We took a rare family road trip to the Adirondacks in late August，and it was as refreshing and exhausting as family vacations tend to be．Toward the end of our long drive home, even the kids were leaning forward in their seats urging my lead foot on．At that point in a road trip，even sixty-five miles per hour feels slow. We have become numb to our speed and numb to the road signs flashing by.

    My family lives on the edge of Lancaster County. Only thirty miles from home，I hit the brakes，and we began to roll，slowly，behind a horse-drawn carriage. We began to open our eyes again．We saw familiar green hills and the farm with the best watermelons. I rolled down the windows, and we breathed again．Just-cut hay and a barn full of dairy cattle．

    At five miles per hour，you remember what you forget at sixty-five．You are thinking about a place，even when you are moving from place to place．

    I am a placemaker. A homemaker, too. I am a mother of a young kid at home，and also a writer and a gardener．But，for me，those roles are wrapped up with the one big thing I want to do with the rest of my life：I want to cultivate a place and share it with others．

    The place I make with my family is a red-brick farmhouse built in l880. It has quite a few nineteenth-century bedrooms and a few acres of land，and we love nothing more than to fill them with neighbors and friends. We grow vegetables and flowers，keep a baker's dozen of egg—laying chickens，and，since we moved in three years ago，we have planted  many，many trees．

    Living with my life's purpose does not allow for much travel. I need to be here，feeding the chickens and watering the tomatoes. Any extra in the budget，and we spend it on trees．

    But I learned something at the end of our family road trip．Travel can help me in the task of caring for my own place．When I slow down and pay attention to the road between here and there，travel tells me the connections between my place and all the other places．

    One Sunday, my son asked me if he could ride up to his elementary school on his bike and meet his friend. He wanted both of them to ride back to our house so they could play video games and jump on the trampoline (蹦床). I have to admit, part of me wanted to say no. We could go to pick him up or his parents could bring him over here. I thought. But my son is eleven years old now. And after all, I do let him ride his bike to school. But I also drive my daughter to school and I can see him on the way, making sure he is getting there safely.

    My husband thinks I am overprotective. I don't dare to let my children walk anywhere without one of us going along. As you go out of our neighborhood, there is a shopping center across the street. My son always asks if he can ride his bike or walk over to the drugstore by himself. But crossing that street is just too dangerous. The cars fly around the comer like they're driving in a car race. What if he gets hurt? What if some teenager bullies are hanging out in the parking lot? I want so much to give my children the freedom that I enjoyed having when I was growing up but I hesitate to do so, because there are dangers around every comer. Too many kidnap, too many robberies and so on.

    I honestly don't think my mom worried about such things when her children were young. Growing lip in the 1970s was indeed very different. I never wore a helmet (头盔) when I rode a bike. We were all over the neighborhood, on our bikes and on foot, coming home for dinner and then-back out again until dark. We rode in the back of the truck and didn't wear seat belts. I walked to and from school every day.

    A Song of Ice and Fire is a seven-part series of fantasy written for adults. George R. R. Martin writes each chapter from the perspective of a specific character, providing a limited point of view for each section. The reader is able to understand the inner workings of the individual, but the reader is barred from a whole understanding of the text. The world he has created has magic, but there is much more than that. While magic exists, it exists on the edge, and the inner unrest of the characters is much more important.

    His work also has a level of realness that is astonishing in a work of fantasy. Characters are imperfect, and many make questionable moral choices. In the end, however, Martin shows that both good and bad happen to both the people of high moral standard and the corrupt. He has made it clear that any character can die at any point, which has led to a lot of heartbreak from readers.

    In 2011, A Song of Ice and Fire became a television series titled Game of Thrones. Martin has been closely involved with the production. It has currently run for seven seasons, and viewers anxiously await the eighth season to answer their questions from the season seven finale.

    His fans are also waiting for The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring, the next books in the series, to answer the questions Martin and the television show have not yet addressed. Martin, however, has no plans to rush. He has made it clear that he will continue to write the books while working on the television show and writing other novels.

    But how will the story continue? What is going to happen in Westeros, and more importantly: when are we going to find out? Martinis skill as a writer has kept readers and viewers spellbound. Many hope he will finish the next book before the next season of the show begins, but no one knows with Martin. He always keeps his readers guessing.

    Do students learn as much when they read digitally as they do in print? Investigators have been trying to determine whether students do as well when reading an assigned text on a digital screen as on paper.

