Today, I made the time to listen to a person new to me, who I met was parking my car, “Perfect”, he said as he walked by me as I checked how considerately I parked. He was a clean cut gentleman sharing his feelings about his grown kids, parenting mistakes he is aware of, while expressing a realization to slay clear of destructive addictions.

    I listened patiently and kindly. He seemed quite comfortable with me, in need of some treatment letting go of his thoughts and emotions. After talking for a while, I had to go inside, and I asked him to wait on the sidewalk and I'd be right back with some gifts for him. He was so receptive all along, and I could feel the desires of his heart. I returned to him with bookmarks. I encouraged him, also, with a couple of inspirational thoughts to live by: To focus on what you want — how you want to feel and how you want to live and experience life.

    This experience is a good thing to me, meeting this gentleman as I am experiencing the challenges of trying to be a positive encouragement to my daughter Angel in fighting her illness. I know Angel has the desire too, although in a different way and at a different level in her growth.

    I've received little to no reaction from Angel about the positive encouragement of the family. On the other hand, this gentleman paid attention. Some of this, of course, is the big age difference, I imagine. Anyhow, I extended myself in friendship to have a walk and talk with my daughter early tomorrow morning, so as to be a curing support, and it feels good for me, too — although far outside my usual comfort zone.

    The other day I heard a few local musicians talking:

    "I hate all the terrible pianos in this town. I hate that rubbish they play on the radio. They can't even understand a bit of music."

    " I'm never playing in that club again. Too many drunks and nobody listens to us."

    But one younger musician said, "There are a few clubs that book my band a few nights a month, and I'm trying to find other places to play. I'm also looking to book a few summer festivals this year."

    I've heard that you are the average of the five people whom you spend the most time with, or to put it another way, you are who your friends are.

    Attitudes are important. Whether they're positive or negative, they're rubbing off on you. If you're around people who complain about lack of work and about other musicians, or blame others, and you play the role of victim, chances are you'll start to as well. So it's time to take a look at the people you call "friends".

    This is an easy exercise: Make a list of the people who you hang out with, and simply stop spending time with the negative people on your list. Set a new standard for yourself and don't become friends with people who fall below that standard.

    Keep successful people around you and your own chances for success will be much better. Ask them how they do it. Ask if they will help you get the work you're looking for, or maybe give you some advice to help you on your career path.

    Strongest Female Literary Characters of All Time

    There are some of history's most inspiring and great females who can be found on the pages of these novels.

    Elizabeth Bennet

    Called "Lizzie" or "Eliza" by her family and friends, Elizabeth Bennet is the stubborn and clever heroine from the 1813 Jane Austen novel Pride and Prejudice. She's the second eldest of five daughters in the Bennet family and, like the rest of her sisters, she is expected to marry for status and money, not for love. To remain true to herself, she would rather remain single, a concept that was unheard at the time.

    Nancy Drew

    She first appeared in the 1930s but remains one of the most iconic female characters in all of literature. Created by Edward Stratemeyer, Nancy Drew wasn't simply a pretty girl. Instead, the brave, physically strong, and fiercely intelligent Nancy used her superior intelligence—not her looks—to solve a series of mysteries.

    Josephine March

    Jo March is the second eldest daughter in the March family and is a central focus in the novel Little Women, published by Louisa May Alcott in 1868. At 15, she is strong-willed, confident, and literary and unlike her sisters, she is outspoken and uninterested in marriage. Jo both struggles with and challenges society's expectations of how women in the 19th century should carry themselves, making her one of literature's most daring female characters.

    Hester Prynne

    Recognized by some critics as one of the most important characters in female literature, Hester Prynne is the leading character in Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1850 novel, The Scarlet Letter. Married but separated by distance from her husband, Hester has an affair with a minister and becomes pregnant.

    More students than ever before are taking a gap year（间隔年） before going to university. It used to be the "year off" between school and university. The gap﹣year phenomenon originated（起源） with the months left over to Oxbridge applicants between entrance exams in November and the start of the next academic year.

    This year, 25310 students who have accepted places in higher education institutions have put off their entry until next year, according to statistics on university entrance provided by the University and College Admissions Service （UCAS）.

    That is a record 14.7% increase in the number of students taking a gap year. Tony Higgins from UCAS said that the statistics are good news for everyone in higher education. "Students who take a well﹣planned year out are more likely to be satisfied with, and complete, their chosen course. Students who take a gap year are often more mature and responsible, "he said.

    But not everyone is happy. Owain James, the president of the National Union of Students （NUS）, argued that the increase is evidence of student hardship﹣young people are being forced into earning money before finishing their education. "New students are now aware that they are likely to leave university up to￡15, 000 in debt. It is not surprising that more and more students are taking a gap year to earn money to support their study for the degree. NUS statistics show that over 40% of students are forced to work during term time and the figure increases to 90% during vacation periods," he said.

    Why does time seem to fly by faster as we get old? You've got your aging brain to blame. This is likely due largely to the physical changes of our nerves and neurons (神经元). New research suggests 'rapid fire' abilities of the young brain allow us to process more information during youth, causing the days to seem longer earlier in life. However, as we get old, researchers say the older brain takes more time to process information.

    The new finding put forward by a Duke University researcher was published in a paper in the journal European Review this week According to Adrian Bejan, the J. A Jones Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Duke, the physical changes of our nerves and neurons play, a major role in our perception (知觉) of time as we get old. Over the years these structures become more complex and eventually begin to degrade.

    "Little babies, for example, move their eyes much more often than adults because they're processing images at a faster rate," Beian says, For older people, this means fewer images are being processed in the same amount of time, causing experiences to seem as though they're happening more quickly.

    Americans wear black for mourning (哀悼) while Chinese wear white. Westerners think of dragons as monsters. Chinese honor them as symbols of God. Chinese civilization has often shown such polarities (对立)with the West, as though each stands at extreme ends of a global string. Now in the University of California, Berkeley, a psychologist, has discovered deeper polarities between Chinese and American cultures—polarities that go to the heart of how we reason and discover truth.

    His findings go far toward explaining why American cultures seem to be aggressive and Chinese cultures so passive, when compared to each other. More importantly, the research opens the way for the peoples of the East and the West to learn from each other in basic ways. The Chinese could learn much from Western methods for determining scientific truth, said Kaiping Peng, a former Beijing Scholar, who is now a UC Berkley assistant professor of psychology. And Americans could profit enormously from the Chinese tolerance for accepting contradictions in social and personal life, he said.

    "Americans have a terrible need to find out who is right in an argument," said Peng. "The problem is that at the interpersonal level you really don't need to find the truth, or maybe there isn't any." Chinese people, said Peng, are far more content to think that both sides have advantages and disadvantages, because they have a whole awareness that life is full of contradictions. They do far less blaming of the individual than do Americans, he added.

    In studies of interpersonal (人际的) argument, for example, when subjects were asked to deal with contradictory information resulting from conflict between a mother and a daughter or a student and a school, Peng found that Americans were "non-compromising (折中), blaming one side—usually the mother—for the causes of the problems, demanding changes from one side to attain a solution and offering no compromise" in dealing with the conflict. Compared to this angry, blaming American method, the Chinese were paragons (模范) of compromise, finding fault on both sides and looking for solutions that moved both sides to the middle.