Many people need guidance in choosing a career （职业）. Fortunately, there is much information on the Web about job opportunities （机会）. With all the information available, it's not surprising that people can feel confused. So if you're ready to start your first job or change careers, where do you begin?

    The Occupation Handbook is a good resource.  Regularly updated, the Handbook is available as a book and on-line. Not only is information provided about the United States as a whole, but readers can easily search for information about their particular state. You can read about the fastest-growing occupations in the area where you live and find out what they are like. You can also learn how to apply for jobs.

    Take, for example, Nadia's situation. Nadia was a doctor's assistant in Iran, and her goal in the United States is to become a nurse. However, she needs to work while she is studying nursing. She is interested in becoming a medical assistant to help work her way through college. When going on-line to the Handbook and searching under "medical assistant", Nadia is happy to read that this is expected to be one of the fastest-growing careers through 2010. Besides, job opportunities are even better for people with experience. She discovers that medical assistants not only have to do some office work, but have medical responsibilities as well. Nadia decides this job will be interesting and will also provide excellent experience for her nursing career.

    The Occupation Handbook is just an example of websites that can help you plan a new career. When you have found information about some different careers, you will be ready to talk to career advisers. Choosing your future career is an extremely important decision. It's worth taking the time and finding as much information as you can.

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How to Survive Embarrassing Moments

    Have you ever done something embarrassing? At that moment, you probably wished you could disappear into thin air. Unfortunately, embarrassing things happen to everyone at one time or another. The good news? You can keep the damage to the minimum．Here's some help．

Laugh it off

    You're staring at your crush （意中人） so hard that you walk into a wall．You trip over your own feet and drop all your books．The best thing you can do? As long as you're not seriously hurt, laugh it off．Say like "Hey, I can teach you to do that if you want to!" or "It took me years to learn that!" By laughing at yourself, you show people you're confident and still in control of the situation．That's bound to make a stronger impression than the fact that you dropped a stack of books．

Move on

    Some situations are too personal to laugh off．Your underwear falls out of your backpack. Your bathing suit falls off in the pool．You pass gas while giving a presentation．Making a joke would just call more attention to what happened — and that's the last thing you want．What  now? You can just pretend nothing happened and go back to what you were doing, or you can acknowledge it with a "Oh, that was awkward" and then move on．

    If there's a joker who thinks it's a good idea to point out how badly you just embarrassed yourself, fix him with a glare and then go back to whatever you were doing．Tell yourself he's a  little bug on the ground, not even worth thinking about．Remind yourself that it's over, done．Move on．

Apologize and move on

    Some embarrassing situations pack a double punch．Not only do you embarrass yourself,  but you make someone else feel bad．You say to a friend that another friend is such a copycat, and then realize the copycat is standing right behind you．You imitate your teacher's unusual accent just as the teacher walks in．Now you're embarrassed and they're mad or hurt．

    Making a joke now would make the situation even worse, so don't go there．Although you might feel like running away or even crying, neither of those responses will make you look better．Instead, apologize, "I'm so sorry．That was really mean of me．"

    If you've been disrespectful to a teacher or a parent, accept whatever consequences without complaint．If you've hurt a friend, do your best to make it up to them．Once you've done all you can to make things right again, move on．If someone else brings it up, just say, "I feel bad enough about that —can we just let it go, please?"

    The next time you're stuck in an embarrassing moment, remind yourself that you're a strong person and you can get through this．Stay calm and act confident and the moment will pass．

    Earth is home to around 7, 000 languages, around half of which are expected to disappear by 2100.

    Languages disappear for many reasons. Sometimes younger generations stop learning a language because parents want children to fit in.{#blank#}1{#/blank#} Native American children of the late﹣19th century were required to attend boarding schools where educators forbade them from speaking their native languages.

    The United Nations ranks endangered languages according to their risk level. For example, a "critically endangered" language is one that even grandparents don't speak often. New York's Onondaga language is an example with only 50 speakers left. An "extinct" language has no speakers. It is gone forever. Alaska's Eyak language is one example.{#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#} In the same way, different languages contribute to cultural diversity. Saving these languages benefits our understanding of other cultures. Languages can show how a society looks at the world and what it values. A language may describe something in a way that is funny, too. In Welsh, it rains not cats and dogs, but old wives and walking sticks.

    The Endangered Language Alliance wants to save languages from disappearing.{#blank#}4{#/blank#} However, its efforts are limited. If an endangered language is going to make a real comeback, it'll probably get its start in schools. For nearly 100 years, public schools in Hawaii did not teach the Hawaiian language. Now students can keep learning in Hawaiian from elementary schools to college and beyond.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} At least one did. In 1881, a Jewish linguist named Eliezer Ben﹣Yehuda brought the 3,000-year-old language Hebrew back to life. Today it is one of the official languages of the country of Israel, with more than 4million speakers.

