The kids in this village wear dirty, ragged clothes. They sleep beside cows and sheep in huts made of sticks and mud. They have no school. Yet they all can chant the English alphabet, and some can make words.

    The key to their success: 20 tablet computers(平板电脑) dropped off in their Ethiopian village in February by a U.S. group called One Laptop Per Child.

    The goal is to find out whether kids using today's new technology can teach themselves to read in places where no schools or teachers exist. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers analyzing the project data say they're already amazed. “What I think has already happened is that the kids have already learned more than they would have in one year of kindergarten,” said Matt Keller, who runs the Ethiopia program.

    The fastest learner—and the first to turn on one of the tablets—is 8-year-old Kelbesa Negusse. The device's camera was disabled to save memory, yet within weeks Kelbesa had figured out its workings and made the camera work. He called himself a lion, a marker of accomplishment in Ethiopia.

    With his tablet, Kelbasa rearranged the letters HSROE into one of the many English animal names he knows. Then he spelled words on his own. “Seven months ago he didn't know any English. That's unbelievable,” said Keller.

    The project aims to get kids to a stage called “deep reading,” where they can read to learn. It won't be in Amharic, Ethiopia's first language, but in English, which is widely seen as the ticket to higher paying jobs.

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    Attention from strangers is nothing new to me. Questions about my height is the center of almost every public interaction. My friends say my height is just a physical quality and not a personality aspect. However, when I reflect on my life, I realize that, my height has shaped my character in many ways and has helped to make me who I am.

    I learned how to be kind. When I was younger, some parents in my neighborhood regarded me kind of dangerous because I was so much larger than other children my age. I had to be extra welcoming and gentle simply to play with other children. Of course, now my coaches wish I weren't quite so kind on the basketball court.

    I learned the quality of not being too proud about myself. At 7 feet tall, everyone expects me to be an amazing basketball player. They come expecting to see Dirk Nowitzki, and instead they might see a performance more like Will Ferrell(successfully starred a professional basketball player). I have learned to be modest and to work even harder than my fellows to meet their (and my) expectations.

    I developed a sense of lightheartedness. When people playfully make fun of my height, 1laugh at myself too. On my first day of high school, a girl dropped her books in a busy hallway. I got down to her level and gathered some of her notebooks. As we both stood up, her eyes widened as I kept rising over her. Astonished, she dropped her books again. Embarrassed, we both laughed and picked up the books a second time.

    All of these lessons have defined me. Looking back, I realize that through years of such experiences, I have become a confident, expressive person. Being a 7-footer is both a blessing and a curse, but in the end, accepting who you are is the first step to happiness.

    Giving generously and receiving gratefully make it easier to live happily with others. Yet, why do we have such difficulty accomplishing these things in our relationships? I think people refuse to be generous with others because they fear being used.

    For example, my husband and I have family members who only contact us when they need money. We usually accept their requests, but we rarely receive a “thank you”. Most people would say that my husband and I are being used. But when we give, we shouldn't be giving for the purpose of getting gratitude. Rather, we should be giving because it's a good thing to do.

    Everything that we have, from our ability to wake up each morning to the money in our bank account, is a gift from the world. In return, the world asks us to use these gifts to help others, either by giving them our time or our resources. The good news is that when we live our lives being nice to others, our lives run more smoothly.

    If you're generous, yes, some people will use you. But if you practice being generous, most of your relationships will improve. And at the same time, we should remember to receive gratefully. I truly believe that you cannot say “thank you” enough.

    So often we get lazy about expressing gratitude. Parents can feel unappreciated by their children, and teachers can feel unappreciated by their students. Just because a task is part of someone's job description doesn't mean that you shouldn't thank them for it.

    Words of appreciation make others feel good about themselves like nothing else. It's good for us to say “thank you” because we often need to tell ourselves how lucky we are.

    If you are looking for a way to improve your life, I can give you one: Give generously and receive gratefully.

