Sometimes you'll hear people say that you can't love others until you love yourself. Sometimes you'll hear people say that you can't expect someone else to love you until you love yourself. Either way, you've got to love yourself first and this can be tricky. Surely we all know that we're the apple of our parents' eyes, and that our Grandmas think we're great talents and our Uncle Roberts think that we will go to the Olympics，but sometimes it's a lot harder to think such nice thoughts about ourselves. If you find that believing in yourself is a challenge, it is time you build a positive self-image and learn to love yourself.

    Self-image is your own mind's picture of yourself. This image includes the way you look, the way you act, the way you talk and the way you think. Interestingly, our self-images are often quite different from the images others hold about us. Unfortunately, most of these images are more negative than they should be. Thus changing the way you think about yourself is the key to changing your self-image and your whole world.

    The best way to defeat a passive self-image is to step back and decide to stress your successes. That is, make a list if you need to, but write down all of the great things you do every day. Don't allow doubts to occur in it.

    It very well might be that you are experiencing a negative self-image because you can't move past one flaw or weakness that you see about yourself. Well, roll up your sleeves and make a change of it as your primary task. If you think you're silly because you aren't good at math, find a tutor. If you think you're weak because you can't run a mile, get to the track and practice. If you think you're dull because you don't wear the latest trends, buy a few new clothes. But remember, just because you think it doesn't mean it's true.

    The best way to get rid of a negative self-image is to realize that your image is far from objective, and to actively convince yourself of your positive qualities. Changing the way you think and working on those you need to improve will go a long way towards promoting a positive self-image. When you can pat yourself on the back，you'll know you're well on your way. Good luck!

    I have heard having a good sense of humour often helps in breaking the ice. Also people remember you because of your humour. But I think I don't have a very good sense of humour. Could you suggest how to build on this? ——Radha Karnik

    This is a great question that is unfortunately difficult to answer. I can only give you my views on this topic, which may or may not be correct. I know that my sense of humour developed over time.

    When I was younger I was not funny at all, now I can easily make people laugh. At the same time, sometimes I say things that I think are very funny but others do not. Improving wit and humour, I believe, is an ongoing process.

    Now, there are various forms of humour and everyone has their individual style. Overall, I believe being fluent in a language is very important for being witty or funny. The way we play around with words adds the “funny” tag to an otherwise normal sentence.

    Also, seeing irony is very important. I think humour is often the link between two unrelated things.

    In my experience, laughing frequently and appreciating other people's jokes and wit are very important. Within these, finding humour in everyday normal situations is the key.

    I often notice what is going on around me and say funny things in my head and laugh to myself. That serves almost as practice for when I am in a group. I watch comedy shows and movies and I am sure that has some effect on helping me improve my sense of humour.

    And last, having confidence that you are witty is important. There will always be someone wittier or funnier than you, which is fine. Just work on building your own style.

    Remember, if you are trying to be funny and witty in order to break the ice at a business function, be careful.

    In those situations, humour has to be mild and politically correct.

Yours,

Brad

    Pele was born to a very poor family on October 23, 1940. His real name is Edison Arantes do Nascimento. Pele is just a nickname.

    Pele first learned the game soccer from his father. As a youngster Pele played soccer for a local club. By the time he was 16, he was playing professionally for the Santos Football Club. The club won nine national championships while he played for it.

    Pele also played for Brazil's national team in four World Cups. At his first World Cup in 1958, when he was just 17, Pele scored an amazing six goals. In the final game against Sweden, he scored two goals and Brazil won its first-ever World Cup. Pele also helped Brazil win World Cups in 1962 and 1970.

    Pele had an outstanding(突出) natural ability as a soccer player. He had great speed and balance and was able to shoot powerfully and accurately with either foot and with his head. Many European teams offered huge amounts of money to get Pele to play for their countries but Brazil declared him an official national treasure so he would stay in the country.

    In 1974, Pele retired from the Santos Club, but the next year, he came out of retirement and signed a reported $ 7-million 3-year contact(合同) to play for the New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League. Pele said he did not this for the money. He said that he wanted to make soccer a truly popular sport in the United States. Millions of North Americans gained a new respect for the game after watching Pele play.

