Divide the bills evenly. Some studentsare far less responsible than their roommates and tend to let their part of thefinance slide. Dissatisfaction is quick to build when everyone has to pay thebill for a fellow student who can't seem to pay his/her share of the money.

    Carry your part of the load. Everyonehas to clean the bathroom and the kitchen sometime. Don't avoid your part ofresponsibility. Student accommodations can get messy and it involves everyoneto keep them tidy and healthy.

    Think about someone else before youthink about yourself. Put your roommates interests above your own. Life will befar enjoyable when everyone is concerned about the feelings property andstudies of each other.

    Be open and honest. Hostilities (敌意) andfrustrations may cause problems that can't be fixed. Everyone brings differentstandards and expectations to group living and it's in everyone's best interestto put them into the open. Disagreements can be managed more warmly when your arewilling to be both open and listen to others.

    When people today talk about a tiny house, they probably mean the trendy living space that's about the size of a shed (棚). But you would have to be five inches tall to live in the original tiny houses. Dollhouse(小房子)，which have been around for several centuries, don't offer shelter to real people, but they provide a vivid（生动的） experience of life in times and places both real and imaginary.

    The National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., lets visitors time travel in this tiny world through ―Small Stories: At Home in a Dollhouse,” an exhibit that opened Saturday. Visitors can see twelve dollhouses from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England, which contain amazing tiny furnishings. But those people who put together the exhibit also wanted visitors to know the characters inside.

    “It's 300 years of British homes told through their inhabitants (居民),” said Alice Sage, who is in charge of the London museum.

    So as visitors look inside the Tate Baby House, a fancy townhouse from 1760, they can push a button to hear a young woman get a lecture from her mother on the proper way to run a home. In the Killer Cabinet house, a servant named Betsy complains about the problems of city life in the 1830s. “We've got the cat to keep the rats away,” she says.

    That dollhouse was John Killer's gift to his wife and five daughters. The girls were allowed to play with the house, but they probably also learned a few lessons, Sage said.

    “The kitchen of the house would have been the perfect way to teach the girls about the management of a home,” she said, noting the tiny dishes and pots.

    Those who prefer a more modern look won't be disappointed. There are two rooms displaying a white dollhouse from 1935, an apartment house from the 1960s and a brightly colored 21st-century design.

    The end of the exhibit shows how imaginative design sometimes works best in small spaces.

    The Building Museum asked twenty-four artists, designers and architects from across the United States to each create a “dream room” from the past, present or future. Some of these unique small rooms were made using traditional furnishings, others from materials such as clay, insects, 3D-printing, and even peeps marshmallow candies!

    My dad is the kind of parent that expects my best. He would never be angry if I failed at something as long as I tired. He never changes his mind after he makes it, which sometimes makes him seem too stubborn. My dad's strictness comes from the way he was raised. He grew up working long hours on his family farm. His dad was bad-tempered, and he would get angry enough to throw wooden boards at my dad when he did something wrong. In high school, my dad woke up at four in the morning to get his chores(家务杂事)done and walk to school so that he would make it to basketball practice by five.

    Through all of the duties my dad had at home, he played three sports and went to school on top of it. school would have been easy, but my dad had dyslexia(读写困难)which made it nearly impossible for him to read. Since dyslexia wasn't recognized back then, every teacher my dad had passed along thinking that he was just unable to learn. My dad struggled in school until one teacher took the time to sit down and teach him how to read and write.

    The best part about my dad is his attitude toward daily life. even though he likes things once right, he also knows how go to with the flow and have a good time. My dad doesn't worry about things he can't control. When he comes home from a terrible day at work, he always puts on a smile on his face because he knows family is a lot more important than any other tings.

    I know that I get my best qualities from my parents and the way they raised me. My dad has shown me that with discipline and hard work I can achieve anything, and have fun while doing it.

    It happened to me recently. I was telling someone how much I had enjoyed reading Barack Obama's Dreams From My Father and how it had changed my views of our President. A friend I was talking to agreed with me that it was, in his words ,“a brilliantly written book” However, he then went on to talk about Mr. Obama in a way which suggested he had no idea of his background at all. I sensed that I was talking to a book liar.

    And it seems that my friend is not the only one. Approximately two thirds of people have lied about reading a book which they haven't. In the World Book Day's “Report on Guilty Secrets”, Dreams From My Father is at number 9. The report lists ten books, and various authors, which people have lied about reading, and as I'm not one to lie too often (I'd hate to be caught out), I will admit here and now that I haven't read the entire top ten. But I'm pleased to say that, unlike 42 percent of people, I have read the book at number one ,Gorge Orwell's 1984. I think it's really brilliant.

    The World Book Day report also has some other interesting information in it. It says that many people lie about having read Jane Austin Austen, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoevsky (I haven't read him, but haven't lied about it either) and Herman Melville.

    Asked why they lied, the most common reason was to “impress” someone they are speaking to. This could be tricky if the conversation became more in-depth!

