A couple of weeks ago, a few friends and I had an opportunity to attend a dear friend's wedding in New York. After the wedding and reception, rather accidentally four of us gathered in a hotel room and began to explore the deeper meaning of life and death. What does it mean to live truly? If we are all getting closer to death, is all the material accumulation worth it? It is not exactly the type of conversations one has at a wedding.

    While the answers varied from person to person, I was left with more questions than answers and a feeling of gratefulness to be surrounded by friends who were asking the “right” questions. As the clock kept ticking past 3 a.m., one of the roommates suggested we watch a short film titled “Last Days of Zach Sobiech”. The film is about a teenager's journey through the last days of his incurable illness. The film brought up a lot of mixed emotions but one quote that stood out for me was Zach's simple explanation of happiness, “What makes one happy is seeing someone else smile because you put it there.” By 4 a.m. , there was this energy in the room that had to be shared! With a few packages of post-it notes, we hit the halls of the hotel. We decided to leave short inspirational words on guests' doors, so when they opened their doors few hours later a smile would turn up.

    We ended up sticking post-it notes on all the doors until we ran out of them. The note on the door of the newly-weds properly said, “Where there is love, there is life.”

    In areas like the Central United States that get lots of tornadoes, there^'s a common piece of celestial （天上的）fortune-telling that green skies mean a tornado is on its way. Research has shown that it isn^'t quite as simple as that, but scientists have found that if you see a green sky, you should probably go inside. As far as most scientists can tell, the green skies around powerful thunderstorms are usually a combination of red sunsets and water droplets.

    Daytime skies are blue because blue shorter wavelengths of visible light tend to bounce off （反射）air molecules better than red longer wavelength light. So the blue light gets bounced all over the sky and looks like it's coming from everywhere. Meanwhile, around sunset sunlight travels through so much atmosphere that just about all the blue is bounced away from the horizon, leaving all those reds and oranges behind. The sunset might look exclusively （独有的）red and orange, but there's still some green and even blue light hidden in there, just far less than the other colors. But for us to notice the remaining green light, it needs to hit something that reflects green light much better than red. That's where water comes in.

    Big tall threatening storm clouds are made of water droplets, and even though water is best at reflecting blue light, it can still reflect green pretty well, much better than reds and oranges, so under just the right conditions, the water in and around a cloud can bounce the green light hidden in the sunset right into our eyes making the sky look green.

    Still, none of the conditions that can turn skies green are unique to the clouds that produce tornadoes. Sometimes they just lead to lots of rain, and maybe some hail. So if you see huge storm clouds rolling in and a green tint （色调）in the sky, it doesn't necessarily mean there^'s about to be a tornado, but it does mean you should probably head indoors.

    I was shopping in the supermarket when I heard a young voice.

    "Mom, come here！There's this lady here my size！"

    The mother rushed to her son；then she turned to me to apologize. I smiled and told her, "It's okay."

    Then I talked to the boy, "Hi, I'm Darryl Kramer. How are you?"

    He studied me from head to toe，and asked, "Are you a little mommy？"

    "Yes, I have a son," I answered.

    "Why are you so little？" he asked. "It's the way I was born," I said. "Some people are little. Some are tall. I'm just not going to grow any bigger." After I answered his other questions, I shook the boy's hand and left.

    My life as a little person is filled with stories like that. I enjoy talking to children and explaining why I look different from their parents.

    It takes only one glance to see my uniqueness. I stand three feet nine inches tall. I was born an achondroplasia dwarf(侏儒). Despite this, I did all the things other kids did when I was growing up.

    I didn't realize how short I was until I started school. Some kids joked on me, calling me dwarsf. Then I knew. I began to hate the first day of school each year. New students would always stare at me as I struggled to climb the school bus stairs.

    But I learned to smile and accept the fact that I was going to be noticed my whole life. I decided to make my uniqueness an advantage rather than a disadvantage. What I lacked in height, I made up for in personality.

    I'm 47 now, and the stares have not diminished as I've grown older. People are amazed when they see me driving. I try to keep a good attitude. When people are rude, I remind myself, "Look what else I have－a great family, nice friends. "

    It's the children's questions that make my life special. I enjoy answering their questions. My hope is that I will encourage them to accept their peers(a person of the same age, class, position, etc.), whatever size and shape they come in, and treat them with respect.

