First Lady Michelle Obama is on a five-day trip to Asia. She is visiting Japan and Cambodia to help publicize a program called "Let Girls Learn". Administration officials set up the campaign to support the education of millions of girls worldwide.

    Before her trip, Mrs. Obama and her husband noted the inability of an estimated 62-million girls to attend school. They said educating the girls should be a foreign policy goal.

    This week, Mrs. Obama criticized the fact that tens of millions of girls are not receiving a satisfactory education. In her opinion piece, she wrote this failure to educate girls it was more than "a tragic waste of potential." It is both a serious public health issue and a problem for the economic health of nations and the world. She also said it was "a threat to the security of countries around the world".

    The First Lady noted by 2012, every part of the developing world was educating both girls and boys in primary schools. But this is not the case in secondary education. She wrote in some areas girls face "the cultural values and practices that limit the prospects of women in their societies ".

    The Obama administration launched the "Let Girls Learn" campaign earlier this month. At the time, Mrs. Obama noted plans to involve the U.S. Peace Corps, and the Volunteer Development Agency.

    "This effort will draw on the talent and energy of the nearly 7,000 Peace Corps volunteers serving in more than 60 countries. Through this effort, Peace Corps will be supporting hundreds of new community projects to help girls go to school and stay in school. And, I want to emphasize that these programs will be community-generated and community-led. They will be based on solutions devised by local leaders, families and yes, even the girls themselves."

    President Obama also spoke at the same White House event, saying that campaign is important to his administration.

    The values of artistic works, according to cultural relativism（相对主义）, are simply reflections of local social and economic conditions. Such a view, however, fails to explain the ability of some works of art to excite the human mind across cultures and through centuries.

    History has witnessed the endless productions of Shakespearean plays in every major language of the world. It is never rare to find that Mozart packs Japanese concert halls, as Japanese painter Hiroshige does Paris galleries. Unique works of this kinds are different from today's popular art, even if they began as works of popular art. They have set themselves apart in their timeless appeal and will probably be enjoyed for centuries into the future.

    In a 1757 essay, the philosopher David Hume argued that because “the general principles of taste are uniform（不变的）in human nature,” the value of some works of art might be essentially permanent. He observed that Homer was still admired after two thousand years. Works of this type, he believed, spoke to deep and unvarying features of human nature and could continue to exist over centuries.

    Now researchers are applying scientific methods to the study of the universality of art. For example, evolutionary psychology is being used by literary scholars to explain the long-lasting themes and plot devices in fiction. The structures of musical pieces are now open to experimental analysis as never before. Research findings seem to indicate that the creation by a great artist is as permanent an achievement as the discovery by a great scientist.

    Have you ever lost your car on a parking lot? You don't have a clue where your car is after shopping. Then you start walking around clicking on your car keys so the alarm goes off. It can be annoying, especially on a hot sunny day.

    No, you needn't install (安装) an expensive GPS system to keep track of your car. That's too expensive. You would need to pay a monthly fee to use it.

    But is there a way to track your vehicle without spending a fortune? Yes, now there is! A California-based company has created a tiny device that works with your smartphone, which could be exactly what you're looking for!

    What is it?

    It's called TrackR. It is a state-of-the-art tracking device the size of a coin. It's changing the way we keep track of the important things in our lives.

    How does it work?

    It's easy! Install the free TrackR app on your smartphone, connect the app to your device and you're ready to go! Simply attach TrackR to whatever you want to keep an eye on. The entire process of setting it up only takes 5 minutes or less.

    You can attach it to your keys, briefcase, wallet, your latest tech gadgets and anything else you don't want to lose. Then use the TrackR app to locate your missing item in seconds.

    If you forget where you have parked your car, pull out your smartphone and open the TrackR app. Tap on the “find device” button on the screen and the app will tell you the exact spot of the last known location of the TrackR.

    What else can I do with TrackR?

    The device is small and unnoticeable enough that you can attach it to your pet. Put it on their collar, and the issue of searching for them when they run away to nearby places will be over! You'll never waste a minute searching the whole house for it.

    TrackR even comes with a double-sided glue (胶水) so you can stick it to your laptop or under your bike seat. Track down and punish the thieves who steal your expensive things!

    How much does it cost?

    You're probably thinking that this device is very expensive. False! TrackR only costs $29! That's a small price to pay for peace of mind, isn't it?

