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         When her five daughters were young, Helene An always told them that there was strength in unity (团结). To show this, she held up one chopstick, representing oneperson. Then she easily broke it into two pieces. Next, she tied several chopsticks together, representing a family. She showed the girls it was hard to break the tied chopsticks. This lesson about family unity stayed with the daughters as they grew up.

Helene An and her family own a large restaurant business in California. However, when Helene and her husband Danny left their home in Vietnam in 1975, they didn't have much money. They moved their family to San Francisco. There they joined Danny's mother, Diana, who owned a small Italian sandwich shop. Soon afterwards, Helene and Diana changed the sandwich shop into a small Vietnamese restaurant. The five daughters helped in the restaurant when they were young. However, Helene did not want her daughters to always work in the family business because she thought it was too hard.

        Eventually the girls all graduated from college and went away to work for themselves, but one by one, the daughters returned to work in the family business. They opened new restaurants in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Even though family members sometimes disagreed with each other, they worked together to make the business successful. Daughter Elisabeth explains, "Our mother taught us that to succeed we must have unity, and to have unity we must have peace. Without the strength of the family, there is no business."

        Their expanding business became a large corporation in 1996, with three generations of Ans working together. Now the Ans' corporation makes more than $20 million each year. Although they began with a small restaurant, they had big dreams, and they worked together. Now they are a big success.

        In ancient Egypt, a shopkeeper discovered that he could attract customers to his shop simply by making changes to its environment . Modern businesses have been following his lead, with more tactics（策略）.

One tactic involves where to display the goods. For example, stores place fruits and vegetables in the first section. They know that customers who buy the healthy food first will feel happy so that they will buy more junk food later in their trip. In department stores, section is generally next to the women's cosmetics(化妆品) section：while the shop assistant is going back to find the right size shoe, bored customers are likely to wander over cosmetics they might want to try later.

       Besides, businesses seek to appeal to customers’ senses. Stores notice that the smell of baked goods encourages shopping, they make their own bread each morning and then fan the bread smell into the store throughout the day. Music sells goods, too. Researchers in Britain found that when French music was played, sales of French wine went up.

       When it comes to the selling of houses, businesses also use highly rewarding tactics. They find that customers make decision in the first few second upon walking in the door, and turn it into a business opportunity. A California builder designed the structure of its houses smartly. When entering the house, the customer would see the Pacific Ocean through the windows, and then the poll through an open stairway leading to the lower level. The instant view of water on both levels helped sell these $10 million houses.

B

    Our risk of cancer rises as we age. So it makes sense that the elderly should be routinely screened for new tumors(肿瘤)—or doesn't it?

    While such careful tracking of cancer is a good thing in general, researchers are increasingly questioning whether all of this testing is necessary for the elderly. With the percentage of people over age 65 expected to nearly double by 2050, it's important to consider the health benefits of screening and the costs of routine testing.

    In many cases, screening can lead to additional operations to remove cancer, which can cause side effects, while the cancers themselves may be slow-growing and may not cause serious health problems in patients' remaining years. But the message that everyone must screen for cancer has become so ingrained that when health care experts recommended that women under 50 and over 74 stop screening for breast cancer, it caused a strong reaction among doctors, patients and advocacy(拥护) groups.

    It's hard to uproot deeply held beliefs about cancer screening with scientific data. Certainly, there are people over age 75 who have had cancers detected by routine screening, and gained several extra years of life because of treatment. And clearly, people over age 75 who have other risk factors for cancer, such as a family history, should continue to get screened regularly. But for the remainder, the risk of cancer, while increased at the end of life, must be balanced with other factors like a remaining life expectancy.

    A recent study suggests that doctors start to make more right decisions about who will truly benefit from screening—especially considering the explosion of the elderly.

    It's not an easy guess to make, but one that makes sense for the whole patient. Dr. Otis Brawley said, "Many doctors are ordering these tests purely to protect themselves against medical disputes(纠纷). We need to think about the good use of health care and stop talking about the rationing(定量配给制) of health care."

    That means making some difficult decisions with elderly patients and going against the misguided belief that when it comes to health care, more is always better.

