As a child, Alain Robert was afraid of heights. When he was 12, he returned home from school. At the front door of his building, he looked for his keys. he didn't have them. It was 3:30 and his parents worked until 6:00 pm. Alain looked at his apartment on the eighth floor. He saw an open window. He closed his eyes and imagined himself climbing the building. When he opened his eyes, he told himself ,"I can do it." Fifteen minutes later, he was in his house and his fear of heights was gone.

    Today, Alain still climbs buildings. In 2003 , he climbed a building in London dressed as Spiderman(蜘蛛人) to advertise the movie. In 2004, he climbed Taipei 101 (one of the tallest buildings in the world). To reach the top of a building, Alain uses only his hands and special shoes. He has no rope or other safety tools.

    Alain climbs as a hobby. He also does it to make money for charity. When he climbs, he wants to send a message to people. If you have a dream—something you really want to do—it can become real. But you must be brave and keep trying. If something bad happens, don't give up. Close your eyes and tell yourself, "I can do it."

It is hardly surprising that clothing manufacturers(生产商) follow certain uniform standards for different features of clothes. What seems strange, however, is that the standard used for women is the opposite of the one for men. Take a look at the way your clothes button. Men's clothes tend to button from the right, and women's from the left. Considering most of the world's population—men and women—are right-handed, the men's standard would appear to make more sense（更有道理） for women. So why do women's clothes button from the left?

    History really seems to matter here. Buttons first appeared only on the clothes of the rich in the 17th century, when rich women were dressed by servants. For the mostly right-handed servants, having women's shirts button from the left would be easier. On the other hand, having men's shirts button from the right made sense, too. Most men dressed themselves, and a sword（剑） drawn from the left with the right hand would be less likely to get caught in the shirt.

    Today women are seldom dressed by servants, but buttoning from the left is still the standard for them. Is it interesting? Actually, a standard, once it is set, resists change. At a time when all women's shirts buttoned from the left, it would have been risky for any single manufacturer to offer women's shirts that buttoned from the right. After all, women had grown so used to shirts which buttoned from the left and would have to develop new habits and skills to switch. Besides, some women might have found it socially awkward to appear in public wearing shirts that buttoned from the right, since anyone who noticed that would believe they were wearing men's shirts.

    Cuyahoga Valley National Park Volunteer Program

    Building a Community of Park Stewards

    Position Title: Wildlife Volunteer – Butterfly Monitors (2 positions)

    Dates: Mid May to September, 2018

    Hours: 8 ~ 16 hours / week

    Location: Cuyahoga Valley National Park

    Duties: Park staff will train volunteers in butterfly identification and data recording for one week before volunteers work in team of two to help track butterfly monitoring areas. Butterfly monitoring areas are 1 ~ 2 miles in length and are walked one time per week. There are a total of three butterfly monitoring areas within the park. Butterflies are identified by using binoculars （望远镜） or by netting and releasing. Data is recorded on data sheets.

    Skills Required: Applicants must have self motivation and desire to work with others. Volunteers will work during days when temperature is 70 degrees or more, between 10:30 am and 5 pm. Ability to walk a long distance in hot and humid conditions is needed. Skills with basic butterfly identification are not a must but helpful.

    Requirements: Applicants must complete a National Park Service Agreement and have their backgrounds looked into. U. S. citizenship is required. Applicants must be current Kent State University students.

    How to Apply: Please request an application from Mike Johnson at gkovach@kent.edu and send it back to Mike Johnson at gkovach@kent.edu, with the above position title as the subject, by February 15, 2018. If offered an interview, please come to Cuyahoga Valley National Park with your personal resume introducing your education and your previous work experience.

    For further information, please call Jamie Walters at (330) 657-2142 or email jwalters@forcvnp.org.

    A study, conducted by David Evans of the World Bank and Anna Popova of Stanford University, looked at 19 programs around the world in which individuals were given cash transfers from the government, either as a handout or as a "reward" for something like getting kids to school on time or taking them to the doctor for checkups.

    Evans and Popova looked at the impact those cash transfers had on the family budget and whether or not they led to an increase in spending on alcohol and cigarettes .What they found was that they almost always led to a reduction in a family's alcohol and tobacco purchases.

     The news may surprise some people, but it's true, and the researchers have several theories about why.

