Feifei,an 11-year-old boy from Xuzhou,Jiangsu Province,suffered from a sudden acute eye disease which has almost led to blindness.The disease was caused by excessive（过度的）eye fatigue（疲劳）during the winter vacation, during which he played computer games for continuous 10 days and nights.

    Many youngsters in China nowadays are increasingly addicted to computer games and other electronic products. This is followed by a series of health problems,with the most typical case being myopia,or nearsightedness.

    According to the latest research report released by the World Health Organization (WHO),the myopia rate among Chinese teenagers ranks first in the world—70 percent of high school and college students.The rate is nearly 40 percent in primary school students,while it is only 10 percent for their peers in the United States.

    There are at least 10 million people in China with severe myopia,and they are likely to get pathological（病理性的）myopia in middle age.Pathological myopia can't be treated with glasses or surgery,and it is one of the biggest factors that lead to blindness,Xu Xun,director of the ophthalmology（眼科学）department at Shanghai General Hospital,pointed out.

    Experts explain that two major factors lead to the high rate of myopia among Chinese people.One is high academic pressure,and the other one is excessive use of electronic devices over a long period of time.Genetics,on the other hand,are not the main reason,as only 20 percent of Chinese people had myopia in the 1960s.

    "Teenagers are now faced with severe academic pressure,which means they often study without natural light. This increases their risk of becoming nearsighted,"Xu said.

    Experts suggest that youngsters maintain a proper balance between study and rest so as to protect their eyesight, and parents should play an active role in the process.

    A city child's summer is spent in the street in front of his home, and all through the long summer vacations I sat on the edge of the street and watched enviously the other boys on the block play baseball. I was never asked to take part even when one team had a member missing—not out of special cruelty, but because they took it for granted I would be no good at it. They were right, of course.

    I would never forget the wonderful evening when something changed. The baseball ended about eight or eight thirty when it grew dark. Then it was the custom of the boys to retire to a little stoop(门廊) that stuck out from the candy store on the corner and that somehow had become theirs. No grownup ever sat there or attempted to. There the boys would sit, mostly talking about the games played during the day and of the game to be played tomorrow. Then long silences would fall and the boys would wander off one by one. It was just after one of those long silences that my life as an outsider changed. I can no longer remember which boy it was that summer evening who broke the silence with a question: but whoever he was, I nod to him gratefully now. “What's in those books you're always reading?” he asked casually. “Stories,” I answered. “What kind?” asked somebody else without much interest.

    Nor do I know what drove me to behave as I did,for usually I just sat there in silence, glad enough to be allowed to reain among them; but instead of answering his question, I told them for two hours the story I was reading at the moment. The book was Sister Carrie. They listened bug-eyed and breathless. I must have told it well, but I think there was another and deeper reason that made them to keep an audience. Listening to a tale being told in the dark is one of the most ancient of man's entertainments, but I was offering them as well, without being aware of doing it, a new and exciting experience.

    The books they themselves read were the Rover Boys or Tom Swift or G.A.Henty. I had read them too, but at thirteen I had long since left them behind. Since I was much alone I had become an enthusiastic reader and I had gone through the books-for-boys series. In those days there was no reading material between children's and grownups'books or I could find none. I had gone right fromTome Swift and His Flying Machine to Theodore Dreiser and Sister Carrie. Dreiser had hit my young mind, and they listened to me tell the story with some of the wonder that I had had in reading it.

    The next night and many nights thereafter, a kind of unspoken ritual (仪式) took place. As it grew dark, I would take my place in the center of the stoop and begin the evening's tale. Some nights, in order to taste my victory more completely, I cheated. I would stop at the most exciting part of a story by Jack London or Bret Harte, and without warning tell them that that was as far as I had gone in the book and it would have to be continued the following evening. It was not true, of course; but I had to make certain of my new-found power and position. I enjoyed the long summer evenings until school began in the fall. Other words of mine have been listened to by larger and more fashionable audiences, but for that tough and athletic one that sat close on the stoop outside the candy store, I have an unreasoning love that will last forever.

