How to find the perfect career

    Too many people are not satisfied with their professional career (事业) and are “stuck” in situations that do not make them happy. Here are some wonderful actions you can take to begin the path to a truly happy career.

Talk to your friends.

    Ask them, “what do you think I am best at”, or “what do you think I enjoy doing most”. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}However, their advice may help you decide what you should do.

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    Read some interesting magazines, books, newspapers or novels. They will give you a constant flow of ideas and keep the mind rich.

Talk to the happiest and most successful people you know.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#} Be serious with your questions. And see if there is anything you can learn from them. Have these people become your teachers and friends.

Keep a journal（日记）.

    Writing down your ideas is an important practice for your career growth. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}You never know when great ideas will come to your mind!

Develop patience.

    You may want a change in your career right now. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}Anyway, doing the practices mentioned above will bring about the right chance much faster.

    The following is a father's advice to his son or daughter, who has just graduated from high school：

    First of all, congratulations on your graduation!Graduation from high school means that a new stage of life is ahead of you．At the beginning of this new stage, I have some advice for you．

    Clean your own room and do your own laundry(洗衣物的活). After you have messed up(弄乱)something, you should learn to clean it up yourself．Cleanliness is indeed close to godliness(信奉上帝)．

    Don't mistake knowledge for wisdom. No matter how much information or knowledge you have gained, you'll never make sound(正确的)judgments if you don't have wisdom. Wisdom comes from imagination and reflection(反省)．If you can imagine the possible future outcomes of your present decisions and actions, you can avoid mistakes．And if you can reflect on the mistakes you have made, you can avoid making the same mistakes again and again．Such is wisdom．

    Don't complain．When you take up a job, do your best to carry it out．Don't waste time complaining about it, no matter how difficult and boring it is．

    Finally, be an early bird．If you get up earlier than the sun, you can watch it rising up slowly into the sky．And the sight of the rising sun will warm your heart and give you energy for the day ahead．Besides, being an early bird, you have plenty of time to take exercise or do a lot of work．

    Enjoying a musical performance no longer requires a costly ticket or a trip to a theater. These days, musicians are performing in private homes,at haircutting shops,at airports...even on ferry boats.

    Musicians like house concerts. At music clubs, they often have to perform over loud conversation or deal with people who have had too much alcohol.People at house concerts are more focused on listening to the music.

    Just a few hours before the Bombadils started singing at the O' Hair Salon,Lindsay was cutting hair and Tamera was doing facials.Then,they moved chairs and microphones to create a small performance space.The Bombadils made music in the front part of the hair salon,near the hair dryers and make-up table.

    "This is our first show at a hair salon,"Sarah Frank of the Bombadils told concertgoers at last week's performance.Frank said she and band members Luke Fraser and Kaitlyn Raitz had a great time "interacting" with the audience.

    Concerts in people's homes, or small businesses such as O' Hair's,are becoming more popular,musicians say. "There is a more relaxed atmosphere,"said Domenic Cicala,a musician who opened up his O' Hair Salon to concerts. "People really get to know the artists."

    At house concerts,people get time before and after concerts to meet the performers.Often,the hosts or guests will provide food and drink.

    "People really like listening to music in the living room of a friend,"said Matt Hart,with Aubrey Zoli making up Local Strangers,a folk-rock group based in Seattle.At many such concerts,the musicians do not need microphones. Yet,every word of their songs can be heard.

    The guzheng is a traditional Chinese musical instrument. It belongs to the zither（齐特琴）family of string instruments. It is the parent of many musical instruments of some other countries.

    The guzheng should not be confused with the guqin, another ancient Chinese zither but without bridges. Now the guzheng is zither with movable bridges and usually 21 strings, although it can have from 15-25 strings. The guzheng's strings were formerly made of silk, though most players used metal strings by the 20^th century. Since the mid-20^th century most performers use steel strings. The guzheng has a large resonant cavity（共振腔）.

