Jane was running late. Jane, 25, had a lot to do at work, plus visitors on the way: her parents were coming in for Thanksgiving from her hometown. But as she hurried down the subway stairs, she started to feel uncomfortably warm. By the time she got to the platform, Jane felt weak and tired—maybe it hadn't been a good idea to give blood the night before, she thought. She rested herself against a post close to the tracks.

    Several yards away, Tom, 43, and his girlfriend, Jennifer, found a spot close to where the front of the train would stop. They were deep in discussion about a house they were thinking of buying.

    But when he heard the scream, followed by someone yelling, "Oh, my God, she fell in!" Tom didn't hesitate. He jumped down to the tracks and ran some 40 feet toward the body lying on the rails. "No! Not you!" his girlfriend screamed after him.

    She was right to be alarmed. By the time Tom reached Jane, he could feel the tracks shaking and see the light coming. The train was about 20 seconds from the station.

    It was hard to lift her. She was just out. But he managed to raise her the four feet to the platform so that bystanders could hold her by the grins and drag her away from the edge. That was where Jane briefly regained consciousness, felt herself being pulled along the ground, and saw someone else holding her purse.

    Jane thought she'd been robbed. A woman held her hand and a man gave his shirt to help stop the blood pouring from her head. And she tried to talk but she couldn't, and that was when she realized how much pain she was in.

    Police and fire officials soon arrived, and Tom told the story to an officer. Jennifer said her boyfriend was calm on their 40-minute train ride downtown-just as he had been seconds after the rescue, which made her think about her reaction at the time. "I saw the train coming and I was thinking he was going to die," she explained.

    Men are spending more and more time in the kitchen encouraged by celebrity (名人) chefs like Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver, according to a report from Oxford University.

    The effect of the celebrity role models, who have given cooking a more manly picture, has combined with a more general drive towards sexual equality and men now spend more than twice the amount of time preparing meals than they did in 1961.

    According to the research by Prof. Jonatahn Gershuny, who runs the Centre for Time Research at Oxford, men now spend more than half an hour a day cooking, up from just 12 minutes a day in 1961.

    Prof. Gershuny said, “The man in the kitchen is part of a much wider social trend. There has been 40 years of sexual equality, but there is another 40 years probably to come.”

    Women, who a generation ago spent nearly two hours a day cooking, now spend just one hour and seven minutes—a great fall, but they still spend far more time in the kitchen than men.

    Some experts have named these men in aprons as “Gastrosexuals (men using cooking skills to impress friends)”, who have been inspired to pick up a kitchen knife by the success of Ramsay, Oliver as well as other male celebrity chefs such as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Marco Pierre White and Keith Floyd.

     “I was married in 1974. When my father came to visit me a few weeks later, I was wearing an apron when I opened the door. He laughed,” said Prof. Gershuny. “That would never happen now.”

    Two-thirds of adults say that they come together to share at least three times a week, even if it is not necessarily around a kitchen or dining room table. Prof. Gershuny pointed out that the family meal was now rarely eaten by all of its members around a table—with many “family meals” in fact taken on the sofa in the sitting room, and shared by family members. “The family meal has changed a lot, and few of us eat—as I did when I was a child—at least two meals a day together as a family. But it has survived in a different format.”

    Susan was born as the ninth child in a Catholic family. She suffered from learning disabilities ever since her birth because of her mother's poor health.

    School was difficult for Susan and she was bullied because of her different behaviors. Her siblings, who were much older, had life experiences that were unknown to their little sister. From the time of her birth, Susan was a screamer. The only really safe place that she would use as a repeat was her bedroom. There she would hang posters of her musical idols on the wall and sing popular music into a hairbrush that she pretended was a microphone.

    One by one the siblings moved away from home and then Susan's father died. This left her alone with an aging mother and a cat. The siblings accused her mother of not expecting more out of Susan. She had seen many professionals and remembered hearing the word “borderline” but didn't know what it meant. She tried volunteer work. Her best state of mind, however, was found when she was singing and so she would regularly join others in karaoke or pubs where she could show her skills and receive appreciation from the crowd.

    When Susan announced at Christmas that she was planning to compete in the Britain's Got Talent contest, her siblings tried to discourage her. It was a wonder that she was even able to do the audition considering the troubles she faced just physically getting to the right place.

    “The Woman I Was Born to Be” is a beautiful story written in the simple but humorous voice of the author, Susan Boyle. She tells her story from birth to the present in an interesting and educational manner. The writing is supplemented by photos from her albums.

    I love this book! In fact, I read the whole thing in one day!

