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          One early morning, I went into the living room to find my mother reading a thick book called Best Loved Poems to Read Again and Again. My interest was aroused only by the fact that the word “Poems”appeared in big, hot pink letters.

      “Is it good?” I asked her.

“Yeah,” she answered. “There's one I really like and you'll like it, too.' I leaned forward.

“‘Patty Poem,'” she read the title. Who is Patty? I wondered. The poem began:

She never puts her toys away,

                Just leaves them scattered(散乱的)where they lay,…      

The poem was just three short sections. The final one came quickly:

          When she grows and gathers poise(稳重),        

           I'll miss her harum-scarum(莽撞的) noise,        

           And look in vain(徒劳地) for scattered toys.       

And I'll be sad.      

    A terrible sorrow was hed over me. Whoever Patty was, she was a mean girl. Then,the shock.

“It'syou, honey,” My mother said sadly.

    To my mother, the poem revealed a parent's affection when her child grows up and leaves. To me, the “she” in the poem was horror. It was my mama who would be sad. It was so terrible I burst out crying.

    “What's wrong?” my mother asked.

    “Oh Mama,” I cried. “I don't want to grow up ever!”

      She smiled. “Honey, it's okay. You're not growing up anytime soon. And when you do, I'll still love you, okay?”

    “ Okay,”I was still weeping. My panic has gone. But I could not help thinking about that silly poem. After what seemed like a safe amount of time, I read the poem again and was confused. It all fit so well together, like a puzzle. The language was simple, so simple I could plainly understand its meaning, yet it was still beautiful. I was now fascinated by the idea of poetry, words that had the power to make or break a person's world.

        I have since fallen in love with other poems, but “Patty Poem” remains my poem. After all, “Patty Poem” gave me my love for poetry not because it was the poem that lifted my spirits, but because it was the one that hurt me the most.

    We all have different ways to navigate (导航) when lost—whether asking a stranger for help, consulting an old-school map or simply following our nose. But on a bike, the risks are higher. One wrong turn or that you're in a traffic jam with two lanes between your bike and the nearest pavement may ruin your good mood. Although cyclists, of course, managed to navigate before smart phones, cyclists can make two choices: a few stay calm and embrace getting lost, and the rest turn to a navigation app.

    Google Maps added a directions function for cyclists in 2015 in the US and Canada, and two years later across Europe. And while there are dozens of other apps now offering a similar service, Google Maps has the demerits for many, so the app seems to be falling behind expectations.

    As someone with no sense of direction, I knew it wouldn't be easy when I started cycling earlier this year. I appreciated that the app gave me two warnings before I needed to turn off a road, and automatically recalculated my route if I accidentally went off course. But still, it wasn't a smooth process. Google Maps thought I could cut across a double carriageway with no breaks in its barrier, assumed I knew what it meant when it told me to “head west”, and thought nothing of taking me the wrong way down a busy one-way street.

    Cyclists don't just want safety—they want convenience. Londoner Robson Smith regularly cycles between Clap ham and the City of London and would like to see Google Maps calculate routes where his bike is allowed on public transport and more choice of the type of routes he can take. “Google tends to calculate the most common and comfortable cycle routes. It would be better to have an option which included the fastest route, regardless of comfort,” he says.

    For this reason, Robson says he uses the app Cycle Streets instead. It offers a choice of four different route modes, based on the type the user wants, and saves previous routes. It also tells you how many calories a route burns, how many traffic lights you wilt encounter, and how busy it is.

    Far out in the lake was a large wooden platform(平台) on which stood an improbably high diving board- a kind of wooden Eiffel Tower. It was, I'm sure, the county's tallest wooden structure (结构) and no one had ever been known to jump from it. So it was quite a shock when our teacher, Mr. Milton, announced that he would dive off the high board that very afternoon.

    Word of his questionable plan was already spreading through town as Mr. Milton swam out to the platform. He was just a tiny, stick figure when he got there but even from such a distance the high board seemed almost to touch the clouds. Once at the top, he paced the enormously long board , then look some deep breaths and finally stood at the edge. He was going to do it.

    Several hundred people had gathered at the shore to watch. Mr. Milton stood for quite along time ;then he raised his arms, took one bounce(弹跳) and launched himself into ;perfect dive. He fell with perfect style for what seemed minutes. The crowd fell silent. But about three quarters of the way down he seemed to have second thoughts and began suddenly to panic(惊慌)，waving his arms and legs like someone having a bad dream. When he was perhaps thirty feet above the water, he gave up on waving and spread his arms and legs wide, obviously hoping that it would somehow slow his fall. It didn't. He hit the water at over six hundred miles an hour, making birds fly out of their trees three miles away. I don't think he entered the water at all. He just bounced off it, about fifteen feet back into the air. After that, he lay still on the surface , like an autumn leaf.

    He was brought to shore by two passing fishermen in a rowboat and placed on an old blanket where he spent the rest of the afternoon. Occasionally he accepted a little water, but otherwise was too shocked to speak.

    It was the best day of my life.

    Oil Painting Workshop

    Jan. 7, 2019

    For Ages 15 and Up

    Beginners Welcome! Experience Not Required!

