Throughout the country there are festivals and special events celebrating winter at its fullest, including hockey and dog sled races, skating events and whatever season-inspired activity draws in the crowds.

    Rossland Winter Carnival late January

    Rossland, British Columbia (BC)

    Recognized as canada's longest-running winter carnival (狂欢), the Rossland Winter Carnival has been a popular event for over 116 years. Popular parts of this event include snow volleyball, a parade, and a kid's carnival.

Ice On Whyte Festival early January to early February

Edmonton, Alberta (AB)

    A popular event for more than decade,the Ice on Whyte Festival in Edmonton, is one of the top 10 events and festivals in Edmonton, Alberta. The festival features a wealth of ice carvings and creations along with 10 days of festival fun-from a giant ice slide, games, and ice carving lessons to live music, fashion, food, and culturally themed days and even a marketplace.

Fete des Neiges de Montreal mid January to early February

Montreal, Quebec (QC)

    Celebrating more than 30 years as a popular winter event, it offers all sorts of fun involving everything from snow to ice on three nonstop weekends at the beginning of the year. Highlights include 15 snow slopes for breathtaking tube sliding, dog sledding, and even addictive dancing at the disco-themed La Bouletheque.

    Winterpride end January to early Februar Whistler,

    British Columbia (BC)

    The 26th Whistler Pride will be filled with celebration of annual events with adventurous winter activities including ski and snowboard touring, snowmobile trips, and snowshoe adventures, dog-sledding through the Callahan Valley,and back-country ventures, as well as featuring nightlife highlights of drag shows, as well as wine-tastings, fine dining and even comedy shows.

A

    In no particular order, here are some songs on the Music app of my phone:

On a Sunday Afternoon by Lighter Shade of Brown— A student of mine introduced this rap song to me all the way back in the early 1990s, when I was teaching Spanish at a local university. The story in the song takes place not too far from where I live in Los Angeles. It's a good "driving" song, nothing difficult or "deep".

Say Something by A Great Big World—A more recent song about a couple losing contact with each other. The piano part is of very little playing but beautiful.

    The Weight by The Band — Another old song, originally made public in 1968, but one I didn't hear until I was in high school more than 10 years later. I don't understand the words to the song completely, but the feeling of the song is very comforting to me.

Under the Bridge by Red Hot Chili Peppers — This Los Angeles group wrote a song that I used to listen to when I first moved to LA more than 25 years ago. I didn't know anyone here when I first arrived. When I got bored, I used to drive up and down the major streets that cross the city from east to west, listening to this song about t4the city of angels" being as "lonely as I am" (Don't worry. I have plenty of friends now.)

    A Canadian man is asking forgiveness for a birdbrained thing he did 17 years ago: inadvertently（无心地） encouraging seagulls to trash his hotel room.

    Back in 2001, Burchill checked into the Fairmont Empress Hotel in Victoria, B.C, for a business meeting. He brought a small suitcase full of Brothers Pepperoni from his hometown to share with former Navy buddies in the area. But his room had no fridge so he opened a window to keep it cool. And then he went for a long walk. That was when things got messy. Really messy. The result was such a housekeeping nightmare that the hotel permanently banned him.

    “I remember walking down the long hall and opening the door to my room to find an entire flock of seagulls in my room. There must have been 40 of them and they had been eating pepperoni for a long time.” Burchill said.

    When he walked into the room, Burchill recalled he frightened the birds. They “immediately started flying around and crashing into things as they desperately tried to leave the room.” The result was a tornado of seagull feathers, pepperoni chunks and fairly large birds whipping around the room. The lamps were     falling. The curtains were trashed. The coffee tray was just disgusting.

    Eventually, Burchill called the front desk and requested help cleaning up the room. “I can still remember the look on the lady's face when she opened the door. ”said Burchill. A short time later, he received a note from the hotel saying he'd been banned for life.

    Recently, Burchill visited the hotel to apologize in person, in hope of making amends with the woman who had to clean the seagull-and-pepperoni-trashed room, but was told she was no longer there.

