The iPhone the iPad: each of Apple's products sounds cool and has become a fad(一时的风尚). Apple has cleverly taken advantage of the power of the letter “i”—and many other brands are following suit. The BBC's iPlayer—which allows Web users to watch TV programs on the Internet—used the title in 2008. A lovely bear—popular in the US and UK一that plays music and vide is called “iTeddy”. A slimmed-down version(简装本) of London's Independent newspaper was stated last week under the name “i”.

    In general, single-letter prefixes(前缀) have been popular since the 1990s, when terms such as e-mail and e-commerce first came into use.

    Most “i” products are targeted at young people and considering the major readers of Independent's “i”, it's no surprise that they've selected this fashionable name.

    But it's hard to see what's so special about the letter “i” Why not use “a”, “b”, or “c” instead? According to Tony Thorne, head of the Language Center at King's College, London, “i”works because its meaning has become ambiguous. When Apple uses “i”, no one knows whether it means Internet, information, individual or intcractive, Thorne told BBC Magazines. “Even when Apple created the iPod, it seems it didn't have one clear definition,” he says.

    “However, thanks to Apple, the term is now connected with portability.” adds Thorne.

    Clearly the letter “i” also agrees with the idea that the Western World is centered on the individual. Each person believes they have their own needs, and we love personalized products for this reason.

    Along with“Google” and “blog”, readers of BBC Magazines voted“i”as one of the top 20 words that have come to define the last decade.

    But as history shows, people grow tired of fads. From the 1900s to 1990s, products with “2000” in their names became fashionable as the year was connected with all things advanced and modern. How ever, as we entered the new century, the fashion disappeared.

C

    As cultural symbols go, the American car is quite young. The Model T Ford was built at the Piquette Plant in Michigan a century ago, with the first rolling off the assembly line（装配线） on September 27, 1908. Only eleven cars were produced the next month. But eventually Henry Ford would build fifteen million of them.

    Modern America was born on the road, behind a wheel. The car shaped some of the most lasting aspects of American culture: the roadside diner, the billboard, the motel, even the hamburger. For most of the last century, the car represented what it meant to be American—going forward at high speed to find new worlds. The road novel, the road movie, these are the most typical American ideas, born of abundant petrol, cheap cars and a never-ending interstate highway system, the largest public works project in history.

    In 1928 Herbert Hoover imagined an America with "a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage." Since then, this society has moved onward, never looking back, as the car transformed America from a farm-based society into an industrial power.

    The cars that drove the American Dream have helped to create a global ecological disaster. In America the demand for oil has grown by 22 percent since 1990.

    The problems of excessive（过度的）energy consumption, climate change and population growth have been described in a book by the American writer Thomas L. Friedman. He fears the worst, but hopes for the best.

    Friedman points out that the green economy（经济）is a chance to keep American strength. "The ability to design, build and export green technologies for producing clean water, clean air and healthy and abundant food is going to be the currency of power in the new century."

    Thanks to exchange programmes an increasing number of young students are following educational courses in foreign countries. The Erasmus Programme, which started in 1987, is a European Union student exchange programme. It provides opportunities for young people from Europe to study in a foreign country for shot An intercontinental version of the programme, known as Erasmus Mundus, has existed since 2003, providing non-Europeans the opportunity to study in Europe.

    Friends always ask why I, a middle-aged woman with no athletic talent, travel to perilous places—the jungles of Thailand or Borneo, for example, where the water is often unsafe and the food risky; places with infectious diseases, poisonous snakes and the wildest animals; some places where the locals are just a few generations past headhunting.

    I never know how to answer. My travel decisions assumed a new gravity nine years ago after I suffered a stroke. To prevent another stroke, my doctors told me, I'd have to take dangerously high levels of blood thinner (血液稀释剂) for the rest of my life and any travel would be risky.

    I had to think about what was important to me: family, of course, and friends. But then what? No matter how many times I thought about it, no bucket list was complete without travel. Then I had to decide how I might manage the risk. I had to decide how lucky I felt.

    My return to travel after my stroke came in baby steps. The first real test of my travel courage came nine months after my stroke when I joined my husband, Jack, on a business trip to China. After we'd toured the remains of a Tang dynasty temple on a high mountain, Jack wanted to ride down on a toboggan (长雪橇).

    Before the stroke it would've seemed like fun. But now? I hesitated. My mental klaxon (高音喇叭) screamed warnings about the consequences of a cut, a fall, and a crash. Then, gaining confidence from who knows where, I lowered myself carefully into the toboggan, which marked my adventure travel comeback.

    In the years since then, I've traveled about twenty-five percent of the time. Through it all, my lucks held out—no deadly falls, no car accidents or serious infections. For me, adventure travel is a risk worth taking. Travel broadens my world and keeps me connected to nature. What's more, saying "yes" to travel keeps me connected to myself.

    I read somewhere that we spend a full third of our lives waiting. But where are we doing all of this waiting, and what does it mean to an impatient society like ours? To understand the issue, let's take a look at three types of "waits".

    The very purest form of waiting is the Watched-Pot Wait. It is without doubt the most annoying of all. Take filling up the kitchen sink(洗碗池) as an example. There is absolutely nothing you can do while this is going on but keep both eyes fixed on the sink until it's full. During these waits, the brain slips away from the body and wanders about until the water runs over the edge of the counter and onto your socks. This kind of wait makes the waiter helpless and mindless.

    A cousin to the Watched-Pot Wait is the Forced Wait. This one requires a bit of self-control. Properly preparing packaged noodle soup required a Forced Wait. Directions are very specific. "Bring three cups of water to boil, add mix, simmer(用文火炖）three minutes, remove from heat, let stand five minutes." I have my doubts that anyone has actually followed the procedures strictly. After all, Forced Waiting requires patience.

    Perhaps the most powerful type of waiting is the Lucky-Break Wait. This type of wait is unusual in that it is for the most part voluntary. Unlike the Forced Wait, which is also voluntary, waiting for your lucky break does not necessarily mean that it will happen.

    Turning one's life into a waiting game requires faith and hope, and is strictly for the optimists among us. On the surface it seems as ridiculous as following the directions on soup mixes, but the Lucky-Break Wait well serves those who are willing to do it. As long as one doesn't come to rely on it, wishing for a few good things to happen never hurts anybody.

    We certainly do spend a good deal of our time waiting. The next time you're standing at the sink waiting for it to fill while cooking noodle soup that you'll have to eat until a large bag of cash falls out of the sky, don't be desperate. You're probably just as busy as the next guy.