    Registration (登记) Deadline —— Dec. 31, 2018

    Class Schedule

    9:30—10:00 am            Welcome and Registration

    10:00—12:00 am          Painting Session

    12:00 am—1:00 pm        Lunch

    1:00—3:00 pm            Painting Session

    3:00pm                    Evaluation and Departure

    Instructor

    Judy Moore Gist, Alexander Certified Instructor and Ross Certified Instructor, is making great efforts to give people of all ages the opportunity to experience Alexander's The Magic of Oil Painting and Bob Ross's The Joy of Painting. Both, William Alexander and Bob Ross, PBS TV hosts, have inspired thousands of first-time painters. The “wet-on-wet” technique have encouraged people of all ages to pick up a brush and put their dreams on canvas (油画布). Judy will do the same, and you are welcome to take a class and see for yourself. At the end of just one session you will be amazed at the beautiful painting that you create in just a few hours. You will become more aware of beautiful cloud shapes and colours you ignored before. There is nothing more inspiring than seeing the beautiful scenery that you paint and others will treasure forever.

    For more information about Judy Moore Gist, click here.

    Cost

    $75.00/a person. Prices include all instructor fees, materials, and lunch.

    If you wish to pay by check, please print the OilPaintJan.pdf printable registration form and mail it in with payment to: Holiday Lake 4H Educational Center, 12674-H Camp Road, Appomattox, VA 24522.

    Refund(退款) Policy

    Full Refund: Dec. 31, 2018

    Nonrefundable: after Dec. 31, 2018

    For more information, contact Heathern Benninghove at 232-268-6777 or heathern@vt.edu.

    Some of Australian cyclists have used "GPS art" to turn a 202 km (125 mile) ride into the outline (轮廓) of a goat, which interests many people greatly.

    The four men marked their route on an app before using it track their journey around Perth. When uploaded to the computer, it was shown as a picture. Cyclist Ben Jones said the group settled on a goat because it was an easy animal to draw. He said the ride lasted more than six hours, with the four men stopping only for food, and flat tyres. "Except for riding 202km,' it's relatively simple," Mr. Jones told the BBC. "You mainly mark your route on the app and it plans directions out."

    GPS art has also been widely used by runners and other cyclists when they travel out. Mr. Jones said his group wanted to shake up their normal weekend ride. "We all ride 10, 000km to 15, 000km a year," he said. "Mostly we just ride together as mates and have a good time—that's what this was about."

    The group received much attention after posting their map to social media this week. Others described Mr. Jones as a goat guy in an interview on Australian television. For their next piece of GPS art, the group plans to draw a local animal such as the koala. "Certainly, there'll be something coming, for we are making our decisions to put more and more plans into practice. I'm sure of that," Mr. Jones said.

    I'm a storyteller. And I would like to tell you a few personal stories.

    I grew up reading British and American children's books. When I began to write, I wrote exactly the kinds of stories I was reading: All my characters were white and blue-eyed, they ate apples and talked a lot about the weather, despite the fact that I lived in Nigeria. We ate mangoes, and we never talked about the weather. Because all I had read were books in which characters were foreign, I had become convinced that books by their very nature had to have foreigners in them. Things changed when I discovered African books. Because of writers like Chinua Achebe and Camara Laye, I went through a mental shift in my idea of literature. I realized that people like me, girls with skin the color of chocolate, could also exist in literature. I started to write about things I recognized. So what the discovery of African writers did for me was this: It saved me from having a single story of what books are. The year I turned eight, we got a new house boy Fide from a nearby rural village. The only thing my mother told us about him was that his family was very poor. And when I didn't finish my dinner, my mother would say，"Finish your food! Don't you know? People like Fide's family have nothing." So I felt enormous pity for Fide's family. Then one Saturday, we went to his village to visit, and his mother showed us a beautifully patterned basket that his brother had made. I was astonished. It had not occurred to me that anybody in his family could actually make something. Their poverty was my single story of them.

    Years later, when I left Nigeria to go to university in the United States, my American roommate asked where I had learned to speak English so well, and was confused when I said that Nigeria happened to have English as its official language. What struck me was this: She had felt sorry for me even before she saw me. My roommate had a single story of Africa: a single story of catastrophe.

    Of course, Africa is a continent full of catastrophes. But there are other stories that are not about catastrophe, and it is very important, it is just as important, to talk about them. The consequence of the single story is this: It robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar.

    So what if my mother had told us that Fide's family was poor and hardworking? What if we had an African television network that broadcast diverse African stories all over the world? What if my roommate knew about my Nigerian publisher, Muhtar Bakare, a remarkable man who left his job in a bank to follow his dream and start a publishing house? What if my roommate knew about my friend Funmi Iyanda, a fearless woman who hosts a TV show, and is determined to tell the stories that we prefer to forget?

    My Nigerian publisher and I have just started a non-profit called Farafina Trust, and we have big dreams of building libraries and providing books for state schools, and also of organizing lots of workshops in reading and writing, for all the people who are eager to tell our many stories.

    Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity. When we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise.