After finishing my teaching for a school year, I thought that I should go back to Montreal, Quebec, my hometown for a visit. My main goal was to relax in preparation for the challenges of my retirement in the coming year.

    Through my stay in Montreal, I met lots of Chinese who are struggling to succeed and then lead a better life in Canada.

    Some travelled thousands of miles to get knowledge. When I spoke with some of them about the major barrier they had to face after they arrived in Canada, they all talked about the two official languages of Canada. But I was impressed by their ability to express their ideas while switching between English and French.

    Almost all of those people said they often felt homesick. They miss their families and friends. Though Montreal has lots of Chinese restaurants, they long for a home-cooked meal.

    I met some tourists who were trying to realize their childhood dreams of experiencing the life in a developed country. When I asked them if Montreal had lived up to their expectations, they hesitated. They said that reality never agrees with fantasies. However, they were glad to have the opportunity to visit Montreal and didn't regret taking the trip.

    Not all the Chinese people I met were happy. I once met a young lady who met with a gentleman through the Internet. However, to her disappointment, he disappeared after he promised to marry her in Montreal.

    I was served by another Chinese person who could not handle the challenges of studying in an English environment and ended up working in a restaurant with minimum pay.

    Exploring different parts of the world, without any doubt, is an amazing experience. However, one should be realistic when it comes to leaving his hometown to set up a new life in a foreign country. One should take the time to examine the advantages and the shortcomings of the venture before they decide to chase an uncertain dream of achieving success or leading a better life.

    Have you ever felt like you are not given the kind of respect you deserve? In one way or another, all of us have felt this way. We've yearned(渴望) to be looked at as an authority, someone people look up to and trust. We're not taught in school how to do this and our parents didn't tell us the secret on how to establish our authority. It's something we learn and gain by ourselves. And the answer is as simple as changing our mindset. What? No way! Oh but it is. People tend to underestimate the power of the mind. Change your game by changing your mind.

    Take time to look back and think about people in your life who are an authority or a leader at work, who has more credibility(可信度) than you or who you look up to and inspires you. They are up there not for the reasons you think. If you really think about it, they aren't the smartest of the bunch, not the most educated, and neither are they the best. And in no way do they even call themselves an expert. Instead, they are up there because they are great teachers and advocates(支持者) for the success of their customers or employees.

    Let's take Richard Simmons for example. This famous fitness personality has been a household name ever since he started gaining popularity during the first few years of his career. Stop and think, though, do you really think he is the best person to really get people into shape? Is he the Einstein of fitness and nutrition? Or does he even call himself a master of his craft? Of course not. People look up to him and give him authority because he is a great educator. Instead of sharing information that's far too complicated to understand, he figures out what your problems are and finds out a way to fix them. He even has social media that he updates on a regular basis with topics that are helpful and easy to understand for his fans and followers.

    Depending on the field you're in, you can share with people things you know and that you think they will want to know as well. If you're a nurse, for example, you can make a blog post for common health problems and quick remedies(治疗方法) people can do at home. Remember, the simpler you can make it, the better. People will trust you completely if you give them easy solutions. Like Richard, you'll soon be the expert you'll want to listen to. You can be an advocate also by showing people that you have their best interests at heart. You can also start up conferences to take up people's concerns and try to deal with them the best way that you can.

    So, how will you be viewed as an authority? Make that mind shift. Find out what concerns and troubles your target. Give solutions. Show that you care. And help them climb up that ladder of success. Ladies and gentlemen, that's how it's done.

    Kyle is my big brother. For eighteen years, I felt that Kyle was my enemy. In fact, I found it ridiculous that people thought older brothers looked out for their sisters, protected them and fought off their sisters，bullies. Huh? My brother was the bully (恃强凌弱者).
    When we were little, his fights with others caused my only black eye, cuts in my lips and even a nosebleed or two. I often wished I were an only child!

    Time flew. We ended up attending colleges two thousand miles apart, yet strangely, that's when we began communicating. Through e-mail, we kept in constant touch. Mostly I complained about serious homesickness, impossible roommates difficult classes, and... dating. I felt I lost myself. At a particularly low time, I cried to Kyle about my injured confidence, my broken heart, and the particular jerk (蠢人) who broke it.

    And that's when the package arrived.

    “What's this?” I thought as I tore into it. The box revealed a sweatshirt. “Phi Delta Theta? Thai's Kyle's frat (兄弟会).” Kyle was the president of the frat house. Why would he send this? I put it aside and dug deeper. A pile of letters. And they were all addressed to me. I opened the one on top.

    “Katrina,” it said, “your brother showed me your picture and I think you're awesome and beautiful.” I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, sure.” I opened another letter. And another. Eighteen in all.

    Each one was from a different guy. They complimented (恭维) me. They invited me on dates. And they tried to convince me to make a trip out to Knox College and meet them.

    I loved it. I didn't care about the motive. And mostly, I loved the idea that my big brother had pulled it off. I picked up the phone.

    “Kyle, the box came and I can't believe what you did.” But Kyle wasn't accepting compliments. “Oh”, he said，“I was just tired of reading your complaints.”

    Big brothers, I decided, really did protect their sisters. And mine fought off the biggest bully I'd ever met. Now I return to my true self，full of confidence.

    Our mother earth is going through a very tough situation and we, the entire human race, are destroying our environment or unconsciously without even realizing its consequences. Now we have to act very smartly and plan something to sustain what we still have, getting all necessary support from nature to lead healthy lives.

