Whenever the sun dropped and the blue sky came up, my father and I used to climb the mountain near my house. Walking together, my father and I used to have a lot of conversations through which I learned lessons from his experiences. He always told me, "You should have goals like climbing the mountain. " without the mountain-climbing that we both enjoyed, we couldn't have enough time to spend together because my father was very busy. I really got a lot from mountain-climbing. It gave me time to talk with my father and to be in deep thought as well as develop my patience.

Once we climbed a very high mountain. It was so challenging for me because I was only ten years old. During the first few hours of climbing, I enjoyed the flowers and trees, and the birds'singing, but as time passed, I got a pain in both of my legs. I wanted to quit climbing. In fact, I hated it at that mountain, but my father said to me, "You can always see a beautiful sky at the top of the mountain, but you can't see it before you reach the top. Only there at the top can you see all of the nice things, just like in life. "

    At that time, I was too young to understand his words. But later after that, I got new hope and confidence. I found myself standing at the top of the sky, which was as clear as crystal.

    After two years of careful consideration, Robert McCrum has reached a conclusion on his selection of the 100 greatest novels written in English. Take a look at a few in his list:

    The Pilgrim's Progress by John Banyan (1678)

    A story of a man in search of truth told with the simple clarity and beauty of Bunyan's prose makes this an English classic.

    Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (1719)

    By the end of the 19th century, no book in English literary history had enjoyed more editions and translations. This world-famous novel is a complex literature that one cannot resist.

    Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift (1726)

    A great work that's been repeatedly printed, Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels comes third in our list of the best novels written in English.

    Clarissa by Samuel Richardson (1748)

    Clarissa is a tragic heroine, pressured by her dishonorable family to marry a wealthy man she dislikes, in the book that Samuel Johnson described as “the first book in the world that shows the knowledge about the human heart”.

    Tom Jones by Henry Fielding (1749)

    Tom Jones is a classic English novel that gets the spirit of its age and whose characters are well-known since they have come to represent the society at that time.

    Emma by Jane Austen (1816)

    Jane Austen's Emma is her most outstanding work, mixing the best parts of her early books with a deep sense of feelings.

    The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe (1838)

    Edgar Allan Poe's only novel—a classic adventure story with supernatural elements—has fascinated and influenced generations of writers.

    People born in winter are more likely to suffer mental health disorders, according to a recent study carried out by researchers at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee.

    Researchers raised baby mice from birth to weaning (断奶) in either “summer” light cycles of 16 hours of light and 8 hours of dark or “winter” cycles of 8 hours of light and 16 hours of dark. A third group experienced 12 hours of light and 12 hours of dark a day.

    Then half the winter mice stayed in a winter cycle, while half switched to a summer schedule. The summer mice were similarly split. The mice raised in equal periods of light and dark were split into three groups, one of which stayed on the 12­hour schedule, one of which joined the winter group, and one of which joined the summer group.

    After 28 days, it turns out the summer­born mice behaved the same whether they stayed on the summer cycle or switched to winter. But among the winter­born mice, those that stayed in winter kept their previous schedule, while those that switched to summer stayed active for an extra hour and a half, which indicates that mice born and weaned in a winter light cycle showed dramatic disruptions（破坏） in their biological clocks.

    The finding is the first of its kind in mammals, and it could explain why people born in winter are at higher risk for mental health disorders.

    “We know that the biological clock regulates(管理) mood in humans,” said study researcher McMahon. “If the mechanism (机制) similar to the one that we found in mice operates in humans, then it could not only have an effect on a number of behavioral disorders, but also have a more general effect on personality.”

    At the end of August this year I moved from London, UK, to a small town in Quebec, Canada, called Matane to work as an English language assistant. Patience is a word that has appeared in many forms over the past two months.

    I don't see myself as being the most patient person in the world but there was something that struck me on my first week of work. I had just finished a session with two students and just as they were leaving the classroom, one of the students turned back and said, “Thank you for your patience.” That was an early reminder of the importance of being patient as a teacher. It also made me reflect on the language teachers that I have had over the years, ones that demonstrated a high level of patience and understanding that has shaped my language learning path. Moreover, it helped me to realize the importance of demonstrating patience in the classroom as it can be the difference between building someone's confidence in a language or breaking down their confidence entirely.

    Living my life constantly in French is not easy but the people of Quebec are very patient. They repeat things several times and they are more than happy to wait while I find the correct words to express myself and find the correct word order. It's a learning process but with the patience of others, the process is slightly less nervous. At the end of the day, making mistakes shows you are trying and I think that is greatly appreciated by Quebecers.

    When I first arrived in Matane I kept getting headaches from having to concentrate all the time due to the language and even overhearing other people's conversations was hard work! I had to keep reminding myself that it would take time, and two months later the headaches are a distant memory and my ears have become more tuned to their accent. The key is to be patient with yourself.

