One of the many great lines in the movie Apollo 13 came from Ed Harris, who played NASA Director of Operations, Gene Kranz. The famous line was, “Gentleman, failure is not an option.” He said the words because he had a clear purpose that the three astronauts trapped in space must be sent home safely. The driving force behind their seeking of a solution was motivated by a true purpose.

    Here is the simple principle. If you have a big enough 'why' in life, you will always figure out the 'how.' A person without a purpose in life is like a boat without a rudder, floating aimlessly without a direction and going nowhere. In all walks of life, when referring to someone's success, we often hear the words “focus and determination”. But Merriam Webster defines the word “purpose” as the reason why something is done, a feeling of being determined to achieve an outcome. There are many talented and intelligent people in the world that are unsuccessful because they lack direction. I believe that our life depends on our purpose. Whether you're single or in a team, having a purpose allows you to start, evaluate, and improve your talents or abilities helps you find your path in life and achieve your success finally.

    A friend of mine once told me that the most motivating speech he had ever heard was just three short words. It came from his wife when she said, “Honey I'm pregnant.” He said those few words instantly motivated him because he now had a big “why” in his life, a purpose to work hard to support his family. In fact, when your “why” gets bigger, you get better because you stop holding back and you'll go all out. It's why you often hear about some great people perform superhuman actions when failure is not an option!

    One of the greatest sources of unhappiness, in my experience, is the difficulty we have in accepting things as they are.

    When we see something we don't like, we wish it could be different. We cry out for something better. That may be human nature, or perhaps it's something ingrained(根深蒂固的) in our culture. The root of the unhappiness isn't necessarily that we want things to be different. However, it's that we decided we didn't like it in the first place. We've judged it as bad, rather than saying, "It's not bad or good, and it just is it."

    In one of my books, I said "You should expect people to mess up and expect things to go differently than you planned". Some readers said it's too sorrowful to expect things to go wrong. However, it's only negative if you see it as negative and judge it as bad. Instead, you could accept it as the way the world works and try to understand why that is.

    This can be applied to whatever you do: how other people act at work, how politics works and how depressing the news media can be. Accept these things as they are, and try to understand why they're that way. It will save you a lot of sadness, because you'll no longer say, "Oh. I wish bad things didn't happen!"

    Does it mean you can never change things? Not at all. But change things not because you can't accept things as they are, but because you enjoy the process of changing, learning and growing.

    Can we make this world a better place? You can say that you'll continue to try to do things to help others, to grow as a person, to make a difference in this world. That's the correct path you choose to take, because you enjoy that path. Therefore, when you find yourself judging and wishing for difference, try a different approach: accept, and understand. It might lead to some interesting results.

    One of the first things that Jim discovered while living with the Greens was that there were different television channels(频道)in Britain, the BBC broadcasts on two channels: BBC1 and BBC2. There is a mixture of serious and light programmes on BBC1; there are mainly serious programmes on BBC2. ITV is an independent(独立的)channel which carries advertisements(广告). There are no advertisements on the BBC, so everyone must pay some money to the BBC each year. There are both serious and light programmes on ITV. Because of the different channels, it is not surprising that you often see each member in Mg. Green's house wants to choose his or her own favorite channel. This is the sort of thing you hear:

    "There's sports programme on ITV."

    "What's that, children?"

    "We were wondering if we could watch the sports programme on ITV."

    "But I was wondering whether to watch the other programme on BBC1." And so on. The children like ITV; mother prefers BBC1; father prefers BBC2. Jim hasn't made up his mind.

    For many students who desire to move around but not far freely, one of the most common vehicles is the bicycle. For such a seemingly simple invention, its story is not that simple.

    Most historians trace its origin back to 1817, when a German nobleman named Karl von Drais invented a wooden, two­wheeled machine that riders moved forward with their feet. His invention became popular in both England and France, where it eventually became known as the velocipede. Unfortunately, it was eventually banned as a danger to pedestrians and was rarely seen after the early 1820s.

