Welcome to our school. You can do a lot of things here. Come and join us.

    When people today talk about a tiny house, they probably mean the trendy living space that's about the size of a shed (棚). But you would have to be five inches tall to live in the original tiny houses. Dollhouse(小房子)，which have been around for several centuries, don't offer shelter to real people, but they provide a vivid（生动的） experience of life in times and places both real and imaginary.

    The National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., lets visitors time travel in this tiny world through ―Small Stories: At Home in a Dollhouse,” an exhibit that opened Saturday. Visitors can see twelve dollhouses from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England, which contain amazing tiny furnishings. But those people who put together the exhibit also wanted visitors to know the characters inside.

    “It's 300 years of British homes told through their inhabitants (居民),” said Alice Sage, who is in charge of the London museum.

    So as visitors look inside the Tate Baby House, a fancy townhouse from 1760, they can push a button to hear a young woman get a lecture from her mother on the proper way to run a home. In the Killer Cabinet house, a servant named Betsy complains about the problems of city life in the 1830s. “We've got the cat to keep the rats away,” she says.

    That dollhouse was John Killer's gift to his wife and five daughters. The girls were allowed to play with the house, but they probably also learned a few lessons, Sage said.

    “The kitchen of the house would have been the perfect way to teach the girls about the management of a home,” she said, noting the tiny dishes and pots.

    Those who prefer a more modern look won't be disappointed. There are two rooms displaying a white dollhouse from 1935, an apartment house from the 1960s and a brightly colored 21st-century design.

    The end of the exhibit shows how imaginative design sometimes works best in small spaces.

    The Building Museum asked twenty-four artists, designers and architects from across the United States to each create a “dream room” from the past, present or future. Some of these unique small rooms were made using traditional furnishings, others from materials such as clay, insects, 3D-printing, and even peeps marshmallow candies!

    Rodney Smith, Jr. started mowing the lawns (割草坪) in Huntsville, Alabama last fall. He used his time between classes at Alabama A&M to reach a goal of mowing 100 yards before winter. Smith has been cutting grass for free to help single moms, the elderly, and the disabled, while teaching the local youth the values that can turn boys into men. “I'm doing something positive. I want boys to follow me and be better than me,” he wrote on his Facebook page.

    Rodney is from Bermuda. He says people there help each other and are always friendly. “That's what drives me to help people.”

    In May this year, he was getting ready to launch his mowing service for the summer when he heard about a 93-year-old woman trying to cut grass by herself. Smith and a friend showed up to do the job for her.

    In November, a local TV station gave him $300, calling it a special gift for his good work. After he received the money, he used it to create the non-profit(非盈利的) service group, Raising Men Lawn Care Service. He also started a page to collect money to buy lawn equipment and other things—including T-shirts with special logos.

    After I read about Rodney's story, I told my friends about him. We also planned to mow lawns for single moms, the elderly and disabled in our neighborhood. And I hope more and more young people will join Rodney's service group—Raising Men Lawn Care Service.

    I climbed Kilimanjaro with Lava Expeditions (探险队) during the rainy season.

    I flew to Nairobi in Kenya and spent several days there. At my hotel in Nairobi I met the rest of the group with whom I would spend the next week. We all travelled on the bus together for a 6-hour journey into Tanzania and then Arusha, a quiet town.

    After we arrived at our hotel in Arusha, we had dinner and a few drinks. Then we were introduced to more members including Taddeus Minja, the main guide, who was very experienced — climbing Kilimanjaro runs through the generations (代) of his family.

    The next day the Lava Expeditions members checked if we had the correct and enough clothing for our expedition on Kilimanjaro. Only one person needed to bring more clothes.

    After that we set off, walking in the rain through the beauty of the rainforest, all the way to the first camp. I was happy the next few days as the view was so wonderful and changed every day. I suffered a little during the trip and I felt so tired. But the members of Lava Expeditions provided me with lots of encouragement, which was one of the best memories. Finally we reached the top of Kilimanjaro in bright blue skies.

I felt excited about climbing Kilimanjaro and the feeling didn't change during my trip. Lava Expeditions looked after me so well that I was deeply thankful for their help.

    If a trip to Rome or Paris is in your future, be prepared: The European Union Parliament is calling for an end to visa-free travel Americans. EU lawmakers passed a resolution urging the EU Commission to impose visas on U. S. citizens traveling into the 28-nation bloc.

    The dispute(争论)centers on reciprocal treatment of travelers from EU nations and the United States. While Americans have been able to travel throughout EU member nations without a visa, the U. S. still requires citizens of five EU countries-Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Poland and Romania-to apply for entry visas when visiting the U. S, Reuters reports. Citizens of the other 23 EU member nations can use the U. S. visa waiver program to enter America. The EU lawmakers are calling for mutual treatment for all EU citizens, says Reuters. They've given the EU Commission two months to respond.

    The trans-Atlantic visa dispute first came to light in April 2014, according to an EU Parliament news release. At that time, five countries-Australia, Brunei, Canada, Japan and the U. S. –required visas for some EU citizens. Since then, Australia, Brunei and Japan have lifted their visa requirements for all EU citizens. Canada, which currently imposes(推行)visa requirements on Bulgarian and Romanian citizens, plans to follow suit in next December, leaving just the United States at odds with the issue of reciprocity of visa-free travel with the EU.

The EU says if a visa requirement for Americans is introduced, it would be temporary, according to a story in Money, which did not give a time frame.

    Just ask any new parent: Adding a baby to a household can also add stress to a career. Now, a new study backs that up with some astonishing numbers: After science, technology, engineering, and mathematics(STEM)professionals become parents, 43%of women and 23% of men switch fields, transition(转变)to part-time work, or leave the workforce entirely.

    Many researchers and parents already knew that STEM can be unwelcoming to parents, particularly mothers. But" the considerable departure was astonishing, "says Erin Cech, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and lead author of the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. For both genders, "the proportions were higher than we expected."

    The surprisingly high reduction rate for men also highlights that" parenthood in STEM is not just a mothers' issue; it's a worker issue, "Cech says. She hopes that the findings" might motivate changes, "such as more paid parental leave from both government and employers and policies that better support flexible work time without a tight routine. "We are not suggesting that people who want families should avoid STEM; that's not the solution," she emphasizes.

    By 2018, 78% of new fathers were still working in STEM, the vast majority full time. For new mothers, 68% were still in STEM, but only 57% worked full time. For professionals without children, on the other hand, 84% of men and 76% of women were predicted to still be working in STEM full time in 2018. For the new parents across all fields, 16% of women were working part-time and 15% had left the workforce, as compared with just 2% and 3%, respectively, for men. These sharp differences make clear that, even though the reduction rate for fathers is higher than expected, mothers still face particular career challenges.