Sleep Struggle

     One in every five young people has a sleep problem, so you're not alone. Getting enough sleep has become as important as eating vegetables and exercising regularly. It's very important for your body.

     Most young people only get seven hours of sleep each night, when they actually need nine hours. And making up for lost sleep during the week by sleeping on weekends doesn't really work. In fact, sleeping late on weekends may actually do you more harm than good, if you have sleep problems.

     What happens if you don't get enough sleep? If your sleep problem continues for a few nights, you could suffer serious problems. Lack of sleep can affect learning and memory. Worse, if your sleep difficulties last a long time, that could lead to anxiety (焦虑). Therefore, you've got to have some healthy sleep habits. Below are some suggestions:

     •Go to bed at the same time—including weekends, if possible.

     •Wake up around the same time every morning. When you sleep late just one morning during the week, it may disturb your body clock. This will make it hard for you to sleep that night.

     •Do something relaxing before going to bed.

     •Exercise during the day. Don't exercise right before going to bed.

     •Avoid drinking. Alcohol (酒精) makes you excited. This prevents you from falling asleep or wakes you up during the night.

     •Don't smoke. Smoking is always bad for the body. Smoking before bedtime keeps you awake.

     If trying these tips over a couple of weeks does not help you, speak to your doctor. Do not take any medicine without first asking your doctor. Many of them have strong side effects.

    If you see a group of people dancing and singing on the street or in the railway station, you don't need to feel surprised. They are a flash mob(快闪族), which is a group of people who come together suddenly in a public place, do something unusual for a brief period of time, and then quickly break up. They are usually organized with the help of the Internet or other digital communication network. At a predetermined(预先决定的) time, they gather and perform some distractions(消遣) such as waving their hands and exchanging books. Then, they quickly break up before the police can arrive. Using mobile phones, the flash mob can change its location if the first one has been replaced for any reason.

    Bill Lasik, senior editor of Harper's Magazine, organized the first flash mob in Manhattan in May 2003 and the first successful flash mob came together on June 3, 2003 —after the first attempt failed at Macy's department store. Lasik claimed that the activity was designed to make fun of hipsters(赶时髦的人), and call attention to the cultural atmosphere.

    Flash mob gatherings can sometimes shock people. Such an activity might seem amusing and untrue, but it also might frighten people who are not aware of what is taking place. Undoubtedly, flash mobs can serve as good political tools in any direction. They also have great economic potential, such as using flash mobs to advertise a product.

    The flash mob is now becoming more and more popular. People use it to do many things. For example, in 2009, Michael Jackson's fans took part in a flash mob to remember him. Hundreds of his fans gathered singing and dancing Michael's famous song “Beat It” together. Flash mobs give people from all walks of life an opportunity to come together to create a memory.

    Home Laundry Automatic Dryer Product

    Full Two Year Warranty（保修）

    Limited Five Year Warranty on Cabinet（机箱）

    Warranty Provides for：

    FIRST TWO YEARS Amana will repair or replace any faulty part free of charge.

    THIRD THRU FIFTH YEARS Amana will provide a free replacement part for any cabinet which proves faulty due to rust（生锈）.

    Warranty Limitations：

    Warranty begins at date of original purchase.

    Applies only to product used within the United States or in Canada if product is approved by Canadian Standards Association when shipped from factory.

    Products used on a commercial or rental basis not covered by this warranty.

    Service must be performed by an Amana servicer.

    Adjustments covered during first year only.

Warranty Does Not Cover It If：

    Product has damage due to product change，connection to an improper electrical supply> shipping and handling, accident, fire, floods, lightning or other conditions beyond the control of Amana.

    Product is improperly installed（安装）or applied.

    Owner's Responsibilities：

    Provide sales receipt.

    Normal care and repair.

    Having the product reasonably accessible for service.

    Pay for service calls related to product installation or usage instructions.

    Pay for extra service costs, over normal service charges, if servicer is requested to perform service outside servicer^ normal business hours.

    In no event shall Amana be responsible for consequential damages（间接损坏）.

    This warranty gives you specific legal rights, and you may have others which vary from state to state For example, some states do not allow the exclusion（排除）or limitation of consequential damages, so this exclusion may not apply to you.

    An idea that started in Seattle's public library has spread throughout America. The concept is simple: help to build a sense of community (社区) in a city by getting everyone to read the same book at the same time.

