We took a rare family road trip to the Adirondacks in late August，and it was as refreshing and exhausting as family vacations tend to be．Toward the end of our long drive home, even the kids were leaning forward in their seats urging my lead foot on．At that point in a road trip，even sixty-five miles per hour feels slow. We have become numb to our speed and numb to the road signs flashing by.

    My family lives on the edge of Lancaster County. Only thirty miles from home，I hit the brakes，and we began to roll，slowly，behind a horse-drawn carriage. We began to open our eyes again．We saw familiar green hills and the farm with the best watermelons. I rolled down the windows, and we breathed again．Just-cut hay and a barn full of dairy cattle．

    At five miles per hour，you remember what you forget at sixty-five．You are thinking about a place，even when you are moving from place to place．

    I am a placemaker. A homemaker, too. I am a mother of a young kid at home，and also a writer and a gardener．But，for me，those roles are wrapped up with the one big thing I want to do with the rest of my life：I want to cultivate a place and share it with others．

    The place I make with my family is a red-brick farmhouse built in l880. It has quite a few nineteenth-century bedrooms and a few acres of land，and we love nothing more than to fill them with neighbors and friends. We grow vegetables and flowers，keep a baker's dozen of egg—laying chickens，and，since we moved in three years ago，we have planted  many，many trees．

    Living with my life's purpose does not allow for much travel. I need to be here，feeding the chickens and watering the tomatoes. Any extra in the budget，and we spend it on trees．

    But I learned something at the end of our family road trip．Travel can help me in the task of caring for my own place．When I slow down and pay attention to the road between here and there，travel tells me the connections between my place and all the other places．

    It was the day after Halloween when my grandmother was admitted to the hospital with the worst headache she'd ever had. While posing in our costumes the night before, we knew something was wrong, just not how wrong.

    Grandma's house was the central gathering place of my family. Sunday lunches, birthday dinners, Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas — all were our traditions, with her as hostess. While my parents were busy running their small business, there were many nights when Grandma fed me and put me to bed in her spare room, until they came to get me. I spent my summers at Grandma's and I went everywhere with her. I couldn't imagine a time when she wouldn't be around me.

    Then November 1,1991 began her month-long stay in the hospital—she suffered from a rare infection (感染)called nocardia asteroides. After being born in the year of the Great Depression, living through World War II, raising three kids, and being widowed at the age of 48, Grandma never expected to live into her seventies. The infection in her brain seemed to confirm that she wasn't long for this world. But that's not the end of her story. A team of doctors successfully removed the abscess(脓肿), and Grandma even made it into a local medical journal. Her doctor called her “the brain lady”.

    Grandma celebrated her 85^th birthday in March this year. In the almost 23 years since her recovery, she's seen two of her four grandchildren get married and welcomed three great-grandsons. Although they damage something in her house, she loves it when my two boys come over. And while I know they make her day, seeing her love blossom for another generation makes my day too. Happy Grandparents' Day to my amazing grandmother!

    Electrical devices (仪器) could soon use power made by human energy. Scientists say they have developed an experimental device that produces electricity from the physical movement of a person walking. British scientist Max Donelan and other scientists in Canada and the United States developed the device.

    The device connects to a person's knee. As the person walks, the device captures energy each time the person slows down. To do this, the device helps with the slowing down movement of the leg. The movements of the walking person push parts of a small machine that produces electricity. Using the device, an adult walking quickly could produce thirteen watts of electricity in just a minute. Donelan says walking at that speed could produce enough power to operate a laptop computer for six minutes.

    There are several possible uses for the device. Developers say it could help people who work in areas without electricity to operate small computers. The device could also be used in hospitals to operate heart pacemakers (起搏器). It could even be used to assist in the movement of robotic arms and legs.

    The experimental version of the device weighs about one and a half kilograms, but it is too costly for most people to buy. But the researchers hope to make a lighter, less costly version. An improved version should be ready in one year.

    The developers hope the device will one day help developing countries. Nearly twenty-five percent of people around the world live without electric power.

