I had the honor of being elected chief of my tribe(部落). With the title came great responsibility. It was my job to make peace with the Maori Tamaki tribe, whose village we visited. Their warriors leapt from a canoe and faced us down with fierce growls, bulging eyes and much swishing of sticks. They laid a palm frond on the ground and, as head honcho, I was compelled to accept this peace offering by picking it up, then touching noses with their chief. “Kia ora”, he said, welcoming us into the woodland home of his people.

    My “tribe” was my New Zealand tour group, who had forced me into being their leader. We'd been warned that the ceremony was a serious occasion and that to laugh or even smile would be considered rude to the Tamaki. After that it was non-stop fun as they showed their ancient customs and I received instruction in performing the haka, the war dance by the All Blacks rugby team.

    Then they pulled our dinner of lamb, beef and vegetables out of the ground. It had been slow-cooked in the heat that simmers just below the surface in the geothermal(地热的) area of North Island, a Maori tradition known as a hangi that goes back an extremely long period of time.

    Obviously, this form of it is put on for tourists but it was hugely enjoyable. The journey back to the hotel was alone worth the effort, our hilarious Maori elder driver being deserving of his own television show. “The wheels on the bus go round and round,” he got us singing, while he circuited(绕……环行) a roundabout three times.

    A couple of days from the end of my trip, there was still something missing, a New Zealand icon I yearned to see to make my grand tour complete. Riding over a hill, there it was – Aotearoa. The Maori name for New Zealand translates as “Land of the long white cloud”. Can I say “Kia ora, Aotearoa?” You bet I can.

    I now work 40 hours a week at a weather company and I love it Compared to when I became a mom, I don't feel bad about being away from my three kids. When I had my first child, I was a busy manager. My husband had a part-time job and cared for her the rest of the time. Once I became pregnant with my second kid, I quit my job to focus fully on writing.

    At first I felt like I was living the dream. I was a work-from-home mom who never had to be away from my children. But working from home can end up being more stressful than working full-time or being a stay-at-home mom.because you're frequently exhausted between work, keeping house and telling sweet faces you don't have time to play. Ever tried writing an article with a baby screaming? It was awful.

    I was so stressed that I eventually started taking my kids to 8 day care center a couple of days a week. The whole reason I worked so hard to be able to write for a living was to be at home with my kids and here I was taking them to a day care center.I thought I was a failure then.

    Over the past five years of being a freelancer(自由作家), I've realized a couple of things. As I wrote six months  ago, "I though I felt bad leaving my daughter for ten hours a day but now she is old enough to ask me to read her a story .Try telling your kid no, 20 times a day. It's cruel. You end up feeling worse for having to ignore them." I also realize not socializing with people weren't good for my mental well-being.

    Not only that, but I can now show my kids that Mom is important and has a job at a flashy office building, something they didn't realize when1 sat around in yoga pants typing on my computer all day long.

    Experts generally consider BMI for kids to be a good measure of body fat, at least among heavier children. But in some cases it might be misleading. Athletic kids, in particular, may fall into the overweight category when they are actually muscular.

    Your child's BMI is important, but it is only a piece of the picture. If a BMI percentile (体重指数) indicates that your child is not within the healthy range, she needs a complete weight and lifestyle evaluation with a doctor.

    Experts recommend that kids of all ages and all weight categories follow these healthy guidelines to keep weight in control. It's easy to remember them as “5 — 2 — 1 — 0” every day.

    5 > Everyone in your family needs five servings of vegetables and fruit. Keep serving them even if kids don't eat them. If they see a food over and over, they're more likely to try it in the end.

    2 > Limit TV-watching to no more than 2 hours a day. Family members who use other “screens”—video games or computers, for instance, get less TV time. And kick the TV out of all bedrooms.

    1 > Get 1 hour of physical activity. Add up the minutes each family member is moving —it should be 60 minutes or more for each person. Start small and keep adding if necessary.

    0 > That's how many sugar-sweetened beverages you should have a day. Juice drinks such as lemonade and fruit punch, sodas, tea, and coffee can all have added sugar. Stick to water and reduced-fat milk instead.

    ①What is a place where you could find old pictures of camels carrying people to Mecca, Saudi Arabia (沙特阿拉伯麦加),and also books about ancient Aztecs(阿芝 特克人) in Mexico ? It is all found in the World Digital Library (WDL). Its collection is available on the Internet.