    “When I was talking to the people at the desk and the manager, they did say that they had heard this story from a long-term employee that works there,” said Burchill, “I was just kind of in and out. I didn't     want to overstay my welcome.” So he apologized and was forgiven. Burchill left them a present of about a pound of Brothers Pepperoni as a peace offering. It seemed to have worked.

    Conflict resolution is a peaceful way of trying to solve a conflict with resolution. Both sides in the conflict explain what they feel happened to cause the conflict. The person who listens to both sides is called the mediator（调解人）.

    After both sides state what they think happened to cause the conflict, they discuss ways to solve the conflict. They try to come up with a "resolution" that both sides agree to.

    Communication throughout the entire conflict resolution process is always exchanged in a calm manner without anger. Everyone attempts to use good listening and attending skills while people are talking.

    If voices get too loud or it appears that someone is angry, the mediator's role is to address this and have the people treat each other with respect.

    After various suggestions are shared in how to mediate the conflict, discussion centers on the best   solution. Conflict resolution is used in many environments to help solve disagreements in a peaceful way. This is an example of how conflict resolution works in a school playground setting:

    Someone says that a student pushed them on the soccer field.

    The person accused as the "pusher" claims it was an accident.

    The mediator takes the two people who are upset somewhere in a quieter spot and talk.

    Each person describes what happened, and the mediator makes the matter clear to everyone by repeating what he heard.

    The mediator asks for ideas to solve the problem and the two individuals（个体）offer solutions.

    The individuals discuss the solutions and come to some agreement on the solution.

    Conflict resolution can work in many settings and it can work with several individuals at once. In any event, it is worth trying to get at the heart of the matter by involving the individuals who have a concern. It encourages them to analyze what really happened, to share their feelings about the conflict, and to work together peacefully to solve the problem. Conflict resolution gives those involved a structure（框架）to use with a mediator to help reach an agreement. That is to say, it allows people to see a workable framework.

    For decades, research has shown that children's book not only provide great pleasure to readers , but they can also play an important role in children's academic（学业上的）and social success. In 1974, researchers reported that sixth-grade children who had been read to form an early age developed into better readers and valued reading more than did sixth graders who had not been to, and they expected to continue reading throughout their lives. Others have determined that the more time children spend reading literature（文学作品）, the better their reading and writing abilities become. Significant increases have been found in young children's comprehension and vocabulary skills, their understanding of sentence structure and story structure as a result of their being read to form an early age, either at home or in school. Children who have access to literature and stories in their homes have been found to learn to read more quickly, and have better attitudes toward reading. Teachers who provide time for continuous silent reading, who share books and discuss book authors with children during the school day, positively those children's reading outside school. And the National Assessment of Educational Progress that children who frequently read for enjoyment out of school are better readers.

    Because children's literature is so valuable to children, it should also be valuable to their teacher. And so it's unfortunate that something that can play such an important role in children's lives is often moved into a less than important role teacher education.

    This article discusses three important issues about the position of children's literature in teacher﹣preparation programs. They are：⑴Respect for children's literature content in teacher education. ⑵The value of children's literature as a powerful educational tool. ⑶Children's literature as an important literary form.

    2.26-meter-tall Yao Ming made his NBA debut (初次登台) on October 23, 2002 and got 6 points for the Houston Rockets in the game. The next day, he got 13 points in another game.

    Most people think that Yao Ming is a born basketball player. But Yao said, "When you watch it on TV, it looks very easy. But when you are playing in the NBA, it is really not so easy." He said that joining the Houston Rockets was a new start and a new challenge. "I hope that through very hard work I can make everyone happy and help the Rockets win more games," he said. Yao Ming speaks some English. Both he and his teammates can understand each other. They don't think there is a language problem. While Yao Ming faces this new challenge, the people of Houston have shown great interest in him and they hope Yao Ming will bring new energy to the Rockets. The team has started having lessons to learn more about China, and many people who work for the Rockets have learned to speak some Chinese.