It was the men's figure skating final of the Winter Olympics when I was 16.I lay on our living room floor excitedly watching the battle between the Brains: American Brain Boitano facing Brian Orser in Canada. Both of them had been world champions. Both of them deserved to win. As a Northern Californian, I was for my fellow countryman. He also grew up in Northern California. We'd skated on the same ice. Brain performed successfully. The champion! I jumped in the air when his score went up.

    But what happened next is what I'll never forget. Brain sat in front of the camera, surrounded by a group of journalists. Brain was talking about his career and his medal, talking to the whole world. A terrible sinking feeling went through me. I could never be in the Olympics,

    I thought, I loved skating because I could express myself with my jumps and dances better than words.

    What if journalists asked me questions like they asked Brain? I'd freeze up like the ice beneath my skates! And yet, there was so much I would love to say, about my family and all the support they'd given me and about following my dream of being a skating champion.

    I worked very hard the next few years — on the ice and especially off. After journalists talked to me and although my heart pounded every time I spoke to them, I got to know them. And they got to know me. Slowly I learned that the best approach was simply to be myself, to be honest and gracious and do my best, just like on the ice, to answer their questions.

    So when my big moment came four years after Brain's, I was ready. Remember: when you do the thing you fear most, you put an end to fear.

    This player is neither the answer to Bafana Bafana's goal-scoring problem, nor holds any hope of being in the national team for the World Cup. But Mmane Koko trains every morning and is now used to playing soccer. She said, 'Before I can do my domestic(家庭的) jobs, I go to train every morning. This helps me keep my body healthy. I started exercising after my doctor told me that exercising can keep my body healthy.'

    Mmane Koko, aged 66, said if she had been exposed to soccer at an earlier age, she would have become a top South African striker and could have stolen the limelight from Noko Matlou, who helped South Africa achieve its best ever result in the African women's soccer cup. She encourages young people to start playing sports early and to continue into their old age as it helps to lower blood pressure and prevent obesity(肥胖症).

    She added that because soccer is not only about exercising, but also helps one to put bread on the table, it could make a difference socially. She also says soccer is a business and that clubs these days pay generously. Therefore if the young take sports seriously, they can make a living out of it. But this can only happen if our government participate in developing sports and building stadiums for future generations.

    Exercise does us a lot of good as Mmane Koko says. We can live longer and feel better through exercise. It gives us energy surprisingly enough! Regular exercise reduces our risk of all kinds of disease. It can help us relieve stress and anxiety, increase our endurance(耐力) and sleep better. Exercise can contribute to our mental well-being and helps treat depression. So if you want to stay fit, keep on exercising to keep your body healthy.

    If you want to become a fluent English speaker you should take some advice. There are four skills in learning English. They are reading, listening, speaking, and writing. The most important thing you must remember is that if you want to improve your speaking and writing skills, you should first master the skills of reading and listening.

    Read as much as you can. But your reading must be active. It means that you must think about the meaning of the sentence, the meaning of the unfamiliar(不熟悉) words, etc. There is no need for you to pay much attention to grammars or try to understand all the unfamiliar words you come across, but the fact that you see them for the first time and recognize them whenever you see them, for example, in other passages or books, is enough. It would be better to prepare yourself a notebook so you can write down the important words or sentences in it.

    As for listening, there are two choices: besides reading, you can listen every day for about 30 minutes. You can only pay attention to your reading and become skillful at your reading, then you can catch up on your listening. Since you have lots of inputs in your mind, you can easily guess what the speaker is going to say. This never means that you should not practice listening.

    For listening you can listen to cartoons or some movies that are specially made for children. Their languages are easy. Or if you are good at listening you can listen to VOA or BBC programs every day. Again the thing to remember is being active in listening and preferably taking some notes.

    If you follow these pieces of advice, your speaking and writing will improve quickly, and you can be a fluent English speaker one day.

    The Workshops Rail Museum

    Summer 2018-2019 Events

    Steam Train Sunday

    Sunday 2 December 2018

    10:15 am

    Travel back in time on a historic steam train.

    1-hour trip starts and returns to Roma Street station.

    Book early as these trips will set out.

    Book now at theworkshops.qm.qld.gov.au.

    Adults $29; concession(优惠) $26; children $16.

    Christmas Express

    Saturday 8 December 2018

    10 am

    Catch the Christmas spirit with a festival return steam train journey to historic Grandchester station. This 2.5-hour trip starts and returns to the Workshops Rail Museum.

