Several times my daughter had telephoned to say, “Mum, you must come and see the daffodils(水仙花)before they are over.” I wanted to go, but it was a two-hour drive from Lake Arrowhead. "I will go next Tuesday," I promised, a little unwillingly, on her third call.

    The next Tuesday dawned cold and rainy. Still, I had promised, and so I drove there. When I finally walked into Carolyn's house and hugged and greeted my grandchildren, I said, "Forget the daffodils, Carolyn! The road is invisible (看不见的) in the cloud and fog, and there is nothing in the world except you and these children that I want to see!"

    My daughter smiled calmly and said, "We drive in this weather all the time, Mum. You will never forgive yourself if you miss this experience."

    After about twenty minutes, we turned onto a small road and I saw a small church. On the far side of the church, I saw a hand-lettered sign that read "Daffodil Garden."

    We got out of the car and each took a child's hand, and I followed Carolyn down the path. Then, we turned a corner of the path, and I looked up amazed. Before me lay the most beautiful sight. Flows of flowers of different colors seemed poured down the peak and slopes. There were five acres of flowers! A sea of daffodil! It was like a fairyland all beyond description.

    "But who has done this?" I asked Carolyn. "It's just one woman." Carolyn answered. "That's her home." Carolyn pointed to a well-kept A-frame house that looked small and modest in the midst of all that glory. We walked up to the house. On the patio (露台), we saw a poster." Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking" was the headline.

    The first answer was a simple one. "50,000 bulbs (鳞茎)" it read. The second answer was, "One at a time, by one woman." The third answer was, "Began in 1958."

    I thought of this woman whom I had never met, who, more than fifty years before, had begun one bulb at a time to bring the beauty and joy to the mountain top. Just planting one bulb at a time, year after year, had changed the world where she lived and created something of magnificence, beauty, and inspiration.

    When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small amounts of daily effort, we too can accomplish great things. Everyone can do something to change the world.

    There is always something that happens in the world that everyone fears will happen to their town, city or country: natural disasters. The scariest part of it is that no one will ever see it coming. Though technology helps us prepare, but it never actually tells the people when it's going to hit. It is always estimated but the result is never 100% accurate.

    However, that is not the point of this article. Two different natural disasters in two different parts of the world have happened in the past few weeks. One was a major flood that has hit Louisiana in the United States. The other was an earthquake that hit Amatrice, Italy. However, there is a major difference in the news coverage of the two tragedies.

    As for the flooding in Louisiana, it is reported that this disaster is the worst to hit the United States since Super-storm Sandy and it'll cost at least $30 million. In only the first couple of weeks, 13 people had died. However, like me, many people did not hear about this tragic event. I did not learn about it until about three weeks after it happened.

    In Italy, however, it covered all media instantly. The earthquake in Italy happened on Tuesday morning. That same day, I was on Twitter and that was all that was over the news feed. Every other post was about the earthquake. Some would have the opinion that Amatrice, Italy was one of the most beautiful towns in that country. I got in deep sorrow because there were more people killed in this quake than the flooding. So far, they have a total of 73 dead and over one hundred missing.

    I understand that technically the earthquake in Italy was worse than the floods in Louisiana. However, I believe that if a natural disaster happens, they all should be equally covered and taken equally seriously. We are one world united and should be there for all of the people who are in need of help. We may not be able to accurately predict disasters but, we can surely lend a hand out for the needy.

    Bursting into the classroom from recess, 15 children take their seats and face the woman they know as Ms. Yang.

    “What day is it today?” she asks, in Mandarin Chinese.

    “Confucius' birthday!” the fifth graders shout in Mandarin.

    “Why do we celebrate Confucius' birthday?”

    “Because he's the greatest teacher in the history of China!” exclaims a brown-haired girl. She is speaking Mandarin.

    English is rarely heard in Lisa Yang's class at the Chinese American International School(CAIS), despite the fact that few students are native speakers of Mandarin.

    The United States is actively trying to increase the group of students in “critical languages” such as Mandarin. The students at CAIS are way ahead in such a trend.

    Founded 25 years ago, this small private school in San Francisco, USA, does what few other American schools do: It produces fully fluent speakers of Mandarin Chinese, by far the most commonly spoken language in the world.

    Mandarin Chinese is suddenly hot in American schools. As China becomes the world's leading economy sometimes this century, schools in the U. S. are scrambling to add Mandarin to their list of foreign languages or expand Chinese programs already in place.

    “It really is almost unprecedented. People are looking at China as a force to be reckoned with… And to ensure that the U. S. has the ability to conduct trade, and to work with the Chinese. Certainly having an understanding of Chinese language and culture is an advantage,” said Marty Abbott of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages(ACTFL).