    One day, Mr. Arnold was teaching a lesson, and things were going as normally as ever. He was explaining the story of human being to his pupils. He told them that, in the beginning, men were nomads (游牧); they never stayed in the same place for very long. Instead, they would travel about, here and there, in search of food, wherever it was to be found. And when the food ran out, they would move off somewhere else.

    He taught them about the invention of farming and keeping animals. This was an important discovery, because by learning to cultivate (耕作) the land, and care for animals, mankind would always have food steadily. It also meant that people could remain living in one place, and this made it easier to set about tasks that would take a long while to finish, like building towns, cities, and all that were in them. All the children were listening attracted by this story, until Lucy jumped up:

    “And if that was so important and improved everything so much, why are we nomads all over again, Mr. Arnold?”

    Mr. Arnold didn't know what to say. Lucy was a very clever girl. He knew that she lived with her parents in a house, so she must know that her family were not nomads; so what did she mean?

    “We have all become nomads again,” continued Lucy, “The other day, outside the city, they were cutting the forest down. A while ago a fisherman told me how they fish. It's the same with everyone: when there's no more forest left the foresters go elsewhere, and when the fish run out the fishermen move on. That's what the nomads did, isn't it?

    The teacher nodded, thoughtfully. Really, Lucy was right. Mankind had turned into nomads. Instead of looking after the land in a way that we could be sure it would keep supplying our needs, we kept developing it until the land was bare. And then off we would go to the next place! The class spent the rest of the afternoon talking about what they could do to show how to be more civilized (文明的).

    The next day everyone attended class wearing a green T-shirt, with a message that said “I am not a nomad!”

    And, from then on, they set about showing that indeed they were not. Every time they knew they needed something, they made sure that they would get it using care and control. If they needed wood or paper, they would make sure that they got the recycled kind. They ordered their fish from fish farms, making sure that the fish they received were not too young and too small. They only used animals that were well cared for, and brought up on farms.

    And so, from their little town, those children managed to give up being nomads again, just as prehistoric men had done, so many thousands of years ago.

We'd arrived at Rockefeller Center station on the D train. As in many of New York's underground stations, trains pull in at both sides of the platform. Or rather, they seem to erupt into the station first on one side, then on the other.

    Abruptly, my wife stopped.

“Uh, what's this?” she said.

    I looked over her shoulder. There at our feet lay a young woman of about 20. She was on her stomach with the top half of her body on the platform, while her legs hung over the tracks kicking powerlessly.

    She was stuck. She had also, clearly, been down on the tracks and discovered that climbing back up is really hard.

But unlike in our imaginings, this woman was not in panic, expecting her approaching death by the F train which would be screaming into the station in the next few minutes, if not seconds.

    She was laughing! So was her friend who half-heartedly leant down to assist. The assistance was somewhat weakened by the fact that the friend was holding her smartphone. Was she hoping to capture this moment with a picture? Or composing a text?

It's well known that people's compulsive checking of their phones can be deadly. Among young people in America, texting is now the number one cause of car crashes. Maybe it's also a leading cause of leaving friends to die when they fall in the river or on to the train tracks.

    I stepped forward, leant out as far as I could, got hold of her leg somewhere near the knee and, together with her finally-engaged friend, dragged the young woman on to the platform.

    And you can guess why she'd been on the tracks. Still laughing, but maybe chastened (内疚）by my look of horror she said, “Thanks. Sorry. My phone fell down there. ”

    While I turned to hold my daughter's hand and head upstairs, the young woman and her friend walked away. I wonder when she'll be scared.

    During my school days, I was one of those shy and distant kids who would just sit in a comer for an entire day. For me, my books were my 1_ world. Even during breaks, I used to just sit in a corner of the 2_ and see others play games. It was not as if I wasn't interested in3_ others or making new friends, but I always felt lacking in energy when 4_ my peers. I always had an opinion that my advances towards new 5_ would be limited. And I just didn't want to 6_ a rejection.

