Every man wants his son to be somewhat of a clone, not in features but in footsteps. As he grows you also age, and your ambitions become more unachievable. You begin to realize that your boy, in your footsteps, could probably accomplish what you hoped for. But footsteps can be muddied and they can go off in different directions.

My son Jody has hated school since day one in kindergarten. Science projects waited until the last moment. Book reports weren't written until the final threat.

I've been a newspaperman all my adult life. My daughter is a university graduate working toward her master's degree in English. But Jody? When he entered the tenth grade he became a “vo-tech” student(技校学生). They're called “motorheads” by the rest of the student body.

When a secretary in my office first called him “motorhead”, I was shocked. “Hey, he's a good kid,” I wanted to say. “And smart, really.”

I learned later that motorheads are, indeed, different. They usually have dirty hands and wear dirty work clothes. And they don't often make school honor rolls(光荣榜).

But being the parent of a motorhead is itself an experience in education. We who labor in clean shirts in offices don't have the abilities that motorheads have. I began to learn this when I had my car crashed. The cost to repair it was estimated at $800. “Hey, I can fix it,” said Jody. I doubted it, but let him go ahead, for I had nothing to lose.

      My son, with other motorheads, fixed the car. They got parts(零件）from a junkyard, non-toasting toaster have been fixed. Neighbours and co-workers trust their car repair to him.a

        Since that first repair job, a broken air-conditioner, a non-functioning washer and a non-toasting toaster have been fixed. Neighbors and co-workers trust their car repairs to him.

        These kids are happiest when doing repairs. They joke and laugh and are living in their own relaxed world. And their minds are bright despite their dirty hands and clothes.

I have learned a lot from my motorhead: publishers need printers, engineers need mechanics, and architects need builders. Most important, I have learned that fathers don't need clones in footsteps or anywhere else.

        My son may never make the school honor roll. But he made mine.

    NANJING, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) — Xi Jinping and Ma Ying-jeou will shake hands in their historic meeting scheduled in Singapore on Saturday, head of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council said on Wednesday.

    The two-part meeting includes one session open to the media and another behind closed doors, said Zhang Zhijun, who is also head of the Taiwan Work Office of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, when interviewed at the Zijinshan Summit for Entrepreneurs across the Taiwan Strait.

    According to Zhang, Xi and Ma, as "leaders of the two sides" of the Taiwan Strait, will exchange views during the closed-door meeting.

    After the meeting, press conferences will be held by both sides. Later, the two leaders are expected to attend a dinner, said Zhang.

    Zhang said the meeting will lift cross-Strait communication to a new high.

    The landmark meeting is a breakthrough in face-to-face exchange and communication between the leaders across the Taiwan Strait after the relationship became strained following the events of 1949.

    Zhang said the meeting will improve mutual trust and allow for an exchange of opinions on handling the cross-Strait ties.

    In addition, the meeting will help strengthen the 1992 Consensus(共识), which was reached in talks between the two sides in 1992 and recognizes the one-China principle, and safeguards the peaceful development of cross-Strait ties, according to Zhang.

    Zhang added that the scheduled meeting will also benefit regional peace and stability.

    Also at Wednesday's summit, Chiang Pin-kung, former chairman of the Taiwan-based Straits Exchange Foundation, hailed the upcoming meeting between the two leaders as a milestone for cross-Strait ties.

    Chiang told the media that he believed the meeting will give a boost to the peaceful development of cross-Strait ties.

    When people ask me to name typical British dishes,I have,however,struggled to think of an answer.Yes,we do have our own national dishes.We do have fish and chips,and we have other dishes like roast dinner and shepherd's pie.But how much do we actually eat them?

    Fish and chips,is made up of battered（绞碎的）fish and chips,which is often accompanied by a thick paste（酱）. The majority of British people really do love this dish but it is not something that we would eat,say,on a weekly basis.It's also not usually something that we would cook at home.The British people associate this dish with the seaside and it's something that will usually be eaten on a day trip there,bought from a takeaway fish and chip shop.

    Another favourite British dish is roast dinner.This is made up of roast meat,usually chicken or beef, accompanied by roast vegetables and a meat sauce called gravy（肉汁）.It is usually eaten on a Sunday,perhaps for a special family dinner.It can either be cooked at home or eaten in a traditional pub.We also eat a more elaborate version of this for our Christmas dinner.

    Although we do have our traditional dishes,our diet has been greatly influenced by other countries.You can find a wide range of international foods in the supermarket or varieties of different restaurants on our high streets.A famous saying amongst British people is that our national dish is now chicken tikka masala,a dish which is heavily influenced by Indian cuisine.

