Here are some tips that will help you get rid of anxiety over being phoneless or reduce your risk of phone addiction.

    Disable the Internet connection. Take up your courage to disable the Internet connection on your smartphone.{#blank#}1{#/blank#} Needless to say, you will save o lot of cash on it.

    Find your passion.{#blank#}2{#/blank#} Find your dream job and you will leave your “best friend” at least for a while. If you have nothing to do at home, try a new hobby that will distract you from all those apps and social media.

    Purchase an ordinary phone. No smartphones. No iphones. Remember those times when we used phones in emergency situations only or when we wanted to invite someone to a party.{#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    Don't let the fear control you. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Claim your joy. I can only speak for myself here, but I think that a smartphone is one of the worst inventions. It's useful and helpful at times, but it has ruined many happy lives and relationships. That's because we allow our phones to control us.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} The fear of being phoneless is a serious problem. It's like drug or cigarette addiction. If you want to change your life, sell your expensive smartphone, buy an ordinary one, and become a sociable person. There are so many wonderful people that can bring joy into our life. Chatting online is great, but chatting in real life is best.

A. Free your mind.

B. Choose other electronic devices.

C. Keep your mind sharp and alert.

D. Beat your social butterfly wings.

E. Those who love their jobs never feel exhausted and bored.

F. Thus, you'll spend less time with your phone and more time in real life.

G. I bet some of you remember times when few people had a phone at home.

    As the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival approaches, mooncakes are turning up all over China, from traditional teashops to Starbucks counters. The holiday is one of China's four most important festivals, and in the weeks before the date arrives, top hotels get into the spirit with lavish(奢华) treats in lovely packaging. Traditionally, the cookie-sized round pastry(馅饼) has a rich thick filling usually made from red-bean or lotus-seed paste and covered by a thin crust. It may also contain yolks from salted duck eggs, integrating a beautiful savory tinge into the sugary taste. Fillings and crusts have become more diverse over time, especially in the hands of skilled pastry chefs. The mooncakes in Chinese culture represent homesickness, and the top crust of each moon-shaped pastry is generally imprinted with the Chinese characters for longevity or harmony.

    This year, the fancy gift boxes that have long driven the mooncake trade are particularly striking and rich with tradition.

    For example, the Fairmont Peace Hotel in Shanghai, built in 1929 and a magnet for Hollywood celebrities in the 1930s, has prepared a selection of mooncake gift boxes with designs inspired by the beauty and elegance of the hotel's famous art deco style. The simplest box of four pieces (red-bean paste, creamy custard, plain cheese, green-bean paste) is 198 yuan($29.64), while more lavish selections of five or six pieces, including mooncakes with egg yolk, run up to 338 yuan for a box.

    Beijing's Nuo Hotel, meanwhile, has created Ming Dynasty (1368－1644) inspired mooncake gift packs based on the design of porcelain vases in the hotel lobby, with the essence of landscape painting using Zhang Dai's poetic passages to show the peaceful harmony of man and nature. The box of six is 158 yuan, and includes mooncakes ranging from cheese mango to charcoal burning fragrant Pu'er tea and white lotus with egg yolk. A box of eight cakes of different flavors is 228 yuan.

    British writer John Donne once said: “No man is an island; every book is a world.” As an enthusiastic reader, I can't agree with the latter part of the sentence more. Every summer, I endeavor to find some peaceful places where I can attack some classics without being disturbed. Thomas Hardy wants to live far from the madding crowd. I am no friend to chaos, either.

    I read George Orwell's 1984 in a New England beachside cottage with no locks on the doors, no telephones or televisions in the rooms. 1984 is a good book that needs deep reflection. Attempting Sound and Fury lying on the bed of a poorly-occupied motel, however, was less fruitful: I made it through one and a quarter volumes, but then my eyelids were so heavy that I couldn't keep them open.

