How could you be "just ahousewife" when the basic social unit of society depends on you and yourservice? A housewife works for the longest hour, supporting your husband, childstudies, caring for eld-ers, managing finances, paying bills, grocery shopping,cooking according to individual taste, cleaning, etc. A housewife could beanyone: daughter, wife, mother, teacher, financial advisor, fashion designerand nurse, gardener, driver, cook, and so on. Don't think you are not being paid for it.  You get the re-ward that no money canoffer-the love and affection of your family, their trust in you, ahappy home and your own satisfaction.

    It is you who choose to be in thisoccupation, willingly or for any other reason. After a busy day, all wait to return to the comfortable home set by you.They know you will be there to absorb all their stress and tiredness and relaxthem. Would the life have been the same had you been working outside to earnsome money? Would you along with your family have been able to buy all thecontent in life that you are enjoying now with that money?

    Respect yourself for what you are. Introduce yourself to the world with the same dignity. The world understandsthe importance of your job; it's time to make them accept it. Introduceyourself with pride and with twinkle in your eyes "I am a housewife".Kick that "just" out.

    Because of the financial crisis in the US and UK, college students are beginning to struggle to find ways to pay their tuition fees and accommodations.

    Recently, two major US student loan (贷款) lenders, Citibank and JPMorgan Chase, announced they were leaving the student loan industry altogether. Because banks currently have a lack of credit, they are reluctant to offer students low-interest loans that need a several-year wait for any return of interest.

    In the US, many undergraduates fill up their financial needs with a private loan, although the majority can get government-funded loans. In the 2015-2016 academic year, $ 17 billion in private student loans was used to finance higher education. The lack of private funding has yet to be covered and will hit many US students hard.

    Across the Atlantic, UK students have been less troubled by the crisis. Most undergraduates in the UK cover their university expenses with government-funded loans and grants. Their biggest concern is a sudden increase in student rent.

    Most young professionals now rent houses, since 80 percent of UK mortgage schemes (按揭计划) have disappeared—a direct result of the credit crisis. This has boosted the house rent market.

    In large cities, UK students are paying almost 6.5 percent more in rent than the previous year. Figures from the UK organization Accommodation for Student show students in big cities such as London paying an average weekly rent of $ 203.

    Yet, despite students' suffering, the number of this year's university applications is expected to grow. During economic slumps, people regard further education as a way to survive tough job market.

    Mexico sites on an island plateau (高原) surrounded by volcanic peaks, which makes air quality a constant concern for people who live there.

    In April, the country took a decisive step toward improving air quality by enacting a temporary ban on private and Federal vehicles in the city. The rule forbids people from driving in the city one day each week and one Saturday each month. Electric vehicles, government service vehicles, public transport options and school buses are not included in the ban.

    Mexico City isn't the first urban center to be involved in car-free living. But the ban is more than an awareness-raiser. It was enacted with the direct aim of solving air pollution. In March, the city sank into a deep brown haze of smog when the pollution levels passed the 200 mark. The city ordered some 1.1m of the area's 4.7m cars off the streets and also offered free bus and subway rides.

    Mexico City's temporary vehicle ban raises questions about the best ways to improve urban air quality. India, whose citizens breathe some of the world's dirtiest air, has tried a variety of solutions. Earlier this year, the Indian government started a 4% sales tax on new-car purchases.

    Beijing also has experience with cleaning the air. The city introduced alternate-day rules in advance of the 2008 Olympic Games, which produced good results. And then there is the London congestion (拥挤) charge, introduced in 2003. The charge has had a measurable effect on air quality.

For now, Mexico City — named by the United Nations as the most polluted city on the planet in 1992 — can look forward to the start of the region's rainy season, when daily showers will help lo clean the air.

    Even now, almost a year after their astonishing act of group heroism, the dozens of people who risked their lives to save two boys from drowning in Panama City Beach, are still remembered.