    I come from a large family of nine brothers and sisters, and all of us have kids of our own. On each Christmas night, our entire family gathers at my oldest sister's home, exchanging gifts, watching the nativity skit put on by the smaller children, eating, singing and enjoying a visit from Santa himself.

    The Christmas of 1988, my husband Bob and I had four children. Peter was eleven, Leigh-Ann was nine, Laura was six and Matthew was two. When Santa arrived, Matthew parked himself on Santa's lap and pretty much remained dazzled by him for the rest of the evening. Anyone who had their picture taken with Santa that Christmas also had their picture taken with little Matthew.

    Little did any of us know how precious those photos with Santa and Matthew would become. Five days after Christmas, our sweet little Matthew died in an accident at home. We were lucky to have strong support from our families and friends to help us through. I learned that the first year after a death is the hardest, as there are so many firsts to get through without your loved one. Birthdays and special occasions become sad, instead of joyous.

    When our first Christmas without Matthew approached, it was hard for me to get into the holiday spirit. Bob and I could hardly face putting up the decorations or shopping for special gifts for everyone. But we went through the motions for Peter, Leigh-Ann and Laura. Then, something extraordinary happened to raise our spirits when we didn't think it was possible.

    We were just finishing dinner when we heard a knock on the front door. When we went to answer it, no one was there. However, on the front porch was a card and gift. We opened the card and read that the gift-giver wanted to remain anonymous; he or she just wanted to help us get through a rough time by cheering us up.

    In the gift bag was a cassette of favorite Christmas music, which was in a little cardboard Christmas tree. The card described it as being "a cartridge in a pine tree," a twist on the "partridge in a pear tree" verse in the song, "The Twelve Days of Christmas." We thought that it was a very clever gift, and the thoughtfulness of our "elf"(精灵) touched our hearts. We put the cassette in our player and, song by song, the spirit of Christmas began to warm our hearts.

    That was the beginning of a series of gifts from the clever giver, one for each day until Christmas. Each gift followed the theme of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" in a creative way. The kids especially liked "seven swans a-swimming," which was a basket of swan-shaped soaps plus passes to the local swimming pool, giving the kids something to look forward to when the warm days of spring arrived. "Eight maids a-milking" included eight bottles of chocolate milk, eggnog and regular milk in glass bottles with paper faces, handmade aprons and caps. Every day was something very special. The "five golden rings" came one morning just in time for breakfast — five glazed doughnuts just waiting to be eaten.

    We would get calls from our family, neighbors and friends who would want to know what we had received that day. Together, we would chuckle at the ingenuity and marvel at the thoughtfulness as we enjoyed each surprise. We were so caught up in the excitement and curiosity of what would possibly come next, that our grief didn't have much of a chance to rob us of the spirit of Christmas. What our elf did was absolutely miraculous.

    Each year since then, as we decorate our Christmas tree, we place on it the decorations we received that Christmas while we play the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas." We give thanks for our elf who was, we finally realized, our very own Christmas angel. We never did find out who it was, although we have our suspicions. We actually prefer to keep it that way. It remains a wondrous and magical experience - as mysterious and blessed as the very first Christmas.

    There's a good chance something you've bought online has been in the hands of a "picker" first. These are the workers in warehouses(仓库)who pick, pack and ship all those things we're ordering.

    At Amazon and other companies, they're working side by side with robots. Experts say while the robots are replacing some human workers, the machines aren't quite ready to take over completely.

    When a robot finds its storage unit, it slides underneath, lifts it up and then delivers it to a worker 一 they're called pickers. On a recent day, the computer told a picker to grab what looked like a fantasy board (棋盘)game. The picker found it, canned it and placed it on the conveyor belt.

    ^"In a traditional fulfillment center where the associate would walk to the different items, it can take hours to fulfill a customer order." Robinson says.

    Now, with the help of robots, that task takes minutes 一 and fewer humans.

