and regardless of the community, there was always a shortage of fathers attending, usually by a 10:1 (mothers、 fathers) ratio. Maybe they were all tending to business, and they obviously didn't think school was any of their business.
The world is now flat. How's that for a sea change? As Thomas Friedman described it in his book The World Is Flat twenty-five years ago, the power structure of the world consisted of highs and lows. The countries with the power and knowledge were at the top of the mountains and the rest were down in the valleys. A handful of countries (the United States, Britain, Germany, and Japan) ruled the world's economy because they monopolize (垄断)the information and power.
Then came the Internet. Suddenly the countries down in the valleys were connected to the information network and the work flow. These included India, Eastern Europe, South Korea, Brazil, and China. Don't believe it? Walk into a supermarket and pick up any ten toys, checking each for where it was made. My last count: China, ten out of ten. The world's workforce became "flattened". No more disconnected valleys.
Since 2000, U.S. manufacturing has lost six million jobs, one-third of its workforce, most of them males. For the first time in history, women hold the majority of jobs in the U.S.
The only people who don't understand the sea change in business are the fathers and sons still clinging to the image of the male who doesn't need to play school—just play ball. It's been thirty years since that idea had any wings, but too many males are still trying to make it fly. Once the only thing that mattered for men was what they could get out of the ground with their hands. Now it's what they can get out of their heads that counts. And without classroom success, today's male faces an impossible challenge from both intelligent women on the home front and foreigners willing to do the same job for less while sitting in an office in Bangalore or Singapore.
Would you give your Social Security (安全) Number to the worker at the supermarket? Of course not, right? Yet, if you're like most people, you wouldn't hesitate to give out a different, but equally important number to the same person.
Experts now say that your cellphone number may be more pivotal than any other personal information in the eyes of spammers(垃圾邮件发送者) and identity thieves. In other words, you should guard that cellphone number with your life.
Today, your cellphone number will likely be with you for a very long time. That means if spammers get your cellphone number, it will be much harder to get rid of them. It also means that over the years, your cellphone number will be linked to a lot of personal information from contact lists to bank card numbers, all information that hackers would love to get their hands on.
A few years ago, German security researcher Karsten Nohl showed what he could get using only a person's cellphone number. Califomia Congressman(国会议员) Ted Lieu was given a new cellphone for a day and Nohl was given that cellphone number. Using just that number, Nohl was able to find Lieu's location and movements throughout Los Angeles, read his emails and text messages, and record phone calls between Lieu and his team. And Nohl did all of this from his office in Berlin using just a cellphone number.
Still think it's a good idea to post your number on the Internet?
When you sign up for an account(账户)online, you usually provide your email address and a password. But if you forget that password, many of these companies will send you a password retrieval code(检索码)to your cellphone. Let's say you post something for sale online and you include your name, email, and cellphone number. You've now given a potential(潜在的))thief everything he needs to hack into any of your online accounts. Therefore, it just makes sense to protect yourself by guarding that number as closely as you would guard any other personal information.
At 88, I remain a competitive runner. The finish line of my life is drawing close, and I hope to reach it having given the best of myself along the way. I've been training my body to meet the demands of this final stretch. But, I wonder, should I have asked more of my mind?
If I didn't exercise, I would release the hungry beasts that seek their elderly prey on couches, but not in the gym. The more I sweated, the more likely it was my doctor would continue to say, "Keep doing what you're doing, and I'll see you next year." My mind, on the other hand, seems less willing to give in to discipline. I have tried internet "brain games", solving algebraic problems flashing past and changing the route of virtual trains to avoid crashes. But these never approach my determination to remain physically fit as I move deeper into old age.
Despite having many friends in their 70s, 80s and 90s, I've been far too slow to realize that how we respond to aging is a choice made in the mind, not in the gym. Some of my healthiest friends carry themselves as victims abused by time. Other friends, many whose aching knees and hips are the least of their physical problems, find comfort in their ability to accept old age as just another stage of life to deal with. I would use the word "heroic" to describe the way they cope with aging.
