I left university with a good degree in English Literature, but no sense of what I wanted to do. Over the next six years, I was treading water, just trying to earn an income. I tried journalism, but I didn't think I was any good, then finance, which I hated. Finally, I got a job as a rights assistant at a famous publisher. I loved working with books, although the job that I did was dull.

    I had enough savings to take a year off work, and I decided to try to satisfy a deep-down wish to write a novel. Attending a Novel Writing MA course gave me the structure I needed to write my first 55,000 words.

    It takes confidence to make a new start — there's a dark period in-between where you're neither one thing nor the other. You're out for dinner and people ask what you do, and you're too ashamed to say, “Well, I'm writing a novel, but I'm not quite sure if I'm going to get there.” My confidence dived. Believing my novel could not be published ,

    I put it aside.

    Then I met an agent（代理商）who said I should send my novel out to agents. So, I did and, to my surprise, got some wonderful feedback. I felt a little hope that I might actually become a published writer and, after signing with an agent, I finished the second half of the novel.

    The next problem was finding a publisher. After two-and-a-half years of no income, just waiting and wondering, a publisher offered me a book deal — that publisher turned out to be the one I once worked for.

    It feels like an unbelievable stroke of luck — of fate, really. When you set out to do something different, there's no end in sight, so to find myself in a position where I now have my own name on a contract of the publisher — to be a published writer — is unbelievably rewarding.

    Are some people born clever, and others born stupid? Or is intelligence developed by our environment and our experience? Strangely enough, the answer to these questions is yes. To some degree our intelligence is given to us at birth, and no amount of education can make a genius out of a child born with low intelligence. On the other hand, a child who lives in a boring environment will develop his intelligence less than one who lives in rich and varied surroundings. Thus the limits of person's intelligence are fixed at birth, whether or not he reaches those limits will depend on his environment. This view, now held by most experts, can be supported in a number of ways.

    It is easy to show that intelligence is to some degree something we are born with. The closer the blood relationship between two people, the closer they are likely to be intelligent. Thus if we take two unrelated people at random from population, it is likely that their degree of intelligence will be completely different. If, on the other hand, we take two identical twins, they will very likely be as intelligent as each other. Relations like brothers and sisters, parents and children, usually have similar intelligence, and this clearly suggests that intelligence depends on birth. Imagine now that we take two identical twins and put them in different environments. We might send one, for example, to a university and the other to a factory where the work is boring. We would soon find differences in intelligence developing, and this indicates that environment as well as birth plays a part. This conclusion is also suggested by the fact that people who live in close contact with each other, but who are not related at all are likely to have similar degree of intelligence.

    An old friend from California called from the airport to tell me that he had arrived. I was not able to leave the office, but I had made plans for his arrival. After explaining (解释) where my new house was, I told him that I had left the key under the doormat (门垫). Since I knew it would be pretty late before I could get home, I suggested that he make himself at home and help himself to anything that was in the refrigerator(电冰箱).

    Two hours later my friend phoned me from the house. At the moment, he said, he was listening to some of my records after having had a delicious meal. Now, he said, he was drinking a glass of orange juice. When I asked him if he had had any difficulty finding the house, he answered that the only problem was that he had not been able to find the key under the doormat, but luckily, the living room window by the apple tree had been left open and he had climbed in through the window. I listened to all this in great surprise. There is no apple tree outside my window, but there is one by the living room window of my next door neighbor's house!

    Sure it's good to get along with your teacher because it makes the time you spend in the classroom more pleasant.

    And yes, it's good to get along with your teacher because in general it's smart to learn how to understand the different types of people you'll meet throughout your life.

    "But really there's one super-important reason why you should get along with your teacher. When you do learning bursts right open " says Evelyn Vuko a longtime teacher who writes an education column(专栏) called "Teacher Says" for the Washington Post newspaper.

    In fact, kids, who get along with their teachers not only learn more but they're more comfortable asking questions and getting extra help. This makes it easier to understand new material and do your best on tests. When you have this kind of relationship with a teacher he or she can be someone to turn to with problems such as problems with learning or school life such as bullying.

    As a kid in a primary or middle school you're at a wonderful stage in your life. You're like a sponge (海绵) able to absorb lots of new and exciting information. On top of that you're able to think about all this information in new ways. Your teacher knows that in most cases is very excited to be the person who's giving you all that material and helping you make it. Remember teachers are people too and they feel great if you're open to what they're teaching you. That's why they wanted to be teachers in the first place-to teach!

    Some kids may be able to learn in any situation whether they like the teacher or not. But most kids are sensitive to the way they get along with the teacher and if things aren't going well they won't learn as well and won't enjoy being in class.

Narayana Peesapaty was sitting on a flight when he noticed a passenger trying to reach food with a biscuit after breaking his spoon. At that moment, the researcher's mind gave birth to a simple yet revolutionary concept — edible spoons.

How do you like your spoon?

Peesapaty's company, Bakeys, makes edible spoons mainly out of sorghum(高粱）though rice, wheat and water are also ingredients. They combine to form a dry eating tool that remains hard even when used in moist or hot foods. Bakeys also makes ginger and garlic flavored(风味) spoons to meet specific requests. All spoons are completely natural and acceptable for nearly all diets.

A rice replacement

An environmentally-minded water researcher, Peesapaty, designed his spoons to be eco-friendly in several ways. Sorghum was chosen as the main ingredient of the spoons instead of rice, which requires 60 times as much water. Sorghum was also chosen for the strength it would lend eating tool, and the grain requires little water, low energy and no chemicals to grow.

In place of plastic

The goal that Peesapaty hopes to attain through Bakeys is to prevent plastic from any contact with food. Plastic products can contain cancer-causing substances that come into food, and average plastic bottles take 450 years to break down. In contrast, a Bakeys' spoon is nutritious and break down in 10 days or less if thrown away. Peesapaty admits that using plastic is cheaper, but he also says that his spoons will be equally inexpensive when mass-produced.