So is this a sign we're entering a new industrial revolution?

    "It's definitely going to take over a lot of jobs." says Karen Myers, a scientist at SRI, one of Silicon Valley's oldest research centers.

    At the same time, she says, we're running against the limits of technology. Take "the picker" at the Amazon fulfillment center. Myers says those skills are proving to be uniquely human.

    "Our fingers are incredibly flexible and the current generation of robotic operators, they're getting much_, much better," she says. "But they're just not quite there yet."

    There's also the robot's brain.

    Remember that board game the Amazon worker was looking for? She could barely see the box filled into the storage bin — but she could tell it was a board game. Robots can't do that.

    Technologists say that, increasingly, humans will work side by side with robots — instead of robots working alone.

    Amazon says robots and humans enabled the Tracy warehouse to fulfill customer orders faster. That means more customers and more human workers.

    When I'm in Italy, I generally only eat Italian food. I doubt whether there's another country in Europe that has food that can keep me coming back for more.

    To eat well in Italy, finding the right restaurant is essential. I appreciate personality-driven restaurants, run by people keen(热衷的) to share their love of good cooking, and places serving family recipes. Signs of a good restaurant include a low-rent location, lots of locals, and a small, handwritten menu in one language. The menu is small because they're only selling everything they're cooking; it's handwritten because it's shaped by what is fresh today in the market; and it's in one language because they mostly serve locals.

    For a fast and cheap lunch, I look for Italian food in corner delis (熟食店): either a rosticceria, specializing in roasted meats and antipasti(开胃食物), or a hot table bar — a cafeteria offering a buffet of meat and vegetables. Another option is to drop by a neighborhood grocery store to pick up some cold cuts, cheeses, and other foods for a picnic.

    Italians tend to spend a long time on each course, and dinner is the evening's entertainment. For example, when you have a full-blown Italian dinner in a restaurant, you don't get out until midnight; a three-hour meal is common. Waiters often provide lots of drinks that seem designed to keep you from leaving. When you want the bill, you'll have to ask for it. To "eat and run" is seen as a lost opportunity.

    A couple of years ago, I sat down at my favorite place in Verona, Enoteca Can Grande, with my friend and guide Franklin. We let the chef, Giuliano bring us whatever he wanted. Just after the antipasti arrived, Franklin's wife phoned him and said, "Don't eat too much cheese or dessert." Later Franklin, who was not thin, surveyed our table. Sighing, he said, "The foods are so plentiful but I can eat few."

    "That's a pity," I said.

    I enjoyed the food for three hours and he watched me eating for three hours. Eating in Verona was really an amazing experience.

The famous Spanish painter Pablo Picasso once said, "I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it." It strikes a chord(引起共鸣) with me because that's exactly what I have been doing these years.

One of my earliest memories of doing before learning is baking scones(烤饼) when I was about 10 years old. I wanted to bake them to surprise my mother when she returned home.

Before that, I'd observed how my mother baked them many times. As I started to try, I didn't know I shouldn't handle the dough(面团) with my hands too much once I'd added the baking powder(发酵粉). However, I knew exactly how to roll out the dough and use a cookie cutter to cut the scones, because my mom had already taught me.

By the time my mom arrived home, the smell of freshly baked scones welcomed her into the kitchen. They were close to perfection—flat, as a result of overhandling the dough, but they tasted OK. My mom sweetly praised me for my attempt, rather than scolding me for the state of the kitchen, which was like a tornado had just blown!

Have my attempts always been successful? I wish! Some of my kitchen disasters were so terrible that even the dogs wanted nothing to do with them. My gardening failures didn't live to see another season.

But my habit of doing before learning is still helpful. Whatever new software I have to learn how to use, I do so by simply starting to use it. I do, learn, and improve. So if you ask me whether I regret that I tend to do first and learn later, I'd say I don't, because what I have discovered from those is the wisdom to know when it's OK to do and then learn, and when it's probably better to learn and then do!