In America, each of the states likes to promote itself with a slogan (口号). I currently live in Utah, where the slogan is '“Life Elevated”. It's a nod to outdoor entertainment in the hill country, including the ski industry. I previously lived in Colorado, a land with red dm. great mountains and golden plains. The slogan there is ''Colorful Colorado”. Years ago I lived in the “Peach State” of Georgia, and I grew up in New Mexico as a little boy, whose slogan is “Land of Enchantment (魔力)”.

    We never seemed to get away from dust in New Mexico, so I appreciate the story of a newcomer to the Land of Enchantment who learned about dusty wind. She was visiting an antique shop and the owner wiped down every item before showing it. The newcomer said, “Everything gets dusty here pretty quickly, doesn't it?” “That's not dust, honey,” the shop owner replied, “That's ENCIIANTMENT”. That made the problem more acceptable or at least can be live with. An escalator (自动扶梯) broke, so he posted a sign to warn customers. He chose not to use the traditional “Out of Order” or “Do Not Use” warnings. Instead, his sign read, “This Escalator Is Temporarily a Stairway”. He turned a minus into humor and made it a plus.

    And in fact there arc sonic things, like the weather, we can't change. All we can change is our ways that we think and feel about them. I believe one of the best techniques to do this is to find some humor in the situation. Finding something amusing or enjoyable of difficulty, a troublesome problem can be one of the most creative and effective things we can do. Sometimes the only sense you can make of a situation is a sense of humor.

    On the third Sunday in June, Americans take time to recognize and thank a special person in the family -fathers! Father's Day celebrates the importance of fathers, young and old and the men thought of as father figures.

    The words "the child is father of the man" come from William Wordsworth's poem My Heart Leaps Up. "It means people's personalities form when they are children. They will most likely have the same qualities as an adult that they had as a child.

    Used in everyday speech, one could say, "In his case, the child was father of the man; he loved nature as a child and now works as a botanist(植物学家)".

    Let's say you want to tell a child a story about something that happened long before they were born. You could say it happened when they “were just a twinkle in their father's eyes.” This expression has a humorous and dreamy feel. Here, the word “twinkle” suggests the interest your father had in your mother.

    When a much older man is interested in a much younger woman and supports her with his money, he is called he “sugar daddy.” The money part is very important-that's the sugar.

    Sometimes fathers are not a good influence or active in the lives of the children. In that case, a person may look for a father figure, a man who is not actually the person's father but who acts like one.

    The relationship between a man and his son can be complex. But the relationship between a father and daughter is often simpler. The expression “daddy's little girl” is understood to mean that, in a father's eyes, his daughter can do no wrong.

    There is usually not a dry eye at any wedding during the traditional father-and-daughter dance, especially if they are dancing to a song like Michael Buble's “Daddy's Little Girl.”

    Many people feel stressed out about buying and giving gifts around holidays．But have the holidays become too materialistic and more about the gifts than the feelings behind them?

    Throughout the world，many cultures mark holidays with gifts and food．Holiday traditions bring people together and allow us to feel a part of family and community．The gifts and food that we share are all about expressing a sense of appreciation and joy．The gifts of a few generations ago were probably more common and homemade．Even the people who could afford expensive presents probably didn't do as much buying and spending as we do today．

    But with our culture growing more commercial，sometimes the original meaning behind the tradition gets lost．Not only is the pressure on spending money on the right present，but many people also find that when gifts become the focus of a holiday，it puts too much emphasis on receiving．It's too easy to have high expectations of what's in that beautifully wrapped box—and that can set anyone up for disappointment．No wonder we often hear about people having the“holiday blues”—feeling sad or empty．

    Not all people think the holidays are too materialistic，of course．Most appreciate the traditional aspects of the holidays．And some love shopping and are just fine with all the giving and receiving．But if you're feeling a little empty about the holidays，what can you do? One key to a relaxing and meaningful holiday is finding what works best for you，both in terms of gift giving and other holiday traditions．Putting some thought into what the holidays mean to you and then focusing your energies on those aspects that leave you feeling most satisfied can help you let go of the stuff that may be stressing you out．

    From Dusner (3 speakers) to Kelabit (5 thousand) to Yiddish (1.5 million), these languages are spread, but like the Indian elephant, they are in danger of dying out. Dr. Chris Mazdzer, a researcher at Oxford University, organizing a meeting on endangered languages thinks there could be a novel way to keep minority languages alive: social media. He says, “Because young people text each other how they speak, even if they don't know how to spell it.”

    Minority languages are often at risk of being drowned（淹死）out by the bigger ones, which are spoken at school and in the media. But the appearance of Facebook and Twitter might just have the unexpected effect. Dr. Mazdzer speaks Frisian, which has 350,000 speakers. Communicating with his own language has given him thought about how languages could be saved in the future. “In Friesland, young people who don't learn much Frisian at school send each messages on social media in Frisian”, he says. In this way, a new generation of Frisian speakers keeps the language alive.

    Though many of these languages only have a few speakers, it's not just a small number of speakers that make a language endangered. Some languages were once widely spoken, but lost speakers over time. This can happen for many reasons, like only one language spoken in school or people moving away from their home and losing their language.

    Tweeting and texting in Frisian (or Sorbian, or Breton) is not enough in the long term, though. There are many other things we need to do. But why is a language worth saving in the first place? Because our languages are natural creations. Natural beauty needs to be protected.

    Will it matter if you don't take your breakfast? Recently a test was given in the United States. Those tested included people of different ages, from 12 to 83. During the experi­ment, these people were given all kinds of breakfasts, and sometimes they got no breakfast at all. Special tests were set up to see how well their bodies worked when they had eaten a certain kind of breakfast. The results show that if a person eats a proper breakfast, he or she will work with better effect than if he or she has no breakfast. This fact appears to be especially true if a person works with his brains. If a student eats fruit, eggs, bread and milk before going to school, he will learn more quickly and listen with more attention to class.

    Opposite to what many people believe, if you don't eat breakfast, you will not lose weight. This is because people become so hungry at noon that they eat too much for lunch, and end up gaining weight instead of losing. You will probably lose more weight if you reduce your other meals.

    I travel a lot, and I find out different “styles”(风格) of directions every time I ask “How can I get to the post office?”

    Foreign tourists are often confused(困惑) in Japan because most streets there don't have names; In Japan, people use landmarks(地标) in their directions instead of street names. For example, the Japanese will say to travelers, “Go straight down to the corner. Turn left at the big hotel and go past a fruit market. The post office is across from the bus stop.”

    In the countryside of the American Midwest, there are not usually many landmarks. There are no mountains, so the land is very flat; in many places there are no towns or buildings within miles. Instead of landmarks, people will tell you directions and distances. In Kansas or Iowa, for example, people will say, “Go north two miles. Turn east, and then go another mile.”

    People in Los Angeles, California, have no idea of distance on the map; they measure distance in time, not miles. “How far away is the post office?” you ask. “Oh,” they answer, “it's about five minutes from here.” You say, “Yes, but how many miles away is it?” They don't know.

    It's true that a person doesn't know the answer to your question sometimes. What happens in such a situation? A New Yorker might say, “Sorry, I have no idea.” But in Yucatan, Mexico, no one answers “I don't know.” People in Yucatan believe that “I don't know” is impolite. They usually give an answer, often a wrong one. A tourist can get very, very lost in Yucatan!