My mom only had one eye. I hated her... she was such an embarrassment. My mom ran a small shop at a flea market. She collected little weeds and such to sell... anything for the money we needed she was such an embarrassment. There was this one day during elementary school.

I remember that it was field day, and my mom came. I was so embarrassed. How could she do this to me? I threw her a hateful look and ran out. The next day at school... "Your mom only has one eye?!" and they taunted me.

I wished that my mom would just disappear from this world so I said to my mom. "Why don't you just die?" My mom did not respond. I guess I felt a little bad, but at the same time, it felt good to think that I had said what I'd wanted to say all this time. Maybe it was because my mom hadn't punished me, but I didn't think that I had hurt her feelings very badly.

    That night... I woke up, and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. My mom was crying there, so quietly, as if she was afraid that she might wake me. I hated my mother who was crying out of her one eye. So I told myself that I would grow up and become successful, because I hated my one-eyed mom and our desperate poverty.

Then I studied really hard. I left my mother and came to Seoul and studied, and got accepted in the Seoul University with all the confidence I had. Then, I got married. I bought a house of my own. Then I had kids, too. Now I'm living happily as a successful man. I like it here because it's a place that doesn't remind me of my mom.

This happiness was getting bigger and bigger, when someone unexpected came to see me "What?! Who's this?!" It was my mother... Still wither one eye. It felt as if the whole sky was falling apart on me. My little girl ran away, scared of my mom's eye.

And I asked her, "Who are you? I don't know you!!" as if I tried to make that real. I screamed at her "How dare you come to my house and scare my daughter! Get out of here now!!" And to this, my mother quietly answered, "oh, I'm so sorry. I may have gotten the wrong address," and she disappeared. Thank goodness... she doesn't recognize me. I was quite relieved. I told myself that I wasn't going to care, or think about this for the rest of my life.

    Then a wave of relief came upon me... one day, a letter regarding a school reunion came to my house. I lied to my wife saying that I was going on a business trip. After the reunion, I went down to the old shack, that I used to call a house, just out of curiosity there, I found my mother fallen on the cold ground. She had a piece of paper in her hand. It was a letter to me.

She wrote:

My son, I think my life has been long enough now. For you... I'm sorry that I only have one eye, and I was an embarrassment for you. You see, when you were very little, you got into an accident, and lost your eye. As a mother, I couldn't stand watching you having to grow up with only one eye… so I gave you mine... I was so proud of my son that was seeing a whole new world for me, in my place, with that eye. I was never upset at you for anything you did. The couple times that you were angry with me I thought to myself, ‘it's because he loves me.' I miss you so much. I love you. You mean the world to me. So I gave you mine. With all my love to you! Your mom.

My World Shattered. I hated the person who only lived for me. I cried for My Mother, I didn't know of any way that will make up for my worst deeds...

    There is no better way to enjoy Scottish traditions than going fishing and tasting a little whisky(威士忌) at a quiet place like the Inverlochy Castle. When Queen Victoria visited there in 1873 she wrote in her diary, “I never saw a lovelier spot,” And she didn't even go fishing.

    Scotland is not easily defined. In certain moments, this quiet land of lakes and grass mountains changes before your very eyes. When evening gently sweeps the hillside into orange, the rivers, teeming with fish, can turn into streams of gold. As you settle down with just a people and a basket on the bank of River Orchy, near the Inverlochy Castle, any frustration will float away as gently as the circling water. It's just you and purple, pink, white flowers, a perfect harmony. If you are a new comer to fishing, learning the basics from a fishing guide may leave you with a lifetime's fun. For many, fishing is more than a sport; it is an art.

    Scotland offers interesting place where you can rest after a long day's fishing. Set against a wild mountain and hidden behind woodland, the beautiful Inverlochy Castle Hotel below the Nevis is a perfect place to see the beauty of Scotland's mountains. Ben Nevis is the highest of mountains, and reaching its 1342-metre top is a challenge. But it's not just what goes up that matters; what comes down is unique. More than 900 metres high, on the mountain's north face, lies an all-important source of pure water. Its name comes from the Gaelic language "usqueb" or "water of life"; and it is the single most important ingredient(原料) in Scotland's best known whisky.

    On February 6, Space X, a private US aerospace company owned by Elon Musk, has successfully launched its new Falcon Heavy spacecraft, making it the world's most powerful rocket.

    Falcon Heavy is the largest rocket since the retirement of NASA's Saturn V, which was used for the Moon missions in the 1970s. “Falcon Heavy can launch about 64 tonnes into low Earth orbit-that's almost three times more than the current running biggest launch vehicle, Delta IV Heavy, ”Imperial College astrophysicist David Clements told AI Jazeera. According to Space X, Falcon Heavy can lift into orbit a mass greater than a 737 jet loaded with passengers, crew, luggage and fuel.

    The rocket was designed with the idea of earning humans into space and opening the possibility of flying missions with people to the Moon and even Mars. For its first voyage, it carried Musk's $ 100,000 cherry-red Tesla sports car and a fake space-suited human model fixed in the driver's seat. Musk joked that “it may be discovered by some future alien race”.

