I now work 40 hours a week at a weather company and I love it Compared to when I became a mom, I don't feel bad about being away from my three kids. When I had my first child, I was a busy manager. My husband had a part-time job and cared for her the rest of the time. Once I became pregnant with my second kid, I quit my job to focus fully on writing.

    At first I felt like I was living the dream. I was a work-from-home mom who never had to be away from my children. But working from home can end up being more stressful than working full-time or being a stay-at-home mom.because you're frequently exhausted between work, keeping house and telling sweet faces you don't have time to play. Ever tried writing an article with a baby screaming? It was awful.

    I was so stressed that I eventually started taking my kids to 8 day care center a couple of days a week. The whole reason I worked so hard to be able to write for a living was to be at home with my kids and here I was taking them to a day care center.I thought I was a failure then.

    Over the past five years of being a freelancer(自由作家), I've realized a couple of things. As I wrote six months  ago, "I though I felt bad leaving my daughter for ten hours a day but now she is old enough to ask me to read her a story .Try telling your kid no, 20 times a day. It's cruel. You end up feeling worse for having to ignore them." I also realize not socializing with people weren't good for my mental well-being.

    Not only that, but I can now show my kids that Mom is important and has a job at a flashy office building, something they didn't realize when1 sat around in yoga pants typing on my computer all day long.

    It's a little hard to figure out the rules for sure,  but the baby African buffalo( 水牛) seems to have the upper hand. The two stand a couple feet apart, staring at each other. Behind them, their mothers look on with the kind of indifference(不关心) of mothers  everywhere who see their kids playing a harmless game.

    The alarm went off about half an hour ago, the second time tonight. Here, one bell means “elephant”, two, “rhino” (犀牛), and three and four, 1 really can't remember for what, because when you're awoken by bells in the middle of the night, your first thought won't be “Animal! ”.But as soon as I realized it was the rhino alarm.

    I was running for the stairs. Yet I'm the only one watching the animals stare-down. Either everyone else died of a heart attack when the bells went off, or l was the only one in the entire hotel who didn't turn the alarm switch to off before going to bed.

    The Ark, a hotel shaped like the biblical ark(圣经的方舟) , lies in the highlands of Kenya's Aberdare National Park, about 100 kilometers north of Nairobi. At the Ark's prow(船首) are huge windows overlooking a waterhole. Earlier tonight, I'd watched a pack of wolves, buffalos and elephants. And now, at three or so in the morning, I'm down for rhino bells. The first time, 2.5 hours ago, it was a single black rhino, which came down, got a drink, and left. I'd have been sorry for the lost sleep.  I've already arranged with a guide to take me out at sunrise for the so-called “should never miss” bird-watching, where we'll get to see 30 species, but really, how many times in your life will you get to wake up and say, “Wow! Rhino!”? Isn't that the definition of a pretty good night? Last week we went from Uganda into Kenya.  Before I left home, 1 thought I'd be happy with ten elephants and five or six giraffes on the whole trip. I didn't dare to dream the rhino.

    Running seems easy enough: Just grab a pair of sneakers and put one foot in front of the other, right? Well, anyone who struggled to get through a mile knows it's not quite that simple. We've asked experienced runners to tell us something wrong they did when they started running. The following are some of their answers.

    I got excited and signed up for a half-marathon with a few more experienced runner friends, but I wasn't adequately prepared and didn't train efficiently. I ended up with blisters(水泡) on my feet. I couldn't wear shoes for two days!

—Cali Lavey

    I have always been athletic and I have never been badly injured, but one day I felt a slight pain in my knee. I ignored it for a month until I realized I was having a hard time putting weight on my right leg. I finally went to a doctor. It took four months of weekly physical therapy(治疗) to heal. I shouldn't have done that.

— Arnold

    My biggest mistake was treating running like soccer practice: If I wasn't exhausted by the end of practice, I felt as though I didn't work hard enough. I run all of my runs at 80 percent effort, or the equivalent of what I now call tempo runs (节奏跑). I wasn't warming up to the pace or cooling down effectively.

— Kate

    I decided to go out for a run during the hottest part of the day. At the time, I told myself that it would be refreshing to sweat a little, but I didn't bring adequate water. I returned feeling completely rundown, dehydrated (脱水的), and exhausted. If you must go out on a run during unfavorable weather, wear proper suits and bring enough water to keep you feeling strong.

— Sarah

    A voyaging ship was wrecked during a storm at sea and only two of the men aboard were able to swim to a small, desert-like island. Not knowing what else to do, the two survivors agreed that they had no alternative than to pray to God.

    However, to find out whose prayers were more powerful, they agreed to divide the territory between them and stay on opposite sides of the island.

