In the early morning, I head for the back door and find 10 inches of snow covering our home. Oh no, Bryan will have to clear the roof again, I think. But Rio rolls onto his back, playing in the white snow and kicking his back legs, delighted. His days in an animal shelter in New Mexico are long forgotten—he's wholeheartedly enjoyed life as a Colorado dog.

    Rio needs a walk. I've planned to attend an emergent webinar, but my husband is busy clearing. Rio pushes my leg with his snout(口鼻部), wondering why we are still inside. We're late for our morning hike. I pull on my boots reluctantly. I don't have time for this!

    Rio and I walk a block through our neighborhood to the beginning of a road. Rio jumps happily into the snow, which is up to his neck. But I walk slowly with heavy steps, worrying about my to-do list, and I don't notice the world around me until Rio starts barking.

    A squirrel (松鼠) chitters at him from a high branch of a pine tree. We haven't seen a squirrel in at least a week because of all the snow storms, so this is a treat for us.

    Once again, my animal teacher is reminding me to enjoy the present moment, and I'm grateful. I take a deep breath and look around. Suddenly there is an explosion(爆炸) of snow. a nearby tree has released its heavy burden, snapping(迅速恢复) back upright. Silver snowflakes(雪花) dust the air around me as a group of birds flees the area, talking to one another as they fly overhead.

I watch and listen in wonder for what seems like a full minute. There will be 1440 munites on this day, but this is the one I'll remember most. Then I look back to the earth and there is my sweet dog, waiting patiently for a treat. He knows I'll want to celebrate this moment we've just shared. “I love you, Rio!” I say as I give him a cookie. He has trained me well!

    When we walk home, I smile broadly, spirit washed clean, ready for whatever the day may bring.

    Please Don't Be Afraid To Travel On Your Own

    You want to travel. You make an unclear plan. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} But either way, you're leaving in six months time. You start doing research every single night.

    Of course, as this will be your first ‘real' travel experience, you naturally prefer to travel with other people. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} But the first friend you ask, perhaps your closest friend, turns you down and so you move on to the next friend. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} The third friend, the fourth friend and even that guy that you don't really like say no as well.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#}You hope that one of your friends will change their mind and decide to join you. Maybe you decide to forget about your trip altogether, fully believing that you can only travel so far away from home with a friend or travel companion (同伴) by your side.

    Don't give up just yet. Here's my advice to you. You may be on your own when you board that flight to Bangkok or Mexico City, but believe me, once you arrive, you'll never actually be alone. That's how travel works. Unless you stare at the ground and never talk to anyone, you're going to meet people when you travel, lots and lots of people from all over the world. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}

A. Don't give it up.

B. Maybe you'll fly to Thailand or to Mexico.

C. Meeting new people is one of the worst things to do.

D. But they too, tell you they have no interest to join you at all.

E. They will be interested in meeting and hanging out with you.

F. So you start asking your friends to join you in your journey.

G. Maybe you decide to put off your trip for another six months.

    It has been around for centuries, but up until very recently, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) wasn't fully accepted abroad. Proof of this can be found in The Treatment (《刮痧》), a 2001 film that tells the story of a Chinese man in the US who's accused of abuse after he uses guasha, a form of TCM treatment, to cure his grandson's disease.

    During the last 10 years or so, however, TCM has been getting increasingly popular all over the world. A report released by the State Council Information Office on Dec. 6 says this style of health care, which includes different forms like herbal medicine and exercise, has spread to 183 countries and regions.

    "We have set up 10 TCM centers outside China, and all of them are popular among locals," Wang Guoqiang, head of the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, said at a news conference on Dec 6. "Governments of 86 countries and regions have signed agreements with the Chinese government on TCM corporation."

    One of the reasons behind the growing popularity of TCM is the increase of scientific research into it. And after Tu Youyou, the Chinese scientist who discovered the anti-malaria (抗疟疾) drug qinghaosu (青蒿素), won the Nobel Prize in 2015, TCM became even more famous internationally.

