We may not be aware of it, but ordinary family homes in the U.S. and the rest of the world are not energy-efficient.

    Most of their energy goes to heating and cooling, and a lot of it is wasted, as warm air and cool air escape through fireplace chimneys and thin or poorly fitting windows and doors. A passive house loses almost none."Imagine a thermos(保温瓶),"said housing developer Brendan O'Neill."You have insulation(隔绝) everywhere, and it's basically completely sealed. And so the idea is to build a house like a thermos. So the windows are sealed. There's insulation completely surrounding the building. We make it as sealed as possible."

    A 147-square-meter passive house, presented by O'Neill Development Corp. as a demonstration unit just outside Washington, was brought to the site in two boxes. "Once it's set and put together, it takes about four weeks to complete the outside construction, to put down carpets," O'Neill said. "If everything is set in place, you put a house like this together in about four months.”The total cost of building it was $325,000, or about 17 percent more than constructing an ordinary house. But its utility(公用事业) bill is only around $20 monthly, or one-tenth the amount for the average house of the same size.

    While passive houses have been around for a long time, the idea has never taken root in the U.S. There was no driving force to push it.

    However, David Peabody, an architect who designs passive houses said, "I think climate change is now becoming a larger issue. And I think building standards are catching on to that. So people are becoming more aware of energy."Peabody said the cost of building passive houses could come down."What really makes sense for truly affordable housing," he said, "is to build multi-storey buildings."

    An 18-year-old US girl gained unexpected appreciation and a surprise after she gave “extra help” to an elderly man in the restaurant she was working.

    It's social media that made her seemingly small action go viral and brought her appreciation from hundreds of thousands of strangers and a scholarship to Texas Southern University.

    The heroine Evoni Williams has reportedly been working full-time to earn money for further study in a restaurant in La Marque, Texas，the United States. It was last week when an old man named Adrian Charpentier asked for help to chop his ham for his hands were weak because of illness. On that busy morning when she had loads of work on shoulder, Williams helped the man without hesitation. The moment she was leaning over the counter and cutting the ham was shot by a customer known as Laura Wolf.

    Wolf posted the picture on the Internet and wrote, “I'm thankful to have seen this act of kindness and caring at the start of my day while everything in this world seems so negative. If we could all be like this waitress and take time to offer a helping hand…” According to local reports, Wolf didn't know Williams, neither did Williams know her act was shot and shared on the web. However, the small act of kindness soon accumulated its own power on and outside the Internet.

    Besides praise from netizens and media reports across the United States, a 16000-dollar scholarship to Texas Southern University was recently granted to Williams to support her study plan on business management.

    “We wanted to reward Evoni's act of kindness and let her know that good deeds do not go unnoticed,” said Melinda Spaulding, an administrator at Texas Southern University.

    A person's nose is important for breathing and smelling. The nose is also used in many popular expressions. Some people are able to "lead other people by the nose". For example, if a wife "leads her husband by the nose", she makes him do whatever she wants him to do. Some people are said to be "hard-nosed". They will not change their opinions or positions on anything. If someone is "hard-nosed", chances are that he will never "pay through the nose", or pay too much money, for an object or service.

    It is always helpful when people "keep their noses out of other people's business"—they do not interfere. The opposite of this is someone who "noses around all the time". This kind of person is interested in other people's private matters. He is considered "nosey". Someone who "keeps his nose to the grindstone "works very hard. This can help a worker "keep his nose clean" or stay out of trouble.

    One unusual expression is "it is no skin off my nose". This means that a situation does not affect or concern me. We also say that sometimes a person "cuts off his nose to spite his face". That is, he makes a situation worse for himself by doing something foolish because he is angry. More problems can develop if a person "looks down his nose" at someone or something. The person acts like something is unimportant or worthless. This person might also "turn his nose up" at something that he considers not good enough. This person thinks he is better than everyone else. He is "with his nose in the air".

    In school, some students "thumb their noses" at their teacher—they refuse to obey orders or do any work. Maybe these students do not know the correct answers. My mother always told me, if you study hard, the answers should be "right under your nose" or easily seen.

    An article describing the attitude of post-1990s generations toward life has recently gone viral on Chinese social media, which resonates with(引起共鸣) millions of youngsters for reflecting their casualness and calmness under gradually increasing social pressure.

