Recently, I learned firsthand why it's a bad idea to judge people prematurely (过早地).

    I'm a nursing supervisor, and my job is to evaluate workers' performances at the hospital.

    Kenny was a new employee. After weeks' probation (试用), I had to admit that he was clean, punctual and efficient.

    But he had this self-assured and energetic presence. He was a large man, both physically and socially — he was independent and strong. I worried that our hospital, which demanded teamwork, was not right for such a personality.

    We had a patient named Mary. At 94 years old, Mary was weak. She had outlived her husband and sisters.

    Mary had an obsessive (强迫性的) belief that someone had taken her purse. She searched for it all the time. Unless tied to her wheelchair, she would go through the door onto the street mindlessly searching and never giving up. She was often sitting in her wheelchair in the hallway, where she stopped everyone who came near.

    “Can you lend me a comb?” she would ask. “I've lost mine. It was in my red purse. Where is my purse?”

    Every day it was the same. We all knew Mary didn't have a purse, but we would answer: “Sure, if I see your purse I'll bring it back.”

    One afternoon, I saw Kenny walking down the hall with a grocery bag. He walked toward Mary in her wheelchair. He pulled out a red purse.

    Mary's old hands flew up to her face in a gesture of wonder and joy, and then flew out hungrily like a starved child taking bread. Mary grabbed the red purse. She held it for a moment, and then pressed it to her breast, rocking it like a baby.

    Kenny leaned over, unzipped the purse open and showed Mary a comb inside. Tears of joy poured down Mary's face.

    Instead of paying lip service like the rest of us, Kenny had made Mary's problem his problem. I had been wrong about Kenny.

    If you thought pilots dimmed（调暗）the lights before takeoff to give you some shuteye, think again. Believe it or not, the dim lighting could actually help save your life in case of a plane emergency.

    The dimmed lights before taking off the runway and landing are a flight precaution used to help passengers' eyes adjust quicker during an emergency escape. “Going from a brightly lit environment to one that's completely dark would require some time for our eyes to focus and see the escape slide,” Alice Theriault, service director for Air Canada wrote in a press statement. “Since we need to have all the seconds on our side in the event of an emergency, dimming the lights is one of many steps we take to ensure the safety of our customers.”

    The phenomenon that your eyes see those strange speckles (小斑点) as your sight adjusts to a dark place after being in a light place is called dark adaptation. It normally takes our eyes about 20 to 30 seconds to see best in a dark room. The brighter the lights, the longer it takes for our eyes to adjust, which is why dimming the plane lights could shorten your “dark adaptation” time since you haven't been sitting under fluorescent bulbs (荧光灯) all flight.

    Not only does dimming lights add valuable time to the escape process, but it reduces the tension on your eyes if you need to look outside, or see the emergency lighting along the passage. “It helps keep you in the right direction.” Patrick Smith, an airline pilot and author of Cockpit Confidential told The Telegraph. “It also makes it easier for flight attendants to assess any outside risks, such as fire or debris, that might affect an escape.” So next time a pilot dims the lights, just know it's for your safety, even though it creates a gentle atmosphere for your takeoff into the sky.

    I grew up with a group of pets. As a mother, I was determined to provide my daughter with the same joyful experiences. Indeed, by the time my daughter was in elementary school, our house was known as "the neighborhood zoo". Now that she is a teenager, we've reduced the number of animals in our home, but we still live with two dogs. I can't imagine life without them.

    Regardless, I have become increasingly uncomfortable with the word "pet". When I came upon the conclusion by the University of Tennessee zoologist Gordon Burghardt that the best we can do for pets is a life of "controlled deprivation (剥夺)", I wished I had never bought Lizzy, our leopard gecko(豹纹守宫). I felt a pit in my stomach when I learned that Lizzy's constant clawing at the glass wall of her tank was most likely a signal of stress. It is perhaps not surprising that she died after only two years, despite our efforts to give proper care.

    The problems with the various small creatures we put into cages and tanks are relatively clear-­cut. More challenging moral questions, in my view, arise in relation to our closest furry friends: dogs and cats. Unlike animals that must spend their entire life in a cage or that must struggle to adapt to a human environment, most cats and dogs have it pretty good. Yet it is likely that our dogs and cats may be suffering in ways we don't readily see, because even the most well meaning owner doesn't always provide what an animal needs.

    It may be hard to recognize the harmful aspects of pet keeping when all we hear is how beloved pets are and how happy they are to be in our company. Advertisements showing golden­-haired children playing with golden-­haired puppies and YouTube videos of cats doing funny things make pet keeping look ever so precious.

