In 1975, George Carlin appeared on a popular TV show, Saturday Night Live, with his famous words about blue food. “Why is there no blue food? I can't find blue food—I can't find the flavor of blue! I mean yellow is lemon; orange is orange and red is cherry. Where is the blue food?”

    Well, Carlin pretty much has it right—there is not no blue food, but there's certainly not a lot of it. Fresh-picked blueberries are blue, though they become purple when they are turned into jam. The blue in blueberries—like the purple in grapes and red in tomatoes—is found in nature. But it isn't a hot color for food. People don't seem to prefer blue food. Some diet programs even suggest that those determined to lose weight should make their food blue.

    Eating, in part, begins with our eyes. Chares Spence—an experimental psychologist from Oxford University—points out that color can change our taste experience. Commonly, we consider red-colored foods up to 20% sweeter than they actually are; and green foods as being more sour. Spence suggests: human expectations may be influenced by our long history of watching—green fruits can become sweet as they grow up and turn red.

    But what about blue? Except blueberries, much of the blue food we see these days is dyed blue artificially. Food producers argue that artificial color doesn't do much damage to health. A lot of research shows that some physical problems of kids are related to food dyes—while other studies show no effects at all. Blue birthday cake or even blue-dyed chicken can be served on the dinner table. So what?

    Whether in your life or work, the following things are not the reasons for you to feel embarrassed. It's OK and just move on.

⒈Mistakes while learning

    There will be times when you have people above you(a boss) or even next to you(a coworker) that will get really annoyed with you for“ruining"  something "important".{#blank#}1{#/blank#} Even if you make mistakes and get a punishment, persevere and push on. You do not need to be embarrassed for learning from your mistakes.

⒉Food choices

    People are different and have different taste buds（味蕾）.Whether it is healthy or not, food is a choice and it is part of life.{#blank#}2{#/blank#}  You do not need to be embarrassed for food you do or do not like. Tell them, "It is a personal choice I have made, and I am committed to it.”

⒊Your past

    Allowing positive experiences to define, limit, improve, and outshine（凸显）you may cause you to be caught up in the past and unable to truly live in the present. Whether your history is positive, negative, or somewhere in between, don't hold on to the negative experiences and let it reflect your current behavior，{#blank#}3{#/blank#}

⒋The clean lines of your car／home／workspace

    When everyone gets in the car, you realize your Starbuck bags are still on the floor. So what? Think about it this way: everyone has a "messy" aspect of their life. Maybe their home is completely clean, but the relationship with their spouse（配偶）is messy. Someone's car gets washed once a week, but his/her work life could use some help.{#blank#}4{#/blank#} We don't apologize to others about our personal limitations. By being outwardly embarrassed, it only brings more attention to the fact!

⒌Putting yourself first

    If you find yourself saying no to something or making up lies to get out of it,tell them the truth,  and don't apologize. You will feel much better in the long run if you are honest with them and yourself. If you're not up to a voluntary duty, you don't have to be. You can politely refuse the person's request.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Put yourself first.

A. It is simply a personal choice that people make for their own reasons.

B. It is okay to be selfish from time to time.

C. Errors are bound to happen when you have on your training wheels.

D. Each of them waits for your immediate help.

E. Let bygones(过去的事)  be bygones.

F. Forgetting history means betrayal.

G. No one on Earth lives a perfectly "clean" life in every aspect.

    Everyone's at it, even my neighbors. I thought I might be the only person left in the world who hadn't done an eBay deal. So, I decided to try my hand at online Auction（网上拍卖）.

    Buying for Beginners

    Sign up on www.eBay.co.uk. Most items （e.g. tables, computers and books）ready for auction will come with a picture and a short description; others may be marked with Buy It Now and have a fixed price. You can buy these right away.

    If the item is being auctioned, you offer the highest price you are prepared to pay and eBay bids（出价）for you. The bid will be increased little by little until it goes beyond your highest bid, then you are emailed and asked if you would like to bid again. Auctions last up to 10 days and when they finish, you get an email telling you whether you have won the item.

    How to Pay

    Sellers decide how they would like to be paid and you need to check this before placing a bid as you might not want to post a check or postal order （邮政汇票）. The easiest way is through PayPal, an online payment system that takes the money away from your credit card.

    Selling Made Sample

    If you plan to sell on eBay, it helps to include a picture of the item. I followed my friend's advice and put up the items I wanted to sell for a 10-day auction, starting on a Thursday. This way buyers had two weekends to bid.

    The Big Things in Life

    It's easy to post a small item, but furniture is a big part of eBay and this has to be collectively sent by deliverymen. Check the ways of delivery before you bid.

    Today, we are constantly bombarded with media reports about research on the right diet to follow to help us maintain a healthy lifestyle or lose weight—but it's hard to know which one to pick and, once chosen, it's harder still to stick to it. And now there's another choice to get our teeth into.