    Falcon Heavy went into space on its last flight on February 6. The launch took place at NASA's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and Kennedy Space Center in the US state of Florida, the spot also used for the Apollo 11 Moon mission and several space shuttle launches. It was delayed by several hours because of high winds in the upper atmosphere. Minutes after take-off, the two outer boosters (助推器) landed at the nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

    Space X announced plans to eventually use Falcon Heavy to launch two paying space tourists on a trip around the Moon. However, Musk said he will probably reserve that mission for another launch system, the BFR. Recently, Space X scheduled to launch a Falcon 9 rocket for NASA's TESS mission on March 20, 2018. It is reported that Space X is scheduled to complete 30 independent launch missions in 2018, at least half of which will use Falcon 9.

    Amsterdam is most famous for its artistic heritage. This tradition is proudly on display in the Rijksmuseum (translates as State Museum). Once you've taken in all that has to offer, artists, history fens, and families shouldn't pass up the chance to visit the Van Gogh Museum —containing around 700 paintings and drawings by Vincent and other artists, including Gauguin, Monet, and Toulouse-Lautrec.

    Amsterdam is also home to the Anne Frank Museum, where Anne hid with her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. On a lighter note, taking a canal cruise through its extensive waterways is a rewarding way to see the Dutch capital.

Art lovers get their tickets at:

    The Van Gogh Museum Rijksmuseum Museum het Rembrandthuis

Food and drink

    Cheese lovers love Amsterdam. You can find an excuse to eat cheese at any time of the day here. Gouda is Holland's favorite, developing a more intense flavor the longer it's aged. Find a selection at the markets, try a cheeseboard at dinner time, or just order cubes with mustard for dipping to accompany a drink. When you're hungry for non-cheese food groups, you'll find Michel in-starred restaurants, vegetarian, and organic restaurants that accompany an array of global cuisine. For old-fashioned and modern Dutch food, try these Amsterdam restaurants: Moeders, Haesje Claes, Loctje, Greetje, and De Silveren Spiegel.

Don't leave without tasting:

    Patat (hot chips with toppings), Stroopwafel (waffle cookie), Chocomel (chocolate milk)

    Amsterdam Fast Facts

    Approximate flight times:

    NYC/ New York 7 hours 20 minutes, Philadelphia 8 hours, Boston 7 hours

    Miami 9 hours 45 minutes, Los Angeles 10 hours 15 minutes

    If you want to become a fluent English speaker you should take some advice. There are four skills in learning English. They are reading, listening, speaking, and writing. The most important thing you must remember is that if you want to improve your speaking and writing skills, you should first master the skills of reading and listening.

    Read as much as you can. But your reading must be active. It means that you must think about the meaning of the sentence, the meaning of the unfamiliar words, etc. There is no need for you to pay much attention to grammars or try to understand all the unfamiliar words you come across, but the fact that you see them for the first time and recognize them whenever you see them, for example, in other passages or books, is enough. It would be better to prepare yourself a notebook so you can write down the important words or sentences in it.

    As for listening, there are two choices: besides reading, you can listen every day for about 30 minutes. You can only pay attention to your reading and become skillful at your reading, then you can catch up on your listening. Since you have lots of inputs in your mind, you can easily guess what the speaker is going to say. This never means that you should not practice listening. For listening you can listen to cartoons or some movies that are specially made for children. Their languages are easy. Or if you are good at listening you can listen to VOA or BBC programs every day. Again the thing to remember is being active in listening and preferably taking some notes.

    If you follow these pieces of advice, your speaking and writing will improve quickly, and you can be a fluent English speaker one day.

On account of the government shutdown, many of the city's best attractions, such as the national museums, are closed. It may affect your social plans. That's especially true if you have out-of-town visitors coming to the District. Don't worry! For every closed museum, we've offered up a suitable substitute that is privately run, thus not subject to the shutdown. Here's where you can go instead.

Anacostia Community Museum and the National Museum of African American History and Culture

Alternatives: Banneker-Douglass Museum or Alexandria Black History Museum

The National Museum of African American History and Culture is one of the hottest draws on the National Mall, with free tickets taken weeks in advance. Its sister museum, the Anacostia Community (社区) Museum, takes a community-focused look at African American history. So does the Banneker- Douglass Museum in Annapolis, which traces (追溯) the African American experience in Maryland, and the Alexandria Black History Museum, where exhibitions honor local activists and explore the influence of slavery in the area. And unlike the African American Museum, neither requires you to plan ahead.

Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

Alternative: Glenstone

Wandering through the galleries at Glenstone, you'll come across some of the biggest names in 20th century art — Jackson Pollock, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Robert Rauschenberg. Glenstone sits on a 230-acre estate (土地) that doubles as an outdoor sculpture garden. Free tickets for Glenstone are often reserved weeks in advance, but 72 free tickets are available every day for anyone who takes a Montgomery County Ride-On Bus from Rockville Metro Station to the museum.

National Museum of African Art

Alternative: The African Art Museum of Maryland

Masks, musical instruments and jewelry can be found in Fulton, where the African Art Museum of Maryland houses a collection of traditional and contemporary African artworks and objects. And the best part, for visitors on a budget? Admission is free.