    Gardening is always an excellent and environmentally friendly idea. If you can go for sustainable gardening, then it will be even more useful for all. Gardening is a favorite hobby for many. It is time to channelize your hobby towards a more meaningful motivation.

    When we do gardening we need to use different ingredients to grow plants. Some of them are natural resources like water, soil, sunshine, and many things like this. Using these resources smartly is a part of sustainable gardening. Some simple techniques include: use less water and organic things to grow plants; try to store rainwater so that you can use them for gardening; try using less energy to drive devices; avoid using plastics in any form while gardening; reuse the leaves from your garden to fertilize them. These are the basic sustainable measures. To do so we need to have proper knowledge about gardening and its requirements so that we can use proper resources without wasting any of them.

    In today's busy life we don't get much time to spend on our environment. Gardening gives us a chance to do so. We can also have some pesticide-free and fresh food if we grow them in our garden. This is the right time to do some good to protect our own environment and gardening is one of the easiest ways. Do you want to start gardening, but you're not sure how? Click here: http://www. Garden how to.come.

    Devon Gallagher, a college graduate from Philadelphia, wants the world to know exactly here she's been during her worldwide vacation in a special way.

    The traveler, who was born with a bone disease, had her right leg amputated(k)at the age of four. Although the amputation caused setbacks for Gallagher early on, she now sees it as nothing short of inspiration for living her best life.

    To spread that message, Gallagher has taken to social media, where she shares photos of her travels across the globe, but instead of simply using a geo-tag, she writes her location across her artificial leg before taking a picture.

    Now she has been taking pictures across the Continent, which show her cycling over the canal in Amsterdam relaxing on a wall overlooking the city of Barcelona, posing with a waffle in Brussels, taking in the spectacular Parthenon temple in Athens and enjoying a river cruise in Budapest, all with the well-known locations written on her artificial leg “I get a new leg every two years and I can choose the design on it. One day I had a sudden thought to get a chalk-board, "Gallagher said. "My mum and grand-mother weren't too keen on the idea, but my friends thought it was great and told me to go for it, so I did.”

    Gallagher said people often stare when she's writing on her leg, but once she shares the photos she receives only positive feedback. "My leg hasn't stopped me from doing anything I've wanted to do," she said. "I don't know if it's my determination to prove to myself that I can do it, but regardless, I've been able to keep up with my peers and lead a pretty great life, Gallagher shows us that you should never let anything stand in the way of your dreams. And if life gives you an artificial leg, make art

    Sometimes just when we need the power of miracles to change our beliefs, they materialize in the places we'd least expect. They can come to us as a great change in our physical reality or as a simple coincidence in our lives. Sometimes they're big and can't be missed. Other times they're so subtle that if we aren't aware, we may miss them altogether. They can come from the lips of a stranger we suddenly and mysteriously meet at just the right instant. If we listen carefully, we'll always hear the right words, at the right time, to dazzle (目眩) us into a realization of something that we may have failed to notice only moments before.

    On a cold January afternoon in 1989, I was hiking up the trail that leads to the top of Egypt's Mt. Horeb. I'd spent the day at St. Catherine's Monastery and wanted to get to the peak by sunset to see the valley below. As I was winding up the narrow path, I'd occasionally see other hikers who were coming down from a day on the mountain. While they would generally pass with simply a nod or a greeting in another language, there was one man that day who did neither.

    I saw him coming from the last switchback on the trail that led to the backside of the mountain. As he got closer, I could see that he was dressed differently from the other hikers I'd seen. Rather than the high-tech fabrics and styles that had been the norm, this man was wearing traditional Egyptian clothing. He wore a tattered, rust-colored galabia and obviously old and thick-soled sandals that were covered in dust. What made his appearance so odd, though, was that the man didn't even appear to be Egyptian! He was a small-framed Asian man, had very little hair, and was wearing round, wire-rimmed glasses.

    As we neared one another, I was the first to speak, "Hello," I said, stopping on the trail for a moment to catch my breath. Not a sound came from the man as he walked closer. I thought that maybe he hadn't heard me or the wind had carried my voice away from him in another direction. Suddenly he stopped directly in front of me on the high side of the trail, looked up from the ground, and spoke a single sentence to me in English, "Sometimes you don't know what you have lost until you've lost it." As I took in what I had just heard, he simply stepped around me and continued his going down the trail.

    That moment in my life was a small miracle. The reason is less about what the man said and more about the timing and the context. The year was 1989, and the Cold War was drawing to a close. what the man on the trail couldn't have known is that it was during my Egyptian pilgrimage (朝圣), and specifically during my hike to the top of Moses's mountain, that I'd set the time aside to make decisions that would affect my career in the defense industry, my friends, my family, and, ultimately, my life.

    I had to ask myself what the chances were of an Asian man dressed in an Egyptian galabia coming down from the top of this historic mountain just when I was walking up, stopping before me, and offering his wisdom, seemingly from out of nowhere. My answer to my own question was easy: the odds were slim to none! In a meet that lasted less than two minutes on a mountain halfway around the world from my home, a total stranger had brought clarity and the hint of a warning, regarding the huge changes that I would make within a matter of days. In my way of thinking, that's a miracle.

    I suspect that we all experience small miracles in our lives every day. Sometimes we have the wisdom and the courage to recognize them for what they are In the moments when we don't, that's okay as well. It seems that our miracles have a way of coming back to us again and again. And each time they do, they become a little less subtle, until we can't possibly miss the message that they bring to our lives!

    The key is that they're everywhere and occur every day for different reasons, in response to the different needs that we may have in the moment. Our job may be less about questioning the extraordinary things that happen in our daily lives and more about accepting the gifts they bring.