Have you ever noticed what happens to an idea once you express it?Just talking about it or writing it down causes you to make it clear in your own mind.How can you use this to increase your brain power?Start writing.

    By putting thoughts into words,you are telling yourself the logic behind what you think,feel,or only partly understand.Often,explaining a thought is the process of understanding.In other words,you increase your brain power by exercising your “explain power”.

    Another benefit of writing is that it helps you remember.Many,if not most,highly productive people are always taking notes.You can try keeping it all in your head,but if you keep a journal of your ideas,the next time you're working on a big project,you'll probably have more success.

    Want to understand a topic?Write a book about it.That's an extreme example,but if you are learning something new,write a letter to a friend about it,and you will understand it better.Want to invent something?Write an explanation of the problem—why you want to solve it,and why it is worth solving,and you're halfway there.

    Writers don't always write because they clearly understand something beforehand.Often,they write about something because they want to understand it.You can do the same.Writing will help bring you to an understanding. Give it a try.

    It's not easy to just get up and go if you're not a morning person. But with some preparation, you can have a great morning routine (常规) before school, which can also make for a good day.

    {#blank#}1{#/blank#} A great morning routine doesn't include cramming (突击式学习) for a test or struggling to get your homework done as you're running out of the door.

    Shower the night before. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} And if you can, do your hair the night before so when you wake up, you'll be able to freshen yourself quickly to get to school and get on with the day.

    Lay out your clothes. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} Make sure to lay out everything you need, including your socks and shoes. Another thing is hair. If your school has a preference (偏爱) of what you do with your hair, be sure to respect that.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} It helps in the morning if you have something in front of you to check off as you're walking out of the door. The list should include your homework, books and your lunch or lunch money as well as anything else you normally take with you to school.

    Eat a good breakfast. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}  Eating a healthy breakfast helps improve your focus and allows you to stay active in your classes. If you can, prepare your meal the night before. At the least, set out your spoons and plates.

A. Make a list of everything you will take.

B. Brush your teeth after you eat breakfast.

C. Get all your homework done before going to bed.

D. Check the weather forecast and choose your clothing.

E. A great morning routine should always include a good breakfast.

F. Don't hurry and make sure you have everything before you leave.

G. That helps you have a good sleep and save much time in the morning.

    Those who are used to looking through thousands of books in big bookstores may find Japan's Morioka Shoten a little strange. That's because this tiny bookstore that is located in Ginza, Tokyo sells only a single book at a time.

    Opened in May 2015, Morioka Shoten is the brainchild of Yoshiyuki Morioka. The experienced bookseller began his career as a bookstore clerk in Tokyo's Kanda district before branching out to open his own store. It was here while organizing book readings that he realized that customers usually came into the store with one title in mind. Morioka began to wonder if a store could exist by selling many copies of just one single book. In November 2014, he partnered with his two friends, to establish a unique bookstore with the idea of “A Single Room, A Single Book.”

    Like its offering, the bookstore is simple. The selections that are picked by Morioka change weekly and vary widely to attract customers with different interests. Recent choices include The True Deceiver, an award-winning Swedish novel by Tove Jansson, Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales, and a collection of artist Karl Blossfeldt's photography of plants. Morioka has also chosen books written by famous Japanese authors Mimei Ogawa and Akito Akagi.

    To highlight his only offering, Morioka often uses clever methods. For example，when selling a book about flowers, he decorated his shop with the ones that had been mentioned in the book. He also encourages authors to hold talks and discussions so they can connect with customers. Morioka says his goal is for the customers to experience being inside a book, not just a bookstore!

    Risky as the idea might seem, things appear to be going well. Morioka says he has sold over 2,100 books since he opened it. Things can get better considering that his bookstore is becoming increasingly popular not just among the locals but also visitors from other countries.

What's On?

Trouble in Mind

    Alice Childress won an Off-Broadway award in 1956 for this story of a black actress rehearsing a play with a white director who increasingly finds it impossible for the show to go on. Tanya Moodie and Joseph Marcell star in the play directed by Laurence Boswell.