    A flexitarian(弹性素食者)diet involves eating plant—based foods and only occasionally eating meat and fish. This eating style allows you to supplement some ingredients that you wouldn't get in a stricter vegan(素食主义者)diet—another trend growing in popularity. And like veganism, flexitarianism isn't about eating carefully to help you lose a few pounds—it's something people choose for ethical reasons, to help the planet. And a study into the global food system and how it affects the climate, has found that eating mainly plant-based foods is one of three key steps towards a sustainable future for all by 2050.

    This research found that food waste will need to be halved and farming practices will also have to improve to achieve this. But without a single solution, a combined approach is needed. Dr Marco Springmann from the University of Oxford was one of the lead authors of the report. He told the BBC “We really found that a combination of measures would be needed to stay within environmental limits and those include changes towards healthier more plant—based diets.”

    But whereas vegans think it's wrong for animals to be killed for food, flexitarians believe eating meat once in a while is acceptable. And Dr Springmann agrees—as long as we “treat it as a luxury, it's probably OK but you shouldn't have more than one serving of red meat, which includes beef and pork, per week.” And here's another fact to digest: If we moved to this type of diet, the study found that greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture would be cut by more than half.

    It's undeniable that spending time outdoors and in nature lifts our spirits and makes us feel more centered and at peace. When we breathe in fresh air, and enjoy the beauty of trees, streams and oceans, we naturally tend to feel more connected to ourselves and others.

Over the past decade, scientists have been exploring why nature — and dirt specifically — is such a powerful tool in improving our mood. According to researchers, the secret may lie in the microbes (微生物)of the soil. One bacterium specifically—-Mycobacterium Vaccae (M. Vaccae) —has been identified as having the power to affect our moods and cognitive function as well.

    Experiments conducted at Sage Colleges in New York found that contact with M. Vaccae can increase serotonin levels in the brain — a chemical that is associated with higher levels of happiness, increased focus, and reduced anxiety. In order to explore how the bacteria can improve learning, researchers Dory Mathews and Susan Jenks experimented with mice in a maze. Mice that ingested the bacteria navigated the maze twice as fast as the control group and proved less anxious as well.

    Humans can absorb M. Vaccae just by playing in the dirt. We take in it when we breathe, we consume it in organic vegetables, and it can also enter our bloodstream through skin contact, especially where we have open cuts. This may explain why children in school perform better after break.

    Neuroscientist Christopher Lowry at the University of Bristol in England believes that he has identified why this incredible bacterium works. "What we think happens is that the bacteria activate immune cells, which release chemicals called cytokines that then act on receptors on the sensory nerves to increase their activity.”

    Beyond the power of M. Vaceae, scientists have been proving for decades that exposure to dirt, and the huge number of microbes found in dirt, can strengthen our immune system. When our body comes into contact with bacteria, it stores die information in a type of library and can then use that information to fight sickness and infection more effectively.

    Happiness, focus, less anxiety… I'll take a double dose of dirt; please!

My acquaintance, who never excelled in scholastic pursuits, possessed an innate acuity for aesthetic appreciation. On one occasion, I was engaged in the task of arranging a collection of floral blooms within a container, yet was unable to achieve a visually pleasing arrangement. She approached and, with a few deft motions of her hand, metamorphosed the ensemble into an arresting arrangement of blossoms. Upon receiving commendation for this remarkable proficiency, she dismissed the praise with a nonchalant gesture, perceiving her imaginative prowess as unremarkable.

Frequently, we tend to undervalue our innate competencies, perhaps because we are conditioned to regard only those attributes such as superior intellectual capacity, a proclivity for numerical computation, or an extensive lexicon as possessing intellectual merit. I was graced with the opportunity to discern a different perspective at an early stage of my life.

Upon my commencement of secondary education, a vocational advisor informed my parent that I was not suited for higher education due to my lackluster performance in a spelling component of a standardized assessment. Fortunately, my parent recognized the breadth of my intellectual endowments and advocated on my behalf, demanding that I be included in an academically rigorous curriculum. This episode fundamentally shaped the trajectory of my existence, illustrating the significance of not succumbing to the categorizations imposed by others and enabling me to reach my fullest intellectual capacity.

In the nascent years of the 1980s, Howard Gardner, an eminent scholar from Harvard, introduced the groundbreaking notion of "multiple intelligences." In his seminal work, "Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences," he posited that intelligence transcends the conventional definition and encompasses a diverse spectrum of cognitive faculties.

What captivates me about the theory of multiple intelligences is its capacity to reconceptualize one's own capabilities and innate skills, particularly those that may not conform to the structured confines of academic paradigms. While it is acknowledged that a threshold of intellectual capability is necessary for success, the analytical competencies gauged by I.Q. assessments do not encompass the complete narrative. Hence, we ought to extol all of our talents and competencies, for they constitute the essence of what renders your individual cognitive capacity so extraordinary and distinctive.