    However, all these achievements in TCM don't mean that it's problem-free. Over the years, TCM has faced challenges in being able to prove that it has certain effects.

    Some researchers have suggested TCM should be more exact and work together with Western medicine.

    "Bringing together with Western medicine and TCM, rather than being in competition, is where the potential for great effects is," said Bernhard Schwartlander, the China representative of the World Health Organization.

    Wilbur and Orville Wright were the two youngest sons of Bishop Milton Wright, Wilbur was born on a farm near Millville and Orville was born in August in the house the family would come to occupy for more than 40 years in Dayton.

    Orville would discover in later years that he and Wilbur's first interests in flight began when they were children, with powered rubber-band-helicopter toys that their father would bring home for them from trips around the country. Orville and Wilbur would build duplicates（复制品）of these toys and bounce them off the ceiling. They were just crazy about these things for the reasons that they did not yet understand.

    Both boys loved to solve problems that seemed difficult to others. The more difficult the problem was, the more they saw it as a challenge. Exploring the unknown was such a joy for then that Orville once said, "I can remember when Wilbur and I could hardly wait for the morning to come to get at something that interested us. That's happiness."

    Putting their gift to work, the boys entered the printing business soon after high school. Orville designed and then built a printing press（印刷机）for this enterprise. At first, they did contract printing for other people, and soon one of their customers during the early 1890s was Father Milton's church. They also tried the newspaper business, and although their two newspapers, the West Side News and The Evening Item were considered to be of high quality, Dayton already had daily newspapers, so the Wrights soon returned to contract printing.

    Branching out into other areas, they also opened a bicycle business. Bicycling was the fastest growing sport in the country at that time, and their repair shop soon led them into building bicycles of their own design, often with tools of their own construction, such as the lathe（车床）driven by a one-cylinder gasoline engine built by Orville. The bicycle shop would provide the livelihood（生计）that would allow them to carry out their experiments on airplanes.

    Americans think much about time .From children they learn to value( 珍惜) time .As children, they are taught to be on time to go to school, to work and to do everything .When they are having a good time , they say that time flies .When a person is dying, they say he is living on borrowed time.

    Time is money. Time is knowledge. Time is everything in America. A working American has to work hard for 8 hours a day or 40 hours a week. This is the working time. In his spare time, he also works hard for money .Even on Saturday and Sunday he also works hard as usual. In the street you can hardly see that a man walks slowly. They walk very fast. In fact, they are running.

    They love time because time can bring money and a lot of things .But sometimes they also hate time, because they feel they have become servants of the clock.

    From quiet paths by a stream in a forest to busy roads running through a city, people have created various forms of routes in different places. These now exist all around us, and their use is imperative for societies. These routes have enabled people to move, transport things, and send information from one place to another quickly and safely. Throughout history, they have been important in our daily lives.

    Early routes were often formed naturally on land. They gradually developed over long periods of time while people traveled them on foot or horseback. A significant turning point in their history arrived when the first wheeled carts appeared in ancient times. Once this happened, people recognized the importance of well-maintained routes. Therefore, towns, cities, and entire countries improved them. As a result, life became more convenient, communities grew, economies evolved, and cultures expanded.

    People have established routes on water, too. Rivers and canals have served as effective routes for people to move around and carry things. For instance, in the old, Japanese city of Edo, water routes were used for the transportation of agricultural products, seafood, and wood. People have also opened routes across the sea. The seaways were critical for the navigation of ships, particularly in the days when they moved mainly by wind power. Using these sea routes, people could travel great distances, and go to places they had not previously been able to reach.

    People have gone on to open routes in the sky as well. Since the invention of the airplane, they have made it possible to travel long distances easily. Eventually, people became able to travel safely and comfortably high in the sky, and going vast distances only took a small amount of time.

    Today, we have a new type of route, the Internet. By using this worldwide route, people can easily obtain information that once was available mainly from books and face-to-face communication. They can also instantly send messages to large numbers of people all at once.

    As long as there have been people, there have been routes to connect them. Currently unknown routes will surely take us even further in the future.