Some young Cambodians are learning a new sport — skateboarding. The country's first skateboard park is located on the grounds of a local charity group at the edge of Phnom Penh, the capital.

    Sports like Khmer boxing and soccer are wildly popular in Cambodia. But Chea, who has been skating for 6 months, says skating has already become his favorite sport.

    The skaters are learning tricks like launching off a jump or half-pipe and flying through the air on their narrow wooden boards.

    A non-governmental organization called Skateistan Cambodia organizes weekly programs at the park. Skateistan started its work in Afghanistan years ago. Rory Burke is working with the group which expanded to Cambodia last year.

    Rory Burke points out, "Yeah, it's definitely not a typical Cambodian pastime (消遣). And I think the idea of 'why skateboarding is that it's not been done before here. We want to use skateboarding as something saying, 'Hey, this is new, this is something different. And that kind of itself becomes a little bit of hook. People see it and they think and they say, "Wow, 'what is that?', and they want to get involved. "

    Skateistan partners with local groups that work with young people. The park is on the grounds of the group known as PSE, where children attend school and learn a trade. There are almost one hundred twenty participants. They all come from troubled lives.

    Seventeen-year-old Sang Rotha is a student at PSE. "Sometimes I don't do well on subjects like math," he says, "I feel bad when I find it hard to keep up with my lessons. So that is why I skateboard—to improve my bad feelings. "

    He says he began skateboarding more than a year ago. Before he started training, it seemed very easy. But it was very difficult to learn tricks, and he got hurt a lot from falling off.

    Rory Burke says learning to deal with the difficulties is part of the lesson for these young skateboarders.

    The smallest kids on Earth are much smaller than you or your baby brother or sister. They're even smaller than the hairs on your head. We call them “NanoPutians”(纳米小人). Also known as NanoKids, the NanoPutians aren't real people. They are actually tiny molecules (分子) made to look a little bit like people.

    James Tour invented the NanoPutians as a way to teach kids about nanoscience, which refers to the study of things that are smaller than about 100 or 200 nanometers. “The exact size is less important than the possible applications of working with such tiny things,” Tour says, “Nanoscience is the study and development of the small so that it will affect the large.”

One of the goals of the research is to control individual atoms. Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and other types of atoms are the building blocks of the universe. They make up planets, rocks, people, trees, CDs — all the stuff out there. “Most things that people build come together in a top-down way”, Tour says. If you want to make a table, for instance, you cut down a big tree, make wooden boards, and hammer them together. Nature, on the other hand, builds things from the bottom up. When atoms join together they make molecules. Each molecule has a certain shape, and a molecule's structure determines what it can do. Molecules can make them come together to make a cell — or a tree.

    Tour and his co-workers turned these molecular structures into cartoon figures and made an animated(动画的) science video about the little people, set it to music and started showing it to kids in school while talking about how exciting research on small things can be.

    “Learning about the NanoKids has opened up a world of possibility for real kids who ordinarily would rather not study biology, chemistry or physics.” Tour says. When you look closely enough, the really small can be really cool.

    In the winter months the temperature in most of Canada usually stays below 0℃. However, in some parts of Canada, such as southern British Columbia, the temperature rarely goes below 0℃. In most areas where people live, snow will be on the ground from mid-December to mid-March. Though Canada's winter may be much colder and longer than you are used to, it can be very enjoyable. For many Canadians, being active in winter is an important part of enjoying life. There are many outdoor winter activities, including skiing, ice fishing, walking, and skating. Joining in one of these activities may help you appreciate winter and enjoy your time outside in the snow.

    Dressing for winter

    During winter in Canada, you will need warm clothing. If possible, arrive with these items or be prepared to buy them soon after your arrival. You will need:

    a warm waterproof boots   ☆ a scarf for your neck

    a hat that covers your ears  ☆ gloves for your hands

    thick winter coats, pants and sweaters

    Layers keep you warm

    It's a good idea to layer your clothing by, for example, wearing a T-shirt and a sweater underneath a jacket. If you become too hot, it's always easier to remove a piece of clothing than to add another. On the West Coast, prepare to dress for cool rainy or snowy weather. You will need:

    a warm waterproof coat   ☆ waterproof hats

    an umbrella    ☆ rain boots or snow boots

    Learn more about weather and seasons across Canada. You can also contact Related Links, for example, an immigrant-serving organization in the community where you live for more information about dressing for winter.

    There's a song by the great Jamaican singer Bob Marley called So Much Trouble In The World. Marley understood that part of the reason why there are so many problems in the world is the lack of tolerance between people. The UN understands this too—that's why it made Nov 16 "International Day for Tolerance".

    But first of all, what is tolerance? French philosopher Voltaire (1694—1778) can give us some help. According to him, tolerance "is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty (脆弱) and error; let us pardon each other's folly—that is the first law of nature."

    Nobody's perfect. When we're tempted to criticize another person, we should perhaps remember our own imperfections first.

    Very often, people don't realize that they're intolerant. This is because intolerance has a lot to do with ignorance. For example, the UN's campaign is in part about the treatment of females by males. But often, the behavior of men toward women is intolerant because men don't put themselves in the shoes of women.

    It's worth thinking a little about the words "tolerance" and "intolerance". Are they the best words to describe the evils of which we're speaking here? To agree to be "tolerant" of someone isn't necessarily a very respectful thing. When someone is tolerated, it implies that there's something wrong with them.

    But it seems wrong that people should agree to "tolerate" people with black skin, for example. And should women think they have received the respect they are due when men agree to "tolerate" them?

    Still, what Voltaire said stands: We humans are not perfect and this weakness is something that we all share. That's the reason we should be tolerant.

    It's a little like generosity. We can give things to another person, and we can also give our forgiveness. Bob Marley understood this. In the song mentioned above, he advised: "Write your love on a rock so it stays for eternity; write your hate in the sand so the waves will wash it away."

    I visited Elba last June, joining Mary and John on a bicycling vacation. They made the arrangements for the car, hotel and bicycles. I studied the history of the island, which of course particularly features Napoleon.

    Napoleon (now I know) picked Elba as a place for peace when he was forced to give up the throne (王权) as Emperor of France in 1814. Far from being a prison island, Elba is beautiful with towering mountains, thick forests and sweeping bays and beaches.

    It is also an island filled with treasure. Very early on this island, locals discovered rich deposits of iron. Soon outsiders, too, discovered the iron and 150 other valuable minerals on this little piece of land. Long before Etruscans and other Greeks set foot on it, Dorians had moved in by the tenth century B. C. and were mining the island. The Romans ruled next, obtaining the minerals and building grand houses overlooking the sea. From the twelfth century until the nineteenth, the island was traded back and forth and was passed to France in 1802. Then came Napoleon, the new ruler of Elba.

    I was eager to visit his house in Portoferraio. The Emperor lived with his court and his mother, but his wife, Marie Louise had ensconced herself in the splendid Viennese palace of her father, Emperor of Austria. She lived safely there and showed little interest in visiting her husband in his mini-kingdom. Apparently, Napoleon wasn't troubled much by this. He was too busy riding everywhere on horseback, building roads, modernizing agriculture and, above all, sharpening his tiny army and navy into readiness for his escape.

    In the formal gardens behind the house it seemed to me that I could imagine the exiled (流放的) conqueror's anxious thoughts. He might gaze over where I stood now, toward the lighthouse of the Stella fort, the sandy bay, and across it, the green mountains of the Tuscan coast. Napoleon spent only ten months here before making his victorious return to France and the throne.