With all of the wonderful things life brings us, it also brings us stress. It is for this reason that I am an active supporter of mental health days.

    Although it's never good to ignore(忽视) responsibilities, sometimes it is good to unplug(拔除) from the world for a day. We eat healthy and stay active to keep us from getting sick, but sometimes we forget to care for our minds. Our minds and bodies are connected, and when only one is being cared for, the other may be suffering. It is important to try to combine self care with our lives and spend time on activities we enjoy. This helps relieve stress on a daily day.

    So, what do you do on a mental health day? The answer is anything you want. Growing up, my brother and I were allowed a few mental health days a year. We would stay home from school and relax. For him, it was playing games on the computer, while my days were spent reading or watching TV. My mental health days now include picking things up around my apartment, cooking a tasty meal, and then reading for a few hours. I completely shut myself off from work or school. To me, this is relaxing. Organize the clutter(凌乱的东西) that piles up during the week, cook the meals I don't have time to cook, and read the books that I've bought but don't have time to read.

    A mental health day is great, but only if it's supplemented(增补) with self care through the week. From my experience, if self care is not regularly provided in your week, taking a mental health day is just going to stress you out even more. But when it's needed, try hard to recognize that and take care of yourself. It will help keep you happy and healthy. A mental health day is not a day to avoid life, it is a day to recoup(恢复).

    This is a true story that happened in Japan. In order to repair the house, a Japanese tore open the walls. Japanese houses normally have an empty space between the wooden walls. When pulling down the walls, he found that there was a lizard（蜥蜴）staying there because a nail（钉子）from outside was hammered into one of its feet. He saw this, feeling pity and curious. When he checked the nail, he found it was nailed 10 years ago when the house was first built.

    What happened? The lizard had survived in such a position for 10 years! It has been in a dark wall partition（夹层）for 10 years without moving! Then he wondered how this lizard survived for 10 years without moving a single step—since its foot was nailed! So he stopped his work and observed the lizard: What has it been doing? What and how has it been eating? Later, he didn't know from where another lizard appeared, with food in its mouth. Ah! He was astonished and touched deeply. The free lizard had been feeding it for the past 10 years.

    Such love, a beautiful love! Such love happened with this tiny creature… What can love do? It can do wonders! Just think about it: one lizard had been feeding the other for 10 long years, without giving up hope on its partner. If a small creature like a lizard can love like this, just imagine how we can love if we try.

    Over the past few years I've had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been making changes to my brain. I'm not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I'm reading. Involving myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. That's rarely the case any more.

    I think I know what's going on. For over a decade, I've been spending lots of time online. The Web has been a godsend to me as a writer. Research that once required days in the rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes by a few Google searches. Even when I'm not working, I'm scanning headlines or just tripping from link to link.

The Net is becoming a universal medium where information flows through my eyes and ears and into mind. The perfect recall of silicon memory (硅制存储器) can be a blessing to thinking. But that comes at a price. As the media theorist Marshall Mcluhan pointed out, media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is weakening my ability for concentration. Once I was a driver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a flying swallow.

I'm not the only one. When I mention my troubles with reading to acquaintances, Bruce Friedman, a blogger, also has described how the Internet has changed his mental habits. His thinking has taken on a "staccato (破碎)" quality. "I can't read War and Peace any more" he admitted, "I've lost the ability to do that."

A recently published study suggests that when reading online, we tend to become "more decoders (解码器) of information". We are not only what we read; we are how we read.

Dear Editor,

    I am writing to you about the article in your magazine last month about youth crime. As a teenager myself I found the article rather offensive(冒犯的) as it suggested that the largest part of teenagers get into trouble with the police at some time or another. I can honestly say that I have never committed a crime(犯罪) and as far as I know, neither have any of my friends.

    I don't know where the journalist got his information from or if he did any proper research, but the way he described teenagers gave me the impression that he doesn't actually know many teenagers. Maybe when he was younger he was regularly in trouble with the police and that's where he got his ideas from. If this is true then he shouldn't judge other people from his own behaviour in the past.

    Many teenagers I know always help other people in the community, such as raising money for charity and doing voluntary work. A group of us recently spent an entire Sunday morning picking up litter in our local park. We didn't get paid for it; we just wanted to make it cleaner and safer for everyone, especially as many young children and dog walkers use the park.

    Also, as teenagers, we are far too busy studying for exams and doing homework to be "walking the streets every night, looking for trouble", as your journalist wrote in his article. I have to study after school every night during the week. I do get some free time at the weekend but I like to play football, go cycling or swimming, go to the cinema or have coffee with my friends and have a chance to talk to them. I think you will agree that there is nothing criminal about that.

    As your magazine is aimed at young readers, I think your journalists should be more careful about what they write and they should research their ideas better, or you may find that teenagers stop buying your magazine altogether.

Yours sincerely,

Daniel Browning

    In today's society, almost half of all marriages in America end in divorce, which means many children have divorced parents, and I am by no means a rare case. There are plenty of other people understanding the difficulty of having separated parents and living in two households. Despite this, people who haven't personally experienced divorce really have no idea what it's like.

    My parents have handled divorce and joint custody（监护）well, at least better than expected. Occasionally my parents put up the curtain to block my brother and I from the reality and I will get a glimpse of the not-so-bright-and-sunny reality, the fact that my parents simply don't like each other, let along get along. They try to make sure my brother and I don't overhear the argument and do their best to keep my brother and I out of their issues.

    Last Mother's Day I woke up at my dad's house with a text message from my mom saying," Call me when u can." I rolled out of bed and dated her number. On other end of the phone I could hear my mom's trembling voice." Your dad isn't letting me have you until 7 tonight." I knew Mother's Day was important to her and me. I began to get angry with my dad, but I told myself that getting mad and fueling my mom's anger towards my dad wouldn't help. Later my father told me that he had planned to spend time with my grandma and step-mom for Mother's Day, which I understood and accepted but I also understood why my mom wouldn't accept it.

    While having divorced parents is difficult, I have learned a lot about how to deal with conflict from an early age and I've been blessed with an extremely large family, which is an amazing network of support.

Best Way to Save Money

    Although the best way to save money can vary from person to person, depending on age, family size and other characteristics, there are still some easy things that all shoppers can do to keep more money in their bank accounts.

    Avoid Impulse (冲动的) Purchases

    When you shop, a best way to save money is to have a plan in mind to help you avoid impulse purchases. For instance, you might leave your credit cards at home and only carry the exact amount of cash that you will need for your planned purchase. Some shoppers agree to discuss any purchases over a certain dollar amount with their spouses (配偶) first.

    Know When to Pay for Quality

    Sometimes the best way to save money in the long term is to spend a little more money right now. A good piece of furniture can stay in the family for decades. A high-quality pair of shoes will last longer than a bargain pair and prevent foot pain. Leaner cuts of meat and organic produce provide health benefits for your family.

    Buy Secondhand

    Check classified ads, thrift stores and garage sales for used clothing, toys, furniture, and much more available at a part of their original cost. For the most secondhand savings, check out groups like Freecycle where members offer unwanted items for free to anyone willing to pick them up.

    Borrow Instead of Buy

    If you're only going to use something once, try to borrow it instead of spending your money on it. Borrow a tool from your neighbor. Swap books with a friend. Check out the resources at your local library. You'll also be reducing disorder in your home.