There is something in the stories that not only teaches the reader but also inspires us to reach for our dreams — no matter how impossible they may seem to be!

    It took place at the Biltmore Hotel. My grandmother, my mother, and I were having lunch after a morning spent shopping. I gladly ordered a Salisbury steak. When brought to the table, it was accompanied by a plate of peas. I do not like peas now. I did not like peas then. I have always hated peas.

    “Eat your peas,” my grandmother said.

    “Mother,” said my mother in her warning voice. “He doesn't like peas. Leave him alone.”

    My grandmother did not reply, but leaned in my direction, looked me in the eye, and spoke out the fateful words that changed my life, “I'll pay you five dollars if you eat those peas.”

    I only knew that five dollars was a huge, nearly unimaginable amount of money, and awful as peas were, only one plate of them stood between me and the possession of that five dollars. I began to force them down my throat.

    My mother looked livid (铁青色的). My grandmother had a self-satisfied look and said, “I can do what I want, Ellen, and you can't stop me.” My mother glared at her mother. She glared at me. No one can glare like my mother. If there were a glaring Olympics, she would undoubtedly win the gold medal.

    I, of course, kept shoving peas down my throat, and every single pea made me want to throw up, but the magical image of the five dollars floated before me, and I finally swallowed every last one of them. My grandmother handed me the five dollars with satisfaction. My mother continued to glare in silence.

    That night, at dinner, my mother served two of my all-time favorite foods, meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Along with them came a big, steaming bowl of peas. She offered me some peas, and of course I declined. My mother fixed me with a cold eye as she heaped（堆积) a huge pile of peas onto my plate. Then came the words that were to haunt (萦绕) me for years. “You ate them for money,” she said, “You can eat them for love.”

    I prefer Lynne Truss's phraseology: I am a grammar "sticker". And, like Truss—author of Eats, shoots & Leaves – I have a "zero tolerance" approach to grammar mistakes that make people look stupid.

    Now, Truss and I disagree on what it means to have "zero tolerance". She thinks that people who mix up basic grammar "deserve to be struck by lightning, hacked (砍) up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave", while I just think they deserve to be passed over for a job—even if they are otherwise qualified for the position.

    Everyone who applies for a position at either of my companies, iFixit or Dozuki, takes a compulsory grammar test. If job hopefuls can't distinguish between "to" and "too", their applications go into the bin.

    Of course, we write for a living. iFixit.com is the world's largest online repair manual (指南), and Dozuki helps companies write their own technical documentation, like paperless work instructions and step-by-step user manuals. So, it makes sense that we've made a strong strike against grammar errors.

    But grammar is relevant for all companies. Yes, language is constantly changing, but that doesn't make grammar unimportant. Good grammar is credibility, especially on the Internet. And, for better or worse, people judge you if you can't tell the difference between "their" "there" and "they're".

    Good grammar makes good business sense—and not just when it comes to hiring writers. Writing isn't in the official job description of most people in our office. Still, we give our grammar test to everybody, including our salespeople, our operations staff, and our programmers.

    Grammar signifies more than just a person's ability to remember high school English. I've found that people who make fewer mistakes on a grammar test also make fewer mistakes when they are doing something completely unrelated to writing—like stocking shelves or labeling parts. It is the same with programmers. Applicants who don't think writing is important are likely to think lots of other things also aren't important.

Dear Jamie,

    I'm writing to you because I feel like we've grown distant lately. I know you have two little babies now that take up most of your attention, but I want to remind you that I'm your dog. My name is Max, and I am here long before those two troublemakers joined our family. The older one, Hannah, keeps trying to ride me. She knows I'm not a horse, right? Let's remember that I'm 11 now. That's 77 years old to you, friend. So how about showing me some respect I deserve?

    Anyway, I'm still an official part of this family. I know I have made mistakes with food, but those kids are covered with so much food. It's like an alcoholic living in a wine store. I have tried harder not to eat their food, but this business of forcing me to the backyard for most of the day was unacceptable.

    And when you told your wife Kate that you wanted to drop me off in the valley to live with wolves, well, that hurt my self-respect. And did you have to do it right in front of me? I might be old, but I can still hear.

    Remember the old days? By the time you came into the picture, I had already known Kate for three years. And then you came along. I knew she liked you so I welcomed you into our world. I remembered one night, she asked me if I thought you were the one. I barked "yes" repeatedly because I thought you would take great care of us. And you did.

    Look, I know you're a father of two now, but please try to include me a little bit more. That's all I'm asking.

Sincerely yours,

Max the Puggle