    The first thing they prayed for was food. The next morning, the first man saw a fruit-bearing tree on his side of the island, and he was able to eat its fruit. But the other man's parcel of land remained barren.

    After a week, the first man became lonely and decided to pray for a wife. The next day, another ship was wrecked and the only survivor was a woman who swam to his side of the island. But on the other side of the island, there was nothing.

    Soon thereafter the first man prayed for a house, clothes and more food. The next day, like magic, all of these things were given to him. However, the second man still had nothing.

    Finally, the first man prayed for a ship so that he and his wife could leave the island, and in the morning he found a ship docked at his side of the island.

    The first man boarded the ship with his wife and decided to leave the second man on the island, considering the other man unworthy to receive God's blessings since none of his prayers had been answered.

    As the ship was about to leave, the first man heard a voice from Heaven booming, "Why are you leaving your companion on the island?"

    "My blessings are mine alone since I was the one who prayed for them," the first man answered. "His prayers were all unanswered and so he doesn't deserve anything."

    "You are mistaken!" the voice rebuked him. "He had only one prayer, which I answered. If not for that, you would not have received any of my blessings."

    "Tell me," the first man asked the voice, "what did he pray for that I should owe him anything?"

    "He prayed that all your prayers would be answered."

    For all we know, our blessings are not the fruits of our prayers alone, but those of another praying for us. So what you do for others is more important than what you do for yourself.

    Disease, poverty, hate, love — Charles Dickens' stories opened his readers' eyes to the most important themes of his age. Two hundred years later, his stories still speak volumes across the world, proving that Dickens' legacy (遗产) was far greater than just "great-literature".

    February 7 marks the 200th anniversary of the writer's birthday. To mark this date, BBC writer Alex Hudson listed six things Dickens gave the modern world. Let's take a look at two of them.

    A White Christmas

    Dickens is described as "the man who invented Christmas"— not the religious festival, but the cultural aspects that we associate with the festive season today.

    In the early 19th century, Christmas was barely worth mentioning, according to critic and writer Leigh Hunt. The committee which ran the Conservative Party even held ordinary business meetings on Christmas Day — unthinkable in the West nowadays, when everyone but the most necessary workers takes at least three days off.

    Many people believe that Dickens' popular descriptions of the festive period became a blueprint for generations to come. In his classic novel, A Christmas Carol, he not only put forward the idea of snow at Christmas, but also painted a picture of glowing warmth —“home enjoyments, affections and hopes".

    In his biography of Dickens, Peter Ackroyd wrote:" Dickens can be said to have almost single-handedly created the modern idea of Christmas."

    "Dickensian" poverty

    Dickens was one of the first to take an honest look at the underclass and the poor of Victorian London.

    He helped popularize the term "red tape" to describe situations where people in power use needless amounts of bureaucracy (官僚作风) in a way that particularly hurts the weaker and poorer members of society.

    "Dickensian" has now become a powerful word for describing an unacceptable level of poverty. In 2009, when the president of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers in the UK wanted to talk about poverty in some areas of Britain, she did not use words like "terrible" or "horrific", but rather described it as "life mirroring the times of Dickens".

    Chewing gum(口香糖) has its origins in ancient times from Mayans to Greeks who would chew the resin(树脂)of certain trees for medical purposes and maybe even for freshening breath. The history of chewing gum continued as Native Americans introduced it to European settlers.

    Chewing gum hit the market after Santa Anna brought a case of chicle(糖胶树脂) from Mexico to New York. Santa Anna gave some to the part-time inventor Thomas Adams Thomas Adams changed the gum and marketed it as a candy. The invention took off and was known as Chiclets.

    In 1900 Frank Fleer coate chewing gum with sugar, and in 1906 Blibber Blubber was invented, but never made it to market. Blibber Blubber was too sticky and it was also too difficult to remove the burst bubble(破了的泡泡) from one's skin without using some special tools.

    A history of bubblegum just wouldn't be complete without mentioning the gumball machine, which popularized gum. The first gumball machine came onto the scene in 1907 and sold sugar-coated chewing gum.

    However, it wasn't until 1928 that bubblegum was created. Walter Diemer, working for Frank Fleer's gum company, discovered bubblegum by accident while experimenting in the lab during his breaks. The gum was named Dubble Bubble. Pink was the only color which could be used at the time, and Dubble Bubble has remained pink ever since.

    According to the International Chewing Gum Association,during WWII Dubble Bubble was handed out by US military members as gifts, thereby spreading its popularity among the peoples of Europe, Africa, and Asia. And in the 1930s he first bubblegum cards appeared. "the pictures changed from war heroes to Wild West figures to professional athletes."

    Bubblegum has been popular ever since, especially among children, thanks to its inventive shapes, and sugary flavors, from original bubblegum to a yardstick of fruity bubblegum.