Most people know that Marie Curie was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize, and the first person to win it twice. However, few people know that she was also the mother of a Nobel Prize winner.

    Born in September, 1987, Irene Curie was the first of the Curies' two daughters. Along with nine other children the parents of whom were also famous scholars, Irene studied in their own school, and her mother was one of the teachers. She finished her high school education at the College of Sévigné in Paris.

    Irene entered the University of Paris in 1914 to prepare for a degree in mathematics and physics. When World War I began, Irene went to help her mother, who was using X-ray facilities (设备) to help save the lives of wounded soldiers. Irene continued the work by developing X-ray facilities in military hospitals in France and Belgium. Her services were recognised in the form of a Military's Medal by the French government.

    In 1918, Irene became her mother's assistant at the Curie Institute. In December 1924, Frederic Joliot joined the Institute, and Irene taught him the techniques required for his work. They soon fell in love and were married in 1926. Their daughter Helene was born in 1927 and their son Pierre five years later.

    Like her mother, Irene combined family and career. Like her mother, Irene was awarded a Nobel Prize, along with her husband, in 1935. Unfortunately, also like her mother, she developed leukemia because of her work with radioactivity (辐射能). Irene Joliot-Curie died from leukemia on March 17, 1956.

    In the early 1980s, one of our neighbors asked my mom if she would make a few gift baskets for her to give as gifts for the holidays. My mom agreed and news of the unique gift baskets my mum was making spread like wildfire throughout the neighborhood. My mum was busy throughout the holiday season, so she asked a friend to help her. When the orders continued after the holiday season for baby gifts, birthday gifts and more, it occurred to them that maybe this job could be turned into a business and they did it.

    My mum went into her business because she had a creative idea. She got orders and filled orders. But there was no purpose and no real strategy(策略). In 1991, my mum' s partner got into financial trouble and there was not enough money to support either my mum or her partner.

    So if you are led by your creativity or enthusiasm, make sure you ask yourself what you want out of your business. If you don't set goals, how will you know what direction to go in? Do you want to create jobs and growth in the economy? Are you looking for a hobby? You can't keep scores if you don' t know what game you are playing.

    After my mom's partner gave up, she had to abandon(抛弃) her business to support herself. She swore（发誓）she would run a business again and do it differently the next time. However, there wasn't a "next time" for her. She passed away just after her 51st birthday. She never had someone tell her how important having a goal was. She never had an opportunity to be everything that she could be.

    There are no right or wrong goals, only the ones that matter to you. Set them so that you can make progress and achieve success, whatever that may mean to you.

    When Carson Palmer, a professional American football player, hurt his arm a few years ago, he took a week off from throwing the football. But in his head, Palmer practiced every day. The following weekend, Palmer had the best game of his life.

    For more than a century, scientists have been trying to understand how this mental training works. In the 1930s, researchers proved by experiment that when you're imagining an action, your brain sends signals to your muscles(肌肉) which are too weak to tighten the muscles but might help train the body to perform. In other words, mental practice might create a pattern in your head, like an inner how-to guide for a particular skill.

    Sports psychologists have conducted hundreds of studies comparing imagined and physical practice for actions. On the whole, the research shows that mental training works. A 2012 study, for example, compared 32 amateur golfers who practiced hitting the balls to another 32 who merely held a golf club in their hands and visualized（想象）their swings. Under the same training rules, both groups improved their skills by getting the ball about 4 inches closer to the hole.

    Visualization has advantages over the real thing: You can do it anywhere, even when injured. It is safe-a major plus for high-risk performers such as gymnasts and surgeons. And you can practice for longer periods of time because you're not restricted by physical tiredness, That's not to say it's easy, we've had Olympic-level athletes sitting in our lab, visualizing the movements for two hours," says Tadhg Macintyre, a sports psychologist at the University of Limerick in Ireland. “When we're done, they're absolutely tired.”

    It doesn't work for everyone, though. "If you're a novice, the effect can be harmful,” warns Macintyre. If you're trying to visualize a free throw, and you don't even know the proper movement, then you're probably going to mentally practice the wrong skill.”