    The story began on July 8, 2017. Members of the Ursrey family, eight in total, were enjoying an evening together at the beach. As the sun sank lower on the horizon（地平线）, the two boys—Noah, 11, and Stephen, 8—took their skateboards and walked into the waves without the grown-ups noticing. When the boys were about 70 yards from shore, they realized that the ocean pulled them out to sea. After trying and failing to paddle（涉水）back, they started waving and screaming for help. But the lifeguards had clocked out for the evening.

    The boys had been struggling for several minutes when Brittany and Tabatha Monroe, a married couple from Georgia, wandered by. They didn't see the boys at first, but they heard them.

    They jumped into the water and easily reached the brothers, who were still in fairly shallow water. The woman reassured the frightened boys and seized their skateboards, telling them they would be safe and then discovered that they, too, were now in a world of trouble. They couldn't get back to shore and could barely and only occasionally hit the sandy bottom with their feet. After a few minutes, it was clear to the woman that they were all trapped in a terrible whirlpool.

    Then scores of tourists were walking to them, hand in hand, forming a line. Soon the first person held the woman's hand. In turn, her husband and the two boys joined her. The long line moved slowly until they were back to the safety of the beach.

    The rescuers call it the Human Chain. But it was the deeply “human” aspect of the rescuers' cooperation（合作）that made it so astonishing and successful.

    In the four months since I last posted articles on my blog, I've been spending a lot of time studying Chinese. I wanted to pass the HSK. From the beginning of my program, the HSK was the end goal of my Chinese learning this year. Luckily, I passed it and now I have one and a half months to go home and stay with my family.

It's really exciting to learn Chinese in an environment where I can study very fast. What's more, I can see my own progress in different ways. When I got here eight and a half months ago, I only knew a few of the 150 words tested in the HSK 1.However, until now, I've taken and passed the 2500­word HSK 5.

    I remember a time around January. I thought my Chinese had reached the point where I was comfortable in my day­to­day conversations. So my progress would slow down greatly. However, it turned out that I was totally wrong. The conversations I can have now far surpass(超过) the ones I was having in January.

    Today I hit a language­learning landmark(里程碑) that was particularly exciting for me: I finished reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in Chinese. It might not seem that exciting, but it was for me because it's the first full book I've read in Chinese. And it's the third language I've read Harry Potter in. I'm especially proud because I spent about seven months reading the first 35 pages, but in the last month and a half, I managed to read about 150 pages. My next challenge is to read a novel written by a Chinese author, rather than one that I've already read many times in English!

    Hopefully, I'll be able to keep up my language­learning progress over the next month and a half, because I know I'll probably never have another opportunity to learn a language like this.

    Do you want to learn a new language？If you do, go to the country where people speak it and learn it from the locals.

    If your life were a book and you were the author, how would you want your story to go? That's the question that changed my life forever.

    At the age of 19, I became a massage therapist(治疗师). For the first time in my life, I felt free, independent and completely in control of my life. That is, until my life took a detour. I was diagnosed with bacterial meningitis. Over the course of two months, I lost my spleen(脾), my kidneys, and both of my legs below the knees.

    One day, I went home. I crawled into bed and this is what my life looked like for the next few months me passed out, escaping from reality, with my legs resting by my side. I was completely physically and emotionally broken. But I knew that in order to move forward, I had to let go of the old Amy and learn to embrace the new Amy. And that is when I began to realize that I didn't have to be small any more. I could be as tall as I wanted or as short as I wanted depending on whom I was dating. And if I snowboard again, my feet aren't going to get cold. And the best of all, I thought, I can make my feet the size of all the shoes that are on the sales shelf. And I did!

    I started snowboarding. Then I went back to work. And then I co-founded a non-profit organization for physical disabilities so that they could get involved in action sports. And just this past February, I won two World Cup gold medals, making me the highest-ranked adaptive female snowboarder in the world.

    Eleven years ago, when I lost my legs, I had no idea what to expect. But if you ask me today, if I would ever want to change my situation, I would have to say no, because my legs haven't disabled me. They've forced me to rely on my imagination and to believe in possibilities, and that's why I believe that our imaginations can be used as tools for breaking through borders, because in our minds, we can do anything and we can be anything. It's belief in those dreams and facing our fears directly that allow us to live our lives beyond our limits.