How could you be "just ahousewife" when the basic social unit of society depends on you and yourservice? A housewife works for the longest hour, supporting your husband, childstudies, caring for eld-ers, managing finances, paying bills, grocery shopping,cooking according to individual taste, cleaning, etc. A housewife could beanyone: daughter, wife, mother, teacher, financial advisor, fashion designerand nurse, gardener, driver, cook, and so on. Don't think you are not being paid for it.  You get the re-ward that no money canoffer-the love and affection of your family, their trust in you, ahappy home and your own satisfaction.

    It is you who choose to be in thisoccupation, willingly or for any other reason. After a busy day, all wait to return to the comfortable home set by you.They know you will be there to absorb all their stress and tiredness and relaxthem. Would the life have been the same had you been working outside to earnsome money? Would you along with your family have been able to buy all thecontent in life that you are enjoying now with that money?

    Respect yourself for what you are. Introduce yourself to the world with the same dignity. The world understandsthe importance of your job; it's time to make them accept it. Introduceyourself with pride and with twinkle in your eyes "I am a housewife".Kick that "just" out.

    Last week, my granddaughter started kindergarten, and I wished her every success. But part of me didn't. I actually wanted her to fail in some ways because I believe that failure can be good for our learning process. Success is proving that you can do something that you already know you can do, or doing something correctly the first time, which can often be a problematic (存在问题的) victory. First-time success is usually a fluke (侥幸). First-time failure, however, is supposed to be the natural order of things. Failure is how we learn.

    In Africa they describe a good cook as “She who has broken many pots.” If you've spent enough time in the kitchen to have broken a lot of pots, probably you know a fair amount about cooking. I once had dinner with a group of cooks, and they spent time comparing knife wounds and burn scars. They knew how much credibility (可信) their failures gave them.

    I earn my living by writing a daily newspaper column. Each week I know that one column I write is going to be the worst column. I try my best every day. I have learned to love that column. A successful column usually means that I am discussing my familiar topic, writing in a style I am used to or saying the same things as anyone else but in a better way.

    My younger daughter is a trapeze artist (荡秋千演员). She spent three years practising a show, and she did it successfully for years. There was no reason for her to change it but she did anyway. She said she was no longer learning anything new and she was bored. And if she was bored, there was no point in subjecting (使……服从于) her body to all that stress. She risked failure and great public embarrassment in order to feed her soul.

    My granddaughter is a perfectionist. She will feel her failures, and I will want to comfort her. But I will also, I hope, remind her of what she learned, and how she can do better next time. I hope I can tell her, though, that it's not the end of the world. Indeed, with luck, it is the beginning.

    Ahead of so-called Singles' Day on the 11th of this month，2013, online sales have already begun peaking.

    The leading e-business platform, tmall.com, has promoted(促销) its fifty-percent-off discount to attract consumers. They are also trying to attract buyers through social media. Vice President of tmall.com Wang Yulei says more than 20 thousand online stores have joined the Double 11 Day sales. But this number has doubled. The final number of how many products going to be on sale has not been known yet. But so far, many more products planned to be put on shelves with discounts.

    During last year's Singles' Day, tmall.com, together with taobao.com, reached a record of 19.1 billion yuan in sales, which considered a milestone in the e-business history of China.

    Singles' Day was first started by Chinese college students in the 1990s as the opposite of Valentine's Day, a celebration for people without romantic partners. The timing was based on the date: Nov. 11—or double 11—for singles. Single young people would treat each other to dinner or give gifts to show love to someone and end their single status.

    But now, the Singles' Day has been promoted as a kind of grand craze just for the shopping season, thanks to thousands of discounted products being promoted online.

    Taobao.com was the first big e-retail platform which used the double 11 idea to promote sales. Taobao.com reached one million yuan worth of sales on that day in 2009, when they first promoted the Singles' Day idea. In 2010, the sales increased to 936 million yuan. The figure climbed up to 5.3 billion yuan in 2011, putting huge demand on shipping services. The figure doubled in 2012.