    If you want to become a fluent English speaker you should take some advice. There are four skills in learning English. They are reading, listening, speaking, and writing. The most important thing you must remember is that if you want to improve your speaking and writing skills, you should first master the skills of reading and listening.

    Read as much as you can. But your reading must be active. It means that you must think about the meaning of the sentence, the meaning of the unfamiliar（不熟悉） words, etc. There is no need for you to pay much attention to grammars or try to understand all the unfamiliar words you come across, but the fact that you see them for the first time and recognize them whenever you see them, for example, in other passages or books, is enough. It would be better to prepare yourself a notebook so you can write down the important words or sentences in it.

    As for listening, there are two choices: besides reading, you can listen every day for about 30 minutes. You can only pay attention to your reading and become skillful at your reading, then you can catch up on your listening. Since you have lots of inputs in your mind, you can easily guess what the speaker is going to say. This never means that you should not practice listening.

    For listening you can listen to cartoons or some movies that are specially made for children. Their languages are easy. Or if you are good at listening you can listen to VOA or BBC programs every day. Again the thing to remember is being active in listening and preferably taking some notes.

    If you follow these pieces of advice, your speaking and writing will improve quickly, and you can be a fluent English speaker one day.

    There are so many expressions in American English that sound good but are not.

    "Face the music" is a good example. When someone says they have to face the music, it does not mean they are going to a musical show or concert. To face the music means to accept the bad results of an action.

    Imagine a friend asks you to take care of her beautiful red sports car. She gives you the keys and says, "Thanks so much for watching my car while I'm away. But please do not drive it. It is a very fast car and you are not on the insurance (保险)."

    But you do not listen. You want to show it to some friends and pretend(假装) the car is yours. So, you drive it around town one night. As bad luck would have it, you lose control of the car and drive it into a stop sign. The damage is serious. When your friend returns you must tell her what you have done and "face the music".

    The "music" here is the result of your actions. It could be losing her friendship or paying for repairs to her sports car or both. Whatever the music is, you must face it.

    There are other American expressions that mean the same as "face the music".

    To "take your medicine" means to accept the results from something bad you have done. And if someone says, "You made your bed. Now lie in it." He means you created a bad situation and now you will experience the results, or as we say in American spoken English, you must deal with it!

    "Pay the piper" also means the same as "face the music". But, that expression has its own very interesting beginning. We will talk about that in the next Words and Their Stories.

    Abraham Lincoln, a self-taught lawyer, was elected 16th president of the United States in November 1860, shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War. Lincoln proved to be a smart military strategist and a competent leader: His Emancipation Proclamation(解放宣言) paved the way for slavery's abolition, while his Gettysburg Address stands as one of the most famous speeches in American history. In April 1865, with the Union on the brink of victory, Abraham Lincoln was killed; his untimely death made him a hero to the cause of liberty, and he is widely regarded as one of the greatest presidents in U.S. history.

    On January 20, 1981, Reagan took office. Only 69 days later he was shot by a would-be killer, but quickly recovered and returned to duty. His grace and wit during the dangerous incident caused his popularity to soar.

    At the end of his two terms in office, Ronald Reagan viewed with satisfaction the achievements of his innovative program known as the Reagan Revolution, which aimed to motivate the American people and reduce their reliance upon Government. He felt he had fulfilled his campaign pledge of 1980 to restore “the great, confident roar of American progress and growth and optimism.”

    When George W. Bush, at the age of 54, became the 43rd president of the United States, it was only the second time in American history that a president's son went on to the White House. John Quincy Adams, elected the sixth president in 1824, was the son of John Adams, the second president. While John Adams had brought up his son to be president, George Bush, the 41st president, insisted he was surprised when the eldest of his six children became interested in politics, became governor of Texas, and then went on to the White House.

    Barack Obama served as the 44th President of the United States. His story is the American story — values from the heartland, a middle-class upbringing in a strong family, hard work and education as the means of getting ahead, and the belief that a life so blessed should be lived in service to others.

    With a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas, President Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961. He was raised with help from his grandfather, who served in Patton's army, and his grandmother, who worked her way up from the secretarial pool to middle management at a bank.