One such friend recently called from a hospital to tell me a sudden brain disease had made him legally blind. He interrupted me as I began telling him how terribly sorry I was, "Bob, it could have been worse. I could have become deaf instead of blind."
Despite all the time I spend lifting weights and exercising, I realized I lack the strength to have said those words. It suddenly struck me I've paid a price for being a "gym rat." If there is one characteristic common to friends who are aging with a graceful acceptance of life's attacks, it is contentment. Aging had to be more than what I saw in a mirror.
But rather than undertaking a fundamental change in the way I face aging, I felt the place to begin would be to start small. A recent lunch provided a perfect example.
I've always found it extremely difficult to concentrate when I'm in a noisy setting. At this lunch with a friend in an outdoor restaurant, a landscaper began blowing leaves from underneath the bushes surrounding our table. Typically, after such a noisy interruption, I would have snapped, "Let's wait until he's finished!" then fallen silent. When the roar eventually faded, my roar would have drained (消耗) the conversation of any warmth. It troubled me that even a passing distraction could so easily take me from enjoying lunch with a good friend to a place that gave me no pleasure at all. I wanted this meal to be different.
My years in gyms had taught me to shake off pains and other distractions, never permitting them to stop my workout or run. I decided to treat the noise this way. I continued talking with my friend, challenging myself to hear the noise, but to hold it at a distance. The discipline so familiar to me in the gym - this time applied to my mind - proved equally effective in the restaurant. It was as though I had taken my brain to a mental fitness center.
Learning to ignore a leaf blower's roar hardly equips me to find contentment during my passage into ever-deeper old age. But I left the lunch feeling I had at least taken a small first step in changing behavior that stood in the way of that contentment.
Could I employ that same discipline to accept with dignity the inevitable decline awaiting me like the finish line? Hoping that contentment will guide me as I make my way along the path yet to be traveled.
Winter-swimming has become popular in Beijing. Three years ago, few people would go swimming in the icy waters. But now there is a Winter-swimming Enthusiasts' Club(冬泳爱好者协会)and it has more than 2,000 members. The oldest is 84 years old and the youngest is only 7. The members are from all walks of life. They may be workers, peasants, soldiers, teachers, students…
Though it is now the coldest part of the season and the water temperature in the city's lakes is around 0℃, many winter-swimmers still swim in the icy waters, even when it is snowing. They enjoy themselves in the lake, while the people by the side of the lake are wearing heavy clothes.
Why are so many people interested in winter-swimming? Because winter-swimming can be good for one's health.
Bei Sha is a good example. He is 69, and he once suffered from heart trouble for 26 years. After ten years of winter-swimming he is now in good health. Scientists are now studying the effects of winter-swimming on health.
If practicing an attitude of gratitude during the storms of life is too much for you right now, that's OK. When things are tough, most people have a hard time being thankful. They're so caught up in what's wrong in the present moment that they simply can't see some things are still right.
If that's true for you, then accept it. You're going through a particularly difficult or unhappy period of time, and you don't like it one bit. Very normal, very human. But remember this: there is always something to be grateful for. It maybe only a small comfort right now, but it is a start. Make a list of some of the terrible things that didn't happen. For example:
You're in debt...but you're not homeless.
You lost your job...but you didn't lose your health.
You broke your leg...but you didn't break your neck.
Your mother has Alzheimer's disease...but your father doesn't.
No matter how bad things are, they could always be worse. Start finding gratitude for what might have happened, but didn't. It does help a lot. Of course, you may not be thankful for everything— but you can always be thankful for something.
If spending is a measure of what matters, then the people of the developing world place a high value on brains. While private spending on education has not changed much in the rich world in the past ten years, in China and India it has more than doubled. Since brainpower is the primary generator of progress, this burst of enthusiasm for investing in private education is excellent news for the world. But not everybody is delighted. Because private education increases inequality, some governments are trying to stop its advance. That's wrong: they should welcome it and spread its benefits more widely.