    The guzheng has existed since the Warring States Period and became especially popular during the Qin dynasty. The number of strings on the guzheng has always fluctuated. There were as few as 6 to as many as 23 strings during the Tang dynasty. The earliest record of the guzheng belonged to the historian Sima Qian. Until 1961, the common guzheng had 16 strings, although by the mid-20^th century 18-string guzheng were also in use. In 1961, Xu Zhenggao, together with Wang Xunzhi, introduced the first 21-string guzheng after two years of research and development. In 1960, they also invented the “S-shaped” left string rest, which was quickly adopted by all guzheng makers and is still used today. This curve allows for greater ease in tuning the strings and, combined with strings of different thickness, allows for greater resonance in both the deeper and the higher pitch（音调）ranges. The 21-string guzheng is the most commonly used one, but some traditional musicians still use the 16-string one.

    Twenty-one years ago, my husband gave me Sam, an eight-week-old schnauzer（雪纳瑞犬）, to help ease the loss of our daughter. Sam and I developed a very special bond over the next years.

    At one point, my husband and I decided to move to a new home in New Jersey. Our neighbor, whose cat had recently had kittens, asked if we would like one. We were a little apprehensive about Sam's jealousy and how he would handle his turf（地盘）being invaded, but we decided to risk it.

    We picked a little, gray, playful ball of Fur. She raced around chasing imaginary mice and squirrels and jumped from table to chair in the blink of an eye, so we named her Lightning.

    At first, Sam and Lightning were very cautious with each other and kept their distance. But slowly, Lightning started following Sam — up the stairs, down the stairs, into the kitchen. Later, when they slept, it was always together; when they ate, it was always next to each other. When I took either one out, the other was always waiting by the door when we returned. That was the way it was for years.

    Then, without any warning, Sam was diagnosed as having a weak heart. I had no other choice but to have him put down. The pain was nothing compared with what I experienced when I had to walk into our house alone. This time, there was no Sam for Lightning to greet and no way to explain why she would never see her friend again.

In the following days, Lightning seemed heart-broken. I could see the disappointment in her eyes whenever anyone opened the front door, or the hope whenever she heard a dog bark.

    One day as I walked into our living room, I happened to see Lightning was lying next to the sculptured replica（复制品）of Sam that we had bought a few years ago, one arm wrapped around the statue's neck, contentedly sleeping with her best friend.

A video of dolphins playing in the wake of the waves near a man-made island, east of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, has caught the attention from netizens across China.

The 55-km Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge is the world's longest cross-sea bridge, connecting the mainland province of Guangdong with the country's two special administrative regions, Hong Kong and Macao.

During the nine-year bridge construction period, researchers have identified and registered a total of 2,367 dolphins, with no injuries of any dolphins reported.

According to local authorities, the Pearl River Estuary Chinese White Dolphin Reserve has supported more than 100 researchers in studying and protecting the mammal and trained thousands of dolphin watchers. Luo Guocai, a certificated dolphin watcher, said his duty was to conduct a 10-minute observation of the sea each time before construction started. The dolphins have to breathe every few minutes above the water, and in order to prevent potential harm, the watchers would knock on their boat a few times to scare them away.

The preservation efforts never stopped even after the construction was completed. "Managerial personnel will continue to monitor the nearby environment and the dolphins via intelligent equipment including the bridge video surveillance(监控) system, the underwater tunnel's environmental monitoring as well as specially established research and observation stations on the man-made islands," said Yu Lie, deputy director of the bridge management bureau.

"Currently, Hong Kong, Macao, the country's two special administrative regions, and Guangdong plan to establish a conservation alliance for the dolphins, involving non-governmental organisations in the routine rescue, information sharing, and scientific research," said Chen Hailiang, head of the administration of the reserve. "We are constructing a bigger rescue and conservation base as well as increasing tissue samples and gene banks in a bid to better preserve the dolphins for generations to come," Chen said.