    Things were quiet for several decades until the bicycle development took off in the 1860s. An important milestone happened in Paris in 1863 when pedals were added to the front axle (轴). This occurred in Pierre Michaux's workshop, but it's unclear whether he or his employee, Pierre Lallement, should be given credit for the innovation Lallement moved to the United States, where he obtained a patent for "improvements in velocipedes" in 1866. These new machines proved to be popular, and the name "bicycle" had come into use by 1869. However, many people referred to them as "bone shakers", which described their clunky ride due to a heavy wooden frame and steel wheels.

    In the 1870s, "high wheelers" or "penny­farthings" became popular. However, with a large front wheel and a much smaller rear wheel, they could be dangerous, if riders had to stop suddenly, as they would "take a header" when their momentum (动量) carried them over the front wheel onto their heads. Eventually, English inventor John Kemp Starley designed a "safety bicycle" with two same small wheels, a chain drive, and a set of gears. With tires added in and brake systems bettered in the following decades, bicycle production had skyrocketed to over one million bicycles by 1899.

    Mass production of bicycles increased their popularity greatly, since they became affordable for the average person. Over the course of the 20th century, manufacturers continued to improve the features and design of bicycles as new technologies appeared.

    During the two and a half years since I settled down in Germany, I've caught a cold several times and gotten to experience how different German cold remedies (疗法)are from the Chinese ones.

    Back in Taiwan, whenever I had a streaming nose and a dry throat, I'd rush to the hospital to get prescribed medicine. For a fever, I would receive a red pill, which I now know is a type of antibiotic (抗生素).

    Another thing I know now is that the criminal behind my cold is a virus. The drugs I used only relieved the symptoms. When I went to a German hospital intending to get some medicine to treat my cold, I got nothing more than a pat on my shoulder and words from the doctor, saying that I should get some really good rest. The first time this happened, I was shocked. I wondered how I could put up with my sickness without the help of medicine. But the longer I stayed in Germany, the better I knew how to self-medicate as other Germans do.

    I learned to take vitamin C to build up my resistance. But what I like the most is drinking "Erkaltungstee". For German people, Erkaltungstee is what their grandmother gives them when they catch a cold. It's a tea bag mainly made of lime flower and orange rind. Another popular cold remedy in Germany is chicken soup. During my first winter in Germany, I got a really bad cold. My neighbor brought me a bowl of chicken soup to make me feel better. It contained a lot of ginger, onion, garlic, carrots and celery. Germans believe these ingredients are perfect for helping your body recover.

Although May 24 was a working day, thousands of people wearing black went to the Mingyangshan Funeral Home in Hunan province to present flowers and bunches of rice plants to honor Yuan Longping. The top rice scientist, {#blank#}1{#/blank#}(refer) to as the "father of hybrid rice", died of organ failure at age 91 on May 22.

Born in 1930 in Beijing, Yuan {#blank#}2{#/blank#}(witness) the despair of people who lost their land they lived on in an era of war. So when he applied {#blank#}3{#/blank#} university, he decided to study agriculture. He began researching hybrid rice in 1964, {#blank#}4{#/blank#}(succeed) in producing the world's first high-yielding hybrid rice strain in 1973.

Yuan Longping was selfless when {#blank#}5{#/blank#}came to sharing his research to benefit people globally. To date, his hybrid rice strain {#blank#}6{#/blank#}(plant) in large areas of India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Vietnam, the US and Brazil. "Professor Yuan was {#blank#}7{#/blank#}(incredible) humble, never seeking fame or praise, instead focusing only on hard work and results {#blank#}8{#/blank#} could help remove poverty and lift people out of hunger," Kenneth M. Quinn, president of the World Food Prize Foundation, told China Daily.

Yuan could make such achievements partly because he believed in {#blank#}9{#/blank#} power of science as a harvest multiplier, noted People's Daily.

The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs mourned {#blank#}10{#/blank#}(he) passing on Twitter, saying, "Yuan passed away today at 91 but his mission to end hunger lives on."