China is a big country, and there is no simple answer to the question “When is the best time to visit China? ” There are two best times to visit China, depending on your preference.

    October

    Things to do: hike on the Great Wall, photography tour

    Places to visit: Beijing, Xi'an, Shanghai, Guilin, Jiuzhaigou, Chengdu

The best time to go to China is early autumn (October).

    Most of China has warm temperatures, and the summer rains have stopped (apart from around HongKong and Sanya) so it's pretty dry. The autumnn colours are also amazing. It is quiet at tourist attractions for most of the month, as the summer holiday travel crowds have gone. But try to avoid October 1st -7th, which is the Chinese National Day holiday, as attractions, transport and hotels are packed with Chinese tourists and prices go up a lot.

    Late Spring (April to May)

    Things to do: appreciate flowers, Li River cruise, ethnic festivals

    Places to visit: Beijing, Xi'an, Guilin, Huangshan, GuiZhou, Zhangjiajie

    The second-best time to travel to China is probably in April and May, when the flowers are in bloom and the temperatures are warming up. In late spring, temperatures across China are getting into the 20s (℃), except the extreme northwest and northeast. While the North of China is still dry, the summer rains have already begun in the South. This could actually improve the view in the form of mountain fog in mountainous areas like the Li River and the Yellow Mountains.

    Ethnic festivals in GuiZhou are concentrated in April and May, such as the Sisters' Meal Festival. If you are interested in Miao and Dong ethnic cultures, this is a good time to visit.

    Travel prices are average: cheaper than June to October, but more expensive than the lower season from November to March.

    Some people dream about becoming engineers. Luckily, the new IMAX film Dream Big shows how engineering can improve people's lives. It teaches viewers how engineers use high-tech to help the world. The film hits IMAX theaters nationwide on February 17 to celebrate Engineers Week.

    The film, taking place in locations like China, Dubai and Africa, tells the stories of engineers who try to come up with creative ideas to save energy and help people.

    Dream Big was directed by Greg MacGillivray who has 38 films under his belt, including some of the most successful films ever shown in IMAX theaters.

    How did MacGillivray get into the moviemaking business? “I grew up at the beach. My first movies were about surfing and the ocean. As time went on, I saw the changes in the ocean including polluting and overfishing. So I started making films about conservation of nature.” He told TFK. Now, his films cover a variety of topics, from the natural world to human creation.

    One of the engineers in Dream Big is Angelica Hernandez. In high school, she was on a team that best MIT, a university, in an underwater robotics competition. Today, the engineering work she does focuses on helping people use less energy and save money and resources. “I work with companies to promote energy efficiency with their commercial customers, so it's really trying to push forward all the measures that customers and high-energy users can apply, she explains.

    Engineering is such a good job-you make good money, travel around the world, solve amazing problems and help people.” She says.

    The mission of Dream Big is to show people the good that engineers can do to the world. “That was the impulse of making this movie”, MacGillivray explains, “We want to explain engineering in a way that will get the kids very excited about it.” “Whoever and wherever you are, you can become an engineer,” he adds, “All you need is the creative spirit.”

    Anyone who cares about what schools and colleges teach and how their students learn will be interested in the memoir (回忆录) of Ralph W. Tyler, who is one of the most famous men in American education.

    Born in Chicago in 1902, brought up and schooled in Nebraska, the 19-year-old college graduate Ralph Tyler became hooked on teaching while teaching as a science teacher in South Dakota and changed his major from medicine to education.

    Graduate work at the University of Chicago found him connected with honorable educators Charles Judd and W. W. Charters, whose ideas of teaching and testing had an effect on his later work. In 1927, he became a teacher of Ohio State University where he further developed a new method of testing.

    Tyler became well-known nationally in 1938, when he carried his work with the Eight-Year Study from Ohio State University to the University of Chicago at the invitation of Robed Hutchins.

    Tyler was the first director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, a position he held for fourteen years. There, he firmly believed that researchers should be free to seek an independent spirit in their work.

    Although Tyler officially retired (退休) in 1967, he never actually retired. He served on a long list of educational organizations in the United States and abroad. Even in his 80s he traveled across the country to advise teachers and management people on how to set objectives (目标) that develop the best teaching and learning within their schools.

    A year back I received a full scholarship (奖学金) to attend the University of San Francisco. All of my hard work paid off. My mom had spent a lot on my attending a private high school, so I made sure to push myself: I volunteered, took part in various clubs, and graduated with honors. I was so excited to start a new part of my life.

    Soon enough, the big day came, but it wasn't like what I had thought. The first two weeks were the most difficult days of my entire life. Every night I would cry myself to sleep. I was missing my family, my home and everything in my hometown so much and I didn't know how to deal with my broken heart.

    To distract myself, I threw myself into my studies. I also found a ton of jobs. In any free time, I started forcing myself to go to the gym. I wanted to keep every part of my day busy so I wouldn't think about how lonely I felt. Soon after, I began to control my eating, considering it another solution to my homesickness(想家). But soon there was something wrong with me.

    Finally, I went to see a doctor. When the doctor told me I had no choice but to take time away from school, I started to fear. How could I stop? School was what I was best at. "I'm not so bad," I thought in my head. But the result was that I was taken to hospital again a month later and my mother came heartbrokenly. I had to take a semester off from school, and go to the treatment center near my home.

    If there are girls who are suffering similarly, I hope you know that there is hope and that you should have a positive attitude towards life. Though you may feel alone, there are so many people who can understand your struggle. That's why I want to share my story.

Keeping secrets is a burden

    "Don't tell anyone". We hear these words when someone tells a secret to us. But it can be hard to keep a secret. We're often tempted to "spill the beans(说漏嘴)",even if we regret it later.

    According to Asim Shah, professor in the Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Baylor College of Medicine, US, keeping a secret may well "become a burden". This is because people often have an "obsessive and anxious urge to share it with someone".

    An earlier study, led by Anita E. Kelly, a scientist at the University of Notre Dame, US, suggested that keeping a secret could cause stress. People entrusted(受委托 ) with secrets can suffer from depression, anxiety, and body aches, reported the Daily Mail.

    But with secrets so often getting out, why do people share them at all? Shah explained that people often feel that it will help them keep a person as a friend. Another reason people share secrets is guilt over keeping it from someone close to them. A sense of distrust can develop when people who are close do not share it with each other. "Keeping or sharing secrets often puts people in a position of either gaining or losing the trust of someone," according to Shah.

    He added that talkative people could let secrets slip out (泄露).But this doesn't mean that it is a good idea only to share secrets with quiet people. A quiet person may be someone who keeps everything inside. To tell such a person a secret may cause them stress, and make them talk about the secret. Shah said that to judge whether to tell someone a secret.

    Shah said that to judge whether to tell someone a secret, you'd better put yourself in their position. Think about how you would feel to be told that you mustn't give the information away. Shah also recommended that if you accidentally give up someone's secret you should come clean about it. Let the person know that their secret isn't so secret anymore.