Tired of Working in Your Country?

With over 500 instructors and 20 years of experience, we are the leader in the field of teaching foreign languages. We now have positions open in Osaka starting September/October 2018 for instructions of English, German, Spanish and French.

    Teach many different kinds of classes using the latest technology in small classes of up to 30 students.

    Accommodation, and other necessary documents will be ready before you leave.

    Applicants will teach their first language only.

    Excellent teacher training programs.

    If you are young with a university degree and are willing to experience different cultures, apply now. Experience in teaching is an advantage but not specially required. Knowledge of the Japanese language is not necessary but good English skills and practical computer knowledge are basic requirements.

Apply with C.V. and send letter to:

    NOVA France, Mr. Sampy (IHT 3/2)

    34, Bd. Haussmann, 75009 Paris, France

    Fax: 33148014804

    Or visit our website: www. teachjp. com

    The manager expects to meet and talk with successful applicants in Paris in June and July.

    The Marches were a happy family. Poverty, hard work, and even the fact that Father March was away with the Union armies could not down the spirits of Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy, and Marmee, as the March girls called their mother.

    The March sisters tried to be good but had their share of faults. Pretty Meg was often displeased with the schoolchildren she taught; boyish Jo was easy to become angry; golden-haired schoolgirl Amy liked to show up; but Beth, who kept the house, was loving and gentle always.

    The happy days passed and darkness came when a telegram arrived for Mrs. March. “Your husband is very ill,” it said, “come at once.” The girl tried to be brave when their mother left for the front. They waited and prayed. Little Beth got scarlet fever（猩红热）when she was taking care of the sick neighbor. She became very ill but began to recover by the time Marmee was back. When Father came home from the front and at that joyful Christmas dinner they were once more all together.

    Three years later the March girls had grown into young womanhood. Meg became Mrs. Brooke, and after a few family troubles got used to her new state happily. Jo had found pleasure in her literary efforts. Amy had grown into a young lady with a talent for design and an even greater one for society. But Beth had never fully regained her health, and her family watched her with love and anxiety.

    Amy was asked to go and stay in Europe with a relative of the Marches'. Jo went to New York and became successful in her writing and had the satisfaction of seeing her work published there. But at home the bitterest blow was yet to fall. Beth had known for some time that she couldn't live much longer to be with the family and in the spring time she died.

    News came from Europe that Amy and Laurie, the grandson of a wealthy neighbor, had planned to be married soon. Now Jo became ever more successful in her writing and got married to Professor Bhaer and soon afterwards founded a school for boys.

    And so the little women had grown up and lived happily with their children, enjoying the harvest of love and goodness that they had devoted all their lives to.

    These days, North Kickapoo Street in Shawnee, Oklahoma, is a four-lane road leading out to the highway, and lined with all kinds of places to eat and shop. But in the mid-1950s, it was just a gravel(砂砾) country road, the perfect place for our daddies to teach us how to drive.

We didn't have driver's education at Shawnee High School. We were on our own. Mom took me to pick up an instruction handbook. I was the oldest of my friends, so we were excited at the prospect of a whole new world opening up. We'd have freedom to get around. Best of all, we could go to the Starlite Drive—In theater on 50-cents-a-carload night. We'd have it made.

    Mom let me back our 1949 Ford out of the garage a few times to get used to the clutch (离合器) and gearshift (变速排挡杆). I got familiar with the motion but was hardly ready for my road test.

    Finally, the day came for Daddy to give me a real lesson. He drove out to the end of the paved section of Kickapoo Street and across to where the gravel started. My daddy had come from a family of 10, and they had been farmers in a poor area in Oklahoma. There was only one way to do things, and that was the right way.

Praises were rare, so when he expressed his approval it was special. I didn't want to experience his glare if I ground the clutch or the car shook as I tried to get it going.

    I took a deep breath, slowly let out the clutch, pushed the stick into second gear, eased down the road, and then carefully moved into third gear. He had me stop and repeat the procedure two or three more times until I came to the end of the section. I was feeling pretty good as I came to a stop and looked to Daddy for approval.

He glared at me and then barked, “You've been driving, haven't you?” He must have thought I'd been practicing in somebody else's car. I quickly explained that my training was all done on the Ford.

    That was 60 years ago. I can still see the nod he gave me when he said, "Well, you did a good job."

    On the eve of our daughters' weddings, I gave both of them what I considered to be excellent marital advice: never leave your husband unsupervised （无人监督的） with pruning shears （修枝剪）.

