My parents knew their wealth: each other, their six children, and their faith. They tried to live simple lives so that they could have time for what was most important.

    They didn't busy themselves buying a bigger house, because that would mean working harder to pay the monthly mortgage(按揭贷款), working overtime or taking a second job. Who would go running with me then? Who would read stories to me?

    They didn't burden themselves with buying an expensive car because that would mean worrying about installment(分期付款) bills. Besides, walking to the shopping centre every Saturday afternoon with me gave my dad his needed exercise, and made me feel so special.

    One of my heart's delights was seeing Dad and Mom in their bedroom at night, after our nightly family prayer. The lights were turned off, and I'd see the figure of my father seated on his old chair and Mom standing behind him, gently massaging his shoulders. I'd hear them talk about what happened during their day. Even as a child, I sensed their quiet pleasure in being together.

    My question today: Could they have done this rich practice each night and nourished(滋润) their marriage if they had been busy paying for expensive clothes for themselves or their kids, or if they had been worrying about monthly bills for new hi-tech equipment? I don't think so. And I've made a choice: I don't want that of life either.

    It is widely known that any English conversation begins with The Weather. Such a fixation with the weather finds expression in Dr. Johnson's famous comment that “When two English meet, their first talk is of weather.” Though Johnson's observation is as accurate now as it was over two hundred years ago, most commentators fail to come up with a convincing explanation for this English weather-speak.

    Bill Bryson, for example, concludes that, as the English weather is not at all exciting, the obsession with it can hardly be understood. He argues that “To an outsider, the most striking thing about the English weather is that there is not very much of it.” Simply, the reason is that the unusual and unpredictable weather is almost unknown in the British Isles.

    Jeremy Paxman, however, disagrees with Bryson, arguing that the English weather is by nature attractive. Bryson is wrong, he says, because the English preference for the weather has nothing to do with the natural phenomena. “The interest is less in the phenomena themselves, but in uncertainty.” According to him, the weather in England is very changeable and uncertain and it attracts the English as well as the outsider.

    Bryson and Paxman stand for common misconceptions about the weather-speak among the English. Both commentators, somehow, are missing the point. The English weather conversation is not really about the weather at all. English weather-speak is a system of signs, which is developed to help the speakers overcome the natural reserve and actually talk to each other. Everyone knows conversations starting with weather-speak are not requests for weather data. Rather, they are routine greetings, conversation starters or the blank “fillers”. In other words, English weather-speak is a means of social bonding.

    The baby is just one day old and has not yet left hospital. She is quiet but alert (警觉的). Twenty centimeters from her face researchers have placed a white card with two black spots on it. She stares at it carefully. A researcher removes the card and replaces it by another, this time with the spots differently spaced. As the cards change from one to the other, her gaze(凝视) starts to lose its focus—until a third, with three black spots, is presented. Her gaze returns: she looks at it for twice as long as she did at the previous card. Can she tell that the number two is different from three, just 24 hours after coming into the world?

    Or do newborns simply prefer more to fewer? The same experiment, but with three spots shown before two, shows the same return of interest when the number of spots changes. Perhaps it is just the newness? When slightly older babies were shown cards with pictures of objects (a comb, a key, an orange and so on), changing the number of objects had an effect separate from changing the objects themselves. Could it be the pattern that two things make, as opposed to three? No again. Babies paid more attention to squares moving randomly(随意地)on a screen when their number changed from two to three, or three to two. The effect even crosses between senses. Babies who were repeatedly shown two spots became more excited when they then heard three drumbeats than when they heard just two; likewise(同样地) when the researchers started with drumbeats and moved to spots.

    Imagine yourself on a boat looking out at the horizon and all you can see is the water meeting the sky with no land in sight and you are sailing straight ahead to meet the world. Jesse Martin does not have to imagine: he is living in it.

    On Dec. 7, 1998, at 17 years old, Jesse set sail from Melbourne, Australia on his boat, attempting to become the youngest person to sail alone and nonstop around the world. He sailed south of New Zealand, through the South Pacific, around South America, north on the Atlantic, back south past Africa, through the Indian Ocean and back to Melbourne. Even as a young child, Jesse had been an adventurer who traveled all over Europe and Asia with his parents. Born in Munich, Germany in 1981, he moved to Australia with his family when he was only two years old. They moved close to a rainforest in Cow Bay, about 3, 500kms north of Melbourne, where they built a small house with no electricity or running water. Jesse grew up at the beach enjoying the outdoors to its fullest. At 14, he sailed for the first time with his father and brother, Beau. It was after this trip that he began to dream about sailing around the world.

    Jesse's family played an important role. "I was made to believe I could do anything, although there were others that were not so encouraging or supportive" he says. "People that I looked up to, respected and trusted told me I couldn't. Thankfully, I trusted myself. There were people that said that the boat couldn't be ready by the time I had to leave." However, through perseverance (坚持不懈) and belief in himself, he was able to do what many told him was impossible.

    On Oct.31, 1999, more than 10 months after he set sail, Jesse Martin went down in history as the youngest person to sail around the world alone, nonstop and unassisted.

    In Mexico, girls mark their fifteenth birthday with a celebration called Quinceanera. In the morning, the birthday girl goes to the church with her family and her best friends. She wears a beautiful dress. Later in the day, there is a huge party, with a big cake that matches the girl's dress, and a night filled with music and dancing.

    Becoming an adult is a very important life change, and Japan has a special holiday to celebrate this. The second Sunday in January is Coming-of-Age Day. On that day, everyone who had their twentieth birthday in the last year goes to their Town Hall for a special activity. Everyone dresses up, and many women wear beautiful dresses. The mayor makes a speech and gives presents to all the new adults.

    Some kids are afraid to start school, but six-year-olds in Germany can't wait. For them, Schulanfang is a big holiday. To celebrate a child's first day of school, parents or friends give the child a Zuckertuete, a big color box filled with candy and little presents. People take pictures of the kids holding their Zuckertuete, and there is a school party later for the parents with cake and coffee.

    Free Online Drawing Classes

    Drawing is a skill you can learn at any age. When you are ready, you can learn the basics of drawing by taking one or more of the free online drawing classes offered here. The websites all offer helpful instruction for beginning artists, and many of them offer classes at intermediate (中级的) or high levels. When you use the websites as your art instructors, you can log on to learn whenever you please.

    Artyfactory

    The Artyfactory Art Lessons Gallery offers free online art lessons that include basic drawing classes for pencil, ink and colored pencil. For visitors who want to expand their knowledge of art, the site also offers an Art Appreciation Gallery and a Design Lessons Gallery.

    Academy of Art University

    This free video class from the Academy of Art University called "How to Draw a Head" teaches you how to draw a head from a photo or from memory. The instruction is mainly on facial proportion (比例), expression and drawing basics.

    How to Draw It

    The How to Draw It website offers a simple approach to drawing animals and people. The animal tutorials (教程) are super easy to do, while the people lessons are a bit more difficult. All are free to visitors and making fast progress in your drawing skills is possible.

    Free Online Art Classes

    This site covers a range of art classes, but there are several free drawing tutorials for online learners, including: Learn Basic Drawing, Draw with Pen and Ink, and Learn Colored Pencils. Some of the classes are downloadable and some are in video form.