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.

How to Improve Your English

    One of the most important questions that every student asks is how to improve your English. There are probably as many answers to this question as there are people {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Let's begin with the three most important rules to help guide you. You'll find further ideas below.

Rule 1:{#blank#}2{#/blank#} 

    The most important rule to remember is that learning English is a process. It takes time, and it takes lots of patience! If you are patient, you will improve your English.

Rule 2:Make a Plan

    The most important thing to do is to create a plan and follow that plan.{#blank#}3{#/blank#} Patience is key to improving your English, so go slowly and focus on your foals. You'll speak English well soon if you keep to the plan.

Rule 3:{#blank#}4{#/blank#}

    It's absolutely necessary that learning English becomes a habit. In other words, you should work on your English every day. It's not necessary to study grammar every day. However, you should listen, watch read or speak English every day even if it's for a short period of time.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} When you truly understand and master these three rules, then you will find your English level is really great.

    Being the head of a high school for many years, I grew tired of budget meetings, funding cuts, and many other administrative chores. I started to dream of retirement. Sitting in traffic on a weekday morning, I would find my mind wandering. I would imagine spending time with my grandchildren, quiet evenings with my wife, traveling, or rediscovering some great books. I told myself that I wouldn't sign myself up for any committees, any classes, or anything requiring a schedule.

    My first day of retirement came at last! I cooked a great breakfast for my wife and me, leisurely read the paper, cleaned a bit of the house, and wrote a few letters to friends. On the second day, I cooked breakfast, read the paper … On the third day. This is retirement? I tried to tell myself that it was just the transition, that those golden moments were right round the corner, and that I would enjoy them soon enough. But something was missing.

    A former colleague asked a favor. A group of students was going to Jamaica to work with children in the poorest neighborhoods. Would I interrupt my newly found “happiness” and return to the students, just this once? One trip. That's all. My bags were packed and by the door.

    The trip was very inspiring. I was moved not only by the poverty I saw but also by the sense of responsibility of the young people on the trip. When I returned home, I offered to work one day a week with a local youth organization. The experience was so positive that I was soon volunteering nearly full-time, working with students across North America to assist them in their voluntary work.

    Now, it seems, the tables have turned. Some days I am the teacher, other days I am the student. These young people have reawakened my commitment to social justice issues by challenging me to learn more about the situation in the world today, where people are still poor and suffer because of greed, corruption and war. Most importantly, they have given me the opportunity to continue to participate in helping to find solutions. In return, I help them do their charitable projects overseas. I've gone from running one school to helping oversee the construction of schools in twenty-one countries!

    On October 17, 2016 the Shenzhou-11 manned spaceship was sent into space from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in Gansu. Two days later the spaceship successfully connected with the space laboratory Tiangong-2. It meant China got closer to its plan of building a space station in 2020.

    The spaceship took two Chinese astronauts to space this time. Jing Haipeng was an experienced astronaut who flew on Shenzhou-7 in 2008 and Shenzhou-9 in 2012. But it was Chen Dong's first space flight.

    Jing and Chen were given a 30-day task on Tiangong-2. They tested new technology and did experiments to prepare for future space station tasks. The astronauts themselves were also the subject (对象) of those experiments. The life support devices (设备) they used and how they lived inside the space laboratory were studied. No Chinese astronaut had stayed in space for that long before.

A month-long space task was not easy, so Chinese scientists and engineers had come up with lots of new technologies to allow astronauts to stay more safely and more comfortably in space. One of the new technologies tested during this task was a device called "space hospital". The space hospital was two little silver boxes tied around the two astronauts, legs. Through the "space hospital", scientists and doctors on the Earth could watch the astronauts, heart rate and temperature. When the astronauts felt tired, the "space hospital" could even massage (为…按摩) them.

    After this task, China was expected to send an unmanned cargo spaceship (无人货运飞船) in mid-April the next year. It docked with Tiangong-2 and took new fuel to the space laboratory.

