I am a volunteer. I set out to help clean up the beach after a violent storm a year ago. The sight I saw was heartbreaking. The broken houses seemed to be crying. I couldn't describe how I felt. But something special among the debris (废墟) turned my day around.

    I joined a club to clean up the beach after the storm last November. As I removed the debris from the beach, I noticed an object with shiny buttons in the wet sand. It was a jacket，and I was excited since Halloween(万圣节) was coming and I thought I had found a great costume(戏服). After picking it up, I was able to see that the jacket was from West Point (西点军校), the United States Military Academy, and it had the name “deGavre” written inside. I realized the jacket might be important to someone. I decided to find the jacket's owner and return it.

    I called the West Point Museum, considering that if the family couldn't be found, the jacket should go there. The museum connected me with Kim McDermott, Director of Communications for the Academy's Association of Graduates. Kim soon ensured that the jacket had belonged to Chester Braddock deGavre, who was a 1933 graduate and a war hero, but passed away in 1993.

    I sent Kim a photo of the jacket and she posted it to the West Point Association of Graduates Facebook Page, asking if anyone could help us find the family. In less than two hours, someone had found and called the hero's wife, Teresa. Soon I started to receive personal messages from members of the deGavre family, their friends and others who were touched by the story and they found me on Facebook.

    Finding Chester deGavre's jacket and connecting to his family with the help of Facebook have been so meaningful to me. I've formed a bond(纽带) with amazing people I might have never met.

    Now many young people are traveling around the world on their own，not because they have no one to travel with，but because they prefer to go alone.

    Kristina Wegscheider from California first traveled alone when she was at college and believes that it is something everyone should do at least once in their life. ＂It opens up your mind to new things and pushes you out of your comfort zone.＂ Wegscheider has visited 46 countries covering all seven continents.

    In foreign countries，with no one to help you read a map，look after you if you get ill，or lend you money if your wallet is stolen，it is challenging. This is what drives young people to travel alone. It is seen as character building and a chance to prove that they can make it on their own.

    Chris Richardson decided to leave his sales job in Australia to go traveling last year. He set up a website，The Aussie Nomad，to document his adventures. He says he wished he had traveled alone earlier. ＂The people you meet，the places you visit，or the things you do，everything is up to you and it forces you to grow as a person，＂ said the 30-year-old man.

    Richardson describes traveling alone like ＂a shot in the arm＂，which ＂makes you a more confident person that is ready to deal with anything＂. He said，＂The feeling of having overcome something on my own is a major part of what drives me each day when I'm dealing with a difficult task. I walk around with my head up because I know deep down inside that nothing is impossible if you try.＂

    The great 19th century explorer John Muir once said，＂Only by going alone in silence can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness.＂

    Rome wasn't built in a day, and the Internet didn't come out of a golden egg. Many of today's creations were not born of people who had creative ideas, but who did not stop at simply having an idea. They took one brick of capital (资本), another brick of knowledge, perhaps a brick or two of family and friends, and built their empires (帝国) brick by brick.

    If you want to build an online empire, you cannot settle for simply having a website full of articles, or a website full of pictures—there are already thousands of sites like that, so you need to come up with something new and creative.

    So if you are starting to build something up, ask yourself: what do you really want to do, and what are you really good at? Believe it or not, you can make money at something that you are an expert in, and you need to know what that is.

    Remember, having an online empire does not mean that you have to do it alone. You can take your friends along with you. Having a friend advertise your services online is a good way to attract more visitors to your empire.

    Building an online empire, you will have to be prepared to not only come up with creative ideas, but to carry your ideas through. Talk to people who have already succeeded in building their own empires. Talk to people who are struggling. Join a mailing list that will help you get through your struggle to achieve your goal.

    As you move forward, you will find that you can help other people, and you will have a good many stories to tell—not to mention a lot of money in the bank.

    If you learn the real secrets of creating a long term stable (稳定的) online business then you will have enough money to retire on.

    Your next car might drive itself. After years of trials on city streets, driverless vehicles are now on the way. Last month, a driverless bus began carrying passengers through Lyon, France. Most in the automobile industry think self-driving vehicles will be on the road by 2020 or earlier.

