It seems that the great desire among the young is to be popular. The desire to be popular can force you into looking and acting like everyone else. You can lose yourself in a sea of identical hairstyles and thinking styles.

    I was forced to think about popularity not too long ago in a talk I had with my daughter. Margy had to change schools when my busy work schedule made it necessary for me to move houses. I suppose that, for a girl in her teens, entering a new school is like spending a season alone in the tropical jungles. At least that's how Margy found it at first. However, as the school year drew to a close, one student after another came to her. I told Margy that I would have been more concerned if she had been an instant social success in her new school. Nobody can please everyone. If you try to do so, you will find values as lasting as soap bubbles blown into the air.

    Some teenagers claim they want to dress as they please. But they all wear the same clothes. They set off in new directions in music. But somehow they all end up listening to the same record. Their reason for thinking or acting in a certain way is that the crowd is doing it. They have come out of their cocoon into a larger cocoon.

    I know that it has become harder for a young person to stand up against the popularity wave. Our way of life makes a young nonconformist stand out like a Martian. These days there's a great barrier for the young person who wants to find his or her own path. But the barrier is worth climbing over. You may want to listen to classical music instead of going to a party. Well, go to it. Be yourself. Popularity will come with the people who respect you for who you are. That's the only kind of popularity that really counts.

    My parents knew their wealth: each other, their six children, and their faith. They tried to live simple lives so that they could have time for what was most important.

    They didn't busy themselves buying a bigger house, because that would mean working harder to pay the monthly mortgage(按揭贷款), working overtime or taking a second job. Who would go running with me then? Who would read stories to me?

    They didn't burden themselves with buying an expensive car because that would mean worrying about installment(分期付款) bills. Besides, walking to the shopping centre every Saturday afternoon with me gave my dad his needed exercise, and made me feel so special.

    One of my heart's delights was seeing Dad and Mom in their bedroom at night, after our nightly family prayer. The lights were turned off, and I'd see the figure of my father seated on his old chair and Mom standing behind him, gently massaging his shoulders. I'd hear them talk about what happened during their day. Even as a child, I sensed their quiet pleasure in being together.

    My question today: Could they have done this rich practice each night and nourished(滋润) their marriage if they had been busy paying for expensive clothes for themselves or their kids, or if they had been worrying about monthly bills for new hi-tech equipment? I don't think so. And I've made a choice: I don't want that of life either.

    Have you ever found yourself in his situation: You hear a song you used to sing when you were a child-a bit of nostalgia(怀旧) or “blast from the past,” as we say. But it is not a distant childhood memory. The words come back to you as clearly as when you sang them all those years ago.

    Researchers at the University of Edinburgh studied the relationship between music and remembering a foreign language. They found that remembering words in a song was the best way to remember even one of the most difficult languages.

    Here is what they did. Researchers took 60 adults and randomly divided them into three groups of 20. Then they gave the groups three different types of “listen-and-repeat” learning conditions. Researchers had one group simply speak the words. They had the second group speak the words to a rhythm, or beat. And they asked the third group to sing the words.

    All three groups studied words from the Hungarian language for 15 minutes. Then they took part in a series of language tests to see what they remembered.

    Why Hungarian, you ask? Researchers said they chose Hungarian because not many people know the language. It does not share any roots with Germanic or Romance languages, such as Italian or Spanish. After the tests were over, the singers came out on top. The people who learned these new Hungarian words by singing them showed a higher overall performance. They did the best in four out of five of the tests. They also performed two times better than those who simply learned the words by speaking them.

    Dr. Katie Overy says singing could lead to new ways to learn a foreign language. The brain likes to remember things when they are contained in a catchy 3, or memorable 4, tune 5.

    Dr. Ludke said the findings could help those who struggle to learn foreign languages. On the University of Edinburgh's website Dr. Ludke writes, “This study provides the first experimental evidence that a listen-and-repeat singing method can support foreign language learning, and opens the door for future research in this area.”

    Booking a theatre

    These locations have theatres available for rental:

    Fairview                • Palmerston                • York Woods

    Priority Bookings

    Each June, theatre booking requests for dates in the following calendar year (January to December) are accepted.

    For more information call the Room Booking Unit at 416-397-5969.

    Regular Bookings

    For people who didn't make a booking request in June, call the Room Booking Unit at 416-397-5969 to check for remaining dates.

    Completing a Booking

    Once the library receives a request, staff will check the availability and place a tentative booking for you. You will then receive a contract that you must return with payment within 10 calendar days of the tentative boding and with a minimum of two months before the first booking to confirm the booking.

    Payment

    Payment for the first booking and any bookings in the current month is due when you return the signed contract. If you have booked for multiple months, payments for those months are due at the beginning of each month.

    My motivation for starting our family tradition of reading in the car was purely selfish: I could not bear listening to A Sesame Street Christmas for another 10 hours. My three children had been addicted to this cassette on our previous summer's road trip.

    As I began to prepare for our next 500-mile car trip, I came across a book Jim Trelease's The Read Aloud Handbook. This could be the answer to my problem. I thought. So I put Roald dahl's James and the Giant Peach into my bag. When I began to read aloud the tale of the boy who escapes the bad guys by hiding inside a giant peach, my three kids argued and wrestled in their seats. But after several lines, they were attracted into the rhythm of the words and began to listen.

    We soon learned that the simple pleasure of listening to a well-written book makes the long miles pass more quickly. Sometimes the books we read became highlights of the trip. I read Wilson Rawls's Summer of the Monkeys as we spent two days driving to the beach. We arrived just behind the power crews restoring (恢复) electricity after a tropical storm. The rain continued most of the week, and the beach was covered with oil washed up by the storm. When we returned home, I asked my son what he liked about the trip. He answered without hesitation, “The book you read in the car.”

    Road trips still offer challenges, even though my children now are teenagers. But we continue to read as we roll across the country. And I'm beginning to see that reading aloud has done more than help pass the time. For at least a little while, we are not shut in our own electronic worlds. And maybe we've started something that will pass on to the next generation.

    “Who made your T-shirt?” A Harvard University student raised that question. Piertra Rivoli, a professor of business, wanted to find the answer. A few weeks later, she bought a T-shirt and began to follow its path form Texas cotton, to Chinese factory and to charity bin (慈善捐赠箱). The result is an interesting new book, The Travels of a T-shirt in the Global Economy.

    Following a T-shirt around the world in a way to make her point more interesting, but it also frees Rivoli from the usual arguments over global trade. She goes wherever the T-shirt goes, and there are surprises around every corner. In China, Rivoli shows why a clothing factory, even with its poor conditions, means a step towards a better care for the people who work there. In the colorful used-clothing markets of Tanzania, she realizes that, “it is only in this final stage of life that the T-shirt will meet a real market,” where the price of a shirt changes by the hour and is different by its size and even color. Rivoli's book is full of memorable people and scenes, like the noise, the bad air and the “muddy sweet smell of the cotton,” she says. “Here in the factory, Shanghai smells like shallow water Texas.”

    Rivoli is at her best when making those sorts of unexpected connections. She even finds one between the free traders and those who are against globalization. The chances opened up by trade are vast, she argues, but free markets need the correcting force of politics to keep them in check. True economic progress needs them both.