How could you be "just ahousewife" when the basic social unit of society depends on you and yourservice? A housewife works for the longest hour, supporting your husband, childstudies, caring for eld-ers, managing finances, paying bills, grocery shopping,cooking according to individual taste, cleaning, etc. A housewife could beanyone: daughter, wife, mother, teacher, financial advisor, fashion designerand nurse, gardener, driver, cook, and so on. Don't think you are not being paid for it.  You get the re-ward that no money canoffer-the love and affection of your family, their trust in you, ahappy home and your own satisfaction.

    It is you who choose to be in thisoccupation, willingly or for any other reason. After a busy day, all wait to return to the comfortable home set by you.They know you will be there to absorb all their stress and tiredness and relaxthem. Would the life have been the same had you been working outside to earnsome money? Would you along with your family have been able to buy all thecontent in life that you are enjoying now with that money?

    Respect yourself for what you are. Introduce yourself to the world with the same dignity. The world understandsthe importance of your job; it's time to make them accept it. Introduceyourself with pride and with twinkle in your eyes "I am a housewife".Kick that "just" out.

    There is always something that happens in the world that everyone fears will happen to their town, city or country: natural disasters. The scariest part of it is that no one will ever see it coming. Though technology helps us prepare, but it never actually tells the people when it's going to hit. It is always estimated but the result is never 100% accurate.

    However, that is not the point of this article. Two different natural disasters in two different parts of the world have happened in the past few weeks. One was a major flood that has hit Louisiana in the United States. The other was an earthquake that hit Amatrice, Italy. However, there is a major difference in the news coverage of the two tragedies.

    As for the flooding in Louisiana, it is reported that this disaster is the worst to hit the United States since Super-storm Sandy and it'll cost at least $30 million. In only the first couple of weeks, 13 people had died. However, like me, many people did not hear about this tragic event. I did not learn about it until about three weeks after it happened.

    In Italy, however, it covered all media instantly. The earthquake in Italy happened on Tuesday morning. That same day, I was on Twitter and that was all that was over the news feed. Every other post was about the earthquake. Some would have the opinion that Amatrice, Italy was one of the most beautiful towns in that country. I got in deep sorrow because there were more people killed in this quake than the flooding. So far, they have a total of 73 dead and over one hundred missing.

    I understand that technically the earthquake in Italy was worse than the floods in Louisiana. However, I believe that if a natural disaster happens, they all should be equally covered and taken equally seriously. We are one world united and should be there for all of the people who are in need of help. We may not be able to accurately predict disasters but, we can surely lend a hand out for the needy.

    Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) is one of the most original and influential figures in the history of photography. His photographs helped establish photojournalism as an art form.

    Henri's family was wealthy—his father made a fortune as a textile manufacturer—but Henri later joked that due to his parents' economical ways, it often seemed as though his family was poor.

    Educated in Paris, Henri developed an early love for literature and arts. As a teenager, Henri was against his parents' formal ways of education. In his early adulthood, he fell in love with several appetites, but it was art that remained at the center of his life.

    Henri traveled to Africa in 1931 to hunt antelope and boar. And Africa fueled another interest in him: photography. He then wandered around the world with his camera, using a handheld camera to catch images from fleeting moments of everyday life.

    Not long after World War Ⅱ, Henri traveled east, spending considerable time in India, where he met and photographed Gandhi shortly before he was killed in 1948. Henri's work to document Gandhi's death and its immediate effect on the country became one of Life Magazine's most prized photo essays.

    Henri's approach to photography remained much the same throughout his life. He made clear his dislike of images that had been improved by artificial light, darkroom effects, and even cutting. The naturalist in Henri believed that all editing should be done when the photo is taken. In 1952, his first book, The Decisive Moment, a rich collection of his work spanning two decades, was published. "There is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment," he said.

    In 1968, he began to turn away from photography and returned to his passion for drawing and painting.

    If you want to become a fluent English speaker you should take some advice. There are four skills in learning English. They are reading, listening, speaking, and writing. The most important thing you must remember is that if you want to improve your speaking and writing skills, you should first master the skills of reading and listening.

    Read as much as you can. But your reading must be active. It means that you must think about the meaning of the sentence, the meaning of the unfamiliar（不熟悉） words, etc. There is no need for you to pay much attention to grammars or try to understand all the unfamiliar words you come across, but the fact that you see them for the first time and recognize them whenever you see them, for example, in other passages or books, is enough. It would be better to prepare yourself a notebook so you can write down the important words or sentences in it.

    As for listening, there are two choices: besides reading, you can listen every day for about 30 minutes. You can only pay attention to your reading and become skillful at your reading, then you can catch up on your listening. Since you have lots of inputs in your mind, you can easily guess what the speaker is going to say. This never means that you should not practice listening.

    For listening you can listen to cartoons or some movies that are specially made for children. Their languages are easy. Or if you are good at listening you can listen to VOA or BBC programs every day. Again the thing to remember is being active in listening and preferably taking some notes.

    If you follow these pieces of advice, your speaking and writing will improve quickly, and you can be a fluent English speaker one day.

    It's really true what people say about English politeness: it's everywhere. When squeezing past someone in a narrow aisle, people say "sorry". When getting off a bus, English passengers say "thank you" rather than the driver. In Germany, people would never dream of doing these things. After all, squeezing past others is sometimes inevitable, and the bus driver is merely doing his job. I used to think the same way, without questioning it, until I started travelling to the British Isles and came to appreciate some more polite ways of interacting with people.

    People thank each other everywhere in England, all the time. When people buy something in a shop, customer and shop assistant in most cases thank each other twice or more. In Germany, it would be unusual to hear more than one thank you in such a conversation. British students thank their lecturers when leaving the room. English employers thank their employees for doing their jobs, as opposed to Germans.

    Another thing I observed during my stay was that English people rarely criticize others. Even when I was working and mistakes were pointed out to me, my employers emphasized several times but none of their explanations were intended as criticism. It has been my impression that by avoiding criticism, English people are making an effort to make others feel comfortable. This also is showed in other ways. British men still open doors for women, and British men are more likely to treat women to a meal than German men.

How much of your monthly grocery list ends up in the garbage? A new study reveals the average American spends nearly $1,500 per year on food they'll never eat.

A recent survey of 2,000 Americans reveals the average shopper wastes $1,493.93 on food per year. That's almost a fifth of their grocery bill after every shopping trip. One tenth of respondents claim they "never" purchase food they don't end up eating, while three in 10 say this is something they "always" do.

Half of respondents prefer to head to the grocery store alone, and when they do, half are more likely to stick to their list and 36% are less likely to buy food they don't want or need.

Keeping the list in mind is important, as 38 percent are more likely to let food be wasted if it wasn't originally on their shopping list. Seven in 10 add that when they go to the store on an empty stomach, they're more likely to buy foods they won't eat. So they don't do that that way. Some respondents appear to be in a wasteful cycle when it comes to food waste. Nearly half usually buy and end up wasting the same food every month because they think they'll get around to eating it.

"We can all do better to limit food waste by sticking to grocery lists and, when we get home, prioritizing eating our foods that are_perishable, like fruits, vegetables, and dairy products" says Avocado Co-Founder and CMO Mark Abrials in a statement.

Three-quarters feel guilty about throwing away uneaten food because it's a waste of money — and 48 percent feel the same, due to the harm food waste causes to the environment. "When it comes to food waste, nobody is perfect," Abrials adds. "But in order to consider our environmental impact, not to mention wasted money, we think it's essential to be thoughtful about everything we purchase — whether that's food, mattresses or other goods."