Given that many people's moods (情绪)are regulated by the chemical action of chocolate, it was probably only a matter of time before somebody made the chocolate shop similar to a drugstore of Chinese medicine. Looking like a setting from the film Charlie&the Chocolate Factory, Singapore's Chocolate Research Facility (CRF) has over 100 varieties of chocolates, its founder is Chris Lee who grew up at his parents' comer store with one handalmost always in the jar of sweets.

    If the CRF seems to be a smart idea, that's because Lee is not merely a seasoned salesperson but also head of marketing department that has business relations with big names such as Levi's and Sony. That idea surely results in the imagination at work when it comes to making different flavored (味道) chocolates.

    The CRF's produce is “green”, made within the country and divided into 10 lines, with the Alcohol Series being the most popular. The exotic Series—with Sichuan pepper, red bean(豆), cheese and other flavors—also does well and is fun to taste. And for chocolate snobs, who think that they have a better knowledge of chocolate than others, the Connisseur Series uses cocoa beans from Togo, Cuba, Venezuela, and Ghana, among others.

                                                                                      The Lifecycle of a T-shirt

    We all probably have a lot of T-shirts, but do you ever stop and think about the influence of a T-shirt on the planet? You'd probably be surprised to learn what's involved in the lifecycle of just one T-shirt.

    There are 5 major stages: material, production, shipping, use and disposal. The material stage involves farming, irrigating, fertilizing, harvesting and ginning. While cotton is a natural fiber (纤维) and not as harmful to the environment as manmade fibers, it still takes a toll in the material and production stages. Commercial cotton farming uses a large amount of water, and the use of pesticides (杀虫剂) is widespread across the globe, especially in cotton farming. Studies have shown that farmers spend around $4.1 billion on pesticides annually, of which 25% was spent on cotton crops in the US.

    Once the cotton is grown and harvested, so begins the production stage: spinning, knitting, bleaching, dyeing, cutting, sewing, etc.——these processes also use a great deal of water and energy. Commercial dyes and bleaches are harmful pollutants and can eventually pollute groundwater.

    After the T-shirt is produced, it enters the transportation stage. This often involves overseas shipping. Take a look in your closet. Chances are that most of your cotton garments (衣服) are made in China or India. Garments can be shipped via plane, ship or truck…, all of which spill CO₂ into the atmosphere. Calculations show that CO₂ emissions from light trucks alone amount to 1.15 pounds per mile.

    Once the T-shirt reaches the retail market, it is purchased. This stage may seem like the leastenvironmentally damaging part. But consider the number of times you've washed and dried your favorite T-shirt. Washing machines are certainly becoming more efficient. However, the average American household does 400 loads of laundry per year, using about 40 gallons of water per load. Such excessive water use is combined with the large amount of energy used by dryers.

    The final stage of life is disposal. This releases harmful emissions, or involves a landfill where cotton takes years to break down. Current US records show that an estimated 15% of clothes and shoes are recycled, which means that consumers send a shocking 85% of these materials to landfills.

    We all need new clothes every once in a while, but let's all try to keep in mind what goes into the production of clothing... It has a real impact on the planet.

    There are a lot of things you can do to help reduce your impact. Reuse and recycle clothes. If they're too worn out to wear, cut them up and use them as cleaning rags. Donate them to charity or another organization that recycles textiles. When possible, make an effort to buy organic cotton. Turn down the thermostat on your washer, and line dry your clothes when the weather will allow it.

    In his research work, Philosophical Investigations（哲学调查）, Ludwig Wittgenstein tries to clarify（澄清）some of the problems in people's thinking about how the mind works.

    Imagine, he says, that everyone has a small box in which they keep a beetle（甲壳虫）. No one is allowed to look in anyone else's box, only in their own. Over time, people talk about what is in their boxes and the word “beetle” comes to stand for what is in everyone's box. Through this example, Wittgenstein point out that the beetle is very much like an individual's（个体的）mind; no one can know exactly what it is like to be another person or experience things from another's point of view—look in someone else's “box”—but it is general considered that the mental working of another person's mind is very similar to that of our own. However, it does not really matter—he argues—what is in the box or whether everyone indeed has a beetle, since there is no way of checking or comparing. In a sense, the word “beetle” simply means “what is in the box”. From this point of view, the mind is simply “what is in the box”, or rather “what is in your head”.

