“How's it going? ” I ask the barista(服务生). “How's your day been?”

    “Ah, not too busy. What are you up to?”

    “Not much. Just reading. ”

    This，small talk, is one of the key rituals(规矩）of American life. It has taken me only a decade to master.

    I immigrated to the United States in 2001, for college. I brought only my Indian experience in dealing with shopkeepers and tea sellers. In Delhi, where I grew up, when doing business, people don't ask each other how the other's day has been. They might not even smile. The customer doesn't tremble before complaining about how cold his food is. Each side believes the other will cheat him.

“God, Mahajan, you're so rude to waiters!” Tom, an American friend, said, laughing, after he watched me ordering food at a restaurant, in the West Village, years ago. Considering myself a mild and friendly person, I was surprised. Tom always asked servers how they were doing or praised their shirts or made jokes about the menu. At that time, this seemed dishonest to me. Did he really like what they were wearing?

American life is based on a principle that we like one another but won't violate one another's privacies. This makes it a land of small talk. Two people greet each other happily, with friendliness, but might know each other for years before asking basic questions about each other's backgrounds. The opposite is true of Indians. At least three people I've sat next to on planes to and from India have asked me, within minutes, how much I earn as a writer (only to turn away in disappointment when I tell them).

Living in Brooklyn and then in Austin, Texas. I made coffee shops the places of my movements. Meeting the same baristas day after day produced context, and I got practice. I was beginning to fit in. It felt good and didn't seem fake anymore.

    My grandmother often said to me, “You can count the number of your true friends on the fingers of one hand.” For a long time I thought this was true. However, I've now discovered my grandmother was only half right. Maybe we do only make a few best friends in our lifetime, but those aren't the only people that we can call friends. There are many different types. Let me tell you about a few of them.

    One type of friends is the type I call the “football mom friend”. My neighbor Sally is a good example. We both have kids who play football in a football club, and someone has to take them to practice and pick them up. Sally and I and two other mothers take turns to do this. We meet sometimes and have tea and talk about what our kids are doing, but those are the only times that we meet each other. I enjoy being with these women, but we don't do anything else together.

    Another type is called the “hobby friend”. That's the person you share an interest or a hobby with. Michael and Cater, who are brothers, are a good example of this type. We're all in a bird watching club. Every few weekends the members of the club go on a trip to watch different kinds of birds. There's nothing romantic about my relationship with Michael and Cater, of course. We just share interest in birds.

    Then there's the “other half of the couple” type of friends. Jim is married to Rose, a friend that I've known since college. When Rose married Jim, I realized that I would have to be Jim's friend if I want to continue to be Rose's. Jim and I don't share so many interests, but we do have a friendly relationship.

    Human brains begin growing and developing at a very young age. They learn from the simplest experiences, which enable your children to be aware of the world. There's no denying that outdoor play helps a lot!

Times when children have to wait for their turns on playground equipment and following the playground rules by sharing, all these form components of a healthy social-emotional development. Young children develop their social-emotional skills through practice and small steps over time.

As parents or caregivers, it is fairly simple to support your child's social-emotional skills. Acts like holding him, touching him, and speaking to him and giving him loving care and attention are all helping factors. When you allow them freedom to play, it is important to follow their interests in helping build their social-emotional skills.

Difficulties in social-emotional skills can often lead to children having trouble when playing with other children. Becoming easily angry or not empathizing (理解) with other children are all signs that may point in this direction. This can in turn lead to them not empathizing with the needs of other children.

    As for the development of cognitive (认知的) skills, these develop through practice and opportunity over time. And while some cognitive skills may be genetic, most are learned through real life situations. In other words, learning and thinking skills can be improved through experiences.

    To enable them to learn, it is important that we are mindful of what our children are interested in. And this realization is only set in place once the child is given enough room and time to grow and explore.

    Depriving children of such experiences can mean that they might struggle with higher- level thinking skills. And while it is normal to keep them safe, we forget that by rushing them and cutting down on play time, we're actually causing more harm than good.