    The article was first published on WeChat with the title of “The first group of post-90s generation who have become monks”. By using the phrase “Buddha-like youngsters”(佛系青年), it claimed that some of the post-90s generations, who were born between 1990 and 1992, have “seen through the emptiness of life” and kept a casual and calm attitude toward career and life.

    “It's fine to have something or not and there is no need to pursue or win anything," said the article, while defining "Buddha-like" people and clarifying that the phrase has nothing to do with the religion of Buddhism. An easy example is that Buddha-like youngsters do not care about taking which way to return home or choosing what to eat for lunch, according to the article.

    The phrase has touched the nerves of the Chinese youngsters who are facing the fast-paced life, cut-throat world of career and great mental pressure in China, read a commentary by People's Daily on Wednesday. The phrase was well received by Chinese netizens; the original WeChat post has been viewed by more than 1 million times and then read more than 60 million times on SinaWeibo by Wednesday.

    “The phrase properly describes the mentalities and lifestyle of (some of) the post-90s generations in China, who have become less ambitious and more casual toward life due to the great pressure and fierce competition in today's China”, one SinaWeibo user commented.

    Are you a Buddha-like youngster？

Essentials of Nutrition — Good nutrition VS malnutrition (营养不良)

    Author: Joel Bressler

    Price: $29. 99

Essentials of Nutrition touches important health topics such as: the positive and negative aspects of nutrition; the importance of exercise; the necessity of vitamins, minerals, and water. It also advises how doctors and educators will improve our health in the future.

    Preserve the Best and Conserve the Rest—Memoirs (回忆录) of a US Forest Service Wildlife Biologist

    Author: Hadley B. Roberts

    Price: $19.99

Preserve the Best and Conserve the Rest covers US Forest Service wildlife biologist Hadley B. Roberts' half-century career in wildlife and fish habitat conservation and preservation. It includes his accomplishment, motives and influences behind his actions.

Poodle (贵宾犬) Mistress —The Autobiographical Story of Life with Nine Toy Poodle

    Author: Sandi Latimer

    Price: $22.99

Poodle Mistress is a story of unconditional love and devotion about nine dogs that changed author Sandi Latimer's life. Her memoir (回忆录) details a twenty-seven-year journey as she and her husband cared for and enjoyed the funny behaviors of their toy poodles.

A Professor and CEO True Story—A Fascinating Journey to Success

    Author: Richard T. Cheng

    Price: $13.95

In A Professor and CEO True Story, Richard T Cheng shares how he overcame great odds and transformed from a struggling immigrant to million-dollar CEO and esteemed professor. This is a powerful and inspiring story of success and survival.

This famous site features one of the largest and most representative collections of Buddhist architecture and art in China. It was rated as a 5A-class tourist attraction in 2010.

The Lingshan Grand Buddha is an 88-meter-high open-air bronze statue of Sakyamuni. It is 17 meters higher than the Grand Buddha at Leshan Mountain. It is part of the pattern of Five Buddhas in five directions together with the Big Buddha at Lantau Island in Hong Kong to the south, the Grand Buddha at Leshan Mountain to the west, the Grand Buddha in Yungang Caves to the north and the Grand Buddha at the Longmen Caves in the central area. At the feet of the Grand Buddha, you can feel the loftiness (雄伟) and dignity of Buddhism.

Tips：

Location: Lingshan Road, Mashan town, Binhu district, Wuxi

Tickets: Through ticket: 210 yuan ($ 31. 85), and free tickets for the performance of Ode to Auspiciousness for individual visitors

Opening hours for Lingshan Mountain: 7:00 17:00

Opening hours for Brahma Palace: 9:00 18:00

Recommendations:

The Nine-Dragon Fountain

The Nine-Dragon Fountain in front of the giant Buddha will start to play music and the song, The Birth of Buddha, at 10 am every day. A huge lotus (莲花) slowly blooms with six petals, and a 7-meter golden statue of Prince Buddha rises from the lotus, with one hand pointing to the sky and one hand at the earth, symbolizing Buddha's light shining on all things.

The Brahma Palace

The whole palace shows the mixture of traditional cultural elements with Western architectural features. Many cultural heritage items and art works can be found there. Its splendid design surprises every visitor.