The expression, “everybody's doing it,” is very much at the center of the concept of peer pressure. It is a strong influence of a group, especially of children, on members of that group to behave as everybody else does. It can be positive or negative. Most people experience it in some way during their lives.

People are social creatures by nature, and so it is hardly surprising that part of their self-respect comes from the approval of others. This instinct (天性) is why the approval of peers, or the fear of disapproval, is such a powerful force in many people's lives. It is the same instinct that drives people to dress one way at home and another way at work, or to answer “fine” when a stranger asks “how are you?” even if it is not necessarily true. There is a practical aspect to this: it helps society to function efficiently, and encourages a general level of self-discipline that simplifies day-to-day interaction.

    For certain individuals, seeking social acceptance is so important that it becomes like an addiction; in order to satisfy the desire, they may go so far as to abandon their sense of right and wrong. Teens and young adults may feel forced to use drugs, or join gangs that encourage criminal behavior. Mature adults may sometimes feel pressured to cover up illegal activity at the company where they work, or end up in debt because they are unable to hold back the desire to buy a house or car that they can't afford in an effort to “keep up with the Joneses.”

    However, peer pressure is not always negative. A student whose friends are good at academics may be urged to study harder and get good grades. Players on a sports team may feel driven to play harder in order to help the team win. This type of influence can also get a friend off drugs, or to help an adult take up a good habit or drop a bad one. Study groups and class projects are examples of positive peer groups that encourage people to better themselves.

    Schools try to teach kids about the dangers of negative peer pressure. They teach kids to stand up and be themselves, and encourage them to politely decline to do things that they believe are wrong. Similarly, it can be helpful to encourage children to greet the beneficial influence of positive peer groups.

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    Nowhere is the place you never want to go. It's not on any departure board, and though some people like to travel so far off the motherland that it looks like Nowhere, most wanderers ultimately long to get somewhere. Yet every now and then—if there's nowhere else you can be and all other options have gone—going nowhere can prove the best adventure around.

    Nowhere is entirely uncharted; you've never read a guidebook entry on it or followed others' suggestions on a train ride through its suburbs. Few YouTube videos exist of it. Moreover, it's free from the most dangerous kind of luggage, expectation. Knowing nothing of a place in advance opens us up to a high energy we seldom encounter while walking around Paris or Kyoto with a list of the 10 things we want—or, in embarrassing truth, feel we need—to see.

    I'll never forget a bright January morning when I landed in San Francisco from Santa Barbara, just in time to see my connecting flight to Osaka take off. I hurried to the nearest airline counter to ask for help, and was told that I would have to wait 24 hours, at my own expense, for the next day's flight. An unanticipated delay is exactly what nobody wants on his schedule. The airline didn't answer for fog-related delays, a gate agent declared, and no alternative flights were available.

    Millbrae, California, the drive-through town that encircles San Francisco's airport, was a mystery to me. With one of the world's most beautiful cities only 40 minutes to the north, and the unofficial center of the world, Silicon Valley, 27 miles to the south, Millbrae is known mostly as a place to fly away from, at high speed.

    It was a cloudless, warm afternoon as a shuttle bus deposited me in Millbrae. Locals were taking their dogs for walks along the bay while couples wandered hand in hand beside an expanse of blue that, in San Francisco, would have been crowded with people and official “attractions.” I checked in to my hotel and registered.

    Suddenly I was enjoying a luxury I never allow myself, even on vacation: a whole day free. And as I made my way back to my hotel, lights began to come on in the hills of Millbrae, and I realized I had never seen a sight half so lovely in glamorous, industrial Osaka. Its neighbor Kyoto is attractive, but it attracts 50 million visitors a year.

    Who knows if I'll ever visit Millbrae again? But I'm confident that Nowhere will slip into my schedule many times more. No place, after all, is uninteresting to the interested eye. Nowhere is so far off the map that its smallest beauties are a discovery.

    Bad days happens to many of us. Something makes us sad, angry, frustrated or disappointed. But you still have to get up and go to work. Everything others say to you sounds stupid.{#blank#}1{#/blank#} . Luckily, you can do something about it. Here are some ways to turn around a bad day.

    Accept your bad mood

    Being in a bad mood is not that hard. If you're mad, be mad.{#blank#}2{#/blank#} . This does not give you license to be rude and unpleasant to others. It just means that you need to recognize and accept your bad mood to be able to do something.

    Tell others

    You can try to keep your bad mood a secret and put on your happy mask. Guess what, you're fooling nobody.{#blank#}3{#/blank#} . Simply tell them “listen guys, I'm in a really sour mood today. I'm not sure why, but it's nothing to do with what you have done. If I bite your head off, I apologize in advance.”

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} 

    Spend a few moments to try thinking of at least one or two things that aren't all bad: Something you look forward to, such as a person you like at work or something nice that happened recently.

    Take some quiet time

    And if you're having a really bad day, it may be a good idea to withdraw a little if you can. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} . Sit and work somewhere quiet. Take a long bathroom break. Consider going home early or taking the day off.