    Once during my English class, my teacher shared a(n)7 with us. It was about King Bruce and a spider. It revolved around a lost battle and talked about how King Bruce, despite losing the battle,8_ in the end. He was 9 by a little spider. The little _10_ of the spider and the way it was taking rejections impressed me a lot. I was so surprised that I myself started 11_ the movements of spiders at home. Once, a spider took around an hour to reach the top of a wall and I 12_ knocked it down. To my _13__, within seconds it started making its _14 up again.

    For me, this 15 was a game changer. I realized that rejections are 16 a failure. The world may mistreat me17 I can stand up and start working again. There would be time when people would like and18 me. At present, I 19 mixing with people, learning new things and making new friends. I think, there are just no such 20as rejections or failures as everything can change at any moment.

    Why read, and sometimes even write poetry? That question is not difficult to answer if we change the word poetry to songs.

    I sing when I feel good. When I sing my favorite songs, I feel even better. Sometimes when I am listening to music and to the song words, I feel that it was written for me. A good song always makes me feel something. There are songs that I sing in my head between classes and songs that I want to sing when the school bell rings by the end of the day. They help me get through the day.

    They are like bright and warm colors in the middle of grays and shades. I like songs about love and friendship. The extraordinary thing is that my feelings are more special when I sing my favorite songs in English.

    I also like reading. I used to avoid poetry until an e-friend told me I should recite poems and not look up the meaning of the words. Poetry uses many difficult words and idioms, but the best thing is to just forget about them. In the beginning I felt quite strange. Now I always lock the door. Reading aloud gives you a strange feeling, but when you have some practice and fall into the rhythm, and the sounds of the words, it is really a special experience.

    I started with small poems, but now I think I most like long poems. I have different feelings with different poems. When I have had a bad day at school, I read Keats and forget everything. When I am sad I read Wordsworth by the light of a candle. When the poem is finished, I close the book and my sadness is gone.

    Once when I was facing a decision that involved high risk, I went to a friend. He looked at me for a moment, and then wrote a sentence containing the best advice I've ever had: Be bold and brave and mighty (强大的) forces will come to your help.

    Those words made me see clearly that when I had fallen short in the past, it was seldom because I had tried and failed. It was usually because I had let fear of failure stop me from trying at all. On the other hand, whenever I had jumped into deep water, forced by courage or circumstance (环境), I had always been able to swim until I got my feet on the ground again.

    Boldness means a decision to bite (咬) off more than you can eat. And there is nothing mysterious about the mighty forces. They are inner powers we have: energy, skill, sound judgment, creative ideas––even physical strength greater than most of us realize.

    Admittedly, those mighty forces are spiritual ones. But they are more important than physical ones. A college classmate of mine, Tim, was an excellent football player, even though he weighed much less than the average player. “In one game I suddenly found myself facing a huge player, who had nothing but me between him and our goal line,” said Tim. “I was so frightened that I closed my eyes and crazily threw myself at that guy like a bullet (子弹) ––and stopped him cold.”

Boldness—a willingness to get yourself to the extreme—is not one that can be gained overnight. But it can be taught to children and developed in adults. Confidence builds up. Surely, there will be setbacks (挫折) and disappointments in life; boldness in itself is no guarantee (保证) of success. But the person who tries to do something and fails is a lot better off than the person who tries to do nothing and succeeds.

    So, always try to live a little bit beyond your abilities — and you'll find your abilities are greater than you ever dreamed.

    When Iwas.in the third grade, we had a hunt at school. We gathered up chalk，pencils，stones, and so on, rapidly filling our checklists. It was a very close race. I was out of breath when I reached the clover (三叶草)patch in search of the last, most hard-to-find item: a four-leaf clover.

    I was pretty sure that I was going to win. 1 have always been able to find four-leaf clovers. I just see them.

    I spent my childhood collecting and pressing four-leaf clovers into books at my mother's house. I started with big cloth- and leather-bound books. When I ran out of romantically bound volumes, I began to put my treasures into anything I could find: fiction paperbacks, cookbooks. The same is true in my house today. Shake a book, and a papery treasure just might fall into your hand.