    Don't expect to be served a traditional dish if you ever get invited for dinner at a British family's home!

A Lifesaving At-Home Checkup

    More importance is attached to physical fitness nowadays. However, staying fit can be expensive when going to professional agencies for medical checkups. Here we show you three ways to do medical checkup at home, try them for a rough idea about your health condition.

    1 Balance On One Leg

    Hold for up to 60 seconds. If you fall down early, you may be at higher risk for brain decline. In a Japanese study, 30 percent of older adults who could balance for only 20 seconds or fewer had microbleeds in the brain, an early sign of risk for stroke or dementia(痴呆). These microbleeds can affect balance, memory, and decision making.

    2 Touch Your Toes

    Sit with your back straight, then lean forward and try to touch your toes. Not even close? You might be at risk for heart problems. By using this test, University of North Texas researchers found that some old inflexible folks have to have the heart work harder to provide enough blood, raising the risk of heart attack or stroke.

    3 Sitting To Standing

    Time how long it takes to lift and lower yourself from a chair ten times as fast as you can. Senior adults who did ten repetitions in 21 seconds or fewer were less likely to die over the next 13 years than those who took longer. The test requires muscle strength, balance, and heart fitness; being slow could mean underlying disease before symptoms arise.

    The above are home tests everyone could do to keep you fit and they don't require much time or money. Learn what possible dangers are hiding inside you and how to deal with them.

    Amy Maplethorpe, a first-year speech-language teacher at Raymond Ellis Primary School, used tennis balls, a hot glue gun, Mod Podge and a bit of paint to create two chairs that help students with sensory (感官的) problems.

    According to the school's Facebook page, which became very popular, the chairs provide a “different texture (质地) to improve sensory regulation (调控).”

    Maplethorpe told ABC News that the chairs will service about 15 to 20 students. Children with sensory problems often have a hard time “dealing with sensory information”. Things, such as coats, blankets and Maplethorpe's chairs, often comfort a student.

    Maplethorpe was excited to create the chair after seeing something similar on a website, and she made some changes to the idea.

    “I wanted to continue to help students with sensory problems at Ellis and provide a different kind of seat for the students,” she continued. “I was excited that this chair could help my students.''

    The two chairs are now in the school's sensory room, which was created recently, according to headmaster, Beth Kiewicz.

    “When a child's sensory needs are met, we then can move on to their needs in study,” Kiewicz, who has led the school for six years, told ABC News.

    Maplethorpe said the chairs have already made a difference for some of her students.

    “Students have become more patient, and have followed directions, while waiting for activities,” she said.

    Mirroring China's Past: Emperors and Their Bronzes

    Chinese bronzes (青铜) of the second and first millennia BC are some of the most distinctive achievements in the history of art. These vessels (容器) were made to carry sacrificial offerings, to use in burial or to honor noble families in public ceremonies. When they were found by emperors centuries later, these spiritually significant objects were seen as signs of heavenly messages about a ruler or a dynasty and became prized items in royal collections. This exhibition —the first to explore these ancient objects throughout Chinese history — presents a rare opportunity to experience a large number of these works together in the United States.

    Unlike Greek and Roman bronze sculptures of human and animal forms, most objects from Bronze Age China (about 2000 - 221 BC) were vessels for ceremonial use. Beginning with the Song dynasty (960 - 1279), emperors unearthed these symbolic works and began collecting them, considering them to be evidence of their own authority as rulers. In addition to impressive collections, the royal fascination with bronzes led to the creation of numerous reproductions and the comprehensive cataloguing of palace holdings. These catalogues are works of art themselves, featuring beautiful drawings and detailed descriptions of each object.

    From the 12th century onward, scholars and artists also engaged in collecting and understanding ancient bronzes. Unlike emperors, scholars regarded bronzes as material evidence of their efforts to recover and reconstruct the past, and they occasionally exchanged them as tokens (象征) of friendship. Today ancient bronzes still occupy a primary position in Chinese culture — as historical objects and as signifiers of an important cultural heritage that inspires new generations, as seen in the works of contemporary artists on view in this presentation.

    Mirroring China's Past brings together approximately 180 works from the An Institute of Chicago's strong holdings and from the Palace Museum in Beijing, the Shanghai Museum, and important museums and private collections in the United States. By providing viewers with a new understanding of ancient bronzes and their significance through time, the exhibition demonstrates China's fascinating history and its developing present.