    Wittgenstein considers language to have meaning because of public usage. In other words, when we talk of having a mind—or a beetle—we are using a term that we have learned through conversation. The concept might be perceived（感知）differently in each of our minds, so the word “mind” cannot be used to refer specifically to some entity（本质）outside of our own conception（概念）, since we cannot see into other people's boxes.

    My students entered the art room with their usual eagerness to see what they would be learning in today's class. Little did they know they were going to be students for a new teaching method that is spreading the nation.

    I often use videos as previews and supplements (补充) to our art lessons providing students with a variety of artists showing their skills in real-life situations outside the classroom. Finding a new painting technique called glue batik(胶水蜡染),  I thought of something new I hadn't tried before!  How awesome would it be to learn a new technique together with artists? The lesson was planned, presented to the students without any introduction or set objectives. I also asked the students to watch and pause the video as often as they needed to.

    They watched as the artist explained and showed her skills, taking notes on her steps and results. After the video, they shared what they felt the artist's objectives were, her end result using art vocabulary as well as the steps they would need to know to present their own examples. Then they began creating their works using the glue batik technique.

    Surfing the Internet a couple of weeks later, I found that the teaching method I used sounded very familiar to a new movement in education called flipped teaching, which was developed by Jonathan Bergmann. He asked his students to watch video lectures at home and do exercises (homework) in class under supervision (监督). He found that grades went up and he also found time for other types of activities, which Bergmann states are more important than the videos.

    Back to my art class, the students were learning to get ideas, make predictions, and explain reasoning to their classmates. Together they compared, asked questions and made discoveries as they presented the technique.

    According to a recent survey on money and relationships, 36% of people are keeping a bank account from their partner. While this financial unfaithfulness may appear as distrust in a relationship, in truth it may just be a form of financial protection.

    With almost half of all marriages ending in divorce, men and women are realizing they need to be financially savvy, regardless of whether they are in a relationship.

    The financial hardship on individuals after a divorce can be extremely difficult, even more so when children are involved. The lack of permanency in relationships, jobs and family life may be the cause of a growing trend to keep a secret bank account hidden from a partner, in other words, an "escape fund".

    Margaret's story is far from unique. She is a representative of a growing number of women in long-term relationships who are becoming protective of their own earnings. Every month on pay day, she banks hundreds of dollars into a savings account she keeps from her husband. She has been doing this throughout their six-year marriage and has built a nest egg worth an incredible $100,000. Margaret says if her husband found about her secret savings he'd be hurt and would take this as a sign that she wasn't sure of the marriage. "He'd think it was my escape fund so that financially I could afford to get out of the relationship if it went wrong. I know you should approach marriage as being forever and I hope ours is, but you can never be sure."

    Like many of her fellow secret savers, Margaret was hurt in a former relationship and has since been very guarded about her own money.

    Coming clean to your partner about being a secret saver may not be all that bad. Take Colleen for example, who had been saving secretly for a few years before she confessed (坦白) to her partner. "I decided to open a savings account and start building a nest egg of my own. I wanted to prove to myself that I could put money in the bank and leave it there for a rainy day."

    Most people agree that being a good driver means being safe and not aggressive on the road. One debate some people still argue, however, is who drives better: men or women? Although it's impossible to say that one gender drives better than another definitively, there are some noteworthy trends.

    Male drivers tend to have more accidents

    Data from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) shows that male drivers tend to have more total accidents than females. The IIHS, an independent non­profit devoted to reducing car accidents, also found that 71 percent of all motor vehicle crash deaths in 2017 were males. Although the gap has narrowed, almost every year from 1975 to 2017, the number of male crash deaths was more than twice the number of female crash deaths, per the IIHS.

    Women might be less­confident behind the wheel

    Although male drivers have more accidents, other research shows women aren't "perfect" drivers, either. Researchers from the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute studied traffic accidents over 20 years and found that female drivers are more likely to run into a car driven by another woman than a man. The study, however, doesn't explain possible reasons for this pattern.

    One that they might consider testing in the future is that some research also shows women are less­confident behind the wheel than men. A study from UCLA exploring the relationship between new drivers' skills and different variables, including gender(性别), shows female students were less confident drivers than men.

    So are men better drivers than women?

    Gender is just one factor when it comes to safe driving, along with others such as age, and even the time of day people drive. One study shows that both genders have a greater accident risk when driving at night, but males still have a higher risk at all times of the day. Driving quality also changes based on location, too, as some states are more dangerous than others. Data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration shows that Wyoming, Mississippi, and Montana have high accident death rates, without regards to gender. It goes to show that everyone should learn and practice safe driving habits instead of worrying about who drives better.