    In addition to encouraging reading as a pursuit (追求) to be enjoyed by all, the program allows strangers to communicate by discussing the book on the bus, as well as encouraging reading as an experience to be shared in families and schools. The idea came from Seattle librarian Nancy Pearl who launched the “If All of Seattle Read the Same Book” project in 1998. Her original program used author visits, study guides and book discussion groups to bring people together with a book, but the idea has since expanded to many other American cities, and even to Hong Kong.

    In Chicago, the mayor (市长) appeared on television to announce the choice of To Kill a Mockingbird as the first book in the “One Book, One Chicago” program. As a result, reading clubs and neighborhood groups sprang up around the city. Across the US, stories emerged of parents and children reading to each other at night and strangers chatting away on the bus about plot and character.

    The only problem arose in New York, where local readers could not decide on one book to represent the huge and diverse population. This may show that the idea works best in medium-sized cities or large towns, where a greater sense of unity (一致) can be achieved. Or it may show that New Yorkers rather missed the point, putting all their energy and passion into the choice of the book rather than discussion about a book itself.

    Ultimately, as Nancy points out, the level of success is not measured by how many people read a book, but by how many people are enriched by the process, or have enjoyed speaking to someone with whom they would not otherwise have shared a word.

    When my sister Mertie told me she had put out tomato plants last summer, I was quite impressed.

    Since she was a garden-beginner, Mertie researched exactly how far apart to space her tomato plants; what kind of fertilizer to use; how to keep away the bugs, etc. Once they were planted, she took care of them daily, anxiously awaiting the juicy tomatoes to appear. But, day after day, her plants were tomato-less while all of her neighbors who had also put out tomato plants were already enjoying the fruit of their labor.

    Frustrated, Mertie gave in and went to the market to search fresh tomatoes. While paying, Mertie told the farmer her troubles. The farmer paused to think for a moment and then asked, "Well, what kind of tomatoes did you plant?"

    "I think they were called Big Boy," Mertie remembered.

    "Well there's your problem," the farmer explained. "Big Boy and Better Boy tomatoes have a 95-day growing period whereas regular tomato plants produce fruit in as few as 70 days…you just have to wait a little longer for the Big Boys."

    With that new knowledge, Mertie went home with excitement, knowing they would be worth the wait.

    Thinking about my sister's gardening experience, I had to smile. She just didn't know that Big Boy tomatoes took longer--neither did I — but once she discovered that information, she was no longer discouraged and upset about the lack of tomatoes on her plants. Instead, she was encouraged and excited to see them a few weeks later.

    It makes me wonder how many of us have "Big Boy" dreams in our hearts, yet we just don't realize that they are of the "Big Boy" variety so we are discouraged and worn out with the waiting process. Instead of waiting with excitement, we give up on our dreams and figure we must have done something wrong to stop them from coming to pass. Frustrated, we see other people's dreams coming true, and we wonder why ours haven't yet been achieved.

Pick up any packaged processed food, and there's a decent chance that one of its listed ingredients will be "natural flavour". The ingredient sounds good, particularly in contrast to "artificial flavours" since there is a common belief that ingredients from nature are necessarily safer than something artificially made. But it's not true. Then what exactly does the natural flavour mean? It refers to extracts (提取物) got from natural sources like plants, meat or seafood. When consumers see the "natural flavour" on a label, they are unlikely to assume that someone is squeezing the juice from oranges into their bottles. They know even though natural flavour must come from natural sources, it needn't all come from the plant or meat. For example, orange flavours might contain not only orange extracts, but also extracts from bark and grass.

So if flavours like orange are needed, why not just use oranges? The answer comes down to "availability, cost, and sustainability", according to flavour chemist Gary Reineccius of the University of Minnesota. "If you're going to use all your grapes on grape soda," Reineccius says, "you don't have any grapes for wine making; the products are going to be exorbitant; besides, what do you do with the by-products you create after you've squeezed all the juice out of the grapes?"

Actually, while chemists make natural flavours by extracting chemicals from natural ingredients, artificial flavours are made by creating the same chemicals artificially. The reason why companies bother to use natural flavours rather than artificial flavours is simple: marketing. "Many of these products have health titles," says Platkin, professor from Hunter College. "Consumers may be talked to believe products with natural flavours are healthier, though they are nutritionally no different from those with artificial flavours. Natural flavours may involve more forest clear-cutting and carbon emissions from transport than flavours created in the lab."

Platkin suggests getting more transparent (易懂的) labeling on packaging that describes exactly what the natural or artificial flavours are, so consumers are-not misled into buying one product over another because of "natural flavours". Reineccius also offers simple guidance: "Don't buy anything because it says ‘natural flavours'. Buy it because you like it."