① Education used to be provided by religious institutions or entrepreneurs. But when governments, starting in Prussia in the 18th century, got into the business of nation-building, they realized they could use education to shape young minds. As state systems grew, private schooling was left to the elite and the pious(虔诚的). Now it is enjoying popularity again, for several reasons. Incomes are rising, especially among the better off, at the same time as birth rates are falling. In China the former one-child policy means that six people—two parents and four grandparents—can pour money into educating a single child.
② All over the developing world, people want more or better education than governments provide. Where cities are growing at unmanageable speed, the private education is taking up the slack. In India the private education now educates nearly half of all children, in Pakistan more than a third, and in both countries the state education is shrinking. Even where the state does pretty well, as in East Asia, richer people still want better schooling for their children than the masses get. Thus Vietnam, which has an outstanding state-school system for a poor country, measured by its performances in the OECD's PISA test, also has the fastest-growing private education.
③ In most ways, this is an excellent thing, because the world is getting more and better schooling.
In rich countries, once the background and ability of the children who attend private schools are taken into account, their exam results are about the same as those in the state education. But in developing countries private schools are better—and much more efficient. A study of eight Indian states found that, in terms of learning outcomes per rupee, private schools were between 1.5 times and 29 times more cost-effective than state schools.
④ They tend to sort children by income, herding richer ones towards better schools that will enhance their already superior life chances. That is one reason why many governments are troubled by their rise.
Governments are right to worry about private education's contribution to inequality, but they are wrong to discourage its growth. Governments should instead focus on improving the public education by mimicking(模仿)the private education's virtues. Freedom from independent management is at the root of its superior performance and greater efficiency. Governments should therefore do their best to give school principals more freedom to innovate and to fire underperforming teachers.
To spread the benefits of private schools more widely, governments should work with them, paying for education through vouchers(代金券)which children can spend in private schools. And vouchers should be limited to students in non-selective schools that do not charge top-up fees; otherwise governments will find themselves helping the better off and increasing inequality.
The world faces plenty of problems. Governments should stop behaving as though private education were one of them. It will, rather, increase the chances of finding solutions.
Skateboarding has become one of several non - traditional activities that PE teachers around America are introducing to inspire kids to exercise regularly. Some PE classes feature in-line (滚轮) skating, yoga, and even rock climbing. Experts have called those types of activities "the new PE".
Such activities are part of a larger effort to help kids develop lifelong fitness habits and to keep them from becoming overweight. Now, 9 million U.S. children and teens are overweight. Obesity (肥胖) can lead to health problems such as diabetes and heart disease later in life.
"Our children and youth are becoming unhealthy and obese," says Lindsey Johnson. "Skateboarding is a great activity that keeps kids doing physical movement and gives them new skills and interest."
Some schools don't allow skateboarding because they say it is dangerous. Cendali, however, argues that regular practiceeliminatesa great deal of the danger. "We teach students how to do it and how to do it safely," he says.
Some people say skateboarding teaches life lessons. "Skateboarding teaches kids to believe that if they stick with something they will finally succeed," says education expert Richard Sagor of Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon.
Skateboarding inspires kids not to give up in learning difficult skills. "It's natural for kids to want to learn and get better at things," adds Sagor. "When it comes to skateboarding, they'll try a trick hundreds of times before they succeed." That same effort could be made in schoolwork.
Eric Klassen agrees that skateboarding requires kids to stop saying a task is too hard for them. "A baby will attempt to walk 600 to 900 times before he or she is successful," says Klassen. "We tell students that they shouldn't say ‘I can't do it' unless they've tried 600 to 900 times."