A. Remember the good

B. It's important to get along well with others

C. Everyone seems to annoy you

D. The best thing to do is to tell the people you work closely with

E. If you're sad, be sad

F. Ask for advice

G. Take a walk in your lunch break

Not all English is the same

    To many learners of English, it's easy to think that all native speakers have no trouble communicating with one another.

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    Well, it turns out that being a native English speaker from one country doesn't mean that you're able to perfectly understand a native English speaker from another country, and vice versa (反之亦然)

    Take the UK and the US for example.

    As a Briton, I grew up hearing American accents alongside British ones – on TV shows, movies and in songs.{#blank#}2{#/blank#} and how they would eat “cookies” instead of “biscuits”.  And it took me a while to figure out that the “trunk” (n. 后备箱) of a car is what us Britons call its “boot”.

    The confusion didn't stop at just vocabulary –{#blank#}3{#/blank#} For example, when talking about shopping malls, Americans pronounce it “mawl” instead of “mal”. And for some reason that's hard for Britons to understand, Americans remove the “H” sound from “herb”, pronouncing it “erb”.

    These small differences may not change much in a day-to-day conversation between a Briton and an American.{#blank#}4{#/blank#} Recently, for example, an American friend told me that she liked my pants. “You can see them?” I asked, shocked. Pants means “underpants” to most British people, which explains my horror.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} In the US, for example, a “bum” is a homeless person, while the same word in the UK is used to describe one's backside（n.臀部）.

    And, more amusingly, “trump” was only ever really used as a verb in the UK – meaning “to pass gas” – until the US' current president came into the spotlight.

But as long as you can speak one version of English, it's easy enough to understand any other – and any confusion just makes your day more interesting.

A. English is changing as it spreads around the world.

B. After all, English is English, isn't it?

C. I soon noticed how Americans would put “gas” in their cars instead of “petrol” .

D. However, confusion can still happen every now and then.

E. There are different words that mean the difficult thing.

F. Some words can even be offensive (adj.无礼的) without you realizing it.

G. I discovered that many words are even pronounced differently.

    Music is very powerful. The kind of music you listen to says a lot about who you are. What music you choose to listen to today will help to determine what type of person you are tomorrow. Be careful about what type of music you choose to listen to. Music can either build you up or tear you down.

    Garbage in, garbage out

    In almost all categories of music, there are artists that deliver positive messages through their music and then there are artists that deliver destructive, hateful messages in their music. The kind of music you choose to listen to will help determine the level of success you achieve in life. Think negative thoughts and you will attract negative into your life. Think positive thoughts and you will see the positive in your life. Opportunities come to the optimists in life. When you entertain negativity in your life, opportunities are often lost or ignored.

    Use Positive Music to get what you want out of life

    Actively choose music with a positive message to listen to. Making this conscious choice will lead to positive experiences in your daily life. Music has a powerful effect on our beliefs and our actions. Being active in choosing the music we listen to will lead to a happier and fulfilling life. If you aren't happy with the current state of your life, a great place to start changing it for the better is to choose better music to listen to.

    Not convinced that you should listen to positive music?

    Consider that all action is preceded(先于) by a thought. It's impossible to take an action without having some thought about the action before you do it. Where do your thoughts come from? They come from what you are listening to, what you are seeing and who you are hanging out with. These influences over time, are responsible for our beliefs and ultimately our actions.

    How to make positive changes in your life

    Choosing music with a positive message is a great way to start making positive changes in your life. Don't you like where your life is headed? Changing the music you're listening to is an important first step towards creating a different, more positive life for yourself.

    Every animal sleeps, but the reason for this has remained foggy. When lab rats are not allowed to sleep, they die within a month.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    One idea is that sleep helps us strengthen new memories. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} We know that, while awake, fresh memories are recorded by reinforcing (加强) connections between brain cells, but the memory processes that take place while we sleep have been unclear.

    Support is growing for a theory that sleep evolved so that connections between neurons (神经元) in the brain can be weakened overnight, making room for fresh memories to form the next day.{#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    Now we have the most direct evidence yet that he is right.{#blank#}4{#/blank#} The synapses in the mice taken at the end of a period of sleep were 18 per cent smaller than those taken before sleep, showing that the connections between neurons weaken while sleeping.

    If Tononi's theory is right, it would explain why, when we miss a night's, we find it harder the next day to concentrate and learn new information — our brains may have smaller room for new experiences.

    Their research also suggests how we may build lasting memories over time even though the synapses become thinner. The team discovered that some synapses seem to be protected and stayed the same size. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} “You keep what matters,” Tononi says.

A. We should also try to sleep well the night before.

B. It's as if the brain is preserving its most important memories.

C. That's why students do better in tests if they get a chance to sleep after learning.

D. Similarly, when people go for a few days without sleeping, they get sick.

E. The processes take place to stop our brains becoming loaded with memories.

F. Tononi's team measured the size of these connections, or synapses, in the brains of 12 mice.

G. “Sleep is the price we pay for learning,” says Giulio Tononi, who developed the idea.