    Driverless cars will first be huddled with human-driven cars. But the first places where they will become dominant（统治的）are highly populated urban areas. Many advanced cities are already reducing the role of human-driven cars. Driverless cars will quicken that process and will bring us enormous benefits.

    Driverless cars will reduce accidents by around 90 percent. That's big—the annual deaths on the world's roads are about 1.2 million a year. Pollution and carbon emissions will drop, because urban driverless cars will be electric.

    On the other hand, driverless cars will cause problems. Over the next 20 years, the mostly low-skilled men who now drive trucks, taxis and buses will see their jobs reduced. Traditional carmakers are especially scared. The cars of the future might be made by tech companies such as Apple, Baidu and Google. Imagine Germany, where automobile making is the largest industry.

    Dramatic changes are coming, and driverless cars could arrive by 2020. But governments have barely begun thinking about it. Only 6 percent of the biggest US cities have taken them into their long-term planning. A decade ago anyone hardly saw the Smartphone coming. Now what about the driverless cars?

    Research shows that some orchestral(管弦乐的) instruments are in a danger of dying out.YouGov research, asked by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) to find the most popular instruments among schoolchildren, has revealed the increasing popularity of the ukulele(尤克里里琴), with one in eight expressing a desire to learn, making it the highest ranked instrument behind the typical rock-band grouping of the guitar, piano, keyboards, drums and bass guitar.

    But younger generations' interest in"more complex instruments"is decreasing, with the three least popular being the French horn, the double bass and the trombone.

    James Williams, managing director of the RPO, believed the changes reflect the increasing pressure schools are under to provide music education, and went on to say that more needs to be done to interest secondary school students in the wider range of instruments. His concern was for the composition(构成) of future orchestras if the trend towards instruments like rock-band grouping were allowed to continue. But there may be yet another death, one that few would be quick to sorrow over：the recorder(竖笛).

    Cheap, convenient, easy to learn, and suitable for individual and group performances, the recorder was once the go-to instrument for children's early musical education.But in many schools it has been replaced by the ukulele, which, for teachers, offers many of the same benefits with none of the lasting damage to hearing. Plus, from a student's viewpoint: you can play Metallica on one.

    Not all hope is lost for the cream-colored, 10-pound Yamaha recorder with a long history, however. About 13% of girls and 4% boys surveyed by YouGov said they wanted to learn the recorder.Surprisingly high! Unlikely as it may be, these children's interest in the recorder must be encouraged.

    UK education is all about giving you inspiration to develop your knowledge and skills, freedom to be creative, and support to help you achieve your best.

    On a UK course you will benefit from excellent teaching and facilities. In order to accept students, UK education centres must meet strict quality standards set by the UK government and education bodies.

    With such a good reputation for research and education, universities and colleges in the UK attract some of the world's leading academics and professionals. You will be encouraged to express your own ideas and think for yourself.

    The attention to quality is reflected in the UK's excellent results:

    Four of the top six universities in the world are in the UK.

    The UK is a world-leading research nation. 54% of the research conducted by UK universities and colleges is classed as either "world-leading" or "internationally excellent".

    At the most recent inspection, 97% of further education colleges were judged satisfactory or better, for their overall effectiveness.

    In the recent BIS Tracking International Graduate Outcomes survey, more than 88% of international higher education graduates said they were satisfied with their UK learning experience.

    Likewise, in the Higher Education Academy Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey of UK postgraduate students, 93% rated the quality of teaching positively.

    For English language students, you'll find the UK has long been at the forefront of language teaching, and pioneered many of the techniques now used around the world. The emphasis is on learning the language through fun and participation: Instead of just listening to your teacher, your classes will involve games, problem-solving and discussions. You might also listen to songs, watch television or read magazines to practise your comprehension skills.

    The UK's boarding schools also offer excellent teaching, facilities and support. At UK independent schools (most boarding schools are independent), a teacher has just 9.4 pupils on average, so teachers have more time to give you individual support. This is reflected in the results: 91% of students from UK independent schools go on to higher education.