Having friends may well keep you healthier and help you deal with stress better. Some studies show that people with close friends have a greater ability to fight disease than people who are alone.

    Place friendship in the first place. Find the time to be with friends even if it means letting the lawn go unmoved or the dishes unwashed for a while. When you can't get together, use the phone to keep in touch.

    Open up to close friends. Keeping a deep friendship requires a level of “heartfelt” intimacy (亲密). Don't be afraid to express your inner fears and disappointments. Listen to your friends when they have problems, but offer advice only when it's wanted. Help raise friends' self-esteem when they are sad about a job loss, or other such events.

    Have different friends for different activities, such as going to the movies, singing in a choir, and joining in a bowling league.

    Don't wait for a friend to ask for helps. When a friend has the flu, offer to go to the store or drive his or her children to their after-school activities.

    Never take a friendship for granted. Like a good marriage, friendship needs care and patience. Become a joiner. Find a group that matches your interests.

    Talk to strangers. Conversations started in museums, laundry rooms, or bookstores can lead to firm friendship.

    Enroll in an adult-education course. A classroom is an ideal place to meet others with similar interests.

    The guzheng is a traditional Chinese musical instrument. It belongs to the zither（齐特琴）family of string instruments. It is the parent of many musical instruments of some other countries.

    The guzheng should not be confused with the guqin, another ancient Chinese zither but without bridges. Now the guzheng is zither with movable bridges and usually 21 strings, although it can have from 15-25 strings. The guzheng's strings were formerly made of silk, though most players used metal strings by the 20^th century. Since the mid-20^th century most performers use steel strings. The guzheng has a large resonant cavity（共振腔）.

    The guzheng has existed since the Warring States Period and became especially popular during the Qin dynasty. The number of strings on the guzheng has always fluctuated. There were as few as 6 to as many as 23 strings during the Tang dynasty. The earliest record of the guzheng belonged to the historian Sima Qian. Until 1961, the common guzheng had 16 strings, although by the mid-20^th century 18-string guzheng were also in use. In 1961, Xu Zhenggao, together with Wang Xunzhi, introduced the first 21-string guzheng after two years of research and development. In 1960, they also invented the “S-shaped” left string rest, which was quickly adopted by all guzheng makers and is still used today. This curve allows for greater ease in tuning the strings and, combined with strings of different thickness, allows for greater resonance in both the deeper and the higher pitch（音调）ranges. The 21-string guzheng is the most commonly used one, but some traditional musicians still use the 16-string one.

    Can you remember the first time you learned to ride a bike or drive a car? Learning these skills changed your life forever and opened up new horizons. Learning about computers can be like learning how to ride a bike or drive a car. Once you have invested the time to master the skills , you will never go back to the old days. The new technology is simply too convenient and too powerful.

    Technological developments through the years have enabled us to do more with less effort. We have continuously looked for better ways of doing things. Each invention and new development has allowed us to extend our capabilities. Today we see one of the most dramatic technologies ever developed—the computer. It extends the capabilities of our minds.

    Computers have saved organizations millions of dollars. Furthermore, these same computer systems have opened up new opportunities that would have gone undiscovered or neglected. The computer may multiply what we can do, and the return on investment is high. The growth of computer usage is surprising. On the other hand, the computer can do serious damage. Invasion of privacy(侵犯隐私), fraud(欺诈), and computer-related mistakes are just a few shocking examples.

    The computer is like a double-edged sword. It has the ability to cut us free from some activities, but it can also cut deep into profits, personal privacy, and our society in general. How it is used is not a function of technology. It is strictly a function of how people decide to use or misuse this new technology. The choice is yours, and only through a knowledge of computer systems will you be able to avoid the dangers while enjoying the many, many benefits of the computer age.

    Rescuers pulled out an eight-year-old girl alive from the ruins of a Taiwan apartment block on Monday more than 60 hours after it was destroyed by an earthquake, as the mayor of the southern city of Tainan warned the death toll could go beyond 100. The official death toll from the quake rose to 38, with more than 100 people missing.

