When Nancy Lublin got $5,000 from her grandpa in 1996, she never once considered taking a vacation or paying off student loans .Instead, the 24-year-old New York University law student began thinking about helping low-income women get better jobs. "If a woman goes for a job interview poorly dressed, she won't get the job." Lublin says. “ but without a job, she can't afford suitable clothes."

    So with the money Lublin founded "Dress for Success” and began collecting women's clothes which were still in good condition but which their owners no longer needed. "So many women have clothes lying around that they will never wear again," one of Lublin's assistants says "Nancy's idea is so simple and yet so important to women."

    Many women come to Lublin's office before going to a job interview. Here, they receive a suit, shoes and any other things they need. Since it was set up, more than 1,000 women have turned to "Dress for Success" for help. Many of them have won jobs. Some have round jobs after being out of work for many years. Jenny, a 32-year-old woman who was recently hired as a law-firm office manager , says, "I made a good impression because of “Dress for Success”

    In France, franglais（英式法语）was seen as a national threat. Just as we took in thousands of French words in the Middle Ages, French speakers and writers today are taking in thousands of English and American expressions. By 1994, so many English words had made their way to French that the French government passed a law forbidding the use of English words where good French words existed.

    But the latest edition of the Academy francaise dictionary did admit about 6,000 new words to the French language, including, for the first time, a number of franglais words and expressions.

    However, this sort of thing is not just limited to traditional English – French Competition. Norway and Brazil have recently taken similar measures to keep English out.

    As English spreads around the globe, it has developed rich varieties. English has been spoken in Singapore since the early 19^th century, but after independence from Britain, Singapore went a step further and English was made the official language of business and government. But the day −to–day English that the people of Singapore actually speak is a far cry from the official English that the government wants them to learn. It has become an expressive dialect called “Singlish”, full of vocabulary and grammar borrowed from the Singapores' native languages.

    And this may be the irony（讽刺）of the global spread of English. The more widely it's spoken, the more it may change into local dialects, which are not easily intelligible. People will make English their own and, in doing so, will make it something else. This has happened before to Latin which broke into French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian. But English has always welcomed variety and change, and it still does.

    On the eve of our daughters' weddings, I gave both of them what I considered to be excellent marital advice: never leave your husband unsupervised （无人监督的） with pruning shears （修枝剪）.

    If only I had taken my own advice. I recently let my guard down. Thirty﹣some years of marriage can do that to a woman. Give a man pruning shears and electric trimmers （电动修剪器） and he will give new meaning to "armed and dangerous."

One day earlier this year, my husband said that the crab apple tree was dead.

    "Why do you think it is dead?" I asked.

    "Look at it. There's not a leaf on it."

    "There's not a leaf on anything. It's March," I said.

    "It looked sick last fall and with this bitter winter we had, I'm convinced it's dead."

    The truth is he's never liked the crabapple. Sure, it has beautiful blooms in the spring, but then it gets a disease, the leaves curl, and it drops those little apples that sit on the driveway.

    Each passing week he pronounced the tree dead. Eventually I began to believe him. Though he agreed it would be a regrettable loss, there was a twinkle in his eye. He armed himself a couple of weeks ago and began trimming. A branch here, a branch there, a small limb, then a large limb. I watched and then decided to check the wood on some of the branches closer to the trunk. I broke one off and saw green.

    The crabapple was not dead. It just hadn't had time to leaf out. The tree was now falling to one side, but it was not dead. I would have told him so, but he had moved on to a maple. Once the man starts, he can't stop. One trim leads to another.

    "Please, stop!" I called.

    He smiled and nodded, but he couldn't hear because he had started the hedge （树篱） trimmers and was getting ready to fix a line of hedges.

    Zip （飕飕声）, zip, zip.

    "What do you think?" he shouted.

    "It's supposed to be a privacy hedge; now all that will be private are our ankles."

    He started the trimmers again.

    "Stop!" I called, "Come back!"

    "Why?" he shouted.

    "You're in the neighbor's yard."

    Have you ever heard of agritourism where you can experience farm life? If not, Dr. Cindy Ayers-Elliott will tell you the real story of Foot Print Farms.

    The original concept of building Foot Print Farms was simple. When Ayers-Elliott returned to her hometown after graduation, she didn't have to look any further than her state's alarming health statistics to find a mission. Everywhere she turned, there were reports of high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity and heart disease. "The problem was already identified." explains Ayers-Elliott. "Too many Mississippians were seriously unhealthy and it didn't take research to see that. And many of the state's greatest health challenges could directly result from poor diet. "

    These days, Foot Print Farms, which started with a few raised beds of herbs and vegetables, is making fresh, naturally grown food. "When speaking of the key to my success, the co-op model works because we share the work and rewards," notes Ayers-Elliott. "A perfect example is the Wingfield High School football team. To earn the money for equipment and other items, players committed to working five hours a week on the farm, and by the end of the summer they had produced 1, 000 melons and the profits from their sales helped to buy weights, T-shirts, sweat suits and pregame meals. But the lessons they learned about the rewards of hard work and working together to accomplish something were even more valuable products of their efforts."

    "It' s a model that can easily be learned in other places and I' m looking forward to seeing some of our current partners do just that——to take what they have learned here and spin it off in other communities," Ayers-Elliott remarks. She is now looking forward to developing an agritourism aspect to the farm, where visitors can experience farm life, learn new skills and take with them seeds of inspiration they can sow in their own communities when they return home.

    Application Workshop

    Join Citizens Committee for New York City and the NYC Department of Sanitation for a workshop on the Green Team Mini-Grant application on February 2, which lasts from 4:00 PM to 5:30 PM!

    The workshop will cover

    Applying for the Green Team Mini-Grant

    How to use the Zero Waste schools website

    Creative Coding

    We are hosting a free design workshop just for girls on March 7 from 4:30 PM to 6:00 PM, in support of International Women's Day! The focus of the workshop is on Creative Coding, with art and technology, but we'll also have a few female designers to share their unique work with the attendees.

    No experience necessary, this event is for girls between the ages of 9-12.

SAT & ACT Roadmap to Success

    In this free 1-hour workshop, parents will discover the road map to SAT & ACT success. Topics included: Review of "goal scores" for SAT/ACT college admissions, national trends in college admissions, how to determine whether the SAT or the ACT is the best test for your student, steps to prepare for the Sat or ACT, best time to take the Sat or ACT. Join us on March 23.

    Square School Family Information Night

    Join us for our Family Information Night on March 14! We'll gather at the future home for Square School for an introduction to the school model at 6:30pm.

    This event is intended for families with young people entering grades six or seven in 2019 that want to be a part of a school community that attaches importance to a lifestyle of learning. Join us for this Family Information Night to see if Square School is the right choice for your family.

Playing computer games is viewed{#blank#}1{#/blank#} one of the most important factors resulting in a sense of emptiness, which has a bad effect{#blank#}2{#/blank#} students' growth. Li Hua, one of my classmates,{#blank#}3{#/blank#}(addict) to computer games, and that's{#blank#}4{#/blank#} he wants to drop out of school. His parents are concerned{#blank#}5{#/blank#} his life and study, so they wish me to do a favour{#blank#}6{#/blank#}(persuade)Li Hua to get out of the bad habit and learn some skills{#blank#}7{#/blank#} (concern) health.{#blank#}8{#/blank#} my view, we should concentrate ourselves on positive and relaxing things. Only those who focus{#blank#}9{#/blank#} their studies will{#blank#}10{#/blank#} (admit) to a key university because it wasn't easy to gain{#blank#}11{#/blank#}(admit)to the key university.