When Nancy Lublin got $5,000 from her grandpa in 1996, she never once considered taking a vacation or paying off student loans .Instead, the 24-year-old New York University law student began thinking about helping low-income women get better jobs. "If a woman goes for a job interview poorly dressed, she won't get the job." Lublin says. “ but without a job, she can't afford suitable clothes."

    So with the money Lublin founded "Dress for Success” and began collecting women's clothes which were still in good condition but which their owners no longer needed. "So many women have clothes lying around that they will never wear again," one of Lublin's assistants says "Nancy's idea is so simple and yet so important to women."

    Many women come to Lublin's office before going to a job interview. Here, they receive a suit, shoes and any other things they need. Since it was set up, more than 1,000 women have turned to "Dress for Success" for help. Many of them have won jobs. Some have round jobs after being out of work for many years. Jenny, a 32-year-old woman who was recently hired as a law-firm office manager , says, "I made a good impression because of “Dress for Success”

    Attention from strangers is nothing new to me. Questions about my height is the center of almost every public interaction. My friends say my height is just a physical quality and not a personality aspect. However, when I reflect on my life, I realize that, my height has shaped my character in many ways and has helped to make me who I am.

    I learned how to be kind. When I was younger, some parents in my neighborhood regarded me kind of dangerous because I was so much larger than other children my age. I had to be extra welcoming and gentle simply to play with other children. Of course, now my coaches wish I weren't quite so kind on the basketball court.

    I learned the quality of not being too proud about myself. At 7 feet tall, everyone expects me to be an amazing basketball player. They come expecting to see Dirk Nowitzki, and instead they might see a performance more like Will Ferrell(successfully starred a professional basketball player). I have learned to be modest and to work even harder than my fellows to meet their (and my) expectations.

    I developed a sense of lightheartedness. When people playfully make fun of my height, 1laugh at myself too. On my first day of high school, a girl dropped her books in a busy hallway. I got down to her level and gathered some of her notebooks. As we both stood up, her eyes widened as I kept rising over her. Astonished, she dropped her books again. Embarrassed, we both laughed and picked up the books a second time.

    All of these lessons have defined me. Looking back, I realize that through years of such experiences, I have become a confident, expressive person. Being a 7-footer is both a blessing and a curse, but in the end, accepting who you are is the first step to happiness.

    Sitting on the sofa in her family's Michigan home in 2009, looking through the Guinness World Records, 10 year-old Winter Vinecki was surprised to find that the record for the youngest person to complete a marathon on every continent was held by a 27-year-old man. “I can beat that,” she declared. “For Dad. ” And she had every reason to believe she could.

    A natural athlete since the age of 5, Winter had been running together with her mom and uncle, both athletes, and competing in races across the country. Soon, her name was appearing in national competitions. Trophies (奖牌) lined her walls.

    But in 2008, at the age of 9, Winter stopped racing for medals. In May of that year, her father found out he had caught a rare cancer. To raise awareness and funds to fight the disease. Winter started an organization called I earn Winter. Just 10 months after his diagnosis, her father passed away.

    Over the next three years, Winter came first in 20 of the 37 races in which she competed, including four Junior Olympics Cross Country Championships. Along the way, she raised over $ 400,000 to help find a cure for cancer.

    Now 14, Winter is working on her world record to win her cause a place in the Guinness World Records. She recently completed her first marathon in Eugene, Oregon, a race normally limited to runners over 16, finishing in an amazing 3:45:04. “I'm used to racing with adults, and I think it's kind of fun to race past them,” said Winter before the race.

    With six continents to go, Winter has just begun a journey that will take her two years. “Every time I step to a starting line,” Winter says, “I have one thought in mind: keeping my dad's spirit alive.”

    Oxford English Dictionary editors recently said that "run" has become the word with the most meanings in English, with more than 645 different usage cases for the verb form alone. This entry(条目), took one professional dictionary writer nine months of research to complete. How could three little letters be responsible   for so many meanings?

    Think about it: When you run a fever, for example, those three letters have a different meaning than when you run a bath to treat it, or when your bathwater runs over and makes your bath runner wet, forcing you to run out to the store and buy a new one. There, you run up a bill of $85 because besides a small carpet and some cold medicine, you also need some thread to fix the run in your stockings and some tissue for your runny nose and a carton of milk because you've run through your supply at home, and all this makes fear run through your soul because your value club membership runs out at the end of the month and you've already run over your budget on last week's grocery run when you ran over a nail and now your car won't even run properly. God—you'd do things differently if you ran the world.

    When the OED's first edition came out in 1928, the longest entry belonged to another three letter word: "set". Today, it has some 200 meanings.

    Why is "run" suddenly the Swiss Army Knife of verbs? According to British author Simon Winchester, "run" has earned some major lift during the Industrial Revolution (工业革命), when new inventions chose it as their verb of choice. "Machines run, clocks run, computers run there are all of those that began in the middle of the 19th century," Winchester says.

    So, ready to run through the whole list of definitions(定义)? You'll have to wait for the next edition of the OED, expected in 2037.

    What makes a gift special？Is it the price you see on the gift receipt？Or is it the look on the recipient's face when they receive it that determines the true value? What gift is worth the most?

    This Christmas I was debating what to give my father. My dad is a hard person to buy for because he never wants anything. I pulled out my phone to read a text message from my mom saying that we were leaving for Christmas shopping for him when I came across a message on my phone that I had locked. The message was from my father. My eyes fell on a photo of a flower taken in Wyoming, and underneath a poem by William Blake. The flower, a lone dandelion standing against the bright blue sky, inspired me. My dad had been reciting those words to me since I was a kid. That may even be the reason why I love writing. I decided that those words would be my gift to my father.

    I called back. I told my mom to go without me and that I already created my gift. I sent the photo of the cream-colored flower to my computer and typed the poem on top of it. As I was arranging the details another poem came to mind. The poem was written by Edgar Allan Poe； my dad recited it as much as he did the other. I typed that out as well and searched online for a background to the words of it. The poem was focused around dreaming, and after searching I found the perfect picture. The image was painted with blues and greens and purples, twisting together to create the theme and wonder of a dream. As I watched both poems passing through the printer, the white paper coloring with words that shaped my childhood. I felt that this was a gift that my father would truly appreciate.

    Christmas soon arrived. The minute I saw the look on my dad's face as he unwrapped those swirling black letters carefully placed in a cheap frame, I knew I had given the perfect gift.

    A primary school in UK has banned Valentine's Day cards because of concerns that young pupils spend too much time talking about boyfriends and girlfriends.

    Ashcombe Primary School in Weston Super Mare, Somerset, has told parents that cards declaring love can be "confusing" for children under the age of 11, who are still emotionally and socially developing. In this month 's newsletter(通讯), Peter Turner, the head teacher, warned that any cards found in school would be confiscated(没收). He wrote: "We do not wish to see any Valentine's Day cards in school this year. Some children and parents encourage a lot of talk about boyfriends and girlfriends. We believe that such ideas should wait until children are mature enough emotionally and socially to understand the commitment involved in having or being a boyfriend or girlfriend." Mr. Turner said any family wanting to support the Valentine's Day idea should send cards in the post or deliver them to home addresses by hand.

    His views were endorsed by Ruth Rice, 46, who has twins Harriet and Olivia at the school. She said, "Children at that age shouldn't really be thinking about Valentine's Day, they should be concentrating on their schoolwork." They are at an age when they are impressionable(易受影响的)and most parents including myself are with Mr. Turner." She added that "the cards cause too much competition. If someone gets a card and another doesn't, then someone will be disappointed."

    However, Rajeev Takyar, 40, who has two children Jai, 11, and Aryan, five, at the school, said he was "very angry". He said, "There are schools that have banned computer games and snowballs, and now Valentine's Cards." I think banning the cards stops children from having social skills. How are they going to learn about relationships otherwise? It's ridiculous. Alec Suttenwood, father of three children, said of the ban: "It's totally ridiculous. Young children just send the cards to each other as friends and to their parents. It's just a bit of harmless fun. There is no difference between this and Mother's or Father's Day."