The Internet has opened a new world of opportunity for even the smallest homebased business owner. There are a great number of selfmade millionaires (百万富翁) that have achieved their success on the Internet. Do you want to know their secrets of being successful?
If a company doesn't care enough about its own domain name (域名), customers may not feel comfortable when doing business. A company with its own domain name and a professionallooking website will have a much higher rate of success.
A website can present both you and your business directly. Creating a professional website takes a lot of time and efforts, as there are many more things to think about than the website's design. You must give your visitors a reason to visit and continue to visit your website in the future; just provide your visitors with fresh contents.
Your words are the foundation (基础) of your business. Your product, website and marketing strategies all depend on your words. You must learn how to write persuasive (有说服力的) words especially for your customers. You must feel your customers' needs and write with passion, excitement and consideration.
As an Internet business owner, it is your personal responsibility to make sure that your visitors feel very comfortable with you and your website. In order to gain confidence and your visitor's trust, you first have to build your credibility (信誉).
Your attitude is the most important factor in determining your success. You must think positively and be willing to deal with any difficulties that come along. All you must do is to believe that you can do whatever you put your mind to.
Beginning college is exciting: new ideas to explore, new challenges to be met and many decisions to be made; your future begins here.
However, you will find college life is different from your previous school environment. Many of us can be easily defeated by the details of running a well-balanced life. While some of us may have the know-how, I guess there are more of us who can benefit from learning about the experience of others who have walked the college halls before you.
The following you may find useful about life on campus:
• Plan well. There are so many new things to do at a new college or university. Give yourself time to make new friends and become familiar with the campus, but don't forget why you are there. Give some time for social activities and manage your time wisely.
• If you don't have a "system" for planning your time now (like a day timer, a potable data book), get one. Most of all, don't depend on your memory.
• Don't miss the guidelines. The restrictions, rules and regulations of all kinds can usually be found in your student's handbook. Consider them well-balanced food for thought. What dates are important? What pieces of paper need to be handed in? What can/can't you do in your student residence (住处)? Who has the right for what? What do you need to complete to graduate?
• Write the word "STUDY" on the walls of your bedroom and bathroom, and maybe it will help to write it on a piece of paper and stick it on the telephone, TV and the kitchen table. Consider this — you are paying thousands of dollars for your courses. You pay every time you have to repeat or replace a course.
• Build your identity. This is the time for you to decide what to do and what not to do. Take as much time as you need to explore new ideas. Do not be afraid of the beyond. This is learning to make good choices.
Last Sunday morning, I was sitting on the sofa in my parent's living room. Before me on the tea table was a worn journal of thin and discolored pages. It was my grandfather's journal and now belongs to my father. My grandfather had passed away in the months leading up to my birth. I never got to visit the places he had frequented and the people who had been a part of his life's journey.
I was now about to enter his world, through the words he had left behind. Within minutes, I was captivated by the power of the written words. In the magical script before me, I was transported to another age when food was an everyday art, planned, prepared and enjoyed in the company of others, and a time when people had the heart to pause their own lives to embrace each other's struggles. All this was conveyed to me in the beauty of the words that flowed together to connect with the writer's mind and understand the world they lived in.
That kind of writing seems to be lost on us today. We have gotten used to writing in bite-sized pieces for a public looking for entertainment, and hungry for information. No wonder, there are nearly
200 million bloggers on the Internet and a new blog is created somewhere in the world every half a second. Instead of adding to our collective wisdom, most of these writings reflect the superficiality(肤 浅) and impatience of our day and age.
This not only robs us of the skill of writing impressive essays, it also prevents us from exploring what is indeed important. Writing humbles us in a way that is vital for our character growth, by reminding us about the limits of the self and our appropriate place in the vast flow of life.
Writing frees us by helping us explore the unknown so that we really open up to the magic of the world around us. I saw all of this in the writing of my grandfather. And I've seen it again and again in the writings of the greatest thinkers of humanity. Their writing reflects deep thought on issues of human importance.
