America's holiday shopping season started on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving.

{#blank#}1{#/blank#}Shoppers make the most money this time of year, about 20 percent to 30 percent of all revenue all year. About 136 million people shopped during the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend.

{#blank#}2{#/blank#}In an era of instant information, shoppers can use their mobile phones to find deals. Nearly 80 percent of this year's holiday shoppers, or about 183.8 million people, shopped on Cyber Monday.{#blank#}3{#/blank#}Online spending on Black Friday rose 15 percent to hit $2.7 billion this year. Cyber Monday spending increased 12 percent to $3 billion. NBC News reported that for many, shopping online was a more comfortable alternative than crowded malls.

      The shift to online shopping has had a big impact on solid shopping malls. Since 2010, more than 24 shopping malls have closed and anadditional 60 are struggling. Fortune says the weakest of the malls have closed. However, the business in malls is thriving again, it adds.  According to a survey, 94.2percent of malls were full with shops by the end of 2014.{#blank#}4{#/blank#}

      The average American consumer will spend about $805 on gifts. That's about $630.5 billion between November and December – an increase of 3.7percent from last year.

{#blank#}5{#/blank#}That goes toChina's Singles' Day, celebrated on November 11, which posted record sales of$14.3 billion in 2015.

A．More and morepeople shop online nowadays.

B．That is thehighest level in 27 years.

C．It is thebusiest shopping day of the year.

D．One-in-fiveAmericans used a tablet or smart-phone.

E．Thetraditional mall industry can hardly survive.

F．Cyber Mondayfalls on the Monday after Thanksgiving and Black Friday.

G．Nonetheless,Cyber Monday is not the biggest online shopping day in the world.

    China is a big country, and there is no simple answer to the question “When is the best time to visit China? ” There are two best times to visit China, depending on your preference.

    October

    Things to do: hike on the Great Wall, photography tour

    Places to visit: Beijing, Xi'an, Shanghai, Guilin, Jiuzhaigou, Chengdu

The best time to go to China is early autumn (October).

    Most of China has warm temperatures, and the summer rains have stopped (apart from around HongKong and Sanya) so it's pretty dry. The autumnn colours are also amazing. It is quiet at tourist attractions for most of the month, as the summer holiday travel crowds have gone. But try to avoid October 1st -7th, which is the Chinese National Day holiday, as attractions, transport and hotels are packed with Chinese tourists and prices go up a lot.

    Late Spring (April to May)

    Things to do: appreciate flowers, Li River cruise, ethnic festivals

    Places to visit: Beijing, Xi'an, Guilin, Huangshan, GuiZhou, Zhangjiajie

    The second-best time to travel to China is probably in April and May, when the flowers are in bloom and the temperatures are warming up. In late spring, temperatures across China are getting into the 20s (℃), except the extreme northwest and northeast. While the North of China is still dry, the summer rains have already begun in the South. This could actually improve the view in the form of mountain fog in mountainous areas like the Li River and the Yellow Mountains.

    Ethnic festivals in GuiZhou are concentrated in April and May, such as the Sisters' Meal Festival. If you are interested in Miao and Dong ethnic cultures, this is a good time to visit.

    Travel prices are average: cheaper than June to October, but more expensive than the lower season from November to March.

    I found the last outdoor table at my favourite cafe. Reading as I ate my breakfast slowly, I was enjoying the feeling of the cool wind and the warm sun when a table next to me opened up. A woman, who had been standing nearby, clearly waiting for a seat, stepped towards the table. But from the other direction, straight from the parking lot, came a man who got to the table first.

    The woman, with a smile on her face, explained that she'd been keeping her eye on that table for several minutes and had been on her way over. The man, also smiling but determined, told her she was out of luck.

    She stood off the side, clearly disappointed, and greeted her friend with the disappointing news. I sat at my table, taking in the scene, and suddenly I realized that I had an opportunity to be kind.

    I stood up and asked her to come to my table. Quietly, I told her I had seen what had happened, and I was happy to give her my table. I was only going to be there a few more minutes anyway, so I was happy for her and her friend to have the seat.

    "But where will you sit?" she asked. I was almost done eating, I said, and I would find a seat at the counter (柜台) inside. She thanked me and beamed with delight as she invited her friend to sit down.

    Thinking about it as I finished up, I realized that whether or not the woman had acceptable demand for the table was unimportant. The feeling of the situation -- the look of hurt on her face -- had struck me, and I had the ability to do something about it.I just hope that woman's morning at the cafe was great. I know mine was.

