Dear Mr. Rupp,

    The day I met you was the first day of high school. We liked each other immediately. You gave me a lot of advice over the next four years, like how I should get my ass to Berkeley where I belonged. I'm still there, by the way. I wish you were still around, too.

    I remember your laugh, which would start with a rough guffaw(狂笑) and end with a hacking smoker's cough that would make even the most rebellious (叛逆的) teenager decide to lay off the cigarettes. I remember the way you didn't lower your standards, yet still refused to give up on us. You were tough on us, and we were tough on you. Love is tough sometimes.

    The last time I wrote you a letter, it was 2005—four years after I graduated. I had just become a teacher, like you, and it had given me a new appreciation for the work you did with countless high school students over the years.

    It's hard to say what I'll miss the most about you. There are simply too many memories to sort through those four years, and it hurts to think you'll never read this letter. I want to believe that you knew how much you meant to your family, your students, your community, and your colleagues, but that would be a lot of realization to handle, even for you.

    You changed the lives of everyone around you. Even now, you are reminding me to cherish life and its brevity and beauty, and to tell the people I love how much they mean to me before it is too late.

    Dear teacher, dear mentor, and dear friend—I miss you and all that is about you. God bless you in Heaven.

To infinity and beyond,

Teresea

    Tu Youyou, an 84-year-old female scientist, became the first Chinese to win a Nobel Prize in science on Oct 5. Before that, she ever won the 2011 Lasker Award for finding out artemisinin (Qinghaosu), which saved millions of lives. She was thankful for the Lasker prize, but said, “It is just a scientist' duty. I will go on fighting for the health of all humans.”

    Tu kept her work in the 1960s and 1970s. In that age, Malaria could took away people's health. Scientists all over the world had already tried over 240 000 times but failed. Tu Youyou, a member of the Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Beijing, began to study Chinese herbs.

    Before 2011, people didn't know Tu very much. Many friends played jokes with her “the Professor of Three None's” : no degree, no study experience abroad, not a member of any Chinese national colleges. But she is hard-working. She read a lot of traditional Chinese medicine books and did a lot of researches on the disease.

    In February, 2012, Tu was named National Outstanding Females (One of the Ten) Tu is now a model of Chinese medical workers.

    If you're wondering when you might get the flu, a new study indicates you should keep an eye on your local weather report.

    According to a research published in the Journal of Clinical Virology, if you keep your eye on the weather and watch for the first major dip in the temperature, you can essentially mark your calendar in prediction for an outbreak the flu.

    To figure out how the weather and flu outbreak may be connected, researchers analyzed statistics of 20,000 people in an area over three seasons. The number of people who caught the flu was then compared with local weather data.

    After each season, the team noticed one consistent finding: The first really cold period with low outdoor temperatures and low humidity (湿度) was always followed by a week of a mass influenza outbreak.

    The researchers say that aerosol particles (气溶胶粒子) containing virus and liquid are more able to spread in cold and dry weather. So, in theory, if you sneeze or cough and the surrounding air is very dry, the air will absorb the moisture and the particles containing the virus keep spreading through the air for a longer period of time.

    Luckily there are ways to keep off the illness regardless of the weather. Washing your hands, coughing into the crook (弯曲) of your arm and getting vaccine (疫苗) are the best ways to prevent the flu from spreading. People over the age of 65, pregnant women and young children are at the highest risk of developing complications (并发症) related to the virus, according to the CDC.

                                                                                                  Chinese International School

    Application Form

    Before an applicant can be invited to take part in an assessment, an application form should be returned to the Admissions Office, and the application fee of HK$1,000 cannot be returned. For overseas applicants wishing to pay in currencies other than HK dollars, the fee is US$145. Checks are also good for payment to “Chinese International School”.

    The application should include

    Applicants' academic report from the last school year.

    A recent passport-sized photo (attached to the application form).

    A copy of the applicant's Hong Kong ID card or a passport showing a valid Hong Kong visa.