    A few years ago, in Nova Scotia, my husband and I pulled off the road for a picnic. The ground was thick with clover. Some shoots had four, five, even six leaves. I lined them up on the picnic table to admire as my husband, never yet having found one four-leaf clover, looked on with awe. To me, it was simple. The differences in their shapes popped out, breaking the pretty pattern of the conventional clovers with their three perfect leaves.

    Two summers back, while waiting for an airport shuttle in Munich, I found a tiny four-leaf clover in a traffic circle and put it into my passport. On the way home, my husband and I were upgraded to business class. Friends attributed our good luck to the clover. I think, it's more likely that we were upgraded because a kind customer service officer took pity on us.

    People disagree about whether the luck lies in the finding or in the possession of a clover. Some believe that the luck is lost if the four-leaf clover is even shown to somebody else, while others think the luck doubles if it is given away. I believe that positivity is increased by sharing. I feel lucky to find the clovers so often, but I don't think they influence my life any more than it does to share anything a little special—that momentary closeness between you and a friend or a stranger, as you all lean in to wonder at a rare find.

    Marian Bechtel sits at West Palm Beach's Bar Louie counter by herself, quietly reading her e-book as she waits for her salad. What is she reading? None of your business! Lunch is Bechtel's "me" time. And like more Americans, she's not alone.

    A new report found 46 percent of meals are eaten alone in America. More than half（53 percent）have breakfast alone and nearly half（46 percent）have lunch by themselves. Only at dinnertime are we eating together anymore, 74 percent, according to statistics from the report.

    "I prefer to go out and be out. Alone, but together, you know？"Bechtel said, looking up from her book. Bechtel, who works in downtown West Palm Beach, has lunch with coworkers sometimes, but like many of us, too often works through lunch at her desk. A lunchtime escape allows her to keep a boss from tapping her on the shoulder. She returns to work feeling energized. "Today, I just wanted some time to myself, "she said.
    Just two seats over, Andrew Mazoleny, a local videographer, is finishing his lunch at the bar. He likes that he can sit and check his phone in peace or chat up the barkeeper with whom he's on a first-name basis if he wants to have a little interaction（交流）. "I reflect on how my day's gone and think about the rest of the week," he said. "It's a chance for self-reflection, You return to work recharged and with a plan."

    That freedom to choose is one reason more people like to eat alone. There was a time when people may have felt awkward about asking for a table for one, but those days are over. Now, we have our smartphones to keep us company at the table. "It doesn't feel as alone as it may have before al the advances in technology," said Laurie Demerit, whose company provided the statistics for the report.

    Winter plays a vital part in nature's cycle teaching us through plants that "all good things must come to an end" over time. However, rebirth and restoration often brings a greater glory and appreciation for the natural beauty around us.

    Each day when I take my bike for a spin around the city streets, I am reminded that technology also teaches us lessons, specifically when the bicycle chain unavoidably slips out of gear (齿轮), refusing to shift properly, the hand brake-lines keep reacting faulty and some man-made things need repair or replacement. "Winter is coming." For many, this means a time to oil up, repair and adjust equipment. In the case of my two-wheel transportation, some people have suggested, "Why don't you just get a new bike for safety's sake?" My unwillingness, however, stems from loyalty, fond attachment. Also, I hold a belief that I should be a bit patient and resourceful, simply replacing worn-out parts when required.

    However, as I try to swing my legs over the seat while getting on the bike, my legs and joint (关节)do not respond quickly and reliable like before. A few months ago, after hiking the Great Wall on an overnight camping trip, I realized I needed more rest and restoration than ever. My heart rate beat violently, and every muscle in my tired body screamed for relief. Admittedly, these pains were nothing like having a broken limb, or surgery. Yet, the world suddenly seemed to be very unfriendly. I keep telling myself "winter is coming." and soon I can hibernate (冬眠) getting much needed rest.

    Actually, we all need to take a break from training routines, hard jobs, and frequently repeated tasks, to restore (修复) our bodies and minds. Nature shows us the way. Patience pays off when you attend to your gardens with faithful attention to each of nature's jewels. Hopefully, as we grow，each of us learns the art of repair, restoration, and patience. Perhaps, you will discover the glory of rebirth after winter, being reborn and restored to even more powerful magnificent glory.