    Last night Mr. and Mrs. Rojas stayed home. It was cold and rainy and they didn't want to go out in the bad weather. Mrs. Rojas made some popcorn and ice tea. At 8:00, Mr. and Mrs. Rojas went into the living room, sat on the sofa and began the movie and ate and drank. At 8:15, Mr. and Mrs. Rojas realized they already watched the movie last year and they didn't want to watch it again.

    “Now what?” asked Mr. Rojas. “Let's play cards!” answered Mrs. Rojas. At 8:30 Mr. and Mrs. Rojas started to play cards. They were playing for about 10 minutes when Mr. Rojas looked out the window. The rain changed to snow and the trees were covered in beautiful white snow. “I'm happy we stayed home tonight. It looks beautiful outside but this weather is very dangerous to drive in.” said Mr. Rojas. “You're right,” said Mrs. Rojas, “but I'm bored. Let's play some music and dance.”

    Mr. Rojas was surprised. “Dance? But I really don't ….”

    “Oh come on!” Mrs. Rojas insisted. She put on a romantic CD and they both started to dance. They were dancing for about 1 minute when suddenly the music stopped and the lights went out.  Mrs. Rojas laughed. “We're just not very lucky tonight, are we?” she said. Mr. Rojas said, “Of course we're lucky! We are together!” He kissed her and continued to dance with her, in the dark and without music.

    Times are a little tough at our house right now. Neither of us makes a lot of money, but years of experience have taught us how to walk between the raindrops and make it from one month to the next with a fair amount of grace. I cook a lot at home, more when we're facing difficult times. When I know that I have to keep us fed on not much money, I fall back on my grandmother's recipes. She taught me to cook.

    When I was a kid, my twin brother and I spent long summer weeks and Christmas vacations with my mother's parents in the mountains of North Carolina. Rather than go hunting with my grandfather on mornings, I found myself more and more in the kitchen with my grandmother, watching her making a lemon cheese pie with her soft hands.

    My great-grandmother died when my grandmother was 11 years old. As the eldest daughter, she was expected to take on all of the housework while attending school. Throughout the Great Depression, she learned how to make a little food go a long way. Vegetables were cheap, so she cooked a lot of them, mostly only using small amounts of meat for seasoning. Roast beef was a twice-a-month luxury, but there was nothing she couldn't do with a chicken, every part of it. Nothing went to waste.

    Now I understand that her food was sacred (神圣的). I feel connected to my grandmother and to hundreds of years of family when I'm in my kitchen making country food. In the delicious smells is a long tale of victory over hard times, of conquering starvation of not just surviving, but finding joy and pleasure in every meal of every day.

From grandmother I learned to take real satisfaction in feeding people. My grandmother would beam with pleasure over a heavily laden table and say: "Do you know what this would cost at the restaurant?" I never knew what restaurant in particular she had in mind, but I knew that the question was totally not fair, because no restaurant anywhere can cook like a grandmother. But now, thanks to her guidance and years of practice, I can.

    Learning Chinese could be one of the most important decisions you ever make. Chinese is becoming the language to learn in the 21^st century. With the world's largest population and a rapidly growing middle class, China stands to become the engine of the world's economy in the coming years. This will make learning Chinese very important for people in many industries, or for those of us who wish to visit China or learn from its culture and history.

    There is an ongoing effort to modernize the writing system and standardize the language. An increasing number of people learning Chinese are learning the Mandarin, so unless you absolutely need to learn another dialect (such as Cantonese), be sure you are studying Mandarin.

For native English speakers Chinese is one of the most difficult and most different languages to learn. The vocabulary is wholly unfamiliar and unlike anything we know. In addition, in the Chinese tone system, words are spoken in rising or falling tones, which help to distinguish between them. Furthermore, there is the Chinese writing system— a collection of thousands of individual ideograms (表意文字), or symbols, which represent a word or an idea. These ideograms have no phonetic value—that is to say, we can't tell how the word is pronounced by how it is written. There is a method to present written Chinese in a phonetic script called pinyin. If you are learning Chinese, you'll be working with this pinyin system, but the beauty of the traditional writing system shouldn't be passed up. All these factors make learning Chinese difficult for us. Yet, for a determined learner, there's always a way to overcome it.