I once had a friend who was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and the news that he might only live up to six months was a great shock to him, his family, and his friends. However, in spite of the serious illness, he was initially determined to look into all available treatments that might cure or extend his life. I think that when you find yourself in such situations, you tend to look up every possible way for hope of saving your life.

    As months went on and his health grew worse, I noticed an unexpected change in attitude that came over him. He had also been a happy person with a cheerful personality, but rather than give in to discouragement and self－pity, he took comfort in God and humanity. His talks focused on others rather than himself, and he spoke of the afterlife as something he was prepared for, believing that his concerned ancestors, including his mother and father, were there waiting for him.

    During the last few months, weeks, and days of his life, he was kindly cared for by family, friends, his loving wife, who looked after both his physical and emotional needs, and workers from a local hospice (安养院) came to the home to regulate his medication and provide any other needed support. He didn't complain about his fate, and he willingly allowed others to serve him.

    Indeed, one might think why God allows death and suffering in our world, but for me, such experiences taught me to value family more and kindness for others. You often can't learn these important attributes in the lap of luxury, and perhaps, such an experience is the greatest and final gift the illness can give those left behind.

    Life may have evolved on at least three planets within a newly discovered solar system 39 light years from Earth. Astronomers at the NASA have discovered no less than seven roughly Earth-sized worlds orbiting a dwarf star in the system. Scientists had previously identified a tiny number of "exoplanets", which are believed to have the qualities needed to support life. However, the new system contains an unprecedented(前所未有) number of Earth-sized, probably rocky planets, and is being acknowledged as an "accelerated leap forward" in the search for extraterrestrial (外星球的)life.

    Three of the new planets are said to be particularly promising because there might exist oceans. Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA, told a press conference in Washington: "This gives us a hint that finding a second Earth is not a matter of 'if', but 'when'."

    The planets were discovered using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, which was able to track how fast each of the planets crossed the star Trappist-l and completed an orbit. From this the research team calculated how far the planets were from their star, and therefore how likely they are to be habitable.

    NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is already being used to search for atmospheres around the planets. Future telescopes, including the proposed European Extremely Large Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope, may be powerful enough to discover markers of life, such as oxygen in the atmospheres of exoplanets.

    Astronomers believe there could be as many as 40 billion potentially habitable worlds in our galaxy, the Milky Way. Prof Zurbuchen said that now was a "gold-rush phase" in the search for these exoplanets.

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    Turning on the TV, a wonderful scene comes to your eyes — a group of men, tall, strong and handsome, and women, young, beautiful and attractive, too. Together they eat in the finest restaurants, traveling everywhere around the world by luxurious planes and pleasure ships. They are models.

    Do you envy them？What sort of life are models leading？Is it a wonderful life for a young lady or a young man?

    A few models are well-known actors or actresses who can make a lot of money only by showing themselves off in commercials. But the majority of them are just curious to see what it is like. They^'d like to be models just because they are attracted by what they imagine — models earn a lot of money and lead a glorious life. This is true for those who are very successful. However, most models find it difficult to get work. Very few can earn enough to live on, and for all models their expenses are high. Their agents claim about 20% of the earnings, and no model will get very far without a clever agent. Besides, they have to buy good clothing. They also have to pay to travel to interviews and reach the places where the work is to be done.

    Interviews for a model job are known as cattle markets in the modeling world, and not without a good reason. A top model can choose his or her work, demand and receive high fees and has his or her expenses paid. But for most models, the situation is quite different. An agent or employer inspects each model much as a farmer inspects cattle at a market. Intelligence, qualifications and personal characteristics count for little against good looks and tight figures. For all except the very few lucky ones, the life of a model is a continual search for work, trying to sell him or her in the face of fierce competition and, sometimes, not particularly moral standards on the part of some employers.

    Immigration officials at the airport look suspiciously at a girl whose passport shows her occupation as “Model”, and these are men and women of considerable experience of the world. It comes no surprise to find that some models prefer to put “Secretary” or “Businessman” as their jobs in their passports.

    Every man wants his son to be somewhat of a clone, not in features but in footsteps. As he grows you also age, and your ambitions become more unachievable. You begin to realize that your boy, in your footsteps, could probably accomplish what you hoped for. But footsteps can be muddied and they can go off in different directions.

    My son Jody has hated school since day one in kindergarten. Science projects waited until the last moment. Book reports weren't written until the final threat.

    I've been a newspaperman all my adult life. My daughter is a university graduate working towards her master's degree in English. But Jody? When he entered the tenth grade he became a “vo-tech” student (技校学生). They're called “motorheads” by the rest of the student body.

