It was Mother's Day morning last year and I was doing my shopping at our local supermarket with my five-year-old son, Tenyson. As we were leaving, we found that only minutes earlier an elderly woman had fallen over at the entrance and had hit her head on the concrete. Her husband was with her, but there was blood everywhere and the woman was embarrassed and clearly in shock.

    Walking towards the scene, Tenyson became very upset about what had happened to the couple. He said to me, “Mum, it's not much fun falling over in front of everyone.”

    At the front of the supermarket a charity(慈善) group had set up a stand selling cooked sausages and flowers to raise funds. Tenyson suggested that we should buy the lady a flower. “It will make her feel better,” he said. I was amazed that he'd come up with such a sweet idea. So we went over to the flower seller and asked her if we could buy a flower for the lady to cheer her up. “Just take it,” she replied. “I can't take your money for such a wonderful gesture.”

    By now paramedics（救援人员）had arrived, and were attending the injured woman. As we walked up to her, my son became intimidated by all the blood and medical equipment. He said he was just too scared to go up to her. Instead I gave the flower to the woman's husband and told him, “ My son was very upset for your wife and wanted to give her this flower to make her feel better.”

    At that, the old man started crying and said, “Thank you so much, you have a wonderful son. Happy Mother's Day to you.”

    The man then bent down and gave his wife the flower, telling her who it was from. Though badly hurt and shaken, the old lady looked up at Tenyson with love in her eyes and gave him a little smile.

    Some of us friends are making big decisions in their life: Which universities should they apply to? I also noticed that many high school students in China are thinking of studying at universities abroad. Unluckily, from what I've seen, the information given by some websites and other media about studying abroad is very limited and sometimes even wrong.

    There are once a Chinese girl who hoped that she could go to Columbia University in the US because she wanted to major in (主修)journalism. Columbia has a very famous graduate(研究生)program in journalism. However, they have no journalism program at the undergraduate(本科生)level! What's more in both Canada and the US, it's not suggested that students throw themselves into journalism right after high school. School say that students should take in more knowledge about the world and writing before entering that field.

    The University of Waterloo, a Canada university famous for its engineering program, is another example. The emphasis(重视)of engineering in this school may go beyond your expectations. According to our teachers, this university spent millions of dollars building a library just for engineering students. The school's computer science, mathematics and accounting are also great programs for students.

    But, to be honest, according to my friends who have visited this university, the campus and the food are not very nice. Maybe this is because the school stresses its academic(学术的)strengths too much, thereby paying little attention to personal comforts.

    Now you see, choosing a university is really not that easy. We need to do good research and consult as many people as possible before making a decision.

    The 2012 Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Mo Yan for his writing that mixes folk tales, history and the modern events with hallucinatory realism（魔幻现实主义）, the Swedish Academy announced.

    The 57-year-old is the first Chinese resident to win the prize. Only one other Chinese-language writer has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Gao Zingjian was honored in 2000. However, he is a French citizen.

    Mr Mo said he was “overjoyed and scared” when he learned he had won the award. He will receive his Nobel diploma, a medal and more than one million dollars at a ceremony in Stockholm in December.

    China is celebrating the victory of this native son. Minutes after the award was announced, millions of Chinese expressed pleasure and pride for Mo Yan on social media websites. Senior CPC leader Li Changchun has congratulated Mo Yan on winning the 2012 Nobel Literature Prize. Li says in a letter to the China Writers Association that Mo's winning of the prize reflects the prosperity and progress of the Chinese literature.

    His real name is Guan Moye. Mo Yan means “Don't Speak.” The writer said he chose the name to remember to stop his tongue from getting him in trouble. Mo Yan's novel “Red Sorghum” first became a cable hit on the big screen both at home and abroad in 1987. The film was directed by Zhang Yimou and marked the acting start of Gong Li.

    As a productive author, Mo has published dozens of short stories, with his first work published in 1981. Mo Yan's other major works include, “Big Breasts and Wide Hips,” “Republic of Wine” and “Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out.”

    I am a strong believer that if a child is raised with approval, he will learn to love himself and will be successful in his own way.

