There was once a captain who loved money so much that he cheated his sailors at the end of every voyage and took their wages.

    On the last day of one voyage, the ship was in a small port. It was winter time, and the sea was very cold, so the captain said to his sailors, "If one of you stays in the water during the whole night, I will give him my ship. But if he comes out before the sun appears, I shall get his wages."

    The sailors had heard about the captain's cheating, so they didn't trust him. But then one of them, who thought that he was cleverer than the captain, said that he would do it. He got into the water, and, though it was very cold, he stayed in it. When it was nearly morning, some fishermen lit a fire on the shore about half a mile away.

    "You are cheating," the captain said to the sailor. "The fire's warming you."

    "But it's half a mile away!" said the sailor.

    "A fire's fire," answered the captain. "I have won."

    The sailor came out of the water, and said, "Perhaps you think that you are clever because you have won my wages, but you can't cook a chicken."

    "I can," answered the captain.

    "If you cook this chicken," said the sailor, "I shall work for you without wages for seven years, but if you can't, you will give me your ship."

    The captain agreed, took the chicken and said, "Where's the fire?"

    "There it is," answered the sailor. "On the shore."

    "But it's half a mile away," said the captain angrily.

    " A fire's fire, you said," answered the sailor. "If it is enough to warm me in the water, it is enough to cook your chicken."

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    In England, we look forward to our birthdays for 364 days a year! We invite special people to celebrate it with us.

    The Presents

    Presents are opened as soon as the children are awake. They can't wait for the birthday cake later in the day!

    The Cards

    Friends and family send birthday cards. Sending birthday cards is a custom that began in England about 100 years ago.

    The Party

    The birthday child will have a party to which friends and family are invited. Visitors to the party bring presents for the birthday child. The children play games such as Musical Chairs and Pass the Parcel.

    The Cake

    The birthday cake is decorated on a theme(主题). A candle for each year is lit and placed on top and the child blows out the candles making a wish. We don't put objects inside the cake as shown on many websites.

    The Bumps

    It used to be traditional for the birthday child to have the bumps. Friends would hold the child by the child by the legs and under the arms and lift the child up and down bumping them gently on the ground. The number of bumps given is the age of the child plus one for extra good luck. As this can be dangerous, clapping is often done instead.

    The Sweets

    Some children do take sweets into school to share with their classmates on their birthdays.

    Recently,people in US education have gotten extremely worried because a new report has shown that American students have a math problem.

    The 2015 Program for International Student Assessment（评估）(PISA) shows math scores in the US getting lower and no improvement in science or reading.PISA tests 15-year-olds from different countries and regions in their math,science and reading skills.About 540,000 students from 72 countries and regions took part in the assessment in 2015.

    US scores in reading and science were about the same as three years ago,leaving Americans near the middle of the bigger group.But the situation in math is much more worrying.The US average score was 470,be;ow the OECD（经合组织）test average of 490,meaning the US was No.40 among the 72 countries and areas.It was 12 points lower than in 2012 and 18 points lower than in 2009.So,what is going on with American students' math skills?

    One reason may be that the US does not teach math in enough depth."Students are often good at answering the first part of a problem in the United States,"said Andreas Schleicher,director of education and skills at OECD."But as soon as students have to go deeper and answer the more complicated part of a problem,they have difficulties."In comparison,many high-performing countries and regions in math teach a lot less but focus in much greater depth, especially when you look at East Asia,Japan and Singapore,according to Schleicher.

    Another reason may be the fact that many people in the US are unwilling to travel to foreign countries to learn better teaching practices."One of our biggest challenges in the US is that the teachers are not going out and seeing what high-performing countries do differently,"said Wendy Kopp,who started Teach for America,in a news program.

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    A picture speaks a thousand words. And with over a thousand emoji pictures to represent our words, who needs to speak or write any more? According to Professor Vyv Evans of Bangor University, emoji is the UK's fastest-growing language in history. These little electronic pictures started life in Japanese mobile phones in the 1990s and are now hugely popular. They have inspired fashion, like the real-life dress copied from the dancing lady emoji, and are even recognized as art! In New York's Museum of Modern Art you can now see the first set of the 176 original emojis.

    Why do we love them so much? They allow us to personalize text and have fun as we express ourselves, make people laugh and be creative in how we use them. UK teenagers also told us they really appreciated the fact that emojis are quick and easy.

    People have their favourite emojis. In the UK, the most used emojis are ' face with tears ofjoy', ' face blowing a kiss' and 'Iove heart'. Maybe (with emojis at least) the British are more fun and romantic than people think! Companies such as McDonalds have also tried to use people's love of emojis to make advertisement. They used a series of emojis to tell a story of a disappointing day given a happy ending by a visit to McDonalds. Unluckily for McDonalds, most people added the vomiting(呕吐) emoji to the blank space after the story.

    What is the future of emoji? Is emoji developing so rapidly that it will soon compete with English as a global language? Or is technology changing so fast that emoji will soon be forgotten when the next big thing comes along? It is hard to say and even technology and language experts are divided on the subject.

    What do you think? Keep your eyes open for new developments!

    Before uploading a photo of ourselves to social media, chances are that we'll use an app to smooth our skin, make our eyes look bigger, and lips fuller. With a couple of taps on our mobile phone, we can get a quick fix and present the "best" version of ourselves to the world. However, the problem is, when we simply edit our imperfections away, we're also changing the way we look at ourselves.

    Last month, researchers published the article Selfies – Living in the Era of Filtered(过滤的) Photographs. The article analyzed photo editing apps' bad influences on people's self-respect and their possibility to cause appearance anxieties. The researchers also warned that such apps make it difficult to tell the difference between reality and fantasy. "These apps allow one to change his or her appearance in minutes and follow an unrealistic standard of beauty," the article reads.

    In the past, people may have compared their looks to those of famous persons. But for today's young people, beauty standards are most likely set by what they see on social media. "From birth, they are born into an age of social platforms where their feelings of self-worth can be based purely on the number of likes and followers that they have, which is linked to how good they look." British cosmetic doctor Tijion Esho told The Independent. This is why many young people suffer an identity trouble when it comes to appearance.

    "Now you've got this daily comparison of your real self to this fake self that you present on social media." Renee Engeln, a professor of psychology, told the HuffPost website. Engeln further pointed out that when people spend too much time making such comparisons, they may become "beauty sick" and find it difficult to accept what they actually look like. "Because between you and the world is a mirror, it's a mirror that travels with you everywhere. You can't seem to put it down." she told The Washington Post. So when we look in a real mirror, we shouldn't think to ourselves, "Do I look as good as myself in the filtered photos?" Instead, we should think, "I feel good; I have my health."