I told my friend Graham that I often cycle two miles from my house to the town centre but unfortunately there is a big hill on the route. He replied, "You mean fortunately." He explained that I should be glad of the extra exercise that the hill provided.

    My attitude to the hill has now changed. I used to complain as I approached it but now I tell myself the following. This hill will exercise my heart and lungs. It will help me to lose weight and get fit. It will mean thatI live longer. This hill is my friend. Finally I comfort myself with the thought of all those silly people who pay money to go to a gym and sit on stationery exercise bicycles when I can get the same value for free. I have asmile of satisfaction as I reach the top of the hill.

Problems are there to be faced and overcome. We cannot achieve anything with an easy life. Helen Keller was the first deaf and blind person togain a university degree. Her activism and writing proved inspirational. She wrote, "Character cannot be developed in ease. Only through experiences of suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved."

    One of the main determinants of success in life is our attitude towards adversity (逆境). From time to time we all face hardships, problems, accidents and difficulties. Some are of our making but many are no fault of our own. While we cannot choose the adversity, we can choose our attitude towards it.

Douglas Bader was 21 when in 1931 he had both legs cut off following a flying accident. He was determined to fly again and went on to become one of the leading flyingaviators in the Battle of Britain with 22 aerial victories over the Germans. He was an inspiration to others during the war. He said, "Don't listen to anyone who tells you that you can't do this or that. That's nonsense. Make up your mind, you'll never use crutches (拐杖) or a stick, and then have a go at everything. Go to school, and join in all the games youcan. Go anywhere you want to. But never, never let them persuade you that things are too difficult or impossible."

    The biographies (传记) of greatpeople are full of examples of how they took steps to overcome the difficulties they faced. The common thread is that they did not become depressed. They chose their attitude. They chose to be positive. They took on the challenge. They won.

    Nevertheless, there is still the problem of how you change your attitude towards adversity.

    In our daily life, we have developed a lot of habits, such as, eating habit, study habit, reading habit, etc. However, taking the time to develop a sleep habit is probably the last thing on your mind and some sleep advice simply can't be forgotten. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}.

Watching TV until you fall asleep

    It has nothing to do with what you watch —TV news isn't a better pre-sleep choice than TV series. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}. The bright light keeps you awake all the night. So even if you nod off (in front of the TV, for example), you probably won't stay asleep for long.

Sleeping with pets

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#}. They get comfortable, and then they move. This goes on all night, and whether you admit it or not, it interrupts your ability to get the level of sleep needed to feel rested.

Eating fatty, heavy foods too close to bedtime

    Heartburn (烧心，胃痛) strikes anyone of any age, but it's the most common GI disorder (胃肠失调) in older adults. If you've ever tried to go to sleep after eating a fatty meal, you've probably found the discomfort of stomach preventing you from falling asleep or staying asleep.

{#blank#}4{#/blank#}

    Remember how poorly you sleep when you have a fever—turning over and over again, never really feeling rested? Well, heavy exercise too close to bedtime has the same effect — it raises your body temperature so that your sleep is disturbed until your body temperature drops to normal, which may take several hours.

Accepting snoring (打呼噜) as normal sleep behavior

    Snoring may seem as common as breathing, but it's considered the biggest sleep killer, and it's linked to several causes: sleeping on your back, being overweight, having a cold, drinking, or taking drugs. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}. For the snorer, it disturbs sleep by awakening him/her every so often in order to breathe normally. For the partner, the noise can be unbearable.

    Alibaba started taking the lead in China, simply enough, by connecting big Chinese, manufacturers(制造商)with big buyers across the world. Its business-to-business site, Alibaba.com allowed business to buy almost everything. Alibaba's advantage wasn't hard to identify: size.

    Alibaba is just big, even by Chinese standards. Its marketplaces attract 231 million active buyers, 8 million sellers, 11.3 billion orders a year—and Alibaba is just the middleman. It encourages people to use its markets—not charging small sellers a percentage of the sale.

    If you want a quick look into the influence of Alibaba on daily Chinese life, take my experience. I moved to Beijing almost a year ago and quickly got tired of visiting small stores across the crowded, polluted city of 20 million people in search of new electronics, bathroom furnishings. “You're looking for what exactly? Why not try it? ” my Chinese teacher asked me one day. With that, my wonderful new relationship with Alibaba began.

    Alibaba's original business-to-business model now is secondary to consumer buying. Chinese retail（零售）buying makes up 80% of Alibaba's profit, and leading that group is Taobao, with 800 million items for sale and the most unbelievable selection of things you'll ever find. TMall.com is Alibaba's other big site, where you can find brand name goods from Nike and Unilever near the lowest prices.

What I have a hard time explaining to friends and family back in the U. S. is how China has gone beyond traditional shopping—big-box retailers(零售商)especially—in favor of online purchases on Taobao and a few other sites. In smaller towns than Beijing, where big retailers have not yet traveled, shopping online is shopping, and shopping is Taobao.