    Add museum entry and make it a full day out.

    Book early as this trip will sell out.

    Book now at theworkshops.qm.qld.gov.au.

    Adults $55; concession $49; children $40.

    Museum Twilight Markets

    Friday 14 December 2018

    5 pm-9 pm

    Combining southeast Queensland's best handmade markets, food trucks, and live music, this is an event not to be missed.

    Entry $2; children under 15 years are free and must be accompanied by an adult.

    Museum Torchlight Tours $ 10; children under 15 years must be accompanied by an adult.

    Buy tickets at the door.

    Mephisto On Display Now

    See Mephisto, the only surviving German Sturmpanzerwagen A7V tank in the world. Recently returned from the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, see this beloved war tank while protection work is being done.

    Included in museum entry.

    Contact us

    North Street, North Ipswich

    Phone: (07)34325100

    Opening hours

    9:30 am to 4 pm daily

    Closed Good Friday, Anzac Day, Christmas Day and Boxing Day

    Tickets

    Entry                   Annual pass(年票)

    Adult                           $14.50                   $37

    Concession (with a

    Concession card)                  $12.50                   $32

    Child (ages 3-15)                  $11.50                   $24

    Child (under 3)                    Free                     Free

    Family                           $44.50                   $99

    2 adults and              2 adults and up to

    4 children                2 children

    For all the technological wonders of modem medicine, health care-with its fax machines and clipboards (写字板) —is out of date. This outdated era is slowly drawing to a close as the industry catches up with the artificial-intelligence (AI) revolution.

    Eric Topol, an expert in heart disease and enthusiast for digital medicine, thinks AI will be particularly useful for such tasks as examining images, observing heart traces for abnormalities or turning doctors' words into patient records. It will be able to use masses of data to work out the best treatments, and improve workflows in hospitals. In short, AI is set to save time, lives and money.

    The fear some people have is that AI will be used to deepen the assembly-line culture of modem medicine. If it gives a "gift of time" to doctors, they argue that this bonus should be used to extend consultations, rather than simply speeding through them more efficiently.

    That is a fine idea, but as health swallows an ever-bigger share of national wealth, greater efficiency is exactly what is needed, at least so far as governments and insurers are concerned. Otherwise, rich societies may fail to cope with the needs of ageing and growing populations. An extra five minutes spent chatting with a patient is costly as well as valuable. The AI revolution will also enable managerial accountants to adjust and evaluate every aspect of treatment. The autonomy of the doctor will surely be weakened, especially, perhaps, in public-health systems which are duty-bound to cut unnecessary costs.

    The Hippocratic Oath (誓言) holds that there is an art to medicine as well as a science and that "warmth, sympathy and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug". There's lots of sense in it: the patients of sympathetic physicians have been shown to recover better. Yet as the supply of human carers fails to satisfy the demand for health care, the future may involve consultations on smartphones and measurements monitored by chatbots. The considerately warmed stethoscope (听诊器), placed gently on a patient's back, may become a relic of the past.

When David Carter started to study art at The University of Texas (UT) at Austin in 1971, he had big dreams of becoming an artist or a writer. But his study came to a stop at 23 after he hurt his hand in an unpleasant event. He developed schizophrenia(精神分裂症) later and spent many years without a home.

Carter liked to spend time around UT, because he dreamt of being able to continue his study in the university and becoming a writer. After running into Carter many times, UT student Ryan Chandler decided to interview him for a project for the Daily Texan, the student newspaper of UT.

"I interviewed him on Austin's homeless problems. After I heard his story, we kept in touch and really became friends. I learned he wanted to get back to UT, so I decided to help him," said Chandler. "He had got 87 hours, very close to a degree. Now, with changing degree requirements, he only has 64 hours to go."

With the help of Chandler, who worked with the university office, Carter was assigned an adviser by UT's College of Fine Arts. "It' s the greatest gift I've ever received," Carter said. "He did what had to be done to get me back to school, and I couldn't have done it without him"

After seeing a magazine article about Carter, a UT schoolmate decided to pay his tuition fees (学费)without telling Chandler his name.

Doug Dempster, dean of the College of Fine Arts, said in a statement, "David Carter's decision to complete his degree is a testament (证明) to finishing well what was started, and stopped, even many years earlier. We welcome him back as we do many students each year whose education could not be completed easily. We're going to help him through his remaining course work."