    Where can I buy one?

    You can buy it directly from the company's website by clicking here https: //buy. thetrackr. co/gu/special- offers/15/.

    When school started on that warm August day, I threw myself into everything I did, including playing volleyball. I decided to become beautiful, or at the very least, skinny. I stopped eating completely. Soon I began losing weight, which thrilled me, and I even grew to love the tiredness and lightheadedness( 头晕)that came with my poor diet, for those feelings meant that I was winning.

    As the season progressed, things had become tense between my head volleyball coach, Coach Smith, and me. She felt that something was wrong with my health. She talked with me about my eating and was angry that I wouldn't listen to her when she tried to make me eat. She tried to persuade me in a determined way and so we fought constantly. Then my hunger started to affect my performance. I was so tired that practice and games were becoming a struggle. One afternoon, with hurt in her eyes, Coach Smith asked me what I had eaten and I told her nothing yet. She looked at me, disappointment in her eyes, knowing she couldn't make me stop, and walked away.

    A couple of weeks later I attended a formal dinner for our volleyball team. I stood there as my coach managed to say something nice about me. I realized then that I had ruined my senior year by being disrespectful, and I had probably ruined hers as well. So that evening I wrote her a letter apologizing and thanking her.

    Then one Saturday, as I was reading in the library, I felt someone gently take my arm and say softly, “Lynn Jones, how are you doing?” I looked up and saw the familiar face. “Thanks for the letter,” she said. “It meant a lot.” When I think of a coach, I think of someone above me, someone who gives instruction — not a friend. But Coach Smith is different, and, like any other good friend, she dealt with my problem in a determined way even when I hated her for it at that time. I didn't deserve her kindness, but she gave it anyway. I will forever be grateful for her help, and now for her friendship.

    Since many of you are planning to study at a college or university in the future, you may be curious to know what your future study will be like. This is the question I want to discuss with you today.

    First, let's talk about what your weekly timetable will look like. No matter what your major may be, you can expect to spend between four and six hours a week for each class attending lecture. Lectures are usually in very large rooms because some courses such as Introduction to Sociology or Economics often have as many as two or three hundred students, especially at large universities. In lectures, it's very important for you to take notes on what the professor says because the information in a lecture is often different from that in your textbooks. Also, you can expect to have exam questions based on the lectures. So it isn't enough to just read your textbooks; you have to attend lectures as well. In a typical week, you will also have a couple of hours of discussion for every class you take. The discussion part is a small group meeting usually with fewer than thirty students where you can ask questions about the lectures, the reading, and the homework. In large universities, graduate students called teaching assistants, usually direct discussion parts

    If your major is chemistry, or physics, or another science, you'll also have to spend several hours a week in the lab doing experiments. This means that science majors spend more time in the classroom than non-science majors do. On the other hand, people who major in subjects like literature or history usually have to read and write more than science majors do.

    The summer I turned 16, my father gave me a car, which permitted Hannah and me to drive around Tucson whenever we wanted to.

    Hannah was my best friend. "Hannah's amazing," my mother always said. And sure enough, that summer she signed with a modeling agency. She was already doing runway work.

    One day, Hannah and I went to the movies. On the way home, we stopped at the McDonald's drive-through, putting the fries on the seat between us to share. "Let's ride around a while," I said. It was a clear night, moonlight shone over the desert. Taking a turn too fast, I hit a patch of dirt and fishtailed.

    French fries on the floor. An impossible amount of blood on Hannah's face. They took us in separate ambulances. In the ER, my parents spoke quietly Best plastic surgeon in the city. End of her modeling career.

    We'd been wearing lap belts, but the car didn't have shoulder harnesses. I'd cracked my cheekbone: Hannah's forehead had split wide open. What would I say to her?

    When her mother, Sharon, came into my hospital room, I started to cry, bracing myself for her anger. She sat beside me and took my hand. "I almost ended my best friend when I was your age," she said, "I totaled her car and mine."

    "I'm so sorry," I said.

    "You're both alive," she said, "The rest is window dressing." I started to protest, and Sharon stopped me. "I forgive you. Hannah will too."

    Sharon's forgiveness allowed Hannah and me to stay friends throughout life. I think of her gift of forgiveness every time I want to resent someone for a perceived wrong. And whenever I see Hannah, the scars are a symbol of grace for me.