You are a new manager at the American branch of your German firm in Chicago. With a few minutes to spare between meetings, you go to get a quick cup of coffee.

    “Hey, David, how are you?” one of the senior partners at the firm asks you.

    “Good, thank you, Dr. Greer,” you reply. You've really been wanting to make a connection with the senior leadership at the firm, and this seems like a great opportunity. But as you start to think of something to say, your American colleague breaks in to steal your spotlight.

    “So Arnold”, your colleague says to your boss, in such a casual manner that it makes your German soul cringe(畏缩), “So what's your Super bowl prediction? I mean, you're a Niners fan, right?”

    The conversation moves on, and you walk silently back to your desk with your coffee. You know how important small talk is in the U.S., and you feel jealous of people who can do it well.

    There's nothing small about the role that small talk plays in American professional culture. People from other countries are often surprised at how important small talk is in the U.S. and how naturally and comfortably people seem to do it — with peers, men, women, and even with superiors. You can be the most technically skilled worker in the world, but your ability to progress in your job in the United States is highly dependent on your ability to build and maintain positive relationships with people at work. And guess what skill is critical for building and maintaining these relationships? Small talk.

    What can you do if you are from another culture and want to learn to use small talk in the U.S. to build relationships and establish trust? Work hard to hone(磨练) your own version of American-style small talk. Watch how others do it. You don't have to mimic what they do; in fact, that would likely backfire because people would see you as inauthentic. But if you can develop your own personal version, that can go a long way toward making you feel comfortable and competence．

    On August 16, 1977, Elvis Presley saved me.

    The previous afternoon, I played with my six-year-old peers in Heather Peters^' backyard. I was enjoying my cake, when Heather asked me where my sleeping bag was. Only then did I know this party was a sleepover. The word “sleep-over” to a six-year-old bed-wetter is like what “cancer” means to an adult. But what if I told them I was a bed-wetter? At least with cancer, people gather at your bedside instead of running from it.

    I thought of a way to escape. I would explain that I needed my mother's permission to spend the nights. But as I called my Mom, Heather stood beside me to listen. She granted permission! Then I would be sleeping in the same living room as the other girls. I didn't bring my own pajamas (睡衣)，so Mrs. Peters offered me Heather's pajamas.

    As the other girls drifted into their sweet dreams, I tried to stay awake. “Do I need to go again? I'll stay up to go one more time.. .”.Of course , I finally fell asleep.

    The next morning , I was the first to wake up. I was warm! I lay in panic for what seemed like hours before the other girls started to wake up. I did the only thing I could do — I pretended that the bed-wetting didn't happen. I got up, took off Heather's pajamas and changed into my clothes like the other girls.

    Mrs. Peters walked into the room, and before she could say anything, she stepped right onto the pile of my wet pajamas. My heart stopped as I watched her face burn red. “WHO DID THIS?” She screamed, with a look so frightening. Should I answer? And that was when it happened — Mr. Peters came in and grabbed his wife , "Elvis Presley died!”

    The news of the King's death overtook Mrs. Peters, and I ,was spared. I got home without the other girls knowing what had happened.

    In the middle of the 19th century，a fever dream of riches beyond measure drew countless explorers west to the mountains of central California. Although the gold rush ended up being a bust for many who sought a fortune，some of those explorers discovered a natural treasure that would draw permanent settlers to Yosemite Valley in the following decade.

    Vast wilderness，beautiful mountains，countless waterfalls，and abundant wildlife drew Native Americans to Yosemite roughly 10，000 years ago. The first non-native tourists arrived in the mid-1850s after reports from gold seekers told of an area of breathtaking beauty that no words were able to describe.

    Fortunately，some of Yosemite's earliest settlers recognized that Yosemite's natural beauty and resources needed to be preserved for future generations. In the midst of the Civil War，President Abraham Lincoln signed a grant to protect Yosemite permanently，thus making it the nation's first land to be dedicated to recreation and setting the stage for what would become the national park system.

    One of Yosemite's earliest ambassadors was Scottish-American naturalist and writer John Muir. After living in Yosemite for a few years，he helped define its proposed boundaries. He also wrote articles that helped lead to its official title as a National Park in 1890.He later co-founded the Sierra Club in 1892 to advocate for its continued preservation and protection.

    Located on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in central California，Yosemite National Park runs across nearly 748，000 acres，almost 95％of which is wilderness. Around four million visitors come to Yosemite each year to camp，hike its miles of trails，climb its rock formations，and photograph its impressive sights. Are you ready to visit Yosemite National Park? Which of Yosemite's sights would you most like to experience?