A. The last person who spoke it died in 2008.

B. Why should we save endangered languages.

C. Various animals and plants benefit our environment.

D. With just 5 speakers left, it is absolutely endangered.

E. Can a language with zero native speakers come back to life.

F. Sometimes societies force minorities to give up their language.

G. The non-profit group finds native speakers and records their stories.

A problem shared can be a problem doubled

    People discuss their problems with friends in the hope that they'll gain some idea on how to solve them. And even if they don't find a way to solve their problems, it feels good to let off some steam. Indeed, having close friends to trust is a good relief against poor mental health. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    The term psychologist's use for negative problem sharing is "co-rumination". Co-rumination is the mutual encouragement to discuss problems too much, repeatedly going over the same problems, expecting future problems and focusing on negative feelings. It is more about keeping talking about problems than solving them. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} In a study involving children aged seven to 15 years of age, researchers found that co-rumination in both boys and girls is associated with "high-quality" and close friendships. However, in girls, it was also associated with anxiety and depression (the same association was not found with the boys).

    If we look at the theory behind why individuals ruminate, it may shed some light on why friends co-ruminate. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} So if two people believe rumination is beneficial, then working together to co-ruminate to find answers may seem like a useful thing to do, as two heads may appear better than one. But focusing on problems and negative emotion together can increase negative beliefs and moods — and result in a greater need to co-ruminate.

    Traditionally, therapy has not prioritised handling rumination or co-rumination directly as maintaining factors in psychological problems. Instead, approaches such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) have aimed to challenge only the content of rumination. Humanistic approaches such as counselling have provided conditions to potentially ruminate on the content of problems. And psychodynamic (心理动力的) approaches such as psychoanalysis have aimed to analyze the content of rumination.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} But if this occurs in therapy, a strong therapeutic relationship may well be a positive outcome of co-rumination — regardless of whether the client's symptoms improve or not.

    And, on the social side, discussing problems with friends doesn't always have to lead to worsening mental health, as long as the discussion involves finding solutions and the person with the problem acts on those solutions. Then, relationships can be positive and beneficial to both parties, and a problem shared can really be a problem halved.

A. According to a leading theory on rumination, people believe that it will help them find answers and make them feel better.

B. How you co-ruminate matters too.

C. Focusing on the content of rumination runs the risk of fostering co-rumination between client and therapist.

D. How problems are discussed, though, can be the difference between halving a problem or doubling it.

E. Co-rumination with work colleagues can increase the risk of stress and tiredness, one study suggests.

F. Research shows that co-rumination is a double-edged sword.

    In business, there is a speed difference: It's the difference between how important firm leaders say speed is to their competitive strategy and how fast the company actually moves. The difference is important regardless of industry and company size. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    In our study of 343 businesses, the companies that choose to go, go, go to try to gain an edge ended up with lower sales and operating incomes than those that paused at key moments to make sure they were on the right track. What's more, the firms that “slowed down to speed up “improved their top and bottom lines, averaging 40% higher sales and 52% higher operating incomes over a three-year period.

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#} They thought differently about what "slower" and "faster" mean. Firms sometimes fail to understand the difference between operation speed (moving quickly )and strategic speed (reducing the time it takes to deliver value ).Simply increasing the speed of production, for example ,may be one way to try to reduce the speed difference .But that often leads to reduced value over time, in the form of lower-quality products and services.

    In our study, higher-performing companies with strategic speed always made changes when necessary. They became more open to ideas and discussion. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} And they allowed time to look back and learn. By contrast, performance suffered at firms that moved fast all the time, paid too much attention to improving efficiency, stuck to tested methods, didn't develop team spirit among their employees, and had little time thinking about changes.

    Strategic speed serves as a kind of leadership. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} That kind of strategy must come from the top.

A. How did they disobey the laws of business physics, taking more time than competitors yet performing better?

B. Teams that regularly take time to get things right, rather than plough ahead full bore, are more successful in meeting their business goals.

C. More haste, less speed, which in the study proves wrong.

D. Companies fearful of losing their competitive advantage spend much time and money looking for ways to pick up the speed.

E. They valued efficiency rather than consideration.

F. They encouraged new ways of thinking.

{#blank#}1{#/blank#} (sit) back in my seat, I can't believe that I'm about to travel along the railway that many foreign experts claimed was "impossible". The train has been racing along {#blank#}2{#/blank#} (steady) since it left Xining.

I was one of the people {#blank#}3{#/blank#} came from all parts of China to work on this railway. Taking years to complete, the Qinghai Tibet Railway is a record of all of our efforts to overcome {#blank#}4{#/blank#} most difficult challenges. How {#blank#}5{#/blank#} (protect) the ecosystem was among the top concerns. The first landmark {#blank#}6{#/blank#} (catch) my eye is the Qingshuihe Bridge, the world's longest bridge built over permafrost. To prevent damage to wetlands and grasslands, 675 bridges {#blank#}7{#/blank#} (build) between Golmud and Lhasa.

Tanggula Station, {#blank#}8{#/blank#} (locate) at over 5,000 metres above sea level, is the highest railway station in the world. To make sure we stayed healthy, several oxygenmaking stations were constructed. Passing Cuona Lake, I feel a sense of pride and {#blank#}9{#/blank#} (achieve). Along the lake we built a twentykilometre wall to protect the lake {#blank#}10{#/blank#} construction waste.

I'm proud that we built our "impossible"railway. It truly is an extraordinary "Sky Railway"．