    Several weeks ago, I was doing homework with my son in the third grade and he kept standing up from his chair to go over the math lines. I kept asking him to sit down, telling him that he should concentrate better. He sat but seconds later, as if he didn't even notice he was doing it, he got up again. I was getting frustrated, but then it hit me. I started noticing his answers were much quicker and accurate when he stood up. Could he be more intent while standing up?

    This made me start questioning myself and what I had been raised to believe. I was raised to believe that a quiet, calm child was a sure way to success. This child would have the discipline to study hard, get good grades and become someone important in life.

    Now those same people perhaps come to realize that their kids are born with their own sets of DNA and personality traits, and all you can do is loving and accepting them. As parents, throughout their growing years and beyond that, we need to be our kids' best cheerleaders, guiding them and helping them find their way.

    I have stopped asking my son to sit down and concentrate. Obviously, he is concentrating just in his own way and not mine. We need to learn to accept our kids' ways of doing things. Some way may have worked for me but doesn't mean we need to carry it through generations. There is nothing sweeter than being individual and unique. It makes us free and happy and that's just the way I want my kids to live their own life.

    A newspaper reporter's job can be very interesting. He meets all types of people and lives quite a busy life. He is on the rush for news all the time, then after several years he may get a desk job, and life becomes a bit more settled. Let's look at his work a little more closely. In a day he may have to interview the prime minister of a foreign country, and the next day he may be writing about a football match. Sometimes he may be so busy that he has hardly any time to sleep. And at other times he may go on for days looking out for news materials yet return empty-handed.

    In the beginning, a reporter has to cover a very wide field. After the early years he becomes more specialized in his work. For example, he may finally be asked to write only on court cases or politics or sports. Some reporters may become so specialized that they are asked only to write on a special thing: horse racing, for example. In most newspaper houses there is at least one special racing correspondent. Some newspapers have book reviews. Their job is delightful. They read the latest book and then write reviews on the ones they like. Then there are those who write on films, so they get to see them even before they are shown in the cinema. How lucky, you would say!

    A reporter's job can also be very dangerous. A number of them have died rushing from one assignment to another, and if there is a flood or a riot(暴) they may get hurt or even be killed. Three years ago there was a reporter whose camera was smashed by a group of men, because they were angry with him for taking their picture. Dangerous or not, one thing is certain, and that is, their job is never dull!

    Kincaid looked at his watch: eight-seventeen. The truck started on the second try, and he backed out, shifted gears, and moved slowly down the alley under hazy sun. Through the streets of Bellingham he went, heading south on Washington 11, running along the coast of Puget Sound for a few miles, then following the highway as it swung east a little before meeting U.S Route 20.

    Turning into the sun, he began the long, winding drive through the Cascades. He liked this country and felt unpressed stopping now and then to make notes about interesting possibilities for future expeditions or to shoot what he called "memory snapshots." The purpose of these causal photographs was to remind him of places he might want to visit again and approach more seriously. In later afternoon he turned north at Spokane, picking up U.S. Route 2, which would take him halfway across the northern United States to Duluth, Minnesota.

    He wished for the thousandth time in his life that he had a dog, a golden retriever, maybe, for travels like this and to keep him company at home. But he was frequently away; overseas much of the time and it would not be fair to the animal. Still, he thought about it anyway. In a few years he would be getting too old for the hard fieldwork. "I must get a dog then." He said to himself.

    Drives like this always put him into a sentimental mood. The dog was part of it. Robert Kincaid was alone as it's possible to be—an only child, parents both dead, distant relatives who had lost track of him and he of them, no close friends.

    He thought about Marian. She had left him nine years ago after five years of marriage. He was fifty-two now, that would make her just under forty. Marian had dreams of becoming a musician, a folksinger. She knew all of the Weavers' songs and sang them pretty well in the coffeehouse of Seattle. When he was home in the old days, he drove her to the shows and sat in the audience while she sang.

    His long absences—two or three months sometimes—were hard on the marriage. He knew that. She was aware of what he did when they decided to get married, and both of them had a vague sense that it could all be handled somehow. It couldn't when he came from photographing a story in Iceland and she was gone. The note read, "Robert, it didn't work out. I left you the Harmony guitar. Stay in touch."

    He didn't stay in touch. Neither did she. He signed the divorce papers when they arrived a year later and caught a plane for Australia the next day. She had asked for nothing except her freedom.