The “babies” tend to be on or near me, or crying, or both. I spend a fair amount of time trying to get William to sleep, to get Elliott to get involved in something that will actually keep him happy for a little while, or to get William to play on the floor for 10 minutes straight so that I can get something done. But, a lot of days, it seems like I'm not succeeding in any of those efforts.

    So, yesterday, a friend of mine posted a picture on Facebook. This particular friend has a baby who is about a month younger than William. The picture was of the baby, who had made his way across the floor to the toys housed along the side of the room. I just kept looking at that picture and thinking that if only William had some different toys to play with, perhaps he would stay occupied a bit longer at a stretch. But William seems so bored with all of his toys! And I am so ready for him to be ready to play. In order to find a way to make him playing longer, I kept looking at that picture. Suddenly, I realized my sons need to play closer to me.

    So I cleared off the cubby(围起来的)shelves in the playroom, and my husband and I moved it to the living room. We found all of the toys that would be safe for William and put them in the cubbies. Then, we pulled the play kitchen in.

    William was so interested in what I was doing that he sat there and played and chewed on his toys while we moved furniture. When we were done, I moved him over closer to the cubbies and he got so excited that he didn't disturb for an hour, while I made dinner and cleaned up! Even Elliott played happily for a few hours. It was a dream come true! And I got to know that my lack of happy children was because of my desire for a toy—free living room.

    Blind imitation is self-destruction. To those who do not recognize their own unique worth, imitation appears attractive; to those who know their strength, imitation is unacceptable.

    In the early stages of skill or character development, imitation is helpful. When I first learned to cook, I used recipes and turned out some tasty dishes. But soon I grew bored. Why follow someone else's way of cooking when I could create my own? Imitating role models is like using training wheels on a child's bicycle; they help you get going, but once you find your own balance, you fly faster and farther without relying on them.

    In daily life, imitation can hurt us if we subconsciously (下意识地）hold poor role models. If, as a child, you observed people whose lives were bad, you may have accepted their fear and pain as normal and gone on to follow what they did. If you do not make strong choices for yourself, you will get the results of the weak choices of others.

    In the field of entertainment, our culture praises and admires celebrities. Those stars look great on screen. But when they step off screen, their personal lives may be disastrous. If you are going to follow someone, focus on their talent, not their bad character or unacceptable behaviors.

    Blessed is the person willing to act on their sudden desire to create something unique. Think of the movies, books, teachers, and friends that have affected you most deeply. They touched you because their creations were motivated by inspiration not desperation. The world is changed not by those who do what has been done before them, but by those who do what has been done inside them. Creative people have an endless resource of ideas. The problem a creator faces is not running out of material; it is what to do with the material knocking at the door of imagination.

Study your role models, accept the gifts they have given, and leave behind what does not serve you. Then you can say, "I stand on the shoulders of my ancestors' tragedies and declare victory, and know that they are cheering me on."

    Paying a higher price than usual for a ticket to see a film in 3D is the annoyance of many a cinema-goer's life.

    But there may be a benefit to doing so, as a study has found that 3D films exercise the brain and improve short-term functioning in a similar way to brain-training tests.

    The research found that people who watched a movie in 3D improved cognitive (认知) skills, compared to those who watched it in 2D.

    The research was led by neuroscientist(神经学家) Dr Patrick Fagan from Goldsmiths University in London. More than 100 people took part in the experiment, where participants watched Disney film Big Hero 6 in either standard format or RealD 3D.

    They also carried out a brain-training-style test before and after seeing a section from the film. The test covered memory, reaction times and cognitive function and the results were compared later.

    According to the research, which was carried out in partnership with science group Thrill Laboratory, participants experienced a 23 percent increase in cognitive processing, as well as an 11 percent increase in reaction times.

    Dr Fagan said that the results showed enough of an improvement in brain function to suggest that 3D could play a part in improving brain power in the future.

    "These findings are more significant than you might think," he said. "It is a fact that people are living longer and there is a noticeable decline in cognitive brain function in old age which can worsen future quality of life. There has never been a better time to look at ways to improve brain function. The initial results of this study show that 3D films may potentially play a role in slowing this decline."

    A second part of the experiment involved those watching the film being fitted with headsets that scanned brain activity and this too showed heightened (加强的) activity when watching 3D. According to the results, participants were seven percent more engaged with what they were watching, adding to argument that 3D movies are more like watching real-life—something Professor Brendan Walker from Thrill Laboratory agreed with.

    "As Professor Brendan Walker's test concluded, 3D films are more attractive and heighten the senses — this, in turn, makes the brain run at quicker speeds," Dr Fagan said.