    Only for applicants applying under a Corporate Nomination (提名) Right：A company letter confirming the nomination.

    Please note that the application fee is non-refundable. Applicants who would like to re-apply for another academic year are asked to submit a new application and application fee.

    Acceptance

    Applicants will be informed of their acceptance status in writing by postal mail. Initial (最初的) offers for Reception will be sent out from late March once all assessments have been completed.

Some applicants who have been assessed may be held on a reserve list. Acceptances may also be made on a conditional basis among the applicants on the reserve list.

    Applicants who have been assessed but who have not been admitted are welcome to reapply for the next academic year. Please note that such applicants will be asked to submit a new application and application fee.

    Confirmation of Acceptance and Enrollment (录取)

    Once an applicant has been admitted, the applicant family will be asked to confirm acceptance and hold the student's place with immediate payment of the required fees for the Nomination Right (HK$ 500), plus the sum of HK$ 7,500 as the first tuition payment.

    In addition, enrollment will not be considered complete until the following have been received, normally one month before the start of the new school year

    Physical examination results           Tuition (first month)

    It was Sunday, so Dad and I were at the second-hand goods market, looking for tools, appliances(家用电器), and other things that needed cleaning. Some were broken; others, like silver cups, just needed to be cleaned and polished. It was 1974, and the Depression(经济大萧条) was very serious. Dad worked full-time at a factory, but the money wasn't enough. Dad had tried a second job for a while, but he found it was too hard on the family. One day, he had an excellent idea that set me on a lifelong course of making money to support myself. Standing beside a crowded table at the second-hand goods market, I looked over an ancient manual sewing machine. Someone had changed it to run on electric power. It was much older than Mom's machine, but it looked like it had quality and a long life built into it. "Dad!" I called. "This is a beauty!"

    Dad walked over, pulling a cart full of audio equipment, tools, worn-out appliances, and what appeared to be a block of dull kitchen knife." What have you got, Son?" I described what I saw and what I figured I could do to x the beauty up. Dad paid for my discovery, and we headed home.

    Every day after school I worked on the ancient machine, and every night Dad and I sharpened tools and knives, sanded off rust, polished metal, and replaced missing parts from various items. The next Saturday we headed off, as we did every weekend, to that same market, where we sold the treasures we'd purchased the week before—at a tidy profit. My antique beauty brought in more money than anything else, and Dad let me keep every penny.

    Dad's gone now, but I can never thank him enough. Even if we hadn't needed the extra money Dad and I brought in, I wouldn't have traded those weekends for all the picnics or Little League games in St. Louis—not in a million years.

    Paris is the city of dreams. If you plan to head to Paris for a study period, then perhaps a little reality check is in order. But my experience was a romantic one.

    I paved my path to Paris through an exchange program. On arrival in Paris, I was constantly reminded of the official processes I had to complete — forms to be filled in, meetings to attend, the list seemed endless.

    Then the real work began. Once classes were underway, I found myself volunteering to do oral presentations and assignments first, rather than last. This method proved to be very helpful.

    Once I had finished class for the week, I had an ever-increasing list of museums to visit, neighborhoods to explore, and cafés to sit in. Read books about Paris. Talk to locals and other foreigners living there. But the one thing that reading a book or talking to someone cannot do is to provide you with the experience of wandering Paris on foot. The people watching, the sounds of the city, the colors as the seasons change, they all add to the ecstasy that I experience in Paris as an exchange student.

    After spending five months wandering through the charming neighborhoods, I fell in love with the atmosphere that came out from every open door, and with every spoken word. There is something comforting about walking to the market each Sunday to enjoy the beautiful display of fruits, vegetables and dairy products. There is warmth in saying bonjour to the passers-by.

    On my last day in Paris, I confidently said, "Bonjour Monsieur," as I passed the little store down the street. I guess the best part about going on exchange in Paris is falling in love with the city in your own way. And I know mine is unique and special to me, my own little pieces of Paris.