When I was a boy my father told me that he could do anything he wanted to. Dad said that he wanted to be the first to develop color prints in our city and so he did．

        When I was 16，Dad looked closely at the violin I played and said that he wanted to make one．He read about violin-making, and then became a violin-maker at the age of 43. He bought the tools and materials, opened a small store and set Mom up as the shopkeeper, while he worked at a local company. He retired from the company 17 years later and continued to make violins and other instruments.

        Dad often guessed why the Stradivarius violins sounded so beautiful. Some experts told him that it was the special varnish(油漆)that gave the instruments their beautiful sound．Dad argued that chemists could analyze the varnish—if that was the answer．

One of Dad's friends asked him which kind of wood was used to make violins．When Dad explained that the top was made of spruce(云杉), his friend said that he had all old piece of spruce which Dad might be interested in.

He worked for the next 12 months making a violin from the wood that his friend had given him. It proved to be an excellent violin and it would become Dad's masterpiece. He believed that the secret of the Stradivarius sound was in the wood itself.

        Later, the instrument was stolen, Dad's spirit was broken and he stopped making instruments. But he kept the music shop until he was 80 years old, selling guitars and violins.

        The violin has been missing for more than 25 years．Somewhere a musician is playing a late-20th-century violin with an excellent tone．The owner today may never understand why this Ordinary-looking violin sounds so much like Stradivarius．

    When other nine-year-old kids were playing games, she was working at a petrol station. When other teens were studying or going out, she struggled to find a place to sleep on the street. But she overcame these terrible setbacks to win a highly competitive scholarship and gain entry to Harvard University. And her amazing story has inspired a movie, “ Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story”, shown in late April.

    Liz Murray，a 22-year-old American girl, has been writing a real-life story of willpower and determination. Liz grew up in the shadow of two drug-addicted parents. There was never enough food or warm clothes in the house. Liz was the only member who had a job. Her mother had AIDS and died when Liz was just 15 years old. The effect of that loss became a turning point in her life. Connecting the environment in which she had grown up with how her mother had died, she decided to do something about it.

    Liz went back to school. She threw herself into her studies, never telling her teachers that she was homeless. At night, she lived on the streets. “ What drove me to live on had something to do with understanding, by understanding that there was a whole other way of being. I had only experienced a small part of the society,” she wrote in her book Breaking Night.

    She admitted that she used envy to drive herself on. She used the benefits that come easily to others such as a safe living environment, to encourage herself  that “next to nothing could hold me down”. She finished high school in just two years and won a full scholarship to study at Harvard University. But Liz decided to leave her top university a couple of months earlier this year in order to take care of her father, who has also developed AIDS. “I love my parents so much. They are drug addicts. But I never forget that they loved me all the time.”

    Liz wants moviegoers to come away with the idea that changing your life is “as simple as making a decision”.

    E-reading and e-books are slowly conquering the world. Compared to traditional paper books, e-books in some schools and universities attract more interest because the information flow seems much easier to manage and comes in a greatly higher quantity.

    Japan is known for the reform-minded attitude towards the gadget(精巧装置)world and for the fact that it is one of the first countries that encouraged in the educational system the emailing of homework.

    The digital textbook looks like the logical step in the world of learning. It is natural but it is also completely untraditional.

    The plan of the largest publishing companies to get in line with the trend is to save a large quantity of paper and make the kids become interested in learning using a cool gadget. Many USA universities and colleges have made students be used to the procedure of downloading the courses and of course the procedure involves interactive software and also the chance of using the computer.

    The traditional education system is still unwilling when it comes to giving up books. The standard approach of information taught out of a book and Shakespeare read out of an old school novel makes studying English as traditional as it can be.

    In a world where kids would rather see the movie than read a book, the digital age has brought along a completely different flavor to reading. Bringing that flavor in school will make teaching a greener and also a completely different matter.

    Kids undergo a large amount of pressure and stress during their school exams, which can often become quite overwhelming (to much) for them. It may be the first experience of stress, at this level, they have ever experienced and therefore quite frightening. Yes, you may say that it's all a part of growing up and therefore good lessons for them to learn, and to an extent I agree with you. However, it's important to learn how to prepare for life's challenges so that they aren't overwhelming or scary and so that we are able to manage them the best we can.

    Here are some tips you can use during your kids exam time.

    Break their revision plan down into small parts. Doing this will help transform what once seemed like a huge impossible task into a more manageable one.

