In order to increase their job chances after college, Chinese students are turning to a special practice—Eiffel Tower nose jobs (鼻整形手术). The latest trend in plastic surgery promises to create a nose that is similar to the curve of the Eiffel Tower.

    Surgeon Wang Xuming said:  “We are influenced by the beauty of the Eiffel Tower. We are not content to just add something to the nose; we reconstruct it.” The surgery costs about US$ 10,000 and involves the enlarging of the nose using tissue from the forehead.

    Hundreds of posters advertising the procedure are put up all over Chongqing city, where surgeon Xuming runs his private practice. They show a western-looking woman with an almost-to o-perfect nose, against an outline of the Eiffel Tower.

    Interestingly, many young women in China are eager to achieve a western appearance, as they believe it will give them an advantage in the highly competitive job market. “Some students face a lot of employment pressure after graduation. If their facial features are good, they'll have more chances of finding a job,” said surgeon Xuming. “We've had students getting the Eiffel Tower nose; it's helped them a lot.”

    Apparently, Chinese employers are quite particular about appearances and prefer attractive candidates. Some of them even go as far as putting height and weight requirements in their employment ads. Plastic surgeons across the country are reporting an increase in the number of students choosing beauty “improvement”.

    According to a Mr. Li, hospital manager at surgeon Xuming's clinic, most of their customers are female and the bill is taken care of by the family. “They usually come in with their mothers, and tend to be from well-off backgrounds.” he said.

    Personally, I don't think it so important to “improve” our appearance as long as we are skilled at our jobs. We can't decide how we look, but we can decide how well we live and work.

    Diana Ross, American pop singer and actress, achieved international popularity, first as the leader singer of the Supremes and later as a solo(独唱的) artist. Diana Ross was born on March 26, 1944, in Detroit, Michigan. She was the second of six children of Fred and Ernestine Ross, who lived in one of Detroit's poor districts. Because her family were closely connected with each other, Ross almost didn't notice the difficult life as she grew up.

    Ross professional career began in 1959, when she joined several neighborhood friends to form the Primettes. The group was renamed the Supremes after signing a recording contract (合同) with Motown late the following year. The group produced many number-one hit singles (热门单曲) on the US Billboard hot 100, including Baby Love, Stop! In The Name of Love and Someday We Will Be Together. In 1967, the group was renamed Diana Ross and the Supremes, foreshadowing（预示） Ross' solo career, which she started in 1970.

    Beginning with Ain't No Mountain High Enough from her first solo album, Ross enjoyed more than ten years of great success with her hit singles. Ross also developed a film-acting career in the 1970s, beginning with a starring role as blues singer Billie Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues and continuing with Mahogany, for which she also recorded the theme song Do You Know Where You're Going To.

    However, in the mid-1980s, Ross saw her career begin to wane. Most of her albums were re-recordings of earlier material. In 2006, she produced I Love You, a collection of love songs by many artists, and she started an energetic concert tour the following year to make the album publicly known. Although you can't find her songs on the US Billboard Hot 100 now, Ross remains popular as one of the leading musical performers of all time.

    Everyone is welcome to visit our city Los Angeles (LA). I am sure you can do many things in Los Angeles with your kids.

    Fun at the Beach

    Thanks to its almost perfect weather all through the year, a visit to the beach is one of the best things to do when in Los Angeles with your kids. While they enjoy themselves nearby, you can simply lie back and have a good rest in the sun.

    Trip to Disneyland

    A trip to the City of Angels with your little angels is incomplete (不完整的) without a visit to the Magic Kingdom. The joy they'll feel from being around all those Disney characters that they know and love will light up your day, too.

    Visit to the Museum

    If you want to turn your stay in LA into an educational one for your kids, you should visit the museum. Starting with the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County to the California Science Center, or even the Kidspace Children's Museum in Pasadena, you have many choices. I'm sure a visit to all these places will make your kids smarter.