    Yet if we really care about animals, we ought to know animals are not toys — they are living, breathing, feeling creatures.

    Have you ever been to London? Here is some hotel information for you.

    Kingsway Hall Hotel

    We offer quality service (优质服务) in Kingsway Hall Hotel. This location puts guests in easy reach of many places, such as the British Museum and Piccadilly Circus. Our hotel also has modern Western food, and offers a perfect dining environment. The lounge bar is a comfortable place to enjoy a drink while watching the tourists. There are hundreds of dining choices within walking distance. Non-smoking rooms are ready for guests.

    Hilton Docklands Riverside

    Located on the bank of the Thames, our hotel is about two miles east of Tower Bridge and 36 miles from London Heathrow Airport. Our hotel has a beauty salon, a flower shop and a swimming pool. The hotel also offers different kinds of service：laundry (洗衣店) services, babysitting, shining shoes, and local area transportation.

    Windermere Hotel

Located in the center of London, our hotel puts guests within easy reach of London's well-known buildings. Buckingham Palace and the Royal Parks are just a short walk away. Within 1.5 miles you can visit Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament. The theatres, Harrods shopping centre, and the designer shops of Sloane Square and Knightsbridge are all only a short walk away or a taxi ride away.

                                                                                              The National Gallery

    Description:

    The National Gallery is the British national art museum built on the north side of Trafalgar Square in London. It houses a diverse collection of more than 2,300 examples of European art ranging from 13^th-century religious paintings to more modern ones by Renoir and Van Gogh. The older collections of the gallery are reached through the main entrance while the more modern works in the East Wing are most easily reached from Trafalgar Square by a ground floor entrance.

    Layout:

    The modern Sainsbury Wing on the western side of the building houses 13th- to 15th-century paintings, and artists include Duccio, Uccello, Van Eyck, Lippi, Mantegna, Botticelli and Memling.

    The main West Wing houses 16th-century paintings, and artists include Leonardo da Vinci, Cranach, Michelangelo, Raphael, Bruegel, Bronzino, Titan and Veronese.

    The North Wing houses 17th-century paintings, and artists include Caravaggio, Rubens, Poussin, Van Dyck, Velazquez, Claude and Vermeer.

    The East Wing houses 18th- to early 20th-century paintings, and artists include Canaletto, Goya, Turner, Constable, Renoir and Van Gogh.

    Opening Hours:

    The Gallery is open every day from 10am to 6pm (Fridays 10am to 9pm) and is free, but charges apply to some special exhibitions.

    Getting There:

    Nearest underground stations: Charing Cross (2-minute walk), Leicester Square (3-minute walk), Embankment (7-minute walk), and Piccadilly Circus (8-minute walk).

    Finding fruits and vegetables at your typical grocery store that have been grown without the extensive use of pesticides can be difficult. Fortunately, The Environmental Working Group(EWG) has done all of the work for you in finding healthy and pesticide－free produce.

    EWG has created the 2018 Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce, which helps shoppers to find uncontaminated produce. Many consumers do not realize that pesticide residues(残留) are very common on conventionally grown produce products, even after they have been washed or peeled. Because of this, EWG has created their series of guides to lead consumers to safer food choices.

    In order to create these guides, EWG analyzed the USDA pesticides tests, which found a total of 230 different pesticides and pesticides breakdown products on thousands of produce samples. Analyzing this information, EWG observed the big differences of the amount of pesticides found from product to product.

    The guide's two main components are two compiled lists highlighting the cleanest and dirtiest produce concerning pesticides. These two lists, Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen, show consumers how certain foods continue to carry trace amounts of pesticides with them all the way to the grocery store shelves, while others make it to your kitchen virtually pesticide－free.

    Some of the highlights from their analyses included the following findings：

    More than one－third of strawberry samples analyzed in 2016 contained 10 or more pesticide residues and breakdown products.

    Spinach(菠菜) samples had, on average, almost twice as much pesticide residue by weight compared to any other crop.

    No single fruit sample from the Clean Fifteen tested positive for more than four pesticides.

    “With EWG's guide, consumers can fill their fridges and fruit bowls with plenty of healthy conventional and organic produce that isn't contaminated with multiple pesticide residue," said Sonya Lunder, a senior analyst in EWG.

    Only 25 years ago, the National Academy of Sciences raised concerns about exposure to poisonous pesticides in our food, yet consumers still consume a mixture of pesticides every day in America.