    Shan Tianfang, died at 83 on Sept. 11, 2018 in Beijing because of multiple organ failure. His energetic oral interpretations of classical Chinese novels and historical events pushed the ancient pingshu tradition forward into the modern age for generations of Chinese.

    Mr. Shan tried for many years to avoid becoming a performer of pingshu, the Song dynasty-era storytelling tradition. Growing up in the1950s in a family of folk art performers, he had seen struggle firsthand. It was a life of constant financial troubles and low social status. So it was with great unwillingness when, out of financial necessity, he became an apprentice(徒弟) to a family friend who was a master of pingshu. He made his first public appearance in 1956.

    In the pingshu tradition, the performer wears a traditional gown and sits behind a desk equipped with a folding fan and a wooden block. The storyteller tells a legend — typically a classical Chinese epic — from memory, using different voices and exaggerated gestures as well as adding occasional background detail and commentary.

    Mr. Shan grew to love the storytelling form, which is popular across northern China. It is a demanding profession that combines acting, oration, writing, historical research and literary criticism and requires countless hours of memorization. In teahouses around the northeastern region, he became famous for his fresh takes on the classics.

    In 1976, many Chinese were hungry for some new forms of entertainment, and it was against this background that he grasped the opportunity to record a pingshu radio broadcast. He soon discovered that performing on radio was vastly different from doing so in teahouses. There were no props(道具), no reactions from the audience to guide him — just Mr. Shan and the microphone in a recording studio. So for his first radio performance, a shortened version of the historical novel. The Romance of Sui and Tang Dynasties, Mr. Shan used the studio's three recording technicians as his audience and adjusted his performance based on their reactions.

    The performance had its first appearance in 1980 on Chinese New Year, and more than 100 million Chinese were estimated to have tuned in during the 56 hours over which it was broadcast. It was the beginning of a dramatic second act both for Mr. Shan and for pingshu in the People's Republic of China. He was soon a household name across the country.

    Over six decades, Mr. Shan recorded more than 110 stories for radio and television totaling about 12,000 episodes and lasting 6,000 hours. His best-known works include his interpretations of Chinese classics like 'White-Eyebrow Hero' and 'Sanxia Wuyi' and his dramatizations of historical figures like Zhuge Liang and Lin Zexu.

    Even today, hop into a Beijing taxi and the driver may be listening to one of Mr. Shan's recordings. "For my generation, Shan Tianfang was a master," said Zhao Fuwei, 48, a Beijing taxi driver. If back then there was such thing as a viral star, then Shan Tianfang was definitely the hottest viral star.

    "Listening to his stories has made it easier to kill time in bad traffic," Mr. Zhao added. "He was so good at making complicated historical stories simple and interesting". You feel like you could empathize with the characters in his stories, even though they lived a long time ago.

    But in recent years many of the great pingshu performers have died, and the tradition is fading. By the time Mr. Shan retired in 2007, interest in pingshu among Chinese had all but been replaced by mobile phones and gaming. Nevertheless, even after retiring, Mr. Shan worked tirelessly to promote pingshu among young Chinese, instructing apprentices and starting a school dedicated to the folk arts.

    Ever willing to adapt to new technologies, he posted a message to his Sina Weibo microblog account on Sept. 6, five days before his death. It was an announcement about a new live-streamed(直播) lecture series about pingshu.

    Once upon a time, there was a little boy who wanted to meet the king. He set off, walking towards the king's castle. After many years of walking, the king's castle came into his view. However, as the boy drew closer to the outside of the castle, the guards took notice of him.

    "Get out of here!" commanded the guards.

    Well, the little boy didn't have to be told twice. He turned...and ran right away. All he wanted to do was to tell the king wonderful things, and see all the beautiful things in the king's house. But he couldn't even get near the castle! The boy finally stopped running, sat down and cried.

    A young man happened to be coming down the path at the very moment. He saw the little boy and came up. "What's wrong, young man?" he asked.

    "Sir, I walked and walked just to see the king. But these guards made me frightened. I wanted to tell the king how lovely everything is and just tell the king that I just wanted to see him!"

    The man looked at the little boy thoughtfully. "Look, why don't you try again. Don't lose heart. I'll come with you this time."

    The little boy got up and took the man's hand. The king's guards spotted them.

    "Look, mister, we don't have to do this...I don't want you to get hurt. We can just turn around now."

    The man held the little boy's hand and went on. The boy really thought the man might be crazy until he looked back up at the guards. They were all smiling now. The little boy was surprised.

    "Who are you?" asked the little boy in surprise.

    "Why, I'm the king's son. You can enter the castle and be with the king," said the man.

    The little boy broke into a huge smile.