The Winner's Guide to Success

    Do you know what makes people successful? To find out the answers, an American scholar recently visited some of the most successful people in America. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

Be responsible for yourself.

    Sometimes you may want to blame others for your failure to get ahead. In fact, when you say someone or something outside of yourself is stopping you from making success, you are giving away your own power. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

Write a plan.

    It is very difficult trying to get what you want without a good plan. It is just like trying to drive through strange roads to a city far away. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} Without this “map”, you may waste your time, money and also your energy; while with the “map” you'll enjoy the “trip” and get what you want in the shortest possible time.

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    Nothing great is easy to get. So you must be ready to work hard — even harder than you have ever done. If you are not willing to pay the price, you won't get anything valuable.

Never give up.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} When you are doing something, you must tell yourself again and again: Giving up is worse than failure because failure can be the mother of success, but giving up means the death of hope.

A

    Daban town is famous for girls and windmills, while Loulan is a myth (神话) in the desert. Two thousand years ago, beside the beautiful Luobu Lake, there lay Loulan ancient city of the Silk Road. Businessmen from every country gathered there with lots of dancing parities. Everything shows that people in Loulan lived a rich life then.

    However, two thousand years later, this rich land suddenly disappeared from the map of China. It became an area covered with sand and dead tree trunks.

    Loulan was first "discovered" by a Swedish man named Sven Hedin in 1900, and people from America, Britain, Japan and Sweden all set foot here. Then in the 1930s, a Chinese named Huang Wenbi came to Loulan for the first time. He visited and studied this area and found many relics that were beautifully and carefully made.

    It is recorded that the ancient city of Loulan was the capital of the Loulan Kingdom during the Han and Jin Dynasties, and covered an area of some 10, 000 square kilometres. Inside the city, there are the ruins of government offices, temples and other old buildings. Outside the city there are some dried-up rivers and much farmland. In the past century many things have been dug up there including Han Dynasty coins, mirrors and many others of Greek and Roman times. All these things show that a lot of business between the East and the West once took place there.

    Lying on the northwest of the Lop Nur area, the Loulan Kingdom is now a lifeless area with endless ＂forests＂ of mounds (小丘) which aren't easily seen in other parts of the world. Its mystery has been attracting many people from many countries.

    My timing has always been a little off with Elizabeth Strout. I've read and pretty much admired everything she's written, but, for whatever reason, the books of hers I've picked to review have been the good ones, like Amy and Isabelle andThe Burgess Boys, rather than the extraordinary ones, like Olive Kitteridge, which won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize. Anything Is Possible is Strout's latest book and it's gorgeous. Like Olive Kitteridge, Anything Is Possible reads like a novel constructed out of linked stories. In fact, it's hard to know exactly what to call this — a novel or a short story collection. In any case, these stories are animated (栩栩如生) by Strout's signature themes: class humiliation, loneliness, spiritual and, sometimes, reawakening. When Strout is really on her game, as she is here, you feel like you've been carefully lowered into the unquiet depths of quiet lives.

    Strout began working on Anything Is Possible at the same time she was writing her novel My Name Is Lucy Barton, which was published last year. Lucy, a dirt-poor child who grows up to become a celebrated writer, floats in and out of these interlocking stories. Some characters catch a glimpse of her being interviewed on TV; one travels to see her at a bookstore. An older Lucy even appears “in the flesh” in one story when she returns home to the small town in rural Illinois where most of these tales are set to visit her troubled brother; but Anything Is Possible also stands on its own. Indeed, a few of the characters here would be ticked off if they thought their stories depended in any way on that Barton girl. Strout's writerly eye works like a 360 degree camera, so that a character or place that's on the margins of one tale takes center stage in a later one. This technique sounds contrived, but Strout carries it off lightly.

    ①One of the most powerful stories here is called “Dottie's Bed & Breakfast,” which is an establishment we readers glimpse earlier in the book. Dottie desires to be middle-class and she harbors a grudge (怨恨) against life because she's had to rent out rooms to make a living. Dottie also possesses a sensitive nose for sniffing out the lower-class origins of some of her guests.

    ②“Shoes always gave you away,” comments a woman in a story called “Cracked” about a houseguest's too-high cork wedges(坡跟鞋). And, in the final story here, called “Gift,” a once-poor man made good says, “The sense of apology did not go away, it was a tiring thing to carry.”

    ③But, back to Dottie. When an elderly doctor and his wife come to stay at her guesthouse, Dottie bonds over tea with the wife, Shelley, who shares a story about a long-ago social humiliation.

    ④At breakfast the next morning, however, Shelley obviously regrets that confidence and becomes the Doctor's wife again. She freezes Dottie out and puts her back in her place as the inn-keep.

    There's comic satisfaction in seeing Dottie secretly spitting into the breakfast jam, but the more profound rewards of this story have to do with its recognition of the many varieties of human insecurity — or, as Lucy Barton herself more bluntly puts it, the many ways “people are always looking to feel superior to someone else.”