    But when asked which authors they actually enjoy, people named J.K. Rowling, John Grisham, Sophie Kinsella (ah, the big sellers, in other words). Forty-two percent of people asked admitted they turned to the back of the book to read the end before finishing this story (I will come clean: I do this and am astonished that 58 percent said they had never done so.).

    My husband and I had been married nearly twenty-two years when I acquired Stevens-Johnson syndrome, a disorder where my immune system (免疫系统) responded to a virus by producing painful blisters (水疱). Although my long-term evaluation was good, I, who had been so fiercely independent, rapidly became absolutely helpless.

    My husband, Scott, stepped up to the plate, taking care of kids and cooking dinners. He also became my personal caretaker, applying the medicine to all of my blisters because my hands couldn't do the job. Needless to say, I had negative emotions, bouncing from embarrassment to shame caused by total reliance on someone other than myself.

    At one point when I had mentally and physically hit bottoms I remember thinking that Scott must somehow love me more than I could ever love him. With my illness, he had become the stronger one, and I was the weaker one. And this disturbed me.

    I recovered from my illness, but I couldn't seem to recover from the thought that I loved my husband less than he loved me. This seeming distinction in our love continued to annoy me for the year following my illness.

    Then recently Scott and I went on a long bike ride. He's an experienced cyclist; I'm quite the green hand. At one point with a strong headwind and sharp pain building in my tired legs, I really thought I couldn't go any further. Seeing me struggle, Scott pulled in front of me and yelled over his shoulder, “Stay close behind me.” As I fell into the draft of his six-foot-three-inch frame and followed his steps, I discovered that my legs quit burning and I was able to catch my breath. My husband was pulling me along again. At this very moment I woke up to what I now believe: during these and other tough times, love has the opportunity to become stronger when one partner learns to lean on the other.

    I pray my husband will always be strong and healthy. But if he should ever become the struggling one, whether on a bike ride or with an illness, I trust I'll be ready to call out to him: stay close behind me — my turn to pull you along.

Queen Rider

    Bonnie Wyndham got out of her mother's car and looked at Almonside School. "I'll make you sorry I've come here," she told her, pleasantly. Her mother was getting out of the other door at the time so she didn't hear, but Bonnie wouldn't have cared if she had. Her mother knew her feelings. Mrs. Wyndham looked about her. Almonside was a funny school, all bits and pieces, buildings hidden away amongst the trees on a wooded hillside; very confusing at first sight. Then she saw the signs on a post: science block, gymnasium, riding centre ...

    "Riding centre," said Bonnie, showing a sudden interest. "Headmaster's study," said her mother. "This way."

    Bonnie followed her mother along a broad drive that curved between trees.

    "I wish you'd walk beside me instead of following me like a dog," said Mrs. Wyndham wearily, but she didn't seem to expect Bonnie to do so.

    A few minutes later, her mother was talking to Bonnie's new headmaster in his study, while Bonnie herself sat and waited outside the door. Suddenly, Bonnie jumped up. "Why should I just it here?" she said to herself. "I'll be thrown out before very long, anyway," she said mentally to the door, "so why not get it over and done with?" She left the building and headed for the riding centre in the direction indicated by the sign.

    There was a nice old building where the horses were kept, and a large structure for indoor riding. Bonnie looked about her, but there was no one in sight. There was a certain reverence about her manner as she approached the animals. Bonnie treated horses with respect. The horses were very well looked after, she could tell that at once.

    Almost every stall was occupied, and she wandered along looking carefully at each horse and judging it. "They know what they're doing here," she told a small pony as she ran a finger along its nose. It was the next horse that pulled her up short. "But aren't you the best of the lot!" she said. He was brown with a touch of white. Lively, probably, but Bonnie liked that. "You know, I have the feeling we've met before," said Bonnie, stroking his neck.

    "It was in my dreams and I was riding you to victory in some big competition." Over the stall was his name: Maverick.

Suddenly, she couldn't resist the temptation to ride the horse. "I wonder where I can find a bridle for your head, and a saddle for your back. Can't be far away." The room containing all the riding equipment was — Bonnie was delighted to discover — unlocked. Absorbed in the pleasurable task of putting a saddle on Maverick's back, she forgot all about her mother and the headmaster. When she sat up high on the big horse outside the building, she felt like a queen, mistress of all she could see. Her nickname at her previous school had been Queen Bee, and she laughed delightedly as she remembered it. You're the best horse I've ever sat on, Maverick, ' she said admiringly, "and when I say that I'm not kidding, I can assure you, because I know about horses, even if I don t know about anything else."

    She nudged him into a walk, then into a trot. "If I stay here, I think you and I could be great friends," she confided. She went round and round the paddock. The rhythm was exhilarating, a little breeze whipping smartly past her cheek and making it glow. She could tell Maverick trusted her, and she felt certain that he'd jump well.