    The girl, named as Lin Su-Chin, was conscious and had been taken to hospital. There were possibly two other people still alive in the destroyed building.

    The quake struck at about 4 am on Saturday at the beginning of the Lunar New Year holiday, with almost all the dead found in Tainan's destroyed Wei-guan Golden Dragon Building. Rescue efforts are focused on the ruins of the 17-story building, where more than 100 people are listed as missing and suspected to be buried deep under the ruins.

    Earlier a woman, identified as Tsao Wei-ling, was found alive lying under her dead husband. Their two-year-old son, who was also killed, was found lying nearby. Another survivor, a man named Li Tsung-tian, was pulled out later. Several hours later, Li's girlfriend was found dead in the rubble. Tsao and Li were both being treated in hospital.

    Rescuers continued to climb over the twisted（扭曲的） remain of the building as numb family members stood around, waiting for news of missing relatives. It's reported that 36 of the 38 dead were from the Wei-guan building, which was built in 1994.

    The mayor of Tainan said there needed to be a "general sorting out" of old buildings to make sure they were able to deal with disasters like earthquakes. A better job was also needed in ensuring building quality as well as building management in the near future.

    I'm learning to drive in Switzerland. I think it will be a good idea to learn now because I have plenty of free time and am earning a little money to pay for lessons. I never learnt when I lived in the UK, so luckily driving on the "wrong" side isn't a problem.

    However, there are a lot of rules to remember. When you see a road to your right and there are no white lines on the ground, the cars to your right have the right to go before your car and you have to stop for them. In practice, lots of people forget this and cars either wait for each other while both drivers try to remember what to do, or beep (鸣喇叭) at each other if both try to go at the same time!

    When you drive round a roundabout, you should check all your mirrors. To remember how to do this, I often count them aloud—one, two, three—then a second glance at your blind spot when you're in the roundabout. One friend came driving with me and after about an hour asked why on earth I was counting. He had passed his test so long ago, he couldn't remember ever having to check three mirrors!

    Driving still seems scary to me so I drive quite slowly. I also don't know the countryside roads very well and don't know what's coming up round the comer or over the next hill. I drive slowly so I feel safe, but my driving instructor tells me to speed up or cars will bump into me from behind or try to overtake somewhere dangerous. So driving slowly is just as dangerous as driving fast!

    I'm not a very practical person so learning to drive has been a challenge. I don't have a lot of confidence and find it quite demotivating to do something that doesn't come naturally to me. To make driving more fun and interesting, I learn in Swiss German, so my instructor gives me instructions in Swiss. This way I've tricked myself into enjoying driving and hopefully will pass the test!

    Language learning apps are very popular now and offer opportunities to learn vocabulary and practice grammar. But there has been a discussion about just how effective such apps can be.

    Among the most popular apps are Duolingo and Busuu. A previous research found positive results on the use of them. But it mainly concentrates on studies with learners who had signed up for language courses and these apps worked as an after-class support, so the results were not always reliable. A recent study of 4,095 Busuu users has been carried out to find out if users can actually learn a language with an app.

    Busuu provides learning materials for 12 different languages. It offers special models where some contents are available for free while some contents are not, We find that its users are an even mix of men and women. More than half consider themselves to be at the beginner level as there is a decrease in users as their language levels go up. Most people use the app because of personal interest, or because they want to study or live abroad. Females tend to use it less often but for longer periods of time than male users.

    Getting any feedback on Busuu depends on whether your answer is correct or not. While it is helpful, this is not the sort of feedback language teachers prefer, as it does not explain why the answer is right or wrong. In spite of this, feedback in the app is very highly rated.

    More than 92% of the people state that the app has met their expectations and 86% consider the app as very good or good. In fact, more than 80% of the users surveyed strongly agree that using the app has helped them improve their knowledge of the language they are learning.

    Besides, language learning apps also create an environment where mistakes are only known to the users, and this can address the performance anxiety that many learners suffer from when asked to speak a foreign language. So language teachers should encourage their students to use them to do the grammar work, leaving precious class time for more language communication.