    When I was small, my mother and I would walk to our local library in Franklin Square. As we didn't always have access to a reliable car, walking hand in hand was the most convenient way to get anywhere. It was at story time for children that both my mother and I made lasting friendships.

    Today, I am fortunate to live around the corner from the Cold Coast Public Library in Glen Head and a short walk to the Sea Cliff Children's Library. My 18-imonth-old son, Colin, and I find ourselves in Sea Cliff several times a week, meeting and making friends. Well, that is what many people don't understand-a library is more than books; it's a community.

    Sure, the library in Franklin Square was the place where I was introduced to Judy Blume novels. But it was also the place where I got my first email address in 1997. At the library, friends and I learned how to research colleges and search for scholarships on the Internet. The library was the place where we sometimes giggled(咯咯笑)too loudly, and where the librarians knew us by name. Their knowing our names wasn't a bad thing. When I came home from my first term at Binghamton University, Mary LaRosa, the librarian at the Franklin Square library, offered me my first teaching job.

    I now teach reading at Nassau Community College. My students are often amazed that they can check out books via their smartphones and virtually(虚拟地)visit a variety of Long Island libraries. The app used by Nassau and Suffolk county public libraries, as well as the college library, makes their homework easier by helping them find resources. Even though they can't always easily visit their local libraries, the library is always with them.

When I teach research methods, a major focus is peer review. As a process, peer review evaluates academic papers for their quality, integrity and impact on a field, largely shaping what scientists accept as "knowledge"- By instinct, any academic follows up a new idea with the question, "Was that peer reviewed?"

Although I believe in the importance of peer review and I help do peer reviews for several academic journals-I know how vulnerable the process can be. 

I had my first encounter with peer review during my first year as a Ph. D student. One day, my adviser handed me an essay and told me to have my -written review back to him in a week. But at the time, I certainly was not a "peer"--I was too new in my field. Manipulated data （不实的数据） or substandard methods could easily have gone undetected. Knowledge is not self-evident. Only experts would be able to notice them, and even then, experts do not always agree on what they notice. 

Let's say in my life I only see white swans. Maybe I write an essay, concluding that all swans are white. And a "peer" says, "Wait a minute, I've seen black swans. "I would have to refine my knowledge. 

The peer plays a key role evaluating observations with the overall goal of advancing knowledge. For example, if the above story were reversed, and peer reviewers who all believed that all swans were white came across the first study observing a black swan, the study would receive a lot of attention. 

So why was a first-year graduate student getting to stand in for an expert? Why would my review count the same as an expert's review? One answer: The process relies almost entirely on unpaid labor. 

Despite the fact that peers are professionals, peer review is not a profession. As a result, the same over-worked scholars often receive masses of the peer review requests. Besides the labor inequity, a small pool of experts can lead to a narrowed process of what is publishable or what counts as knowledge, directly threatening diversity of perspectives and scholars. Without a large enough reviewer pool, the process can easily fall victim to biases, arising from a small community recognizing each other's work and compromising conflicts of interest. 

Despite these challenges. I still tell my students that peer review offers the best method for evaluating studies aird advancing knowledge. As a process, peer review theoretically works. The question is whether the issues with peer review can be addressed by professionalizing the field. 

Back in April 1939 and armed with $5,000 provided by the Rockefeller Foundation, professor Frank Cyr at Teachers College, Columbia University took a tour of ten states to make the research about school transportation problems. What he found was that many students had no dependable way to get to school and the ones who did often travelled in unsafe buses in the over 100,000 school areas.

Seeing a need to fix this problem, Cyr organised a meeting—one that would change the future of school buses forever. School officials and transportation experts met to set much-needed standards for buses, including those for colour, height and width as well as safety rules that hadn't been set before or that were different in every state.

There were many different bus colours in the US before this meeting; several areas even planned to have red, white and blue buses as a way of encouraging students to love their country. Cyr presented his new choice to education officials, a reported "50 shades( 色度) changing from lemon yellow to deep orange red". The matter was settled quickly. Yellow, or "National School Bus Glossy Yellow", was chosen because it was quite striking, making the school bus easy to be seen. Besides, it made the bold(黑体的), black writing on the side of each bus clear. (The bold, black writing gives information about each school area, telling students which school bus they could take during early morning and late afternoon hours.) Thirty-five states made the changes quickly, and every state took them on

board by 1974.

Being recognised as the "father of the yellow school bus", Frank Cyr has surely influenced your life if you ever rode a school bus or saw that noticeable colour pulling up to your stop on a dusky morning.