    Help them arrange properly so that the subjects they like the least (perhaps ones that require more time and effort) are worked on first; once they are out of the way, it will help reduce the worry.

    Plan week on week to make sure they are on track. Ticking items of a list each week will help them to feel good about themselves and their progress.

    Create rewards for all the ticks - a favourite TV programme, a delicious snack, an hour's surfing the Internet, computer games or whatever it was that they enjoy the most. This will encourage them to carry on and make them feel good.

    Think of strategies on how to deal with exams calmly so their anxieties don't get the better of them.

    Talk about times in their lives when they had been successful at something and look at the qualities they used to get them there - determination, persistence, hard work, patience, positivity, dedication - discuss how they can apply these skills to their exams.

    Acknowledge that if they do their best that is good enough.

    Ensure they realize that this period in their lives will pass and that exams are only a temporary time in their lives; nothing can and does last forever.

    Ensure they keep their eye on the prize: enjoying their long summer holiday when the exams are finished; giving them something to look forward to will help to motivate them and provide a positive end in sight.

    Australia has promised to introduce the most comprehensive （全面的） carbon trading program outside Europe in 2010. The government in Canberra plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions (排放) by at least five percent by 2020, but it could make bigger reductions if other countries agree to tougher targets.

    The Australian government warns that without tough environmental measures the country could lose key industries and jobs. Climate Change Minister Penny Wong says the economy is under threat and decisive action is needed.

    Central to the government's climate change plan is a carbon emissions trading program that will be introduced within two years. It would involve one thousand of the nation's biggest companies and would cover about three-quarters of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions.

    Many scientists believe that greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, contribute to global warming. Many of them are released by burning fuels such as coal and oil.

    Companies will be required to buy permits for each ton of carbon they emit, although big polluting exporters will receive up to 90 percent of their carbon licenses free.

    Many business leaders want the government to delay the plan because of the current global financial crisis, which is slowing the Australian economy. Peter Anderson from the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry says it is irresponsible to bring in a carbon trading plan now.

    Environmentalists, on the other hand, say Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has not properly addressed the threat of climate change. Activists had sought a minimum emissions cut of 25 percent.

    Instead, the Rudd government aims to cuts carbon emissions by at least five percent of 2000 levels by 2020. That amount could rise to 15 percent, if future global agreements set such a target.

    Ray Nias of the environmental group WWF says Australia will pay the price for low targets. “This is a deeply, deeply disappointing target,” Nias said. “It commits Australia to long-term climate change. It will make Australia's ability to negotiate (协商) global agreements very, very difficult. It is much lower than even we had imagined.”

    Australia has one of the highest per-person greenhouse emissions rates in the world because of its reliance on coal for electricity.

    Some scientists warn that the vast, dry Australian continent, which has been suffering a series of droughts in recent years, could be one of the region's hardest hit by global warming.

    London has many beautiful parks and gardens, but Kew Gardens and Richmond Park are your best choices.

    Kew Gardens is a Botanical Research Center and it possesses the largest plant collection in the world. With its beautiful lawns（草坪）, formal gardens and greenhouses, it is such a tourist attraction for anybody visiting the capital. Probably the Chinese Pagoda is the most recognizable structure, but the Alpine house, Chokushi-Mon, Kew Palace, Queen Charlotte's Cottage or Shirley Sherwood Gallery are beautiful and interesting attractions as well. Richmond Park is an area of natural beauty and wild life. Like Kew Gardens（just 2 miles away）, Richmond Park has a wonderful variety of plant and animal life.

    If you are planning to visit either of the two parks, you will be thrilled to know that the area has six main car parks, all costing small fees. The disabled, providing a disabled badge（残疾证）, though, can park for free.

    Kew Gardens is open 9:30 am to 3:45 pm during the winter months, and 9:30 to 5:00 pm in the summer months. Richmond Park, however, is open from 7:00 am to 5:00 pm in summer while 7:30 am to 4:00 pm in winter.

    Richmond Park is free of charge, while you need to pay to get into Kew Gardens. The price is fairly small though, with children under the age of 17（when accompanied by an adult）visiting for free.

    More information about Kew Gardens:

    Address: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Rd, London

    E-mail: info@kew.org

    Phone: +44 020 8332 5655

    Website: http://www.kew.org/visit-kew-gardens/

    Price: £11.50

    Note: Kew Gardens is one of the most popular visitor attractions in London area and can therefore be extremely crowded during summer months, particularly on summer weekends.