    E-commerce is considered to be replacing the traditional retailing industry, but the reality is both sides are learning from each other.

    Parents often believe that they have a good relationship with their teenagers. But last summer, Joanna and Henry noticed a change in their older son: suddenly he seemed to be talking far more to his friends than to his parents. “The door to his room is always shut”, Joanna noted.

    Tina and Mark noticed the same changes in their 14-year-old daughter. “She used to cuddle up (依偎) with me on the sofa and talk,” said Mark, “Now we joke that she does this only when she wants something. Sometimes she wants to be treated like a little girl and sometimes like a young lady. The problem is figuring out which time is which.”

    Before age 11, children like to tell their parents what's on their minds. “In fact, parents are first on the list,” said Michael Riera, writer of Uncommon Sense for Parents with Teenagers. “This completely changes during the teen years.” Riera explained. “They talk to their friends first, then maybe their teachers, and their parents last.”

    Parents who know what's going on in their teenagers' lives are in the best position (位置) to help them. To break down the wall of silence, parents should produce chances to understand what their children want to say, and try to find ways to talk and write to them. And they must give their children a mental (精神上的) break, for children also need freedom, though young. Another thing parents should remember is that to be a friend, not a manager, with their children is a better way to know them.

    Finding a winter job is often a proof(证明)that you're growing up, and it's also a method for earning money to pay for what you dream of. It's never too early to start considering the future. Now, here are some good choices for you!

    Retail (零售) Sales

    Retail offers plenty of opportunity for teens who are looking for a job. This type of work can pay from $10 to $15 an hour depending upon the duty you are expected to take on. It can also be great for teens who are friendly and enjoy talking to other people. For more information, call us at 4005075.

    Food Service

    A job in the food service industry is a natural fit for sociable teens who enjoy communicating with the public. It allows employees to work as part of a team while learning about following instructions. It also comes with the opportunity to earn between $8 and $10 per hour. Just call 4005077 for more information.

    Babysitter

    This job requires someone who is highly responsible. Though it pays generally between $6 and $8 hourly, it also requires a lot of patience. This is a great choice for teens who wish to make a career in teaching, child care, social work or any other field that makes use of social skills or requires interaction with kids. Got a question? Just call 4005076.

    Housekeeping

    This type of work can bring in about $5 an hour and it will allow teens to learn the tourism industry, so hotels are often looking for more housekeeping staff, and parks often need more people to assist with keeping public areas clean and organized as well. Telephone: 4005079

    I was now in my twenty-third year of residence in this island and was so naturalized to the place and to the manner of living that I finally enjoyed the certainty that no savagesc(野人) would come to the place to disturb me, and that I could have been content to spend the rest of my time there, even to the last moment, till I had laid me down and died, like the old goat in the cave.

    I had also arrived to some little recreations and amusements, which made the time pass more pleasantly with me a great deal than it did before.

    At first, I had taught my Poll to speak. And he did it so familiarly and talked so clearly and plainly that it was very pleasant to me. And he lived with me no less than six years. How long he might live afterwards, I don't know; though I know people have an idea in Brazil that they live a hundred years. Perhaps poor Poll may be alive there still, calling Poor Robin Crusoe to this day. I wish no other English man the ill luck to come there and hear him. But if he did, he would certainly believe it was the devil.

    My dog was a very pleasant and loving companion to me, for no less than sixteen years of my time, and then died of mere old age.

    As for my cats, they multiplied to that degree that I had to shoot several of them at first to keep them from eating up all I had.

    Besides these, I had two more parrots which talked pretty well and would all call Robin Crusoe, but neither like my first. Nor indeed did I take the pains with any of them that I had done with him. I had also several tame sea-fowls, whose names I don't know, who I caught upon the shore and cut their wings and the little stakes which I had planted before my castle wall being now grown up to a good thick bush; these fowls all lived among these low trees and bred there, which was very agreeable to me; so that as I said above, I began to be very well contented with the life I led, if it might have been secured from the threat of the savages.