    One theory is that the cash transfer made things possible that once seemed impossible. Investing in their kids' education or buying healthier and more expensive foods may be within reach now, but without the cash handout, these goals weren't even a possibility. So families cut back on other expenses (like alcohol and tobacco) to make those dreams a reality.

    Another theory is that people just generally seem to do what they're told. If they are given money and told to use it for their family's welfare, in most cases, they will do just that. And that leads to the third theory: These cash transfers are usually given to women, and studies show that when women control the purse strings, more money is spent on taking care of their children.

    Whatever the reason for the trend, the data is clear—families that receive cash handouts don't waste the money on booze and cigarettes as was previously thought. Instead, they typically use that money for the benefit of their families. And that's money well spent.

    There was an earthquake this morning. I was working in front of my computer when it hit the city. The quake started with a sudden loud noise. I thought that something heavy in a neighbor's house probably had fallen. However, the walls and the floor began to shake. I finally realized it was an earthquake.

    My son Zac, a sixteen­year­old boy, was sleeping with his door locked. Being sixteen, he can sleep through any kind of noise. "Zac!" I shouted. "Are you OK?" But nobody replied. I was a little worried. I couldn't imagine that someone was able to get such a deep sleep. The house was dancing. There were waves in the swimming pool. I was afraid the house would come down. "Zac!" I yelled, knocking on his door with an open palm (手掌). "Zac! Wake up! It's an earthquake! We need to get out!"

    My son finally emerged in his underpants. We looked around the room. I knew that we should hide under a table to stop things from falling on us and stay away from glass. Unfortunately, none of our furniture was designed for hiding under. "Should we go into the garden?" Zac asked. "No, trees could fall on us!" I said. Actually, Zac had done earthquake drills (训练) at school. He must have been told to hide under a desk and cover his head. But we had nothing to cover our heads in the house.

    Luckily, before we took any action, the windows stopped moving and the pool calmed down. Everything went back to normal soon. But both my son and I knew what we should do, because we knew if there had been a really big earthquake this morning, we couldn't have escaped from it.

    I'm a storyteller. And I would like to tell you a few personal stories.

    I grew up reading British and American children's books. When I began to write, I wrote exactly the kinds of stories I was reading: All my characters were white and blue-eyed, they ate apples and talked a lot about the weather, despite the fact that I lived in Nigeria. We ate mangoes, and we never talked about the weather. Because all I had read were books in which characters were foreign, I had become convinced that books by their very nature had to have foreigners in them. Things changed when I discovered African books. Because of writers like Chinua Achebe and Camara Laye, I went through a mental shift in my idea of literature. I realized that people like me, girls with skin the color of chocolate, could also exist in literature. I started to write about things I recognized. So what the discovery of African writers did for me was this: It saved me from having a single story of what books are. The year I turned eight, we got a new house boy Fide from a nearby rural village. The only thing my mother told us about him was that his family was very poor. And when I didn't finish my dinner, my mother would say，"Finish your food! Don't you know? People like Fide's family have nothing." So I felt enormous pity for Fide's family. Then one Saturday, we went to his village to visit, and his mother showed us a beautifully patterned basket that his brother had made. I was astonished. It had not occurred to me that anybody in his family could actually make something. Their poverty was my single story of them.

    Years later, when I left Nigeria to go to university in the United States, my American roommate asked where I had learned to speak English so well, and was confused when I said that Nigeria happened to have English as its official language. What struck me was this: She had felt sorry for me even before she saw me. My roommate had a single story of Africa: a single story of catastrophe.

    Of course, Africa is a continent full of catastrophes. But there are other stories that are not about catastrophe, and it is very important, it is just as important, to talk about them. The consequence of the single story is this: It robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar.

    So what if my mother had told us that Fide's family was poor and hardworking? What if we had an African television network that broadcast diverse African stories all over the world? What if my roommate knew about my Nigerian publisher, Muhtar Bakare, a remarkable man who left his job in a bank to follow his dream and start a publishing house? What if my roommate knew about my friend Funmi Iyanda, a fearless woman who hosts a TV show, and is determined to tell the stories that we prefer to forget?

    My Nigerian publisher and I have just started a non-profit called Farafina Trust, and we have big dreams of building libraries and providing books for state schools, and also of organizing lots of workshops in reading and writing, for all the people who are eager to tell our many stories.

    Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity. When we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise.