When I was growing up, I had an old neighbor named Doctor Gibbs. He didn't look like any doctor I'd ever known. He never yelled at us for playing in his yard, but was always very kind.

    When Doctor Gibbs wasn't saving lives, he was planting trees. He had some interesting theories about planting trees. He believed in the principle “No pain, no gain”. He hardly watered his new trees, which flew in the face of conventional(传统的) wisdom. Once I asked why and he told me that watering plants spoiled them because it made them grow weaker. He said you had to make things tough for the trees so that only the strongest could survive. He talked about how watering trees made them develop shallow roots and how, if they were not watered, trees would grow deep roots in search of water. So, instead of watering his trees every morning, he'd beat them with a rolled-up newspaper. I asked him why he did that, and he said it was to get the tree's attention.

    Doctor Gibbs died a couple of years after I left home. Every now and then, I walked by his house and looked at the trees that I'd watched him plant some twenty five years ago. They were all tall and strong.

    I planted a couple of trees myself a few years ago. Two years of attending these trees meant they grew up weak. Whenever a cold wind blew, their branches trembled. Adversity(逆境) seemed to benefit Doctor Gibb's trees in ways comfort and ease never could.

    Every night before I go to bed, I check on my two sons. I often pray that their lives will be easy. But lately I've been thinking that it's time to change my prayer. I know my children are going to meet with hardship. There's always a cold wind blowing somewhere. What we need to do is to pray for deep roots, so when the rains fall and the winds blow, we won't be torn apart.

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Primary Source Holiday Shopping Night at Ten Thousand Villages

● Shop for your holiday gifts and give back to Primary Source at Ten Thousand Villages on Friday, December 4! 15% of all sales from 3:00 p. m．—7:00 p. m. that day will be donated to Primary Source. Join us for light refreshments and enjoy beautiful handmade gifts from artisans around the world. All are welcome!

Primary Source's Holiday Shopping Night

Friday, December 4, 2014

3:00 p. m．—7:00 p. m.

Ten Thousand Villages

226 Harvard Street, Brookline, Massachusetts (Coolidge Corner)

Download our flyer and tell your friends!

    Ten Thousand Villages provides vital, fair income for the people from developing countries by marketing their handicrafts and telling their stories in North America. Learn more and preview toys, home decor, jewelry, and other gifts online.

● Can't join us on Dec. 4? At GoodShop, 30% of your spending will be given to Primary Source. The next time you're ready to make an online purchase(购物), visit www. goodshop. com and enter “Primary Source” in the space provided. Click “verify” and choose from more than seven hundred popular stores and sites, from Apple to Zappos. GoodShop is free and easy to use, and each purchase you make will help Primary Source provide global education materials for schools all over New England.

    On plenty of drives with my mom through my childhood, she would suddenly pull over the car to examine a flower by the side of the road or rescue a beetle from tragedy while I, in my late teens and early twenties, sat impatiently in the car.

    Though Mother's Day follows Earth Day, for me, they have always been related to each other. My mom has been “green” since she became concerned about the environment. Part of this habit was born of thrift (节俭). Like her mother and her grandmother before her, mom saves glass jars, empty cheese containers and reuses her plastic bags.

    Mom creates a kind of harmonious relationship with wildlife in her yard. She knows to pick the apples on her trees a little early to avoid the bears and that if she leaves the bird feeders out at night, it is likely that they will be knocked down by a family of raccoons (浣熊). Spiders that make their way into the house and are caught in juice glasses will be set loose in the garden.

    I try to teach my children that looking out for the environment starts with being aware of the environment. On busy streets, we look for dandelions(蒲公英) to fly in the wind; we say hello to neighborhood cats and pick up plastic cups and paper bags. This teaching comes easily, I realize, because I was taught so well by example. Mom didn't need to lecture; she didn't need to beat a drum to change the world. She simply slowed down enough to enjoy living in it and with that joy came mercy and an instinct(直觉) for protection.

    I am slowing down and it isn't because of the weight of my nearly forty years on the planet, it is out of my concern for the planet itself. I've begun to save glass jars and reuse packing envelopes. I pause in my daily tasks to watch the squirrels race each other in the trees above my house.

    Last summer, in the company of my son and daughter, I planted tomatoes in my yard. With the heat of August around me, I ate the first while sitting on my low wall with dirt on my hands. Warm from the sun, it burst on my tongue with sweetness. I immediately wanted to share with my mom.

    For many years, Bruce Bexler dreamed of going to the lands no human had explored and discovered rare, unknown species. That might sound like an impossible dream, but Bexler turned it into a reality.

    In December 2015, he, together with a team of Australian and American scientists, adventured into a rain forest on the island of New Guinea. They were the first people ever to enter the region. “As we were dropped on the ground by helicopter, we found no trails anywhere; it was really hard to get around,” Bexler says.

    Within minutes of landing, the team spotted a black chicken-like bird. The scientists soon determined that the creature was a type of honeyeater-the first new bird species to be sighted on New Guinea in 60 years. The honeyeater wasn't the only surprise for them. They discovered more than 40 previously unknown plant and animal species. “We were like kids in a candy store?' Bexler recalls. “Everywhere we looked, we saw amazing things we had never seen before.”

    The new found species didn't shy away from the scientists. Two long-nosed echidnas even let the visitors pick them up and take them back to camp to study them. Bexler thinks the animals weren't scared because they had never seen humans before. He explains, “This area gives scientists a place where they can study the behaviours of animals that have not yet learned to be afraid of people.”

    Bexler and his team did not have enough time to study the area completely. “We just scratched the surface, Bexler says. “Anyone who goes there will come back with a mystery.”

    I had about 10 minutes to exercise before I had to pick up my two older daughters from school yesterday. It was a busier day than usual for me with a couple of meetings besides my regular work.

    Years ago, I would have put off my workout and would have left things for the next day. But since it was a busy day as well, I knew that I may not have all that much time either. So, I picked up my kettle-bell (哑铃) and went to town for 4 minutes.

    See, 4 minutes, if that's all you've got, is enough to give your body a great fat-burning exercise. How did I get a killer workout in 4 minutes? I used a training workout discovered 10 years ago by a Japanese Sports Scientist called a TABATA.

    It includes 20-second periods of warm-up, followed by 10-second periods of rest and 4-minute straight exercise. How is a 4-minute exercise able to burn fat? It all depends on the quality of work you do. Not on the quantity. Here's how I did it yesterday.

    You should never forget your warm-up. A TABATA workout is 20 seconds of 2-arm Kettle-bell swings, 10 seconds rest, 20 seconds push-ups, and 10 seconds rest. You should do those 4 rounds. That's it. I was done in a total time of 8 minutes by the time and when I got to school my heart was still pumping pretty hard.

    A healthy body is needed for studying and working, and efficiency (效率) is the key to building a great body in the least amount (数量) of time possible and you can't get more efficient than a 4-minute workout.

    Can you imagine being able to remember every single experience of your life and every word in your favorite book? That's what Becky's life is like, and as wonderful as it sounds, it can also be quite terrifying at times.

    Three years ago  Becky was reading a newspaper article which mentioned that it was impossible for people to remember the details of their life in the first three years. "What nonsense (胡说八道)!" she thought, because she could clearly remember her life all the way back to when she was just 12 days old. Her parents had carried her to the driver's seat of their car and laid her down for a photo. But it wasn't nonsense. She was just one of only 80 known people who have a condition called HSAM(Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory).

    Becky's unusual condition was recently shown on a program called 60 minutes, where reporter Allison tested her ability by asking her questions about her favorite book series, Harry Potter. Allison would pick up a book and open a page and read her a line. Immediately Becky would name the book, chapter number, chapter name and could recite every word until Allison told her to stop.

    Being able to remember every little detail is a great ability, but as every person with HSAM will tell you, it can be very hard to deal with. Forgetting is one of the things we use to get over sad experiences in our lives, but it's something that people like Becky are unable to do. Even walking on the street and lightly bumping(撞) into somebody brings back memories from Becky's childhood, when a boy knocked her over. She's taken right back to that time, living the experience all over again. Also, like Becky, people with HSAM never do well in school, because they have problems filtering(过滤) through all the information, remembering only the important bits.

    Becky's special brain could help scientists find a way to treat people with terrible illnesses like Alzheimer's. Her condition could hold the secret to treating or even preventing Alzheimer's.