For as long as I can remember, I've always wanted a personal motto. I wanted a saying that I could really try to live my life by. I mean all the humorous book and storybook heroes always have a personal principle they follow. Good manners! Courage! Keenness! But a part of me could never get myself to create my own motto because I never knew where to start and I never thought I could give one.

    “With great power comes great responsibility.” is a quote by the great writer and philosopher, Voltaire. More familiar, it makes an appearance in the modern day movie performance of the superhero Spider-Man. This saying provides a sense of responsibility for those with actually limitless power.

    “Be good to others and others will be good to you.” is another well-known proverb that has roots in almost all of the major religions. Although it is less practiced today than it is lectured, it is a powerful and good motto to live by. Kindness, in this sense, is the final power in judging every action.

    My personal motto today has an idea – being efficient. Through my limited knowledge, I have come to find that this is simply the best way for me to give insight about who I am and what I believe in.

 Efficiency is a quality that everyone desires for, right? Who doesn't want to be able to not only work fast but to achieve great results? To some, it may appear to be a frightening journey. But to me, it means that I have a lifelong journey to improve the methods and ideas with which I come near my tasks.

    Regardless of what motto you want to live by, I believe that everyone should have one, or two or more. These are all symbols of a perfect story of us, in our own view. And it immediately provides insight to the type of person we were, we are and what we strive to be. We are never meant to be perfect, but it is important to try and live by a belief that will help us reach our potential. All you have to do is know what your excitement is and live by it.

    What do you often do when you wait for a bus or a train at the station?

    Tom arrived at the bus station quite early for Paris bus. The bus for Paris would not leave until five to twelve. He saw a lot of people waiting in the station. Some were standing in line, others were walking around. There was a group of schoolgirls. The teacher was trying to keep them in line. Tom looked around but there was no place for him to sit.

    He walked into the station cafe. He looked up at the clock there. It was only twenty to twelve. He found a seat and sat down before a large mirror on the wall. Just then, Mike, one of Tom's workmates, came in and sat with Tom. "What time is your bus?" asked Mike. "There's plenty of time yet," answered Tom. "Well, I'll get you more tea then," said Mike.

    They talked while drinking. Then Tom looked at the clock again. "Oh! It's going backward!" he cried. "A few minutes ago it was twenty to twelve and now it's half past eleven."

    "You're looking at the clock in the mirror," said Mike. Tom was so sad. The next bus was not to leave for another hour. Since then Tom has never liked mirrors.

    Every time a new year is coming, people set out to better themselves. They promise they will lose weight, find a new job, or maybe even take that vacation they've always talked about. But why do we make these promises to ourselves, and where did this tradition come from? Why does this tradition live on when so many people fail to keep the resolutions(决定) they made? Well, we can start by blaming the ancient Babylonians.

    Around 4, 000 years ago in Babylon, the earliest recorded celebration honoring the coming of a new year was held. Calendars weren't as they are today, so the Babylonians did it in late March during the first new moon after the Spring Equinox(春分). The festivities were meant for the rebirth of the sun god, but the Babylonians made promises in order to please their gods. They felt this would help them start the new year off well.

    Resolutions continued on with the Romans. When the early Roman calendar no longer synced(同步) up with the sun, Julius Caesar decided to make a change. He consulted with the best astronomers and mathematicians of the time and introduced the Julian calendar, which more closely represents the modern calendar we use today. Caesar declared January 1 the first day of the year to honor the god of new beginnings, Janus. The Romans celebrated the New Year by offering sacrifices to Janus.

To this day, the traditions of the ancient Babylonians and Romans continue around the world. So much that Google launched a Resolution Map in 2013 where people could add resolutions and see others adding theirs in real time. However, no matter how many people participated in Google's project, the numbers are bleak when it comes to the number of people who maintain their resolutions—-only eight percent of people are successful in sticking them out.

    It is not easy to become a doctor in the United States. The first step is getting into a medical college. More than one hundred and twenty American schools offer study programs for people wanting to be doctors.

    People can get advice about medical schools from many resources. One of these is the Princeton Review. The publication provides information about colleges, study programs and jobs.

    The Princeton Review says the competition to enter medical schools is strong. American medical schools have only about sixteen thousand of openings. But more than thirty-two thousand students may try it. Many of those are women.

    Most applicants contact more than one medical school. Some contact many. An important part of the application usually is the Medical College Admission Test which is called MCAT. The Association of American Medical Colleges provides the test by computer. It is offered in the United States and other countries.

    The people who want to enter medical schools are rated（评定）on reasoning, physical and biological sciences and an example of writing. Applicants for medical schools need to do well on the MCAT. They also need a good record in their college studies.

    Some students work for a year or two in a medical or research job before they attempt to enter a medical school.

    HONG KONG-Cross-border buses operated by Hong Kong companies on Friday started trial runs on the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge (HZMB) in preparation for the bridge's upcoming opening.

    "The trial runs, arranged by the governments of the Chinese mainland, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) and the Macao SAR, would last for three days and aimed at testing the readiness of boundary crossing facilities (设施) of the three places," the Hong Kong SAR government's Transport and Housing Bureau told Xinhua.

    Two major cross-boundary coach trade associations in Hong Kong were invited to send buses and members to participate in the trial runs.

    Freeman Cheung, secretary of Hong Kong Guangdong Boundary Crossing Bus Association, said his association would run one bus with about 10 passengers on Friday and Saturday respectively as part of the trial runs.

    "Our bus started at noon from the Hong Kong Boundary Crossing Facilities and ran all the way to Zhuhai in about 40 minutes," he said, adding that "the journey was smooth."

    Alan Chan, secretary of another trade association who participated in the trial runs as a passenger, said the clearance procedures at boundary crossing facilities of the three places all went on well and smoothly.

    "The boundary crossing facilities of Zhuhai and Macao, in particular, are operated in a collaborative (合作的) way, which helps remarkably shorten the time needed for the clearance procedures," he said.

    The HZMB, situated at the waters of Lingdingyang of Pearl River Estuary, is a mega-size sea crossing linking the Hong Kong SAR, Zhuhai city of Guangdong Province and the Macao SAR.

    The 55-km bridge is the longest bridge-and-tunnel (隧道) sea crossing in the world.

    The bridge is meant to meet the demand of passenger and freight land transport among Hong Kong, the Chinese mainland and Macao, and to establish a new land transport link between the east and west banks of the Pearl River.

    Happy, angry, amazed—these are some of the emotions we like to express these days when we're sending a message on our smart phones! That's why many of us now add little pictures to our texts to brighten up someone's mobile screen but we're also using them as a quick way of telling someone how we're feeling. Yes, emojis (表情符号) have become a popular tool for communication.

    The emoji was first invented in Japan in the late 1990s and the word "emoji" comes from the Japanese words for "picture" and "character". The number of different images has greatly increased since then and now we have a picture for nearly every mood or situation.

    Why are emojis widely used today? Professor Vyv Evans says, "Increasingly, what we're finding is that digital communication is replacing face-to-face talk in some ways. One of the reasons why emojis are so interesting is that they really do enable us to express our emotional selves much more effectively."

    Another advantage of emojis is that they are an international language—they don't use words but tell a message with pictures so they can be easily understood whatever your native language is.

    But as linguist (语言学家) Neil Cohn says, "To many, emojis are an exciting evolution (进化) of the way we communicate; but to others, they are linguistic Armageddon." It does show by using emojis, there is a lot more to our communication than words alone, but does this also mean that the traditional writing will die out one day?