Roald Dahl is a beloved British writer. He is the writer of some of the world's best-known children's novels, including James and Giant Peach, Matilda, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

    More than 250 million copies of his books have been sold worldwide. His works have been translated into 58 languages. Tuesday was Roald Dahl Day. People around the world celebrated what would have been Dahl's 100^th birthday. He was born in 1916 in Wales. He died in 1990.

    Roald Dahl Day was worldwide on social media(媒体). Many people thanked Dahl for making them truly enjoy reading. One Twitter user wrote, “My childhood was made magical because of the wonderful Roald Dahl. A great storyteller!” Another wrote, “You made me fall in love with reading—a love that has lasted me a lifetime.” Special events and celebrations were held in Britain and other countries in honor of Dahl.

    The Oxford English Dictionary marked Dahl's 100^th birthday by officially adding six Dahl-created words to its latest edition. They included words such as “Oompah- Loompah” and “scrumdiddlyumptious.”

    Oompah Loompahs are the factory workers in the book—Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. They had orange skin and green hair. They danced and played music. Oompah Loompahs became more famous after the 1971 film of the book, which starred Gene Wilder as candy maker Willy Wonka.

     “Scrumdiddlyumptious” is a word that appeared in Dahl's book- The BFG—short for The Big Friendly Giant. It generally means “delicious”. A film of The BFG, directed by Steven Spielberg, was released(发行)this year

    Earlier this year, Ocford released an entire Roald Dahl dictionary. It included more than 8,000 real and invented words used by the master storyteller.

    It started as a special day for Wesley Autrey, a 50-year-old construction worker in New York City. It was about 12:45 P.M., and he was waiting on a subway platform (月台) to take his daughters home before he went to work. He suddenly noticed a man nearby have convulsions (抽搐) and fall down suddenly. Mr. Autrey and two women went to help the stranger. The man, Cameron Hollopeter, managed to get to his feet, but then stumbled (绊倒) at the edge of the platform and fell onto the subway tracks. Mr. Autrey looked up and saw the lights of the subway train coming near through the tunnel.

    Mr. Autrey jumped onto the track immediately. He realized that he didn't have time to get Mr. Hollopeter and himself back up on the platform before the train arrived, so he lay on top of the man and pressed down as hard as he could. Although the driver tried to stop the train before it reached them, he couldn't. Five cars passed over them before the train finally stopped. The cars had passed only inches from his head.

    New York loves a hero. Mr. Autrey became an overnight hero and was named the “Subway Superman”. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave him the Bronze Medallion, the city's highest honor. He was asked to appear on several TV talk shows. He was also rewarded with money and gifts, such as $10,000 from Donald Trump, a $5,000 gift card from the Gap clothing store, a new Jeep, and Beyonce concert tickets.

    How did Autrey react (反应) to all this? He said, “I don't feel like I did anything great; I just saw someone who needed help. I did what I felt was right”.

    The Queen has had to say goodbye to one of her longtime companions, her beloved pet corgi Holly, who has sadly passed away aged 13. The corgi will probably be familiar to royal fans who would recognize her from the 2012 London Olympics opening video.

    The dog was suffering from old age and was put down at Balmoral after suffering from an illness, leaving Her Majesty three surviving pet dogs, Willow and two corgi-dachshund crosses, Vulcan and Candy.

    According to a spokesperson for Buckingham palace, the Queen was deeply upset by Holly's passing and she doesn't like seeing her dogs suffer. Holly had attained a very good age. She gets more unsettled if they suffer and she knows that putting a dog down is often the kindest solution. She was devoted to Holly and wherever the Queen was, the dog was never far behind.

    Holly was included in one of the portraits for the Queen's 90th birthday, along with her other three pet dogs. Although the Queen usually has several pet corgis, it was recently revealed that she is keen not to breed（繁殖）any more of the dogs. Monty Roberts, a horse trainer who has previously given advice to Queen, told the Daily Mail, “She wouldn't leave any young dogs behind if she died. She wanted to put an end to it. Her Majesty had previously named one of her dogs after her friend, but the dog died in 2012. Dogs love for less time than human beings and we know we're going to lose them—but they are part of the Queen's family. She'll be quite upset.”