8.30p.m. —10.30p.m, Theatre Royal. Box office: 01225 448844.

Lazarus

    Inspired by the sci-fi (science fiction) novel and movie, The Man Who Fell to Earth, this musical deals with a hero, Thomas Newton. Likely to be the autumn's hottest ticket, the score includes new songs composed by Bowie.

7.00p.m. — 9.00p.m., King's Cross theatre. Box office: 0844 871 7604.

The Gaul

    On the night of 8 February 1974, a fisherman FV Gaul disappeared off the coast of Norway. For people on board, waiting for news was great suffering. Theories began to come up, including the possibility that the boat had fallen victim to cold war. Even when he was discovered, many still felt there were questions that remained unanswered. Mark Babych directs Janet Plater's play.

8.00p.m. —11.00 p.m., Royal Shakespeare theatre. Box office: 01482 323638.

The Suppliant Women

    It is a new version of Aeschylus's 2,500-year-old play about a group of women seeking shelter who make the long journey to escape forced marriage. It was written by David Greig and directed by Ramin Gray. An ancient piece asks a contemporary question: when we are in trouble, who will open their doors and give us a harbor?

8.30p.m. —10.00p.m, Hampstead theatre. Box office: 0131 248 4848.

B

    Atlantic puffins（角嘴海雀）are specially used to living on the open sea. Their feathers allow them to stay warm as they float at the ocean's surface or swim underwater. Diving as deep as 60m, they swim by flapping their wings as if flying through the water. There, they hunt herring, capelin, and sand eels.

    Atlantic puffins are also excellent fliers. Flapping their wings at up to 400 beats per minute, puffins can reach speeds of 88km/h.

    April to mid-August is the breeding season for puffins. When a puffin is around three to five years old, it will choose a partner at sea to mate with for life. It is thought that the birds' colourful bills and feet, which fade in the winter and brighten in the spring, help puffins find their potential（可能的）mates.

    Puffins create shelter（庇护所）, about 90cm, in rocky cliffs either in the soil or between rocks. Often, couples will return to the same shelter year after year. At the back of the shelter, they build a nest lined with grasses, seaweed, and feathers. After the female lays a single egg, both parents take turns incubating（孵化）the egg for about 40 days.

    Once the chick hatches, the mother and father will take turns bringing it fish to eat several times a day. Atlantic puffins have the ability to carry several fish in their beaks at one time. The ridges（脊）at the top of their bill hold the fish in place, which allows puffins to keep their mouth open to catch more fish without losing any. In general, they can hold around ten fish in their beak at one time.

    In the wild, puffins can live around 20 years. Their main predator is the great black-backed gull, which can capture a puffin mid-flight or attack a puffin on the ground. Gulls are also a threat because they steal puffins' fish (sometimes right from their mouths), and they pull puffin chicks or eggs from their nests.

    In many developed countries, people who have high degrees begin to work longer than those who don't. About 65% of American men aged 62－74 with a professional degree are in the workforce (劳动人口), compared with 32% of men who only finish high school. This gap is part of a deepening divide between the well­educated wealthy and the unskilled poor. Rapid technological advance has raised the incomes of the highly skilled while squeezing those of the unskilled. The consequences, for individuals and society, are profound(意义深远的).

    The world is facing an astonishing rise in the number of old people, and they will live longer than ever before. Over the next 20 years the global population of those aged 65 or more will almost double, from 600 million to 1.1 billion. The experience of the 20th century, when greater longevity (长寿) translated into more years in retirement rather than more years at work, has persuaded many observers that this shift (变化) will lead to slower economic growth, while the swelling (渐增的) ranks of pensioners will create government budget problems.

    Policies are partly responsible. Many European governments have abandoned policies that used to encourage people to retire early. Even the better­off must work longer to have a comfortable retirement. But the changing nature of work also plays a big role. Pay has risen sharply for the highly educated, and those people continue to reap (获得) rich rewards into old age because these days the educated elderly are more productive than the preceding (先前的) generation. Technological change may well reinforce (强化) that shift: the skills that complement (补充) computers, from management know­how to creativity, do not necessarily decline with age.