    If only I had taken my own advice. I recently let my guard down. Thirty﹣some years of marriage can do that to a woman. Give a man pruning shears and electric trimmers （电动修剪器） and he will give new meaning to "armed and dangerous."

One day earlier this year, my husband said that the crab apple tree was dead.

    "Why do you think it is dead?" I asked.

    "Look at it. There's not a leaf on it."

    "There's not a leaf on anything. It's March," I said.

    "It looked sick last fall and with this bitter winter we had, I'm convinced it's dead."

    The truth is he's never liked the crabapple. Sure, it has beautiful blooms in the spring, but then it gets a disease, the leaves curl, and it drops those little apples that sit on the driveway.

    Each passing week he pronounced the tree dead. Eventually I began to believe him. Though he agreed it would be a regrettable loss, there was a twinkle in his eye. He armed himself a couple of weeks ago and began trimming. A branch here, a branch there, a small limb, then a large limb. I watched and then decided to check the wood on some of the branches closer to the trunk. I broke one off and saw green.

    The crabapple was not dead. It just hadn't had time to leaf out. The tree was now falling to one side, but it was not dead. I would have told him so, but he had moved on to a maple. Once the man starts, he can't stop. One trim leads to another.

    "Please, stop!" I called.

    He smiled and nodded, but he couldn't hear because he had started the hedge （树篱） trimmers and was getting ready to fix a line of hedges.

    Zip （飕飕声）, zip, zip.

    "What do you think?" he shouted.

    "It's supposed to be a privacy hedge; now all that will be private are our ankles."

    He started the trimmers again.

    "Stop!" I called, "Come back!"

    "Why?" he shouted.

    "You're in the neighbor's yard."

    One day, a patient came to see me. He worked as a waiter in a restaurant and his problem was acid reflux (胃酸倒流), a disease that influences as many as 40 percent of Americans, a marked increase in recent years. Reflux can lead to esophageal (食道的) cancer, which has increased by about 500 percent since the 1970s. The drugs we use to treat reflux don't always work and may even increase the risk of developing cancer when used long term.

    What is responsible for these worrying developments? For one, our poor diet, with its huge increases in the intake of sugar, fat, soft drinks, and unhealthy foods. But another important fact has been overlooked: dinnertime. Over the past twenty years, the time of my patients' evening meals has become later and later. Dinner — already pushed back by longer work hours — is often further delayed (推迟) by activities such as shopping and exercise.

    In my experience, the single most important treatment for reflux is to avoid late eating. A patient with reflux came to see me because her father and uncle died of esophageal cancer, and she was afraid of getting it too. Her nightly routine (常规) included a 9 p. m. dinner with at least two bottles of red wine. The reflux was serious, and changes were needed.

    She listened, then did not come back to see me for a year. “For the first two months, I just hated you,” she told me, “and for the next two months, I was having some trouble eating. I guessed I was going to die of esophageal cancer.” Then she added, “You know, we're the reason that it's not so easy to get 6 p.m. reservations (预约) at the good restaurants anymore.”

    To stop the increase in reflux disease, we have to stop eating at least three hours before bed. As for my waiter patient? I told him to eat dinner before 7 p.m. Within six weeks, his reflux was gone.

Family dynamics in the animal kingdom are as different as the animals themselves. In the animal world, there are advantages to be gained from being part of an extended family.

Chimpanzees

Chimpanzees are the world's largest living primates. These creatures are peace-loving and may live together for a lifetime. The dominant male has many wives who may stay with him for most of their lives, which can cause everyday conflicts. It is the male who settles the conflicts by a warning stare or hitting the back of the offenders' heads.

Elephants

Females stick together in the elephant world, living in herds under a stateswoman. The experience and knowledge of this elder one, who may be 60-years-old, are of great benefit. She will remember, for example,the location of water holes and seasonal food supplies. In times of danger, the group bunches around the young and it is the stateswoman who decides whether to flee or confront the threat.

Lions

Lions are the only cats to live in a large family group guarded by a pair of powerful males. Family life is relatively harmonious and baby lions may be fed by any mother with milk, so orphaned babies do not starve. Males live in the wilderness for some years before seeking their own pride by challenging resident males in a bloody battle. The male lion protects his pride from other males and enemies.

Ostriches (鸵鸟)

Ostriches travel in bands of 10-50 individuals, the most remarkable birds being the eight-foot-tall males. The largest birds in the world, ostriches cannot fly, but run fast. The wives of the male ostrich all put their eggs in the same nest. A primary female will then join the male to hatch (孵化) the eggs and she will push away other eggs on the outside to ensure her own are in the middle.