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    Many people expect that they can learn a language fast. But learning a language well requires time and determination.

    I came to Finland four years ago. I realized soon that if I wanted to become part of the Finnish society and befriend the Finns, I would need to learn their language. My roommate, who was a Finn, was very helpful, repeating words and talking slowly to me, but of course he was not a professional teacher. So I had to be a self-learner. I carried a notebook and wrote down every Finnish word I heard. I took online courses, watched learning videos and went through all the study material I got my hands on. Luckily there are many chances to do that for free nowadays.

    For me, as for many other people, the most difficult phase in learning a language is to start speaking it. You have to overcome your own barriers, especially the fear of making mistakes.

    After staying three months in Finland I found a language cafe, which was a meeting point for Finnish language learners. As a beginner, I only knew how to introduce myself in Finnish, but here were many people to help me. It was also a relief to notice that I was not the only one struggling with the language.

    I want to stay in Finland and I would like to build my life here. This is why I have also worked hard to write Finnish well. I have studied Finnish even harder after I got into the University of Helsinki to study international politics. Now I am finishing my studies and I am looking for a job where I can take advantage of my Finnish skills. Although it is difficult to get a professional job here, I'm not ready to give up yet.

    Finnish makes me feel modest as there is still much to learn. So far, all the work I have done has paid off. I feel that I am now closer to the Finns.

    A person's nose is important for breathing and smelling. The nose is also used in many popular expressions. Some people are able to "lead other people by the nose". For example, if a wife "leads her husband by the nose", she makes him do whatever she wants him to do. Some people are said to be "hard-nosed". They will not change their opinions or positions on anything. If someone is "hard-nosed", chances are that he will never "pay through the nose", or pay too much money, for an object or service.

    It is always helpful when people "keep their noses out of other people's business"—they do not interfere. The opposite of this is someone who "noses around all the time". This kind of person is interested in other people's private matters. He is considered "nosey". Someone who "keeps his nose to the grindstone "works very hard. This can help a worker "keep his nose clean" or stay out of trouble.

    One unusual expression is "it is no skin off my nose". This means that a situation does not affect or concern me. We also say that sometimes a person "cuts off his nose to spite his face". That is, he makes a situation worse for himself by doing something foolish because he is angry. More problems can develop if a person "looks down his nose" at someone or something. The person acts like something is unimportant or worthless. This person might also "turn his nose up" at something that he considers not good enough. This person thinks he is better than everyone else. He is "with his nose in the air".

    In school, some students "thumb their noses" at their teacher—they refuse to obey orders or do any work. Maybe these students do not know the correct answers. My mother always told me, if you study hard, the answers should be "right under your nose" or easily seen.

    My sister and I were flying by ourselves from our home in Kansas to a summer camp in Minnesota. Our plane had a two-hour stop at the airport in Omaha, Nebraska. A flight attendant took us to a souvenir shop, where a toy airplane looked just like the plane my sister and I were flying on. I really wanted that airplane. I had $10 and the plane cost $8. I had no idea what I needed to buy at camp, but I bought the plane anyway. When we reached the camp, I discovered that there were no showers! Instead, we bathed in a lake every night. I needed to buy special soap because the regular soap I brought had chemicals that could harm the fish. The special soap cost $4 at the camp store. However, I had only $2 left.

    What upset me was that I couldn't get clean without the soap, which was soon found by my teacher, Sally. I had to tell her that I had spent most of my money on a toy airplane. She laughed and explained to me that a budget was necessary and it was a plan for spending money to help make sure you set aside enough for things you need, like soap, before you buy fun things, like toys.

    Sally gave me one of her extra(额外的) bottles of special soap. When I returned home, I decided to budget. I spent several weeks writing down everything I bought, just to get an idea of how I was already spending my money. Then I made my first weekly budget. My budget wasn't always the same each week. For some weeks, I would have more in my “Money In” account because I did some jobs around the house. Once summer vacation started, I didn't need to buy school lunches, so I had extra money to go to the neighborhood swimming pool or to give to the town animal shelter.

    Budgeting was hard, sometimes. Whatever week it was, I always made sure that “Money In” equaled “Save and Spend.” That's called making ends meet, and it's how you make sure that the money you have will always be enough to cover your plans to spend and save.

    Traveling by subway can sometimes be quite an adventure, especially during rush hour. There are the times when you have to avoid cups of coffee that could spill (溅) on you. The smells of some passengers' food are very strong, too. According to the Beijing subway passenger regulations, which went into effect on May 15th, passengers except babies and the sick are no longer allowed to eat or drink on the subway. Violators (违反者) who do not stop after being asked to will be asked to get off. The violation will also be recorded in the violators' credit record.

    Some support the rule. The reason is that the smell of food and drink can annoy other passengers. "The smell of food fills the carriage, causing people discomfort, especially in the hot summer. Besides, eating on the subway produces rubbish. And on subway trains, people often spill their drinks," said Zheng Yiou, 17, a student from Hefei.

    However, others question this rule. "Some citizens live so far from their work places that they have limited time to have breakfast before they go to work. Eating while they travel saves them time and decreases the chance that they will be late for work," He Songlin, a 17­year­old student from Chengdu said, "And some people, like those with low­ blood sugar levels, get sick if they can't eat when they must."

    Other Chinese cities like Nanjing and Chengdu have similar regulations. Some foreign cities also ban eating and drinking on the subway. For example, eating and drinking have long been banned on the subway in Washington DC. Singapore fines people who eat or drink on the subway up to 500 Singapore dollars, which is RMB 2,417 yuan.

    Chen Yanyan, a professor from Beijing University of Technology, believed we should consider the need of some people to eat or drink on the subway. "Commuters (上班族) and travelers are sometimes too busy to eat. Maybe we could learn from Tokyo, where there are many subway stations equipped with services, allowing passengers to eat and drink," she said.

Humans act with purpose, but much is still unknown about how we become purposeful agents — that is, how we develop the ability to willfully make things happen. In a recent study to explore agency's mysterious roots, we tried to catch infants (婴儿) in the act of discovering their own agency, thereby revealing the process of agency formation.

Researchers place a baby into a cradle with a mobile suspended above. Then a scientist ties one end of a string to the mobile and the other to the infant's foot. Now if the baby moves, the toy will, too. By observing babies in this setup, scientists can watch as the infants learn and recall a simple cause-and-effect interaction: kick a foot and the mobile moves.

As predicted by the researchers, infants kicked significantly more when their foot was tethered (拴住) to the mobile than when it was not. However, when an experimenter pulled the string to make the mobile move instead, infants moved less than when the mobile was at rest. Furthermore, when we freed the babies' foot from the mobile, they kept on kicking at higher rate to make the toy respond — and were visibly frustrated when that did not happen.

Our observations also pointed to a notable pattern: The babies' initial movements consisted of twisting and pushing without clear direction. But once tethered to the mobile, the more intensely they moved, the more their attention was drawn to the effect their kicking had on it. At some point, the infants must have figured out that they had agency, thus the aimless movements became intentional action — a highly coordinated exchange between the tethered infant and the mobile.

The baby-mobile study emphasizes how understanding the relationship between an organism and its environment is essential to uncovering the origins of directed behavior. The experience of agency emerges only when an organism senses it is coupled to its environment. In this way of thinking, the interaction and relationship between the two are crucial for purpose to arise.