    Other stories have to do with sexual shame, or with the tragic ways close neighbors or family members misread each other; but I'm making Anything Is Possible sound too grim when, in fact, so many of these stories end in an understated (低调的) gesture of forgiveness. Strout is in that special company of writers like Richard Ford, Stewart O'Nan and Richard Russo, who write simply about ordinary lives and, in so doing, make us readers see the beauty of both their worn and rough surfaces and what lies beneath.

    We've all experienced peer pressure (同伴压力) . It happens to everybody. However, people have different reactions. Confident people refuse to do things they don't want to do, but shy and anxious people often give in. It may be because they want to be liked. It may be because they worry that their friends will make fun of them, or perhaps they're just curious about trying something new.  {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    It's hard being the only one who says no and the question is: how do you do it? {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    If you think that missing maths, or smoking, or going somewhere you know your parents wouldn't like is a bad idea then the answer is simple: don't do it. It's your decision, nobody else's. You don't need to be aggressive. You don't need to shout and scream, but you must be confident and you must be firm. You need to say, "No thanks. I don't want to do that."

    Being on your own against everybody else is very hard, so it can really help to have at least one other peer, or friend, who will say no too. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}You want friends who will support you when you're in trouble. You don't want people who will always agree with the majority. Remember, the most popular people aren't always the most trustworthy.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} You can learn a lot from people of your own age. They can teach you great football skills or the best way to do your maths homework. They can recommend music and advise you on fashion. And don't forget you can tell them things too, and that always feels great. So, find friends who have similar interests. And remember, friendship isn't about feeling depressed and guilty. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}

A. It may be because they were all born to be stubborn.

B. Depression and guilt will surely give you peer pressure.

C. Whatever the reason, some people end up doing things the really don't want to.

D. Of course, peer pressure isn't completely bad.

E. Choose your friends carefully.

F. Firstly, you must decide what you believe in.

G. It's about sharing experiences and having fun.

    Bike sharing have become popular words in cities from Cape Town to Shanghai to Melbourne. Planners, politicians and media keep showing off their benefits: reducing pollution, congestion, travel costs and oil dependence, while improving public health. Bike sharing also helps make cities appear modern, dynamic and worldwide--qualities much sought after by the creative class.

    But what makes for a successful public bike-sharing program? This is an important question because installing one requires significant public and private investment and adjustment to the built environment.

    While many programs have been launched among much praise, often their popularity has soon declined. Many end up operating at a financial loss and depend on other profitable enterprises to cross-subsidize (交叉补贴) them. Some have resulted in thrown-away bikes becoming an eyesore.

    Understanding which factors enhance or stop public bike sharing is critical in helping cities decide whether such a program is workable, before considering what design and sitting will work best.

    Drawing on current knowledge, we discuss the importance of the local landscape, climate, cycling infrastructure (基础设施) and land use. We also touch on other factors, such as the legal environment and the characteristics of the bike-sharing program itself.

    Take natural environment for example. Two natural environment factors are known to affect participation: hilliness and weather. Hilliness discourages balanced bike-sharing use, as users avoid returning bicycles to stations on hilltops. Those stations end up being empty, while stations on flat areas are often full, so users cannot find a station to return their bikes.

    As for weather, ideal temperature ranges vary by the climate zone. Case studies show warm and dry weather encourages public bike-sharing use. Rain and strong wind reduce the frequency of trips. However, some approaches, such as providing sheltered, shaded, or even heated or cooled cycling infrastructure, could prove useful.

    If you love eating and drinking for free and are looking to make some pocket money, there's a job in China with your name on it. A new type of online service allows people to hire others either to eat or drink their favorite treats or satisfy their appetite without the calories that usually come with it.

    Chinese media recently reported on an increasingly popular service on online platform Taobao that's as startling as it is appealing. People can now go online and hire others to consume certain foods and drinks, and ask them to provide video evidence of them eating or drinking the said treats.

    Fees usually range from two to nine yuan ($0.30 - $1.35) plus the cost of the food. It's not exactly a get-rich-quick job, but there are quite a lot of people willing to do it for the free treats alone.

    "Bubble tea drinking" is a particularly popular service, as the chewy tapioca(木薯粉) balls and popping drink is all the rage in Asia these days, but there are also ads from people willing to eat fried chicken or hot pot for anyone willing to pay for them.

    Advertised as being "fat-free" and "free of queues", those who pay for the service will receive the full experience, which includes a 360-degree video of the drink, photos, and a detailed description. Prices of the service are based on the drink's sweetness level, its price, and popularity. Some clients even require a short written review to be sure that the person they hired actually does what they are supposed to.

    Sellers explained that most customers buy their "Bubble tea drinking" service maybe because they're trying to shake off desires while they're on a diet. Drinking bubble tea by proxy may help customers avoid high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and other health problems that the sugar-laden drink may cause.

    So why would anyone pay a total stranger to enjoy a treat rather than consume it themselves? Well, apparently, the online service is so cheap that some people simply do it out of boredom, while others get satisfaction from watching others indulge in their favorite treats.

    This indulging-by-proxy service(代享受服务)has received a lot of attention on social media in China, with some people describing it as the job of their dreams.