    A similar product was invented in 2005 by Larry Rome of the University of Pennsylvania. He created a bag carried on a person's back that also produces power from walking. The knee device does not produce as much electricity as the bag. But the bag requires the walker to carry a load of twenty to thirty kilograms.

    The yearly Academy Awards ceremony was once a private affair. Now, because of television, it is very much a public affair. Hundreds of people gather in Hoolywood to see the Oscars presented to outstanding actors, and others involved（参与） in the motion picture industry. Millions more watch on the television.

    It all began on May 16, 1929, when 270 men and women sat down to dinner at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. There was no secret about the winners. The names of the winners had been known for months. Janet Gaynor, for example had won as Best Actress. Douglas Fairbanks presented her with the famous gold statue（塑像）. The little statue was not then called Oscar. Like a new actor, Oscar was unknown. About six years later, it somehow got that renowned name. A number of explanations have been offered for its origin(由来), but nobody knows the true story for certain.

    Nowadays the result of the Oscar voting are kept secret. Only two people know the winners before the names are announced at the ceremony. The counting of votes is not done by one group of people but by different groups. Nobody except two members of an accounting company sees the final results.

    The information is not kept in open files. Winners' names are placed in closed envelopes. The accountants each carry a complete set of envelopes to the ceremony. One set is simply a spare to be used in case something happens to the other one.

    Two of the saddest words in the English language are “if only”. I live my life with the goal of never having to say those words, because they convey regret, lost opportunities, mistakes, and disappointment.

    My father is famous in our family for saying “Take the extra minute to do it right”. I always try to live by the “extra minute” rule.  When my children were young and likely to cause accidents, I always thought about what I could do to avoid an “if only” moment，whether it was something minor like moving a cup full of hot coffee away from the edge of a counter, or something that required a little more work such as taping padding (衬垫)onto the sharp corners of a glass coffee table.

    I don't only avoid those “if only” moments when it comes to safety. It's equally important to avoid “if only” in our personal relationships. We all know people who lost a loved one and regretted that they had foregone an opportunity to say “I love you“ or “I forgive you”. When my father announced he was going to the eye doctor across from my office on Good Friday，I told him that it was a holiday for my company and I wouldn't be here. But then I thought about the fact that he's 84 years old and I realized that I shouldn't give up an opportunity to see him.  I called him and told him I had decided to go to work on my day off after all.

    I know there will still be occasions when I have to say “ if only” about something, but my life is definitely better because of my policy of doing everything possible to avoid that eventuality. And even though it takes an extra minute to do something right, or it occasionally takes an hour or two in my busy schedule to make a personal connection, I know that I'm doing the right thing. I'm buying myself peace of mind and that's the best kind of insurance for my emotional well-being.

    Choosing where to live may be one of the biggest decisions you'll make when you move to Sydney, but you'll have plenty of help.

    Temporary arrival accommodation

    Before you move to Sydney, we recommend that you book a temporary place to stay. Once you get here, you can look for longer-term accommodation.

    --sydney.edu.au/accommodation/short-term

    On-campus-residential colleges (fully catered饮食全包的)

    The University has eight residential colleges on the Camperdown/Darlington Campus, including International House, a residential community of global scholars. Colleges provide comfortable, fully furnished single rooms and daily meals, along with sporting, cultural, leadership and social programs. They also include on-site tutorials(辅导课) in addition to campus-based classes.

    --sydney.edu.au/colleges

    On-campus residences (self-catered饮食自理的)

    The University has two self-run residences ­ Queen Mary Building (QMB) and Abercrombie Student Accommodation ­ on the Camperdown/Darlington Campus. Both just under a year old, they house up to 1000 students. These residences provide modern single-study rooms with large common living, learning and study spaces, shared kitchens, a theatre, gyms, soundproofed music rooms, art studios, sky lounges and rooftop gardens.

    --sydney.edu.au/campus-life/accommodation/live-on-campus.html

    Off-campus living

    More than 90 percent of our students live off campus. The University is close to many dynamic and multicultural suburbs such as Annandale, Newtown, Chippendale and Glebe. A great place to search is our large online database of properties.

    --sydney.edu.au/campus-life/accommodation/live-off-campus.html