    Papa, as a son of a dirt-poor farmer, left school early and went to work in a factory, for education was for the rich then. So, the world became his school. With great interest, he read everything he could lay his hands on, listened to the town elders and learned about the world beyond his tiny hometown. "There's so much to learn," he'd say. "Though we're born stupid, only the stupid remain that way." He was determined that none of his children would be denied an education.

       Thus, Papa insisted that we learn at least one new thing each day. Though, as children, we thought this was crazy, it would never have occurred to us to deny Papa a request. And dinner time seemed perfect for sharing what we had learned. We would talk about the news of the day; no matter how insignificant, it was never taken lightly. Papa would listen carefully and was ready with some comment, always to the point.

    Then came the moment—the time to share the day's new learning.

    Papa, at the head of the table, would push back his chair and pour a glass of red wine, ready to listen.

    "Felice," he'd say, "tell me what you learned today."

    "I learned that the population of Nepal is ..." Silence.

    Papa was thinking about what was said, as if the salvation of the world would depend upon it. "The population of Nepal. Hmm. Well …" he'd say. "Get the map; let's see where Nepal is." And the whole family went on a search for Nepal.

       This same experience was repeated until each family member had a turn. Dinner ended only after we had a clear understanding of at least half a dozen such facts.

    As children, we thought very little about these educational wonders. Our family, however, was growing together, sharing experiences and participating in one another's education. And by looking at us, listening to us, respecting our input, affirming our value, giving us a sense of dignity, Papa was unquestionably our most influential teacher.

    Later during my training as a future teacher, I studied with some of the most famous educators. They were imparting what Papa had known all along—the value of continual learning. His technique has served me well all my life. Not a single day has been wasted, though I can never tell when knowing the population of Nepal might prove useful.

    In 1985, the BMX bike craze was at its height. Every kid in our community was doing tricks on their BMX Raleigh Burner. Every kid apart from two: me and Martin Ogley. Martin was the owner of a purple Raleigh Chopper, and to be seen riding it in 1985 was embarrassing. The kids would knock into Martin mercilessly at every opportunity. And although I didn't own any kind of bike, I would join in. I knew that by keeping the focus on Martin, I was less likely to be a target.

    When other kids asked where my bike was  I would say my BMX was so top-of-the-range that I didn't ride it on the street. While I knew it would not  hold up  forever, I wasn't too worried. The New Year was coming and, after months of complaining to my dad, I was confident that a BMX would appear.

    On the New Year, I was disappointed to see Martin playing at the end of our street on what was clearly a brand-new BMX. As we entered the house, my eyes were drawn to where my presents were piled up. There was a bike. A purple Raleigh Chopper. You see, in the week before the New Year, my dad just happened to be drinking in the local working men's club with Martin's dad, who was eager to sell an old bike after buying his son a new one.

    It wasn't until I was in my 30s that we were in that same working men's club and I reminded my dad of that year, the year of Martin Ogley's Chopper. I thought he wouldn't remember the whole thing, but he did. And so I asked him the question: How the hell did I end up with Martin Ogle's Chopper? And my dad smiled and said as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, “Well, because you were mean to Martin.”

The Boston Marathon is the oldest annual race in the world. This long-distance running event began in 1897. Like all marathons the distance is 26.2 miles (about 42 kilometer). To enter, you must first have the right to take part in, and about 20,000 athletes meet the requirements each year. Within that number are some who are known as “mobility impaired”. They might be in wheelchairs or have a man-made leg or arm. They start the marathon two hours before the other runners.

I will never forget the first time that I ran the Boston Marathon. A truly amazing thing happened when I was halfway through the race. Ahead of me, there was a man who had only one leg. He was using a pair of crutches (拐杖) to help him run. Every runner who ran past him called out some words of praise and encouragement. I finished my race that day in just under 3 hours and 30 minutes. After finding my family, we went back to our hotel room.

After resting a bit, at around 6 pm, we decided to watch the last of the runners pass the finishing line. By this time, there were only a few runners left in the race. As we stood there, I began to hear people cheering. Then I saw the man on crutches getting closer and closer to the finish. It was 8 hours and 15 minutes after the mobility-impaired runners had started. As he approached the end, he suddenly raised his crutches up in the air and completed the last stretch (临近终点的一段跑道) on one leg. To watch him pass the finishing line was the most amazing and inspiring experience of my life, one that my children and I still talk about.