    A number of researchers have sought to measure learning by asking people to read a passage of text, either in print or on a digital device, and then testing for comprehension.

    Most studies have found that participants scored about the same when reading in each medium, though a few have indicated that students performed better on tests when they read in print.

    Since in standardized testing, reading passages and answering questions afterwards may tell us little about any deeper level of understanding, some researchers are beginning to pose more subtle questions.

    When people were asked to read d story in print or on a digital device and then to reconstruct the plot development, the answer is: Print yielded better results. When people were asked to read by choosing how much time to spend on each platform, the researchers found that participants devoted less time to reading the passage on screen and performed less well on the following comprehension test.

    So, how does the learning question relate to educational goals?

To become skilled in critical thinking, students need to be able to handle text. The text may be long, complex or both. To make sense of it, students cannot skim, rush ahead or continually get distracted. So, does reading in print versus on screen build critical thinking skills?

    When asked in which medium they felt they concentrated better, 92 percent replied “print”. For long academic reading, 86 percent favored print Participants were also reported to be more likely to reread academic materials if they were in print

    What's more, a number of students indicated they believed print was a better medium for learning. By contrast, in talking about digital screens, students noted “danger of distraction” and “no concentration”.

    Evidently, it's not too hard to tell that a pattern did emerge: Print stood out as the medium for doing serious work.

    If American waterways had ever been voted on the yearbook, the Buffalo River could easily have been named Ugliest. It could be hard to find hope there. It took decades for public perception of the river to shift. But activist citizens, who collaborated with industry, government, and environment groups never gave up on their polluted river—the Buffalo River gradually went from being considered a lost cause to a place worth fighting for. And by now the cleaned—up water is one of Buffalo's biggest attractions.

    By the 1960s, the river was seen as one of the worst sources of pollution pouring into the Great Lakes. The Buffalo River had caught fire many times. The surface had an oily layer, and any fish caught there were not eatable.

    The waterway's fate started shifting in the mid-1960s. Stanley Spisiak was a local Polish—American jeweler by day, but by evening he was the kind of guy who'd chase down dumpers(垃圾车)he spotted on the Buffalo River. By 1966 he found himself winning the National Wildlife Federation's “Water Conservationist of the Year” award. And before long he got a nickname:“Mr. Buffalo River.” But there was only so much he could do—the river was still declared biologically dead in 1969.

    Jill Spisiak Jedlicka is his great-grandniece. She picks up where he left off by directing the river's protector organization, Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper. Professor Schneekloth and seven friends founded the organization as an all-volunteer nonprofit in 1989, after organizing the first river cleanup that year. Today the group employs 27 full-time workers and has helped oversee the Buffalo River's $100 million restoration.

    So far, the Buffalo River's water quality has restored, but it is still an ongoing issue, as sewage(污水)can overflow into the river after storms. Habitat restoration continues as well; fish and plantings are still being sampled to measure how well it's gone.

    It's 11 p.m., and I'm still sitting here writing this article for the school magazine! I've had two weeks to write it, and my teacher, Julia, wants it tomorrow. She's always complaining (抱怨) that I leave things till the last minute. Maybe she's right.

    A month ago I made a decision to be more efficient (有效率的) this year. Well, I've clearly failed. I've also been trying to get fitter for four weeks now. I've started going to the health club. I've even been going to bed earlier. But I'm not feeling any fitter, just a little unhappier. I miss my bad habits. Why is leading a better life so hard?

    I've just read an article on a website, and I've discovered that it isn't my fault (过错)! In fact, it isn't anyone's fault. It's our brain's. It's programmed to make it difficult to break bad habits. There's nothing we can do. Scientists have done experiments that show we use one part of our brain when we think about ourselves and another when we think about other people. However, when we think about ourselves in the future, we use the same part of the brain that we usually use to think about other people. In other words, the brain sees the “future you” as a different person than your “present you.” That's why we don't always find it easy to make good decisions for ourselves in the future.

    But that's not all. Scientists have also discovered that it takes around ten weeks to form a good habit. That's the amount (数量) of time the brain needs to accept new behavioral patterns (形式). The good news is that once you make it to ten weeks, everything becomes a lot easier. The bad news is that ten weeks is a really long time, so it's easy to give up what you want to do before then.

    So even when we want to change our ways and become better people, our brains won't let us. Or is this just an excuse? Look — I've finished my article on time! Anything is possible!