    Time wasters are real enemies of success. Time wasters could be people, events or habits that lead to the opposite path away from our goals. The most important starting point in removing the time wasters in life is to know about them. We need to sit down and analyze the activities which take our time.

    Start by making a list of our activities and sort out the neither urgent nor important ones. Sometimes it could be a simple addiction to a TV Soap Opera, constant distractions, or even one of our core （核心的）activities that we are not excellent at doing. We can, for instance, imagine that we are a business owner and we keep sabotaging our business deals, leading the company into great financial problems. It may be time for us to have our associates do the marketing while we concentrate on the areas we are best in. The next thing would be to make sure that we plan our daily activities. One of the obvious reasons is that we will have an upper hand in fighting against time wasters in our schedule. If what we want to do or what we don't want to do becomes clear, our focus is strengthened.

    Moreover, when we think of people we spend time with, we are sure to notice that some have a more positive impact on our success while others have a negative one. It is important to be able to distinguish them especially with regard to our schedule. While we do not advocate for everyone to throw away relationships, it is good to know that helping a friend who is emotionally disturbed can wait till dinner time. Finally, do the same to our habits. List all the habits and addictions that take any amount of our time. Then, take a little time to straighten them out in line with their importance and urgency.

    Depending on our analysis, kill those that are harmful to our goals in life.

    Cities usually have a good reason for being where they are, like a nearby port or river. People settle in these places because they are easy to get to and naturally suited to communications and trade. New York City, for example, is near a large harbour at the mouth of the Hudson River. Over 300 years its population grew gradually from 800 people to 8 million. But not all cities develop slowly over a long period of time. Boom towns grow from nothing almost overnight. In 1896, Dawson, Canada, was unmapped wilderness(荒野). But gold was discovered there in 1897, and two years later, it was one of the largest cities in the West, with a population of 30,000.

    Dawson did not have any of the natural conveniences of cities like London or Paris. People went there for gold. They travelled over snow-covered mountains and sailed hundreds of miles up icy rivers. The path to Dawson was covered with thirty feet of wet snow that could fall without warming. An avalanche(雪崩) once closed the path, killing 63 people. For many who made it to Dawson, however, the rewards were worth the difficult trip. Of the first 20,000 people who dug for gold, 4,000 got rich. About 100 of these stayed rich men for the rest of their lives.

    But no matter how rich they were, Dawson was never comfortable. Necessities like food and wood were very expensive. But soon, the gold that Dawson depended on had all been found. The city was crowded with disappointed people with no interest in settling down, and when they heard there were new gold discoveries in Alaska, they left Dawson City as quickly as they had come. Today, people still come and go — to see where the Canadian gold rush happened. Tourism is now the chief industry of Dawson City — its present population is 762.

    If Confucius (孔子) were still alive today and could celebrate his September 28 birthday with a big cake, there would be a lot of candles. We'd need a fan or a strong wind to help him put them out. While many people in China will remember Confucius on his special day, few people in the United States will give him a passing thought. It's nothing personal. Most Americans don't even remember the birthdays of their own national heroes.

    But this doesn't mean that Americans don't care about Confucius. In many ways he has become a bridge that foreigners must cross if they want to reach a deeper understanding of China.

    In the past two decades, the Chinese studies programs have gained huge popularity in Western universities. More recently, the Chinese government has set up Confucius Institutes in more than 80 countries. These schools teach both Chinese language and culture. The main courses of Chinese culture usually included Chinese art, history and philosophy (哲学). Some social scientists suggest that Westerners should take advantages of the ancient Chinese wisdom to make up for the drawbacks of Westerners philosophy. Students in the United States, at the same time, are racing to learn Chinese. So they will be ready for life in a world where China is an equal power with the United States. Businessmen who hope to make money in China are reading books about Confucius to understand their Chinese customers.

    So the old thinker's ideas are still alive and well.  Today China attracts the West more than ever, and it will need more teachers to introduce Confucius and Chinese culture to the West. As for the old thinker, he will not soon be forgotten by people in the West, even if his birthday is.