    Spotify can tell if you're sad. Here's why that should scare you. Want to figure out if someone is a patient with a mental disability: Ask them what their favorite song is. A New York University study last year found that people who loved Eminem's Lose Yourself and Justin Bieber's What Do You Mean? were more likely to have trouble with mental disabilities than people who were into Dire Straits.

    Over the past few years, Spotify has been improving the ability to analyze information to help businessmen target consumers with advertisements made specially for their needs. They conclude this from the sort of music you're listening to, combined with where and when you're listening to it, along with third-party data that might be available.

    Now, to be clear, there's nothing significantly illegal about what Spotify is doing with your information. I certainly don't think that they are working with shadowy consulting firms to serve you ads selling a culture struggle while you're listening to music that suggests you might be in a terrible situation. However, I find it disappointing that our personal, private moments with music are increasingly being turned into information points and offered to advertisers.

    You can see where this could go, can't you? As ad targeting gets ever more accurate, businessmen will have the ability to target our feelings in potentially improper ways. According to one study, you are more likely to spend more on a product if you're feeling sad. You can imagine some companies might take advantage of that. And on that note, I'm feeling a little down about all this. Head off to treat myself to something expensive.

    Love working with children? Looking for an exciting new opportunity? Want to work on a friendly, fun and supportive team? This is what our team member Anna says about working at My Crèche:

    "It's the nicest place I've ever worked. Everyone is so friendly and we have so much fun working together. They give me opportunities to learn new things every day. They care about my personal development. Working at My Crèche has enabled me to build relationships with the children as well as parents within the community which makes me feel so welcomed in the local area."

    Conveniently located in the heart of crouch End, London, N8, My Crèche offers drop-in and pre-booked childcare for children aged 6 weeks to 5 years of age. We also provide after-school and breakfast clubs for children up to 8 years old. Our goal is to enable parents to pursue personal and professional activities when they need to, with total peace of mind knowing their children are being cared for in a safe and fun environment.

    We are looking for an enthusiastic and committed professional with excellent interpersonal skills, who is committed to ensuring the best outcomes and care for children. This is an excellent opportunity for a proactive individual to be a part of a fresh and progressive childcare concept and we welcome newly qualified professionals. We are a small and very supportive team with great training opportunities.

    The successful candidate will:

    Have a certificate Level 3 in Childcare and Education.

    Have experience working with children.

    Be an excellent communicator with strong people skills.

    Be energetic and able to multi-task.

    Salary:£16,500—£19,000 per year depending on experience and qualifications.

    Full time(flexible work available) and 28 days annual leave.

New discoveries and technological breakthroughs are made every year. Yet, as the information industry moves forward, many people in society are looking back to their roots in terms of the way they eat. A "locavore" movement has emerged in the United States. The movement supports eating foods grown locally and sustainably, rather than prepackaged foods shipped from other parts of the world.

Experts hold that eating local has many merits, and is expected to become a trend featuring sustainability. Erin Barnett is the director of Local Harvest, a company that aims to help connect people to farms in their area. By eating local, she argues, people have a better and more personal understanding of the impact their food consumption has on the rest of the world. "There is a way of connecting the point, where eating locally is an act that raises our awareness of sustainable living," Barnett says.

The United States' agricultural output is one of the highest in the world, says Timothy Beach, a professor of geography and geoscience at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas. "There's just no other place on Earth where the amount of input is so productive," Beach says of American agriculture. "Nobody can cut off the food we need."

However, the US food system is not sustainable because of its dependency on fossil (化石) fuels, says Beach. Equipment used on "extremely productive" farms is quickly consuming Earth's natural resources, particularly oil. Additionally, the production of agricultural supplements (补充剂)，such as fertilizer, uses large amounts of energy.

The world has used close to half of the global oil supply, Beach says, and the second half will be consumed at an even faster rate because of the growing population and economic development. Although many businesses are experimenting with wind, solar, and biofuel, Beach says there's nothing that we see on the horizon that can replace it. "There is no way on Earth we are using fossil fuels sustainably. Then we have to reconsider the impact of eating local," he says.