I have a personal motto (座右铭). "There is no great goal achieved without greater sacrifice." To me, it means that the journey toward your goals is often more difficult than actually reaching the goal itself. And people who make that journey, like the runner that day, encourage those around them.

A poor boy was selling goods from one door to another to pay for his studies. One day he found that he had almost no money, and he was hungry. So he decided to ask for a meal.

But when a woman opened the door, he only dared to ask for a glass of water. To his surprise, she gave him a large glass of milk. He drank it and then asked how much he should pay her. She said, "You don't have to pay me anything. Mother has taught us never to accept pay for a kindness." He was deeply moved and was determined to help those in need. The boy's name was Howard Kelly.

Many years had passed. One day that woman became seriously ill. The local doctors could not help her. So they sent her to a big city where her rare disease would be studied by specialists. Dr. Howard Kelly was called in for advice. When he entered her room in the hospital, he immediately spotted the woman. Howard Kelly was determined to do his best to help her.

The struggle was long, but together they succeeded in the end. After some time the woman received a bill for her treatment. She was worried that the amount would be so large that it would take the rest of her life to pay for it. However, when she looked at the bill, she found words on the side of the bill. They were, "Paid in full with a glass of milk."

Studying for Success: Born or Made?

"What are we to do?" Two Chinese parents asked helplessly, throwing their hands up in the air. With two bachelor's degrees, a master's degree, and a Ph.D. earned by the couple from top universities in China, you would think that even if they couldn't solve a problem, they might be able to find someone who could. So, what "problem" gave them so much trouble?

Their son, 10 years old, has been the center of their lives. They have thrown all of their resources into his education. They have taught him themselves and provided all kinds of extra tutorial classes, but to no avail. Their son continues to perform poorly in examinations, even though he studies very hard. Eventually, the mother accepted that her son is below average and said he may be able to live a comfortable life with an ordinary job.

Is the mother right?

I don't think so. I have taught thousands of students before, and I can tell you with certainty that talent is not distributed evenly. What is talent? It is strictly defined as "natural skill," but I would like to narrow that definition further: the speed with which one can master new skills. Some students simply learn material faster. But is your ability to learn limited by your talent from birth? I think the answer to that question is really up to you. If you do not learn as fast as your classmates, then you must study harder. For example, if you spend more time and effort improving your reading speed and comprehension, you will almost certainly be able to learn more over the course of your life from reading — if you continue to read books.

However, some would argue that if you tell a student that they are average, it will hurt their self-esteem. And low self-esteem could mean less motivation to learn. Research, however, has failed to show any relation between self-esteem and task performance. Instead, realizing his/her lack of talent may stimulate the child to put in more effort.

In the case of this student, the mother has accepted the fact that her son is average. But as far as I am concerned, as a role model for her son, she should continue to work hard, to show her son that being average is certainly no reason to be lazy — if anything, it should be a reason to work harder!

In learning, the work of a diligent fool doubles that of a lazy wit. So get cracking and you will do much better than that "lazy wit"!

I grew up as a country girl. My sister and I didn't play video games. We didn't have cable TV. Summers were filled with swimming in the pond and picking wild blackberries for Grandma to make a pie. Autumn was filled with corn mazes and crunching through leaves in the woods. And winter was all about building igloos near the frozen lake.

My high school had zero diversity. Most people here could visit their entire extended family within 30 miles' drive. And many were perfectly happy with the prospect of staying in rural northeast Ohio forever.

It was in high school that I began to realize that I wanted something beyond what I knew inside my Midwest bubble. I loved reading and learning about new places, so I spent the rest of my high school career saving up so that I could go on a Lord of the Rings–themed tour of New Zealand when I graduated.

After that initial trip to New Zealand, I was fully infected with the travel bug. I joined my college marching band simply because it would mean international performance tours every two years. And I began to realize that I couldn't imagine my life without travel in it.