    About 15 years ago, I taught A Problem from Hell, a book on genocides (大屠杀), to a group of 18- and 19-year-olds in a mid-west university in the US. In my class there was a young man who had spent his boyhood in Bosnia as NATO bombed his hometown. My other students, amazed by his connection to the genocide in the textbook, asked him what it was like to grow up in a war-zone. "A pretty normal childhood as you had here," he said. "We played cards inside a lot, and when there was no bombing we kicked a ball in the street."

    In the past few years, the world has seen a rapid increase in refugees (难民), with the number hitting 60 million. Viet Thanh Nguyen's story collection The Refugees reminds us that literature is news that stays news. Set in the Vietnamese communities in California as well as in Vietnam, the stories do not aim to surprise us with new twists or shock us with wonderful details, as war and refugee stories could easily choose to do. Rather, like the young man from Bosnia, Nguyen's characters tell these stories because they are the only ones known to them.

    Included in the collection are two of the most touching pieces, both about siblings (兄弟或姊妹) separated by geography and history. In "Black-Eyed Women", the narrator (讲述人), a young Vietnamese woman, is visited by the ghost of her elder brother, who died young on the boat when the family took flight from the war. The tale of love and loss, violence and violation, may not be unfamiliar to the reader, but the determination of the brother's ghost (he has taken decades to swim across the Pacific to reach America) and the sister's abandoning herself to a half death make the story lasting.

    As an echo, the closing story, "Fatherland", explores a more complex situation between two siblings. The narrator, a young Vietnamese woman, meets her half-sister, visiting from the US for the first time. Adding to the tension is the fact that her father has named the narrator and her siblings after his first set of children. Two sisters, one American and one Vietnamese, yet named the same by the father – it may sound strange, but isn't it the fate many refugees have to face: a life left behind, that could have been theirs; and a life in an adopted country.

    The theme of doubleness –  choice and inevitability (不可避免性), home and homelessness, starting afresh and being stuck – is present not only in the stories of Vietnamese refugees, but also of those who have become refugees from their own homes and loved ones. "Smiling at your relatives never got you very far, but smiling at strangers and acquaintances sometimes did." So a pilot, who fought in the Vietnam war and is now revisiting the country for the first time, thinks while waving at the locals from a tour bus. He's distant from his daughter, just as a Mexican American in the collection is distant from his wife, or a young man from Hong Kong is distant from his father.

    The collection is full of refugees, whether from external or from a deeper, more internal conflict between even those who are closest to each other. With anger but not despair, with reconciliation (和解) but not unrealistic hope, and with genuine humour that is not used to insult anyone, Nguyen has breathed life into many unforgettable characters.

    In every British town, large and small, you will find shops that sell second-hand goods. Sometimes such shops deal mostly in furniture, sometimes in books, sometimes in ornaments（装饰） and household goods, sometimes even in clothes.

    The furniture may often be “antique”, and it may well have changed hands many times. It may also be very valuable, although the most valuable piece will usually go to the London salerooms, where one piece might well be sold for hundreds of thousands of pounds. As you look around these shops and see the polished wood of chests and tables, you cannot help thinking of those long-dead hands which polished that wood, of those now-closed eyes which once looked at these pieces with love.

    The books, too, may be antique and very precious; some may be rare first printings. Often when someone dies or has to move house, his books may all be sold, so that sometimes you may find whole libraries in one shop. One the border between England and Wales, there is a town which has become a huge bookshop as well. Even the cinema and castle have been taken over, and now books have replaced sheep as the town's main trade.

    There are also much more humble shops, sometimes simply called “junk shops”, where you can buy small household pieces very cheaply. Sometimes the profits（利润）from these shops go to charity（慈善事业）. Even these pieces, though, can make you feel sad; you think of those people who once treasured them, but who have moved on to another country or to death.

    Although the British do not worship（崇拜）their ancestors, they do treasure the past and the things of the past. This is true of houses as well. These days no one knocks them down; they are rebuilt until they are often better than new. In Britain, people do not buy something just because it is new. Old things are treasured for their proven worth; new things have to prove themselves before they are accepted.