    When a secretary in my office first called him “motorhead”, I was shocked. “Hey, he's a good kid,” I wanted to say. “And smart, really.”

I learned later that motorheads are, indeed, different. They usually have dirty hands and wear dirty work clothes. And they don't often make school honor rolls (光荣榜).

    But being the parent of a motorhead is itself an experience in education. We who labor in clean shirts in offices don't have the abilities that motorheads have. I began to learn this when I had my car crashed. The cost to repair it was estimated at $800. “Hey, I can fix it,” said Jody. I doubted it, but let him go ahead, for I had nothing to lose.

    My son, with other motorheads, fixed the car. They got parts from a junkyard, and ability from vo-tech classes. The cost was $25 instead of $800.

Since that first repair job, a broken air-conditioner, a non-functioning washer and a non-toasting toaster have been fixed. Neighbours and co-workers trust their car repairs to him.

    These kids are happiest when doing repairs. They joke and laugh and are living in their own relaxed world. And their minds are bright despite their dirty hands and clothes.

    I have learned a lot from my motorhead: publishers need printers, engineers need mechanics, and architects need builders. Most important, I have learned that fathers don't need clones in footsteps or anywhere else.

My son may never make the school honor roll. But he made mine.

    Katie was in big trouble. She was such a sweet kid; a third­grade teacher always dreamed of having a classroom filled with Katies; she has never had a discipline(纪律) problem. I just couldn't imagine why she had made her parents so angry.

    It seemed that Katie had been running up sizable charges in the lunch room. Her parents explained that Katie brought a great homemade lunch each day, and there was no reason for her to buy school lunch. They assumed a sit­down with Katie would solve the problem, but failed. So they asked me to help them get to the bottom of this situation.

So the next day, I asked Katie to my office."Why are you charging lunches, Katie? What happened to your homemade lunch？" I asked. "I lose it，" she responded. I leaned back in my chair and said, "I don't believe you, Katie." She didn't care." Is someone stealing your lunch, Katie？" I took a new track. "No. I just lose it." she said. Well, there was nothing else I could do.

The problem was still unsolved the next week when I noticed a boy who was new to the school sitting alone at a lunch table. He always looked sad. I thought I would go and sit with him for a while. As I walked towards him, I noticed the lunch bag on the table. The name on the bag said " Katie " .

    Now I understood and I talked to Katie. It seemed that the new boy never brought a lunch, and he wouldn't go to the lunch line for a free lunch. He had told Katie his secret and asked her not to tell anyone that his parents wanted him to get a free lunch at school. Katie asked me not to tell her parents, but I drove to her house that evening after I was sure that she was in bed. I had never seen parents so proud of their child. Katie didn't care that her parents and teacher were disappointed in her. But she cared about a little boy who was hungry and scared.

    Katie still buys lunch every day at school. And every day, as she heads out of the door, her mom hands her a delicious homemade lunch.

    After a few moments, my passenger started a conversation. It began ordinarily enough: "How do you like driving a cab?"

    "It's OK," I said. "I make a living and meet interesting people sometimes. How about you? His reply intrigued me.

    "I would not change jobs even if I could make twice as much money doing something else."

    I'd never heard that before. "What do you do?''

    "I'm in the neurology department at New York Hospital."

    Then I decided to ask for this man's help. We were not far from the airport.

    "Could I ask a big favor of you? I have a son, 15, a good kid. He wants a job, but a 15-year-old can't get hired unless his old man knows someone who owns a business, and I don't." I paused. "Is there any possibility that you could get him some kind of summer job?"

    He didn't respond for a while. Finally, he said: "Well, the medical students have a summer research project. Maybe he could fit in. Have him send me his school record." I tore off a piece of my brown lunch bag, and he scribbled his name on it and paid me. It was the last time I ever saw him.

    After I nagged, yelled, and finally threatened to cut off his pocket money, my son Robbie sent off his grades to the guy the next morning.

    Two weeks later, when I arrived home from work, my son was beaming. He handed me a letter from my passenger, saying he was to call my passenger's secretary for an interview.

    Robbie got the job. He did minor tasks, unpaid, but he fit in well. The following summer, he worked at the hospital again with more responsibility. As high school graduation neared, Dr Plum was kind enough to write letters of recommendation for Robbie and he was accepted by Brown University. Finally, Dr Robert Stern, the son of a taxicab driver, became OB-GYN chief president at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center.

    Some might call it fate, and I guess it was. But it shows that something as ordinary as a taxi ride can change your life.