Mike found a job in a bookstore after he finished middle school. He wouldn't do anything but wanted to get rich.   It was a cold morning. It snowed and there was thin ice on the streets. Few people went to buy books and the young man had nothing to do. He hated to read, so he watched the traffic. Suddenly he saw a bag fall off a truck and it landed by the other side of the street.

    “It is full of expensive things.” Mike said to himself. “I have to get it right now, or others will take it away.”He went out of the bookstore and ran across the street. A driver saw him and began to whistle (鸣笛), but he didn't hear it and went on running. The man drove to the side, hit a big tree and hurt himself in the accident. Two weeks later, Mike was taken to the court (法庭). A judge asked if he heard the whistle when he was running across the street. He said that something was wrong with his ears and he could hear nothing.“But you heard me this time,” said the judge.“Oh, I'm sorry. Now I can hear with one ear.”“Cover (盖住) the ear with your hand and listen to me with your deaf (聋的) one. Well, can you hear me?”“No, I can't , sir.”“You told a lie. There is nothing wrong with either of your ears,” the judge said.

    Once there was a parrot on sale in a pet store. It was a beautiful red and blue bird. It sat on a perch in the middle of the store, so that everyone could see it when they came in. The owner was very proud of it and asked a high price for it.

    One day a man went into the store. “That's a beautiful bird,” he said to the pet store owner, “But why is it so expensive? Is it unusual bird?”

    “No, it's not very unusual. It's expensive because it can talk,” the pet store owner said.

    “I see. How can I make it talk?” the man asked.

    The pet store owner asked him, “Do you see those string tied to each of the bird's legs?”

    “Yes,”the man answered.

    “Well, you pull those strings,” the pet store owner told him. “That will make the parrot talk.”

    The man asked, “Do you mind if I try?”

    “Not at all,” the pet store owner said.

The man walked up to the parrot and pulled the string on its left leg. The parrot said, “Good morning.”

    The man pulled the string on the parrot's right leg. This time the parrot said, “How are you today?”

    “That's not very interesting, ” said the man. “Any parrot could do that.” Then he laughed, “But what would happen if I pulled both strings at the same time?”

    “I'll fall off my perch, you fool!” the parrot said.

Do you have trouble trying to create the next big idea?

Sometimes the answer isn't to just force an idea out of your mind.

Instead, you might want to try sitting back, relaxing and letting your mind wander（走神）. Yes, you heard that correctly. If you are in need of a new idea, try daydreaming.

Daydreams allow your mind to run freely and even increase productivity in some cases. Daydreaming develops creativity which is why you have an ah-ha moment and sudden insight（领悟） about a situation. Daydreaming allows you to uncover thoughts and ideas you did not realize you even had and get the thoughts hidden under the surface.

Researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara, found a connection between daydreaming and creative problem-solving. Their study includes making participants first do an "unusual-use task". They had to try to come up with as many different ways to use an object as they could.

Then, the participants choose to do one of the following four things before doing the "unusual-use task" again; complete a difficult task, complete an easy task, take a 12-minute break, or skip a 12-minute break and move right on to the task exercise again.

Surprisingly, the group that performed best was the one that completed the easy task. Many participants reported that they were daydreaming while performing the easy task. So the researchers believed that this daydreaming might have helped unlock their creativity.

But how could daydreaming help the brain come up with creative ways? The answer is something known as "unconscious thought". Even when you are not actively working to solve a problem, it is still in the back of your mind. Your brain is still thinking about the problem, but in a way that you are unaware of.

When you daydream, your mind is allowed to think in ways it normally would not. Because it is free of control, it can create completely new and out-of-the-box ideas.

Great ideas never come easily, but that does not mean you always have to work hard to get them. Feel free to do what you want and let your mind wander.

It was late and there weren't many people on the street. l guessed a lot of people were probably asleep. But I was on the way home from my office. 

There was a man riding his bike behind me. I didn't think anything of it until I turned off the highway to go home and he turned off too. Then I turned into another street and he followed me again. 

I was starting to feel a bit afraid especially when I turned into my own street and he followed me there too, I parked my bike in front of my house and he stopped in front of my house too. I was feeling quite scared by then, He was all dressed up in his bike clothes and I wanted to know what was going on. He came up to me and said my indicator (转向灯) wasn't working. He said that he was worried about me. He wanted to make sure 1 got to my home safely and knew about the problem so I could work it out. 1 thanked him for his kindness and he got back on his bike and rode off. 

l learnt an important lesson that day: Do not be so quick to judge (判断) a person. Maybe a person doesn't look like a good man, but he might have a heart of gold. 

It's no secret that there is a space（空间）problem in Manhattan（曼哈顿）.People build up higher and higher buildings because there isn't much land left and there is no room to build out.So people have been building lots of tall and thin buildings.Developers（开发商），the government has made laws（法律）that don't allow developers to build too high buildings.

Oiio Studio thinks about things differently， "what if our buildings were not tall but long？" So the founder of Oiio Studio，loannis Oikonomou（设计）a U﹣shaped building，the Big Bend.It would be a very thin building.It would curve at the top and return to the ground.Oikonomous said he thought of the great idea because he learned from a piece of news.It said that a company made a lift that could travel in curves.So he designed the Big Bend.He thought it as "the longest building in the world".It would be 4000 feet from end to end and would need a different lift system.

"We can't change the law，  ▲   .So if we can bend（使弯曲）our building，" Oiio Studio said.

The Big Bend is just an idea for now.Oikonomous has sent the plans to a few companies，and is looking for developers.If successful，they will build the Big Bend around West 57th Street