    People in Japan tend to live longer and stay healthier in their later years, with an increasing number of old people living alone. Japan is on a fast track to "ultra-age" with people aged 65 or above accounting for 28 percent of its total population in 2019；it was 26.7 percent in 2017. On the other hand, the number of births in 2019 fell to its lowest (about 941,000) since records began in 1899.

    Demand for care services for elderly people has increased. A shrinking (缩小) working population means fewer able-bodied adults are available to look after the elderly. State-provided facilities for the elderly are not enough which causes elderly people to turn to private ones but they are expensive.

    The country will be short of 380,000 of health nurses by 2025. The government has to turn to advanced robots to meet the shortage. A study found that using robots encouraged one third of the people to become more active and independent. Yet there is no robot that can provide the emotional support to the elderly.

    Japan provides a case study for China, which is also faced with a fast aging population. 17.23 million babies were born in China in 2019, about 630,000 fewer than in 2018. People aged 60 accounted for 17.3 of China's population in 2019. With a shortage of elderly care facilities and unbalanced supply, China may find it hard to deal with the rapidly increasing number of senior citizens.

    To meet the challenge, the Chinese government should make policy changes, which Japan is unwilling or unable to do or even consider. China should pay attention to the signals its aging population is sending and take proper and timely action.

The famous Spanish painter Pablo Picasso once said, "I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it." It strikes a chord(引起共鸣) with me because that's exactly what I have been doing these years.

One of my earliest memories of doing before learning is baking scones(烤饼) when I was about 10 years old. I wanted to bake them to surprise my mother when she returned home.

Before that, I'd observed how my mother baked them many times. As I started to try, I didn't know I shouldn't handle the dough(面团) with my hands too much once I'd added the baking powder(发酵粉). However, I knew exactly how to roll out the dough and use a cookie cutter to cut the scones, because my mom had already taught me.

By the time my mom arrived home, the smell of freshly baked scones welcomed her into the kitchen. They were close to perfection—flat, as a result of overhandling the dough, but they tasted OK. My mom sweetly praised me for my attempt, rather than scolding me for the state of the kitchen, which was like a tornado had just blown!

Have my attempts always been successful? I wish! Some of my kitchen disasters were so terrible that even the dogs wanted nothing to do with them. My gardening failures didn't live to see another season.

But my habit of doing before learning is still helpful. Whatever new software I have to learn how to use, I do so by simply starting to use it. I do, learn, and improve. So if you ask me whether I regret that I tend to do first and learn later, I'd say I don't, because what I have discovered from those is the wisdom to know when it's OK to do and then learn, and when it's probably better to learn and then do!

Thanks to the evolution of technology, the learning-centred mobile apps can help maintain learning even outside the classrooms and make the learning activities more efficient.

Study Blue

With Study Blue, teachers can create flashcards and interactive sessions. Meanwhile, you can view the study materials anywhere anytime and share flashcards with your teacher & classmates in real time.

App Features

• Unlimited access to over 500 million study materials.

• Quizzes to track your study process.

• Set reminders on bookmarked contents.

Ratings: 4.4/5 Users: 1,000,000+ Download: Android, iOS

TED

TED helps educators to bring out a colorful classroom and prepare unique lecture presentations. Thousands of sessions by experts can help you to get knowledge & topics to discuss in classrooms.

App Features

• TED talk videos with subtitles (字幕).

• Discover interesting lectures.

• Playing is possible with no Internet connection.

Ratings: 4.6/5 Users: 10,000,000+ Download: Android, iOS

Quizzes

Quizzes make your study more interesting. There are millions of teacher-created quizzes on Quizizz and you can compete with friends online. Teachers can make the whole class play together and assign individual homework.

App Features

• Customized games for individuals.

• Track & get timely progress reports.

• Teachers are the quiz masters.

Ratings: 4.8/5 Users: 1,000,000+ Download: Android, iOS

Pocket

Pocket is a solution to learning lectures on the go. You can instantly save articles or video content for improving your classroom studies. Teachers can communicate with students and parents virtually.

App Features

• Dark-colored themes for night use.

• Multi-language support.

• Access to saved articles without the Internet.

Ratings: 4.6/5 Users: 10,000,000+ Download: Android, iOS