    You can relax if remembering everything isn't your strong suit. Recent research makes the case that being forgetful can be a strength—in fact, selective memory can even be a sign of stronger intelligence.

    Traditional research on memory has focused on the advantages of remembering everything. But looking through years of recent memory data, researchers found that the neurobiology of forgetting can be just as important to our decision-making as what our minds choose to remember.

    Making intelligent decisions doesn't mean you need to have all the information at hand. It just means you need to hold onto the most valuable information. And that means clearing up space in your memory palace for the most up-to-date information on clients and situations. Our brains do this by creating new neurons(神经元）in our  hippocampus, which have the power to overwrite(重写)existing memories that are influencing our decision-making.

    If you want to increase the number of new neurons in our brain's learning region, try exercising. Some aerobic exercise like jogging, power walking and swimming has been found to increase the number of neurons making important connections in our brains.

    When we forget the names of certain clients or details about old jobs，the brain is making a choice that these details don't matter. Although too much forgetfulness can be a cause for concern, the occasional lost detail can be a sign of a perfectly healthy memory system. The researchers found that our brains facilitate decision-making by stopping us from focusing too much on unimportant past details. Instead，the brain helps us remember the most important part of a conversation.

    We can get blamed for being absent-minded when we forget past events in perfect detail. These findings show us that total recall(记忆)can be overvalued. Our brains are working smarter when they aim to remember the right stories, not every story.

Flying High

    Barrington Irving landed his record-breaking light at age 23 and founded an educational nonprofit organization. His message for kids: "The only thing that separates you from scientists is determination, hard work and a strong liking for what you want to achieve." The secret, he believes, is having a dream in the first place.

    The moment of inspiration for Irving came at the age of 15 in his parents' bookstore. One customer, a professional pilot, asked Irving if he'd thought about becoming a pilot. "I told him I didn't think I was smart enough; but the next day he took me to the cockpit (驾驶舱) of the commercial airplane he flew and just like that I was hooked."

    To follow his dream, Irving Turned down a football scholarship to the University of Florida. He washed airplanes to earn money for a flight school and increased his flying skills by practicing at home on a $40 flight simulator (模拟) video game. Then another dream took hold: flying alone around the world. He faced more than 50 rejections for sponsorship before convincing some companies to donate aircraft components. He took off with no weather radar, no de-icing system, and just $30 in his pocket.

    After 97 days, 26 stops and dozens of thunderstorms, he touched down to a cheering crowd in Miami. "It was seeing so many young people watching and listening that pushed me into giving back with my knowledge an experience." Irving has been doing it ever since. He set up his non-profit organization, Experience Aviation (航空), aiming to increase the numbers of youth in aviation career. By bring challenging project-based learning, hands-on and other educational opportunities to school districts and local communities nationwide, the organization has excited the hearts and minds of youth. "We want to create chances for students to accomplish something amazing," he notes. Perhaps Irving's most powerful educational tool is the example his own life provides.

I arrived in this beautiful Spanish island at the start of September, full of enthusiasm and eager to start work as an English teacher. I sorted all the necessary paperwork out and moved into a flat of my own within the first couple of days. Great! Or so I thought. At 4 am and at several intervals after that, I was rudely awoken by the cock that lives opposite me. Fantastic! I now have five extra alarms every morning.

In the following weeks, I also started to notice a trend. Things in my flat started to break at the rate of one object per day, like the hot water, bowls, cups, shower, doors or glass shelves. Yes, I was clumsy but things just fell apart. If it wasn't broken, it would either be dirty or missing. Using my washing basket for the first time was pretty disgusting. When I took out my clothes, they were swiftly followed by a hundred or so insects that were living in the bottom.

As for the general lack of equipment in the house, there was no oven, tin opener, sharp knives or potato peeler. It turned out making a burger wasn't the best idea. I had a small microwave and a grill. I thought the general understanding was never to put metal in a microwave but I went with it. Smoke soon started to appear. I was not quite sure if it was the burger or the grill but as soon as I opened the door, the electricity cut out. I spent the following 10 minutes in a dark, smoky room hunting for the power switch using the light from my mobile phone, which broke the week after and left me without a connection to the outer world.

Luckily, I'm now borrowing a phone and my luck has returned. No more things have broken (probably because there is nothing left to break). I've also realized that even if a flat looks pretty, it doesn't mean its contents work. I am also learning how to adapt to life with limited, broken utensils.