    I have a list of some of my recent purchases on Taobao for a sense of how extensive(广泛的) the marketplace is. Almost everything arrived a day or two after ordering with free shipping. I'm not even a big buyer, because I need friends to help me search the Chinese-language site. When I was searching my purchase history on my Chinese teacher's iPad, which helps me buy goods, I looked through with great difficulty about 10 of her purchases for every one of mine.

    The movie The Wizard of Oz has thousands of fans around the world. But back in 1939 when the film opened, audiences were not particularly fond of it. It was only a modest box office success. It was nominated for Best Picture at that year's Academy Awards, but so were nine other great films. It lost out to Gone with the Wind.

    The Wizard of Oz really gained an audience when it was broadcast regularly on TV. That began in the 1950s. The film's plot follows young Dorothy who is knocked unconscious during a tornado. She dreams about following a Yellow Brick Road through the Land of Oz to the Emerald City. She wants to meet the Wizard of Oz who lives there. He's the only one who can help her to return home to Kansas. Along the way she makes friends with the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion. They help her and her dog Toto overcome the Wicked Witch of the West!

    According to the Library of Congress, The Wizard of Oz is the most watched movie of all time. What is it about the film that appeals to people? It includes themes that people can relate to. Through most of the movie Dorothy is trying to get home to Kansas. When she finally gets to go, she speaks the words, "there's no place like home." People identify with that thought. Home is the welcoming place where they feel secure.

    At the beginning of the film, Dorothy sings of a place "over the rainbow." There, the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true. So while home is a great place, dreaming about something different is all right too.

    The Wizard of Oz also deals with courage. Dorothy learns that true courage isn't being unafraid. It's facing danger when you are afraid. Her friends face plenty of danger to rescue her.

    As one of the true classics of American literature, The Wizard of Oz has stirred the imagination of young and old alike for over four generations. Celebrate the 80th year of this fabulous film by watching it again.

Rosie, a first-year university student in Beijing, entered a classroom for her oral English exam and slid her topic across the table to Joe, a foreign teacher. My Story, it read. "In middle school, my classmates laughed at me for having deaf-mute parents," she began softly. "From that moment on, I decided not to tell anybody. But today…"

It's widely considered taboo(忌讳) in Chinese to discuss the details of an unhappy family life with anyone other than very close friends. However, as Joe has noticed, many Chinese students appear surprisingly comfortable discussing emotional moments from their lives when they speak with foreign teachers in a language different from their own.

"Speaking English," one of his Chinese students told him, "I feel like another person." When speaking Chinese, he is kind of reserved; in English class, he is more open. English, to the Chinese speaker, may be like a mask, creating a buffer(缓冲物)between speaking the truth and the listener's reaction. Students focus on how to speak rather than what is being said. If there's a misunderstanding, English can take the blame.

Another reason why Chinese students are more comfortable sharing their secrets during English class may be the distinct approach to teaching used by their foreign teachers. "I always try to come to each student, make eye contact, have a 20-second conversation and see how they are doing," Joe said. Classes taught by Chinese teachers, in contrast, are more formal. Many students said they had never been asked their opinion in class.

Rosie's English vocabulary is now extensive, but she still can't find the words to describe her feelings towards the English language. "English makes me feel I am different," she said. "English is beautiful."

Teamwork Doubles the Strength

Admittedly, teamwork is literally important for any class or team to achieve its goals and objectives. Let me give three reasons why it is advantageous.

As individuals, we possess diverse talents, strengths, weaknesses and experiences. A team is just like a tapestry（织锦） that weaves what each of us possesses, resulting in an end product that is diverse yet homogenous（同种类的）. As team members exchange thoughts and experiences, there can be more efficiency and effectiveness at problem-solving. This pooling of talents can also lead to greater innovation and success. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}. It won the Premier League in 2016, to the utter disbelief of many soccer fans. Leicester City, previousl regarded as the underdog of the League, displayed extremely impressive teamwork, which led to its unbelievable victory in soccer history.

Next, teamwork means members share the workload. When work is distributed and each of us in a team specializes in specific tasks, the stress on each of us is reduced and the completion of tasks before deadline is ensured: {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

 {#blank#}3{#/blank#}. Team members learn from more experienced members who may offer deeper insights and perspectives. Newer members may also contribute new ideas. Besides encouraging the sharing of knowledge and experiences, teamwork also develops soft skills like communication and interpersonal skills. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}.

Some may think that working in isolation（单独） is more efficient since more time is taken when cooperating with others. For more talented individuals, working alone means being the star of a project. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}. But, the loss of synergy（协同作用） that only team effort can generate may also prevent the team from reaching its full potential.

A．Take Leicester City for example

B．Thus we can expect greater job satisfaction

C．Team members can also be divided in opinions

D．They don't need to share the success with others

E．Let's not wave away the chance to work in teams

F．And finally working in a team multiplies learning opportunities

G．We learn to respect differences in working styles and opinions, and develop trust