Rich as a King

    William 1, who conquered England some 930 years ago, had wealth, power and an army. Yet although William was very rich by the standard of his time, he had nothing like a flush toilet (抽水马桶), paper towels, or riding lawn mower (除草机). How did he get by?

    History books are filled with wealthy people who were poor compared to me. I have storm windows, Croesus did not. Entire nations trembled before Alexander the Great, but he couldn't buy cat food. Czar Nicholas lacked an electric saw.

    Given how much better off I am than so many famous dead people, you'd think I'd be content. The trouble is that, like most people, I compare my wealth with that of living person: neighbors, school classmates, famous TV people. The greed I feel toward my friend Howard's new kitchen is not reduced by the fact that no kings ever had a refrigerator with glass doors,

    There is really no rising or falling standard of living. Over the centuries people simply find different things to feel sad about. You'd think that simply not having disease would put us in a good mood, but no we want a hot bath too.

    Of course, one way to achieve happiness would be to realize that even by today's standards the things I own are pretty nice. My house is smaller than the houses of many investment bankers, but even so it has a lot more rooms than my wife and I can keep clean.

    Besides, to people looking back at our era from a century or two in the future, these bankers' fancy counter tops and my awn worn Formica will seem equally shabby, I can't keep up with my neighbors right now. But just wait.

    Have you ever spent an afternoon in the backyard, maybe grilling or enjoying a basketball game, when suddenly you notice that everything goes quiet? There is an old phrase "calm before the storm", often used in a situation—a quiet period just before a great activity or excitement. According to our own experience, we know there is actually calm before the storm. But what causes this calm? And is it always calm before the storm? Let's hear what scientists have to say.

    A period of calm happens in a particular kind of storm, the simplest kind of storm—a single-cell thunderstorm. In this type of thunderstorm, there is usually only one main updraft, which is warm, damp air and drawn from places near the ground. Storms need warm and damp air as fuel, so they typically draw that air in from surrounding environment. Storms can draw in the air that fit their need from all directions—even from the direction in which the storm is traveling.

    As the warm, damp air is pulled into a storm system, it leaves a low-pressure vacuum (真空) coming after. The rising air meets the cold dry air that has already existed in the storm clouds, thus the temperature of the warm, damp air drops, and the water vapour (水蒸汽) in it changes into tiny drops that are a precondition of rain. These drops accumulate and build on larger particles like dust, until they grow large enough to form raindrops.

    This warm, damp air keeps moving upwards, but it becomes cooler and drier during its trip through cloud. When it reaches the top of the cloud, the air gets spit out (被挤出) at the top. This air is sent rolling out over the big thunderclouds. From there, the air goes down. Warm and dry air is relatively stable, and once it covers a region, that air, in turn, causes the calm before a storm.

    Most thunderstorms, though, don't start with calm. That's because most are actually groups of storms with complex wind patterns. There's so much air moving up and down storm groups that the calm before the storm never happens. Instead, before the storm,让 might be really windy!

    If American waterways had ever been voted on the yearbook, the Buffalo River could easily have been named Ugliest. It could be hard to find hope there. It took decades for public perception of the river to shift. But activist citizens, who collaborated with industry, government, and environment groups never gave up on their polluted river—the Buffalo River gradually went from being considered a lost cause to a place worth fighting for. And by now the cleaned—up water is one of Buffalo'S biggest attractions.

    By the 1960s, the river was seen as one of the worst sources of pollution pouring into the Great Lakes. The Buffalo River had caught fire many times. The surface had an oily layer, and any fish caught there were not eatable.

    The waterway's fate started shifting in the mid-1960s. Stanley Spisiak was a local Polish—American jeweler by day, but by evening he was the kind of guy who'd chase down dumpers(垃圾车)he spotted on the Buffalo River. By 1966 he found himself winning the National Wildlife Federation's "Water Conservationist of the Year" award. And before long he got a nickname:" Mr. Buffalo River. "But there was only so much he could do—the river was still declared biologically dead in 1969.

    Jill Spisiak Jedlicka is his great-grandniece. She picks up where he left off by directing the river's protector organization, Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper. Professor Schneekloth and seven friends founded the organization as an all-volunteer nonprofit in 1989, after organizing the first river cleanup that year. Today the group employs 27 full-time workers and has helped oversee the Buffalo River's $100 million restoration.

    So far, the Buffalo River's water quality has restored, but it is still an ongoing issue, as sewage(污水)can overflow into the river after storms. Habitat restoration continues as well; fish and plantings are still being sampled to measure how well it's gone.