I got a great education from both my little rural high school and my little rural Ohio college. But, the more I traveled, the more acutely aware I became of the fact that traveling made up for my education in a way that textbooks and PowerPoint presentations in lecture halls just simply could not.

So, is travel the best education? Well, I don't know if it deserves the superlative of the "best". But travel is definitely really valuable and a necessary part of becoming a global citizen of the world.

Like many people, I've spent much of my life trying various diets and methods of losing weight, some quick and painless, others slow and tiring. most of them including the so-called "cheat day".

The principle of the cheat day is simple: After going on a diet throughout a week or a month, you can eat anything you like on that day. The day makes all my eating and drinking not only satisfactory but acceptable. After all, I deserve it.

However, the problem for me was that cheat days were never quite that. Either they became happy cheat weeks, cheat months and sometimes cheat years, or they filled me with anxiety of going off-track so that I couldn't truly enjoy them. Using food as a reward only perpetuated my unhealthy relationship with food, and it troubled me in my approach to health.

After struggling for a couple of months, I came to realize the true colors of the cheat day. It goes to extremes — none or all. Also, cheat days imply that foods can be divided into "good" and "bad". That's why I felt guilty when I had a piece of cake for breakfast instead of fat-free milk. But food, in fact, has no moral (道德的)value. It is simply intended to fill your body and provide nutrition. Hopefully it tastes good, too.

This simple thought has inspired me to quit cheat days. I don't feel worried or ashamed any more and start to reconsider my relationship with food. I just pay more attention to the signs of my stomach, and eat what I desire while being mindful of the health results. Doing away with cheat days lightens my mind and improves my relationship with food.

"I'm going to fail !"My best friend cried. She and I had this conversation almost every day while we were in high school.

The truth was that my friend never failed in any subjects. I just think that she can't accept failures because she lives her life as a perfectionist (完美主义者). What she fails to understand is that a lot of good can come from failures.

For example, failure can help build relationships. Once was cooking dinner for a friend. I was tired, and several dishes I tried to make turned out bad. I grew more and more upset until my friend told me that I shouldn't worry. She cared more about our friendship than the dishes. That day, I learned that failure doesn't always make people dislike you. In fact, after she said those words to me, I grew closer to her.

Failure can make success ever more exciting. Every few years, there would be an important test in the PE class at our school. Students had to run a mile within eight minutes. I was never good at running, so I failed every time until the third year at school. Then I began working out regularly, and yet I still failed that year. A few days later, however, the teacher gave me and some other students another chance to run and I got a pass finally! You can't imagine how excited I was after that. I felt the memory of the success was as sweet as honey, because I had to overcome failure to reach it.

Now its clear to see that failure can teach us good lessons. It's not an end—it can be a beginning.

Growing up on a farm, I learned from my parents about the large bees we called mangangava. But in college, when I gave a presentation about those bees, I didn't mention their familiar name;instead I used formal terms when describing their adaptations for pollinating (投粉)。I was afraid of being judged for expressing my personal knowledge in a science class. But when the instructor pressed me to tell the class whether I'd seen the bees myself and what I called them, my views and my whole career path began to change. I realized my background was valuable, and that my calling was to help educate others like me.

My parents worked on a small farm and I often helped out when I was not in school. They had a close relationship with nature, something they learned from my grandparents and passed down to me. This was why I became interested in biology.

In college, I joined a series of labs to gain research experience, but my interest in pursuing a career as a scientist began to wane after I realized my research was not helping poor people like my parents. As a black student from a rural community, I also felt out of place in most classes. The feeling of not belonging circled in my head. I sometimes thought about giving up.

My instructor's request that I share my knowledge of the mangangava bee changed my view. She saw that tapping into my personal experiences would help me grasp the scientific concepts. No other professor had shown that kind of sensitivity, which helped me realize I did have a place in higher education and that I didn't need to hide who I truly am. I'm now a master's student in education, working on a project that explores the connection between science and traditional knowledge.

I don't think I'd be here if I hadn't crossed paths with my instructor. We need more educators and scientists like her-people who can serve as role models and know that the best way to develop new scientists is to allow students to be themselves.