A life coach is somebody who helps you reach all kinds of personal and professional goals （目标） ．Each of us has the ability to be our own life coach．Here are some tips for you:

♦ Pay attention to your relationships with others

    Ask yourself the following questions: How do you deal with disagreements? When was the last time you showed your family members that you care for them? Your relationships with friends, family members and teachers show a lot about the kind of person you are.

♦ Face the fears about the future

    Now, imagine that one of your good friends told you that he or she was not strong enough to go back to school． We often give better advice than we are willing to take ourselves．Remember that even the most successful people were probably told that what they wanted to do was impossible, but they followed their dreams and succeed.

♦ Develop your talents

    If you want to reach your goals, you will have to spend more time developing the talents you already have, and uncovering any hidden talents that you haven't discovered yet．So you can take classes in subjects that you are interested in, even if you have no experience.

♦ Be thankful

    Take some time to be thankful for the things you do have．Remember positive memories. Think of the best day（s） you have had in the past month or year．Remember special parties, vacations and holidays．Appreciate the wonderful people you have in your life.

    People in the United States have many ways to get news, some of which are available 24 hours a day. In a recent survey（调查）, about 15 percent of American interviewees said that they spend less than one-half to two hours per day watching, listening to, or reading the news. News comes from every source, not only from printed ways, but from TV, radio, and the Internet as well.

    With the increased availability of news, serious questions have been raised about the role of the news media in society. Should the media report every detail about every story, even when the information does not seem timely or valuable? Some researchers are concerned that by focusing on everything at once, the media increasingly ignore the more important social, political and economic problems that we face. We cannot concentrate on what's important by reading about what is not. One extreme example of this is the type of information covered by the tabloid（小报）media, which focus on negative stories of violence and crime.

    How can people deal with all the news that is available to them? Some become “news resisters” and choose to turn their backs on news, resisting their desire to turn on the TV and read the paper every day. They argue that although daily news reports may provide us with many facts, they do not include the background or some information that we need to understand news events. They suggest that, instead of daily reports, we look for information that has more in-depth analysis of the news, such as monthly magazines.

    Today is a perfect day that can leave you with good memories you may someday share with your friends. Here's how:

    {#blank#}1{#/blank#} You can see or do something a million times, but you can only see or do it for the first time once. As a result, first time experiences usually leave a deep mark in our minds for the rest of our lives. So try to experience something different and you'll have more memories.

    Work on something that's great to you.{#blank#}2{#/blank#} Life is short. Today is the day to take action. Smile and notice what's right. Everything that happens in life is neither good nor bad.{#blank#}3{#/blank#} And no matter how it turns out, it always ends up just the way it should. Either you succeed or you learn something.

    Be true to yourself. The only shoes you can wear are your own. If you aren't being yourself. You aren't truly living.{#blank#}4{#/blank#}

    Make a new friend. People are interesting creatures, and no two people arc exactly alike.{#blank#}5{#/blank#}Find out what makes them different. They'll likely open your eyes to wonderful ideas. And you never know, they just might change your life.

Be present. Be here now. Remember, right now is the only dear moment to you. Right now is life. Don't miss it.

A. Learn a new skill.

B. Try something new.

C. It just depends on your opinion.

D. So meet someone new today.

E. And in fact, you're only existing.

F. Pay close attention to what you're doing.

G. Make yourself busy with something meaningful.

    Every summer, hundreds of thousands of students travel to other countries looking for work and adventure. Most of the opportunities are in seasonal work, mainly connected with tourism and agriculture. The pay is usually poor, but most people work abroad for the thrill of travel. You can pick grapes in France, work on a family campsite, entertain kids on American summer camps, and of course, there are always jobs in hotels and restaurants.

    But it is not as easy as it used to be to find work. "Unless you speak the language of the country will, there will be very few openings." Says Anthea Ellis, an adviser on vacation work for students. "If you work as a nanny with a family in Italy, then of course you'll have to speak Italian. When you arrive to wash dishes in a restaurant in Paris, the owner will expect you to speak French."

    Not everyone enjoys the experience. Sarah James was an assistant responsible for a summer camp group of forty America children in Europe. One child lost his passport; another became seriously ill and was flown home; four children were lost in Madrid for a whole day; the whole group was thrown out of one hotel because of the noise they made. "I did visit a lot of new places," she says, "but it wasn't worth it. The pay was awful and really was a 24-hour-a-day job. The kids never slept!"

    "The trouble is, students expect to have an easy time of it," Anthea Ellis points out. "After all, they see it as a holiday. In practice, though, you have to work hard. At the same time, all vacation work is casual work. You'll have a job when the hotel, the restaurant, or the campsite is busy and you have few employment rights. As soon as the holiday season finished, they'll get rid of you. If you don't work hard, or if your employer doesn't like you, you'll get fired."

注意：每个空格只填1个单词。

    The 17^th-century French tragedian Pierre Corneille wrote: The manner of giving is worth more than the gift”. He had a point, according to Charles Spence, head of Crossmodal Research Laboratory at the University of Oxford.

    The professor's work focuses on how our brains sense the world around us. His research has shown that high-frequency sounds and curved shapes seem to increase the sweetness wine tastes better if it is accompanied by the popping sound of a cork and drunk from all these created multisensory experiences.

    So, what's his advice if you want to impress this holiday season?

Bulk it up hide

    “We've just published research on eating a box of chocolates，” Mr Spence said. “If you are 30-gram weight in a box of chocolates, that weight translates to a significant increase perceived(感知)quality of the chocolate.”

    There are exceptions, but the association between weight and the perception of luxury(奢侈)applies to many items including tableware， perfume(香水)and wine， Mr. Spence said. “That's why in a restaurant， a waiter might artfully give you the bottle to weigh in your hand,” he added.

    Black is basic

    Black is the color most associated with luxury because, Mr. Spence said ，“it seems to be the color that we perceive to be the heaviest.”

    Such luxury indications are learned, rather than inborn, so they can change over time. I'm doing a lot of work on transparency(透明) at the moment; high-quality packaged goods should have a transparent window because it suggests freshness or quality,” he said.

    But the trend is recent， the professor added, because “traditionally luxury goods used to have nontransparent packaging. I think it has to do with the current desire for originality.”

    Layer it on

    Unnecessary wrapping(包裹)can be an ecological concern but, when it comes to luxury goods like wine in a presentation case, it does make an impression.

    “Tissue layers are really good,” Mr. Spence said， “because the crinkle adds an extra sense to the experience.”

    Consider a little perfume in the box or wrapping, and, if you want to involve other senses, work out some way for classical music to be playing when the gift is opened because we associate it with quality.

    Engaging several senses at once is beneficial.“ The brain combines the inputs from each sense, both to determine what something is, but also to determine a reward value,”Mr. Spence said. Also, the more stimuli(刺激)to the senses， the more activity is produced in the orbitofrontal cortex, a small part of brain situated just beside the eyes. And the more activity there, the more rewarding something is perceived to be.

    You can go too far

    “Engaging an extra sense is more effective, but you can potentially have a disagreement if that extra sense doesn't match the others.” the professor said.