    To develop Chinese-language programs has not been smooth. A shortage of trained teachers has made it difficult for some schools to join the race. When schools do get teachers, they often hire them straight from China, and the teachers usually suffer culture shock when they come to the U. S.

    Robert Liu remembers his first two years in an American classroom It was not an easy adjustment. “In China, students respect their teachers,” he said. Liu found that American students, however, expect an active teaching style. He had to use games to engage them rather than lectures.

    To avoid many of the problems with foreign teaching styles, the CAIS has been working with the Chinese government to improve training of teachers who are sent to the U. S.

    Reading can be a social activity. Think of the people who belong to book groups. They choose books to read and then meet to discuss them. Now, the website BookCrossing.com turns the page on the traditional idea of a book group.

    Members go on the site and register the books they own and would like to share. BookCrossing provides an ID number to stick inside the book. Then the person leaves it in a public place, hoping that the book will have an adventure, traveling far and wide with each new reader who finds it.

    Bruce Pederson, the managing director of BookCrossing, says “The two things that change your life are the people you meet and books you read. BookCrossing combines both.”

    Members leave books on park benches and buses, in train stations and coffee shops. Whoever finds their book will go to the site and record where they found it.

    People who find a book can also leave a journal entry describing what they thought of it. E-mails are then sent to the BookCrossers to keep them updated about where their books have been found. Bruce Pederson says the idea is for people not to be selfish by keeping a book to gather dust on a shelf at home.

    BookCrossing is part of a trend among people who want to get back the “real” and not the virtual(虚拟). The site now has more than one million members in more than one hundred thirty-five countries.

    Cooperation at work is generally seen as a good thing. The latest survey by the Financial Times of what employers want from MBA graduates found that the ability to work with a wide variety of people was what managers wanted most. But managers always have to balance the benefits of teamwork, which help ensure that everyone is working towards the same goal, with the dangers of “groupthink” when critics are reluctant to point out a plan's drawbacks for fear of being kept out of the group. The disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 was a classic case of groupthink. Skeptics were reluctant to challenge John F. Kennedy, the newly elected American president.

    Modern communication methods mean that cooperation is more frequent. Workers are constantly in touch with each other via e-mail messaging groups or mobile calls. But does that improve, or lower performance? A new study by three American academics, tried to answer this question. They set a logical problem (designing the shortest route for a travelling salesman visiting various cities). Three groups were involved: one where subjects acted independently; another where they saw the solutions posted by team members at every stage; and a third where they were kept informed of each other's views only intermittently.

    The survey found that members of the individualist group reached the premier solution more often than the constant cooperators but had a poorer average result. The intermittent cooperators found the right result as often as the individualists, and got a better average solution. When it comes to ideal generation, giving people a bit of space to a solution seems to be a good idea. Occasional cooperation can be a big help: most people have benefited from a colleague's brainwave or (just as often) wise advice to avoid a particular course of action.

    Further clues come from a book, Superminds, by Thomas Malone of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He says that three factors determine the collective intelligence of cooperating groups: social intelligence (how good people were at rating the emotional states of others); the extent to which members took part equally in conversation (the more equal, the better); and the cooperation of women in the group (the higher, the better). Groups ranked highly in these areas cooperated far better than others.

    In short, cooperation may be a useful tool but it doesn't work in every situation.

    In our increasingly fast-paced, technology-driven world, most adults do not get the 8-10 hours of sleep every night. Things are even worse for those with young children. A recent study showed that 86% of parents in the UK complain of tiredness and about 26% get less than 5 hours of sleep every night. To give tired parents a little relaxation from their tight schedules (时间表), David Lloyd Clubs, a chain of gyms and fitness centers in Europe, has introduced a napping (小憩)class!

    As the name suggests, the hour-long group class, described as a way to " refresh the mind, improve moods, and even bum the odd calorie (卡路里)", does not involve any hard exercise. Instead, the members are guided through 15 minutes of light stretching (伸展)to help them relax. Then, they are encouraged to lie under the blankets of a comfortable bed, cover their eyes with an eye mask, and take a nap for 45 minutes. With music playing in the background and the room set to the perfect temperature, they can be assured of the best possible sleep. The class is now being offered at just one place. If popular, they will be expanded (延伸)to other David Lloyd Clubs.

    Do you know the good points of nap? A study conducted by Pennsylvania's Allegheny College found that midday naps not only help participants feel well-rested, but also enable them to deal with stress better. A follow-up study carried out at the University of California at Berkeley concluded that a 45-minute nap in the middle of the day helps to improve the learning abilities. The good news is that you do not have to make a trip to the U. K. to join this latest exercise fashion. You can get involved with the comfort of your own bed. So, go ahead and encourage your entire family to try a napping class.