    But this summer I find myself at a loss. I'm not quite interested in J.D.Salinger, say, or Frankenstein. There's always War and Peace which I've covered some distance several times, only to get bogged down in the “War” part, set it aside for a while, and realize that I have to start over from the beginning again, having forgotten everyone's name and social rank. How appealing to simply fall back on a favorite—once more into The Call of the Wild or Alice in the Wonderland, which feels almost like cheating, too exciting and too much fun to properly belong to serious literature.

    And then there's John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. This title does not amaze but confuse. We're never short of sour grapes, but we've never heard of angry grapes. Anyway grapes are my favorite fruit of summer. These stone fruits can always make me feel cheerful and peaceful all at once.

Are You a Morning Person?

    Mornings are not for everyone. Knowing that our own bodies may be wired to prefer a certain time of day is certainly a relief. But many of us still have to wake up and function during those first daylight hours. So what can you do?

    We tapped a variety of experts—from sleep experts to nutritionists to life organizational pros—to share their tricks on how to make morning less stressful and more pleasant (for) even the most after-hours of night owls.

    ①Night waking

    Poor sleep quality can explain why we sometimes wake up from eight hours of snoozing and feel like we only clocked in at four. "It's normal to have one or two awakenings, but more than that leaves us feeling groggy in the morning because of the fragmented sleep," [explains Shelby Harris, director of the behavioral sleep medicine program at Montefiore Medical Center.]

    ②The Science of snoozing

    The snooze button does more harm than good. Nodding off again sends you into a light and fragmented sleep! Multiple snoozes can leave you feeling groggier than just getting out of bed the first time.

    Instead, be honest about the time you intend to get up and then enjoy every last minute of shuteye, so you can wake up alert and ready to go.

    ③Don't ease into your workday

    It can be tempting to plow through the easy things early on-checking e-mail, scanning the headlines—but it's wise to tackle the bigger stuff first. "Getting to work on the most important tasks not only ups the chances that they actually get done, but it also leaves you with a burst of accomplishment to take with you the rest of the day," says Jason Selk, coauthor of Organize Tomorrow Today.

    ④Save social media for later

    Schedule a social media block later in the afternoon to check in when you're likely to need a break anyway, and save the morning for the important stuff.

Vocabulary Focus

    tap(v) [tæp] to get or make use of something

    groggy (adj) ['gragi] weak and unable to think clearly or walk correctly, usually because of tiredness or illness

    shuteye (n) ['ʃʌtai] sleep

    plow through (something) (phr v) to finish reading, eating or dealing with something with difficulty

    A man going abroad to work leaves his young lady crying. "Don't worry, I will write to you every day," he said. For years he did write to her. But since he was happy with his job, he had no immediate plans of going home. One day, he received a wedding invitation. His girlfriend was scheduled to be married. To whom? To the mailman bringing regularly the letters of her boyfriend! Indeed, distance does make hearts struggle.

    While presents are important, love demands what is basic: presence of the beloved.

    Martha was busy with her job. She believed she had to work harder because she loved her father who had serious disease. She had to provide for his expensive medicine. Her brothers and sisters meanwhile stayed with their father most of the time. They bathed him, sang for him, spoon­fed him or simply kept him company.

    One day Martha was hurt. She overheard her father telling her mother, "All our children love me except Martha." "How can this be?" Martha thought. "Am I not the one killing myself in my work to earn money to buy for his medicine? My brothers and sisters do not even provide their share in the expenses as much as I do."

    One night, as Martha was as usual late in going home, she peeped for the first time in the room where her father was lying. She noticed that her father was still awake. She decided to come close at his bedside. Her father held her hands and said, "I miss you. I don't have much time. Stay with me." And she stayed with her father holding his hand the whole night.

    The next morning Martha said to everyone, "I have taken a leave of absence. I would like to be with my father. I will bathe him and sing for him from now on." Her father had a beautiful smile. He knew this time Martha loved him.

    As children, we need the assuring presence of our loved ones. Adult people need no less.