My friend BJ Gallagher told me a great story recently, about her own experience with resentment (愤恨). She once worked as the training manager for a large newspaper, where she found the corporate culture extremely frustrating. The company was a hundred years old and their past success ha d blinded them to the need for change. Finally, after butting heads with several senior executives (主管) many times, she left the company. But she found that she hadn't left her resentment, frustration, and anger behind when she resigned.

    “I finally decided to write about my experiences and my feelings at the newspaper. I wanted to be rid of that company and those people, once and for all. So I wrote and I wrote. It wasn't just a story that poured out; it was a whole book! We called it A peacock in the Land of Penguins. I was the peacock and those newspaper executives were the penguins.”

    “It took me several more years to finally get over my negative emotions. Through a lot of soul-searching and reflection, I finally was able to let go of my resentment. I came to see that there was nothing personal in the way they treated me, and they were good people doing what they thought best for the company. I was the one who had made it personal. I thought they were making my life miserable on purpose.”

    “Finally, the time came when I decided to make amends (弥补) for the sharp, angry things I had said about the company. I invited my former boss to dinner and made my apology. It was a great healing process for me. I finally felt free of the resentment that had been eating me up.”

    “What was the final outcome?” I asked her.

    “Gratitude,” she replied. “Not only wasn't I resentful any more, I was grateful to the company. If I hadn't had those painful experiences, I would never have written a book. And the book became hugely successful – now published in 21 languages; it transformed my business.”

    From The 12 Days of Christmas to See You in the Cosmos, these children's books are ideal for holiday giving.

    The 12 Days of Christmas by Greg Pizzoli

    It's a classic Christmas reading material! It's a counting lesson! It's a crazy tale of elephant love. Have you ever wondered how all those calling birds, turtle doves and French hens fit in one room? Pizzoli, a Theodor Seuss Geisel Award winner has your answer. ($ 15.99, ages 3—5) Amazon. com

   Here We Are by Oliver Jeffers

    Yes, this book by the illustrator (插画家) of the great hit “The Day the Crayons Quit” is for kids ages 3—7, but don't let that fool you.     Inspired by the birth of Jeffers1 first child, this is a father's “welcome to the earth” letter to his baby, filled with the heady wonder of parenthood .A great gift for new parents. ($ 19.99. ages 3—7) Amazon. com

    Wishtree by Katherine Applegate, illustrated by Charles Santoso.

     When a towering oak tree learns that she may be cut down, she starts getting extraordinarily involved in the lives of the humans below her, particularly a girl who is being escaped due to her ethnicity (种族). A lovely tale about common ground and the power of community. ($ 16.99, ages 8 —12) Amazon. com

     See You in the Cosmos by Jack Cheng

    Eleven-year-old Alex is too busy trying to communicate with space aliens to worry about his troubled family life. When Alex runs away from home to launch his homemade rocket, he finds himself sidetracked by new friends and hints of a family secret. ($ 16.99, ages 10 and up) Amazon. com

    An experiment was carried out at British school into the performance of new pupils. At the start of the year, the pupils were each given a rating, ranging from "excellent prospect" to "unlikely to do well". These were totally untrue ratings and did not reflect how well the pupils had previously performed. However, these ratings were given to the teachers. At the end of the year, the experimenters compared the pupils' performance with the ratings. Despite their real abilities, there was an astonishingly high connection between performance and ratings. It seems that people perform as well as we expect them to.

    The Self-fulfilling Effect is also known as the Pygmalion Effect. This comes from an old Greek story. The story was also the basis of George Bernard Shaw's play "Pygmalion", later turned into the musical "My Fair Lady". In Shaw's play, Professor Henry Higgins claims he can turn a Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle into a duchess. But, as Eliza herself points out to Higgins' friend Pickering, it isn't what she learns or does that determines whether she will become a duchess, but how she's treated.

    The implication (含义) of the Pygmalion Effect for leaders and managers is massive. It means that the performance of your team depends less on them than it does on you. The performance you get from people is no more or less than what you expect, which means you must always expect the best. As Goethe said, "Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and he will become as he can and should be."

    He was once referred to as the Picasso of poetry. Beloved by Chileans of all classes, he is one of the most widely read and respected poets in history. And this year is the 100th birthday of Pablo Neruda (1904-1973).

    Born with the name Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basolto, he was a tall, shy and lonely boy. He loved to read and started to write poetry when he was ten. The American poet Walt Whitman, whose framed picture Neruda later kept on his table, became a major influence on his work.

    However, his father did not like the idea of having a poet for a son and tried to discourage him from writing. To cover up (掩饰) the publication of his first poem, he took the pen name Pablo Neruda.

    In 1924 Neruda gained fame with his most widely read work "Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair". Yet his rich experience as a diplomat and exile (流亡) made him go beyond the theme of love. His work also reflected the political struggle of the left and development of South America. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971.

    Neruda loved the sea which he saw as creative, destructive and forever moving. He found inspiration in the power and freedom of the waves and the seabirds on the coast. "I need the sea because it teaches me," he wrote. "I move in the university of the waves." He loved how the sea forever renewed itself, a renewal echoed in his work.

    When a group of children politely stop a conversation with you, saying, "We have to go to work now." you're left feeling surprised and certainly uneasy. After all, this is the 21st century and the idea of children working is just unthinkable. This is, until you are told that they are all pupils of stage schools, and that the "work" they go off to is to go on the stage in a theatre.

    Stage schools often act as agencies to supply children for stage and television work. More worthy of the name "stage school" are those few places where children attend full time, with a training for the theatre and a general education.

    A visit to such schools will leave you in no doubt that the children enjoy themselves. After all, what lively children wouldn't settle for spending only half the day doing ordinary school work, and acting, singing or dancing their way through the other half of the day?

    Then of course there are times for the children to make a name and make a little money in some big shows. Some stage schools give their children too much professional work at such a young age. But the law is very tight on the amount they can do. Those under 13 are limited to 40 days in the year; those over 13 to 80 days.

    The schools themselves admit that not all children will be successful in the profession for which they are being trained. So what happens to those who don't make it? While all the leading schools say they place great importance on children getting good study results, the facts seem to suggest this is not always the case.

Recently, my dad and I decided to take a day trip to the Florida Keys, a coral cay archipelago located off the southernmost coast of the US. I was super excited because I had not been able to go anywhere within the past nine months because of COVID-19.

With masks and hand sanitizer, we began our fun journey before sunrise. The Keys are about two hours away from where I live in Florida, so we would get there early to see the sun coming up over the ocean. On the road, we got to enjoy the Gulf of Mexico on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other.

When we stopped by Curry Hammock State Park, I was really amazed. The park contains 1,000 acres of land, which protects mangroves, rock land and seagrass beds that are important to the ecosyst (生态系统) in the Keys. During our time there, we were able to see some hawks flying by, and they followed the Gulf coastline of the Caribbean, migrating (迁徙) from Canada and as far south as Peru. These hawks put their wings out, "floated" up in the wide sky and then glided for long distances. After flying for thousands of miles, they still kept their fast flight patterns.

After that, we went to Key West and visited some iconic (标志性的) stops, like Duvall Street and Mile Marker 0. It was really cool because it is the very beginning of US 1, which is the longest road that runs from Key West to the Canadian border.

It was an amazing trip to the Florida Keys, and it was thrilling to have a change of scenery.