    ②The librarian of the United States Congress, James Billington, established the WDL in 2009. And John Van Oudenaren is the director. They want it to include items that are both interesting and important, which encourages them to look for things from each country, each culture and each civilization. There are 170 partners in 79 countries sending material to it, including national or university libraries, museums and other cultural organizations.

    ③The library has 8,000 items, including whole books, ancient writings, music and photographs. Every item is annotated (注解)in the 6 official languages of the United Nations: English, Arabic, French, Spanish, Chinese, Russian plus Portuguese (葡萄牙语).

    ④Anyone may search the World Digital Library by subject, time period, kind of document or area of the world, whose website is www.wdl.org. Since 2009, 25 million people have visited the website from 250 places. The greatest number is from Spanish-speaking countries. The users include schools, researchers and anyone interested. A teacher from New York City said happily, “It is really wonderful to have a site where every kid in the class, no matter which country he/she is from or where his/her parents were from could search and find something about that country.”

    ⑤Mussa Maravl is a researcher for the WDL from Sudan, who works with all the materials that are in Arabic. He recently published rare photographs of Mecca from 1885. “These camels are, you know, lying their heads on the ground, which is very unusual for a camel. It means these camels have traveled so long, so far and half of those are very thin, too, meaning they have exhausted all the fat they have stored.”

    ⑥Mussa Maravl believes the library provides tools for understanding, especially among Arabs, Muslims and the United States. He says the WDL is posting many items about important developments in Arabic and Islamic science.

    These days, it seems like everything is going digital. You can find almost everything on the Internet.

    Many people find this way of life more convenient, because they can complete their daily chores（琐事） from the comfort of their own home.

    Firstly, online shopping can be far less stressful than hitting the high street shops. There are no huge crowds of people or boring long queues. With online shopping, it's just you and your computer. It's like you have the whole shop to yourself! Secondly, online stores don't have opening and closing times. This is perfect for anyone with a busy schedule. If you want to, you can even place an online shopping order at three o'clock in the morning!

    In the busy modern world, there are clearly many advantages to online shopping. However, in my experience, there are also several cons… With online shopping, you can't try before you buy, and that's a definite disadvantage for me. Often, when my new clothes arrive, I find they don't fit very well. It's always annoying when a dress is a little too big, or when sleeves are too short… Sometimes, the clothes are not what I was expecting. A piece of clothing might look great in photos online, but quite different in real life.

    In these cases, you want to return the item, but here lies the biggest problem with online shopping. You have to pay for your order's delivery, and for an item to be returned to the warehouse! These charges are often very expensive, which suddenly make online shopping seem a little less convenient… That's why I don't choose to shop online very frequently. For now, I will continue to find the time for a trip to a real shop, where I know exactly what I'm buying!

    On her first morning in America, last summer, my daughter went out to explore her new neighborhood alone.

    Of course we were worried; we had just moved from Berlin, and she was just 8. But when she came home, we realized we had no reason to worry. She told us with pride how she had discovered the little park around the corner, and had made friends with a few local dog owners.

    When this story comes up in conversations with American friends, we are usually met with polite disbelief.

    A study by the University of California has found that American kids spend 90 percent of their free time at home, often watching TV or playing video games. Even when kids are physically active, they are watched closely by adults, either in school, at home, at afternoon activities or in the car. It seems that America's middle class has taken overprotective parenting to a new level, with the government even acting as a super nanny.

    Just take the example of the case of 10-year-old Rafi and 6-year-old Dvora Meitiv in 2015, in Silver Spring, Maryland, who were picked up by the police because their parents had dared to allow them to walk home from the park alone. The state's Child Protective Services said their parents were guilty.

    In reality, child abductions (绑架) by strangers in Silver Spring park are as rare as tiger attacks. Children are overprotected, which encourages dependency and affects their abilities to care for themselves and weigh risks. Mark Hemingway writes in The Federalist, "You know what it's called when kids make mistakes without adult supervision (监督) and have to struggle with the possible results? Growing up."

    At least, parents who want to give their children more room to walk around shouldn't be punished. Children are not easily damaged objects to be protected at all times.