    Visit to the University Studios Hollywood

    Your kids could get to see interesting things from some of the most popular movies ever. From the theme park of Jurassic Park to Wisteria Lane from the TV play Desperate Housewives, the Universal Studios Hollywood is a place that we all find wonderful.

    Disease, poverty, hate, love — Charles Dickens' stories opened his readers' eyes to the most important themes of his age. Two hundred years later, his stories still speak volumes across the world, proving that Dickens' legacy (遗产) was far greater than just "great-literature".

    February 7 marks the 200th anniversary of the writer's birthday. To mark this date, BBC writer Alex Hudson listed six things Dickens gave the modern world. Let's take a look at two of them.

    A White Christmas

    Dickens is described as "the man who invented Christmas"— not the religious festival, but the cultural aspects that we associate with the festive season today.

    In the early 19th century, Christmas was barely worth mentioning, according to critic and writer Leigh Hunt. The committee which ran the Conservative Party even held ordinary business meetings on Christmas Day — unthinkable in the West nowadays, when everyone but the most necessary workers takes at least three days off.

    Many people believe that Dickens' popular descriptions of the festive period became a blueprint for generations to come. In his classic novel, A Christmas Carol, he not only put forward the idea of snow at Christmas, but also painted a picture of glowing warmth —“home enjoyments, affections and hopes".

    In his biography of Dickens, Peter Ackroyd wrote:" Dickens can be said to have almost single-handedly created the modern idea of Christmas."

    "Dickensian" poverty

    Dickens was one of the first to take an honest look at the underclass and the poor of Victorian London.

    He helped popularize the term "red tape" to describe situations where people in power use needless amounts of bureaucracy (官僚作风) in a way that particularly hurts the weaker and poorer members of society.

    "Dickensian" has now become a powerful word for describing an unacceptable level of poverty. In 2009, when the president of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers in the UK wanted to talk about poverty in some areas of Britain, she did not use words like "terrible" or "horrific", but rather described it as "life mirroring the times of Dickens".

    Once there were two mice. They were friends. One mouse lived in the country; the other mouse lived in the city. After many years the Country mouse saw the City mouse; he said, "Do come and see me at my house in the country." So the City mouse went. The City mouse said, "This food is not good, and your house is not good. Why do you live in a hole in the field? You should come and live in the city. You would live in a nice house made of stone. You would have nice food to eat. You must come and see me at my house in the city." The Country mouse went to the house of the City mouse. It was a very good house. Nice food was set ready for them to eat. But just as they began to eat they heard a great noise. The City mouse cried," Run! Run! The cat is coming!" They ran away quickly and hid. After some time they came out. When they came out, the Country mouse said. "I do not like living in the city. I like living in my hole in the field. For it is nicer to be poor and happy, than to be rich and afraid."

    I always feel sorry for world leaders busy dealing with fights between nations. When my three children were young, most days it was hard to keep my house from becoming a battlefield.

    It got worse as they grew older. Three years ago, Zack, then 16, couldn't make it through a day without making his sisters, Alex 11 and Taryn 9, angry.

    My husband and I tried to be understanding the boy at such an age. We reasoned, punished, and left heartfelt notes on his bed about how he was hurting our family. His answer was" I say it because it's true."

    I even tried telling the girls to fight back. Bad idea. Now I had three children at war. Whatever I said to them, they paid no attention. When there was no way out, I told everything to my sister, Mary, in an e-mail. She replied, "Don't e-mail me. E-mail him."

    Our son was online every day, mailing and talking with his friends. Maybe he would actually hear me this way. I didn't say anything different, but e-mail just took the tension away. There'd be no shouting or door banging. Zack wouldn't feel under attack.

    Zack didn't reply for days. When he finally did, his entire message was four small words. I smiled when I read them: "You're right. I'm sorry."

    The children still fought, of course, but Zack changed. Best of all, I now have a better way to talk with not one but three of them. I like it that they don't tune me out as much as they used to. They like not having to listen to me shouting to them. Or as Alex says, "You're so much nicer online."

    All I know is that the house is quiet. But we're talking.