    Dreams can be familiar and strange, fantastical or boring, but some dreams might be connected to the mental processes that help us learn. In a recent study, scientists found a connection between nap time dreams and better memory in people who were learning a new skill.

    In the study, 99 college students between the ages of 18 and 30 each spent an hour on a computer, trying to get through a virtual maze (逃宫). The maze was difficult, and the study participants had to start in a different place each time they tried, making it even more difficult. They were also told to find a particular picture of a tree and remember where it was.

    For the first 90 minutes of a five - hour break, half of the participants stayed awake and half were told to take a short nap. Participants who stayed awake were asked to describe their thoughts. Participants who took a nap were asked about their dreams after sleep and they were awakened within a minute of sleep to describe their dreams.

    Stickgold, a neuroscientist, wanted to know what people were dreaming about when their eyes weren't moving during sleep.Four of the 50 people who slept said their dreams were connected to the maze. Some dreamed about the music that had been playing when they were working; others said they dreamed about seeing people in the maze. When these four people tried the computer maze again, they were able to find the tree faster than before their naps.

    Stickgold suggests the dream itself doesn't' help a person learn, it's the other way around. He suspects that the dream was caused by the brain processes associated with learning.

    All four of the people who dreamed about the task had done poorly the first time,which makes Stickgold wonder if the dreams show up when a person finds a new task particularly difficult. People who had other dreams, or people who didn't' take a nap, didn't show the same improvement.

    At times my mom has been uncomfortable seeing these qualities in me. For example, when I was 12, I went to Puerto Rico all by myself to stay with my grandmother for the summer. My mom was extremely nervous about it. She kept telling me how things were different in Puerto Rico, to always put on sunscreen, not to wander away from my grandmother, and other warnings. She helped me pack and did not leave the airport until she saw my plane take off.

    But despite her worries, she let me go on my own. As I moved into my teens, she continued to give me space to grow and learn even when it might have been difficult for her. When I reached my senior year, I decided to move away for college. Once again I found that I differed from my peers: while many of them wanted to stay close to home, I couldn't wait to be out in the world on my own. While my mom may not have been happy at the thought of me going away, she was supportive and excited for me.

    One big thing I realized during my senior year, as my mom granted me more freedom, was that she actually believes in me and trusts me. That means a lot. Most of my life, and especially when I was little, the main person I tried to impress in my schoolwork or other things was my mother. I knew she expected nothing but the best from me. Sometimes it was hard to live up to her standards; getting a single B on my report card would make me feel bad because I knew she wanted me to have all A's.

    I know that her high standards have helped me stay focused on what's important, like education, and made me who I am. I am thankful for her support and involvement in my life. Most of all I respect her. She is the strongest woman I know and that's why I have turned out so strong and independent.

The recent few weeks have been the perfect time for a good book and here are some good ones that allow readers to get completely lost in another world.

Watch Me Disappear

If you like mysteries with family drama, Janelle Brown's best-selling thriller is for you, The story follows a wealthy wife and mom who goes on a hike and never returns. Her lonely husband and teenage daughter, Olive (who's dealing with her own problems), are confused with sorrow while trying to find out what happens.

The Boy from the Woods

If you pick up one of Harlan Coben's books, you won't be able to put it down. His misty stories keep readers fascinated. The Boy from the Woods, is sure to satisfy fans of his twisty, heart-racing plots filled with interesting and exciting atmosphere. This is the book to read if you love masterful surprises.

How to Walk Away

Katherine Center's best-selling novel follows a young woman, Margaret, with her perfect fiance, a pilot who takes her on a upsetting flight that changes her life forever. Readers adore Margaret's wisdom and humor as she faces a changed world and figures out what love really looks like.

The Last One Left

This novel, first published in 1967, still attracts readers decades later. Novelist Dean Koontz wrote the introduction to the recent edition, where he describes reading each of John D. MacDonald's novels" at least three times, some of them twice that often. "This is your next read if you want to be swept away by a master of mystery and excitement.