Hidden from the noise of Washington, D.C., Hillwood Museum is a special treasure. It contains (包含) one of the finest personal collections (收藏) of Russian and French art in the world.

    Hillwood Museum was once the home of Marjorie Merriweather Post. She was a rich businesswoman. She owned one of the largest food companies in the United States. She was also very interested in collecting beautiful French art and furniture.

    She moved to Russia in the 1930s as her third husband, Joseph Davies, became the American ambassador (大使) in Moscow. Marjorie Merriweather Post had a love for Russian art as well. She bought the house in Washington in 1955 and she wanted to make it into a museum after her death. Many art experts helped Mrs. Post create its fine collection.

    Hillwood has many rooms which are filled with her treasures. Visitors can see beautiful music boxes from the eighteenth century and colorful paintings of European princesses (公主). Experts say the ancient wood and gold furniture from France is some of the finest ever made. Visitors can even look at Mrs. Post's jewels and clothes.

    The museum also has several beautiful gardens. One is designed like the gardens in Japan. It has a bridge and visitors can watch flowers floating in the water. Flowers are also grown all the year in a special glass building or greenhouse. These flowers are placed in the house throughout the year.

After a walk, visitors can rest at a nearby eating place. They can also buy objects to remember this special museum.

Around the World by Wheelchair

    Rick Hansen was always an active kid and loved to fish. When returning in a truck one day from a fishing trip, he had an accident and suffered injuries to his spine (脊柱)，This 15-year-old young man awoke to find that he had lost the use of his legs. However, he didn't give up. Many months later he began to compete in wheelchair sports. At the age of 27, he decided to wheel around the world to raise awareness and money for spinal cord research. His tour took him through 34 countries around the world between 1985 and1987. In this Man of Motion World Tour, he wheeled 24,901.55 miles, which is equal to the distance around the earth.

    Bad weather and difficult, rocky roads often provided challenges for Rick, but he continued to push himself to complete the trip. He was determined to succeed. Even mountains did not stop Rick Hansen. He wheeled himself up the Rocky Mountains and several other major mountains in the world. He even wheeled himself along the Great Wall of China!

    “Never Give Up On Your Dream” was his motto and he hasn't given up yet. He completed his world tour raising $24 million. He continues to work to increase knowledge of spinal cord injury. He is a true Canadian hero who shows what determination can achieve.

    When we think of leadership, we often think of power and strength. But leadership today is not about forcing others to do things. If this is even possible, it is short-term, and tends to backfire. If you order someone to do something against their will, they may do it because they feel it a must, but the anger they feel will do more harm to them in the long term. They will also experience fear.

    Fear causes the thinking brain to shut down, making the person unable to function at his or her best. If they connect you with this emotion of fear, they will become less productive around you, and you will have ended up in not only shooting yourself in the foot, but possibly making every good employee or partner unable to work effectively. Fear has no place in leadership.

    The way we influence people in a lasting way is by our own character, and our understanding and use of emotion. We can order someone to do something, which may be part of the workday; or we can employ him or her at the emotional level, so they put their heart fully into the projects and provide some of their own creation. Today's work place is all about relationships.

    People work harder in a positive environment where they're recognized and valued as a human being as well as a worker. Everyone produces just a bit more for someone they like. Leaders understand the way things work. They know the payment is not the only most inspiring factor in the work life of most people.

    The true strength of leadership is an inner strength that comes from the confidence of emotional intelligence – knowing your own emotions, and how to handle them, and those of others. Developing your emotional intelligence is the best thing you can do if you want to develop your relationships with people around you, which is the key to the leadership skills.

Do you like spicy food?

    What's your opinion on spicy food? Some people cannot handle even the smallest amount of chili-red pepper-in their dinner while others can't get enough of it.

    Scientists have long been puzzled by why some people love chili while others loathe it. Plenty of research has been done on the subject, dating as far back as the 1970s. Previous results showed that a love of chili is related to childhood experiences, and cultural influences affect our taste buds too. But the latest study has found that a person's love of spicy food may be linked to his or her personality more than anything else, CBC News reported.

    "We have always assumed that liking drives intake-we eat what we like and we like what we eat. But no one has actually directly bothered to connect these personality traits with intake of chili peppers,"said Professor John Hayes from Pennsylvania State University, who led the study.

    But before you look at the study, you should first know that "spicy" is not a taste, unlike sour, sweet, bitter and salty. It is, in fact, a burning sensation that you feel on the surface of your tongue. This got scientists thinking that maybe a love of spicy food is brought about by people's longing for thrill, something they usually get from watching action movies or riding a roller coaster.

    In the study, 97 participants, both male and female, were asked to fill out questionnaires about certain traits of their personality, for example, whether they like new experiences or tend to avoid risks. They were then given a glass of water with capsaicin, the plant chemical that makes a chili burn, mixed into it.

    By comparing the answers to the questionnaire and what participants said they felt about the spicy water, researchers found that those who tended to enjoy action movies or take risks were about six times more likely to enjoy the spicy water.

    Interestingly, we used to believe that the reason some people can withstand spicy food is that their tongues have become less sensitive to it. However, this latest study has found otherwise. "It's not that it doesn't burn as badly, it's that you actually learn to like the burn," Hayes explained.

    Mr. Lang worked in a factory. As a driver, he was busy but he was paid much. His wife was an able woman and did all the housework. When he came back, she took good care of him and he never did anything at home. So he had enough time when he had a holiday. A few friends of his liked gambling(赌博) and he learned it soon. So he was interested in it and hardly forgot anything except gambling. He lost all his money and later he began to sell the television, watches and so on. His wife told him not to do it but he didn't listen to her. She had to tell the police. He and his friends were punished for it. And he was hardly sent away. After he came out of lockup(拘留所), he hated her very much and the woman had to leave him.

    It was New Year's Day. Mr. Lang didn't go to work. He felt lonely and wanted to gamble again. He called his friends and they came soon. But they were afraid that the police would come. He told his five-year-old son to go to find out if there were the policemen outside. They waited for a long time and didn't think the police would come and began to gamble. Suddenly a few policemen opened the door and came in.

    "I saw there weren't any policemen outside, daddy," said the boy, "so I went to the crossing and asked some to come."

    When I was a boy, our extended, immigrant family would sometimes gather at my aunt's tiny house over the summer. Relatives from all over the country would come in to visit. The adults would crowd together in the living room to talk and catch up on each other's lives. And the kids would be sent out into the front yard to play when dinner was slowly cooked for all of us.

    Those were the days before video games, smart phones, and motorized toys, so we often ended up playing an old game. I remember one of those moments especially. As I was the youngest and smallest of all the kids there, I got caught first and couldn't catch anyone else. My brothers and cousins were all too fast for me, and I grew more and more frustrated. I finally fell my face first into the dirt. I got up with tears forming in my eyes. Then I saw one of my female cousins Susan standing there. She started to run but was going much slower than before. I easily caught up and seized her. Then she turned to me, smiled, and said, I'm it! You'd better run! Iran off laughing with glee while she turned and started to chase others.

    Now I see how her act of kindness that day saved me from sadness and returned me to joy. It didn't matter that we hardly ever saw each other. I know we are family and she loves me.

    In her wonderful book: Box of Butterflies, Roma Downey writes, "We are all one, we all belong to each other, and we are one big beautiful family." Perhaps it is time that we all started to treat each other that way. Perhaps it is time that we shared our love, our kindness, our laughter, and our joy with everyone without fear. Perhaps it is time to finally and forever bring this world together in one big family reunion.