In the years of my growing up, Dad was strict with me. He made sure I made my bed and did my homework. He would call in advance to make sure there was no alcohol at the party. I got so angry with him for laying down the law. I would scream, “ I hate you!” Dad would yell back, “Good! I don't care!” Deep down I knew he did.

    One time at a party, I drank too much alcohol and got so sick. I said, “ Call my dad.” Next thing, Dad was carrying me to the car. I woke up the next morning, thinking I would definitely be criticised. As expected, I got a roasting, but I now understand why I need discipline.

    Dad was 29 when he got his big roles in films. I had an early start at the age of nine with a role in a 1990s TV series, but it wasn't until I finished film studies that I pursued my career as an actress. Like those early days for Dad, I faced lots of rejections. Working in such a competitive industry, I've sometimes thought, “ I can't do this any more.”

    Once, after a trip to Hollywood, I returned to Australia so depressed and spent months in my bedroom painting, listening to Eckhart Tolle's music and trying to find myself again. Dad sat me down and said,“Alice, I know it's hard, but it's all about persistence(坚持不懈).”

    Now I get to work with Dad a lot, which I love. We both passionate about acting, which comes from us being so interested in people. If it weren't for Dad, I wouldn't be where I am today. He's my biggest fan, and when you have that in your life you can go a long way.

    With busy lives, it can be hard to find time to volunteer. However, the benefits of volunteering are great to you, your family, and your community(社区).

    One of the better-known benefits of volunteering is the effect on the community. Volunteering allows you to connect with your community and make it a better place. Volunteering also strengthens your ties to the community and broadens your support network, exposing(使暴露) you to people with common interests, neighborhood resources, and fun and satisfactory activities.

    While some people are naturally outgoing, others are shy and have a hard time meeting new people. Volunteering gives you the opportunity to practice and develop your social skills, since you are meeting regularly with a group of people with common interests. Once you have the desire, it's easier to make more friends and contacts.

    Volunteering provides many benefits for both mental and physical health. You're doing good to others and the community, which makes you experience the pleasure of success. Your role as a volunteer can also give you a sense of pride and identity.

    Reducing the risk of depression(沮丧) is another important benefit of volunteering. A key risk factor for depression is social isolation. Volunteering keeps you in regular contact with others and helps you develop a solid support system, which in turn protects you against stress and depression when you're going through challenging times. Volunteering is good for your health whether you are young or old, but it's especially good in older adults.

    Volunteering offers you the chance to try out a new career without making a long-term commitment. It is also a great way to gain experience in a new field. Volunteering work can expose you to professional organizations or internship（实习）that could be of benefit to your career. That volunteer work is unpaid doesn't mean the skills you learn are basic. Many volunteering opportunities provide training. In addition, volunteering can also help you build upon skills you already have and use them to benefit the greater community.

    Volunteering is a fun and easy way to explore your interests and passions. Volunteer opportunities that match both your goals and your interest are most likely to be fun and satisfying for you. Doing volunteer work you find meaningful and interesting can be a relaxing escape from your day-to-day routines of work, school, and family commitments. Volunteering also provides you with renewed creativity, motivation, and vision that can be carried over into your personal and professional life.

Quiet Virtue: The Conscientious

    The everyday signs of conscientiousness (认真尽责)—being punctual, careful in doing work, self-disciplined, and scrupulous (一丝不苟的) in attending to responsibilities—are typical characteristics of the model organizational citizen, the people who keep things running as they should. They follow the rules, help out, and are concerned about the people they work with. It's the conscientious worker who helps newcomers or updates people who return after an absence, who gets to work on time and never abuses sick leaves, who always gets things done on deadline.

    Conscientiousness is a key to success in any field. In studies of job performance, outstanding effectiveness for almost all jobs, from semi-skilled labor to sales and management, depends on conscientiousness. It is particularly important for outstanding performance in jobs at the lower levels of an organization: the secretary whose message taking is perfect, the delivery truck driver who is always on time.

    Among sales representatives for a large American car manufacturer, those who were most conscientious had the largest volume of sales. Conscientiousness also offers a buffer (缓冲) against the threat of job loss in today's constantly changing market, because employees with this quality are among the most valued. For the sales representatives, their level of conscientiousness mattered almost as much as their sales in determining who stayed on.

    There is an air around highly conscientious people that makes them seem even better than they actually are. Their reputation for dependability influences managers' evaluations of their work, giving them higher evaluations than objective measures of their performance would predict.

    But conscientiousness in the absence of social skills can lead to problems. Since conscientious people demand so much of themselves, they can hold other people to their own standards, and so be overly judgmental when others don't show the same high levels of model behavior. Factory workers in Great Britain and the United States who were extremely conscientious, for example, tended to criticize co-workers even about failures that seemed unimportant to those they criticized, which damaged their relationships.

    When conscientiousness takes the form of living up to expectations, it can discourage creativity. In creative professions like art or advertising, openness to wild ideas and spontaneity (自发性) are scarce and in demand. Success in such occupations calls for a balance, however; without enough conscientiousness to follow through, people become mere dreamers, with nothing to show for their imaginativeness.

    Cross-country skiing can be enjoyed by a wide range of students, from the youngest kindergartners to those secondary students. It is really a fun activity, providing students a gentle workout outside in winter. While having fun, students can gain physical and mental benefits.

    The physical benefits of cross-country skiing are well-known. If we look at Olympic cross-country skiers, we can see the positive effects on the body that result from training for cross-country skiing.

    The average best female cross-country skiers carry 11 percent body fat, and best male skiers carry 5 percent. These percentages are well below the average people who are considered to be athletic—17 percent for females and 10 percent for males. Burning a high number of calories while skiing helps to keep skiers slim in a healthy and attractive way.

    Cross-country skiing is also an efficient way to exercise a large number of muscles at once. The upper body gets much more of workout because skiers use ski poles as a means of propulsion (推进), the force that drives skiers forward. Of course, the leg muscles also do their fair share. People who use cross-country skiing as a workout over several weeks will discover that the muscles of their whole body increase in strength.

    Cross-country skiing on a regular basis has a tremendous effect on a person's cardiovascular (心血管的) system. In addition to gaining strength in the muscles of the upper and lower body, people who use cross-country skiing as a workout method over several weeks will also discover that their heart is stronger. A strong heart pumps more efficiently, sending out more blood to the muscles with each contraction (收缩). Through weeks of skiing, people often discover that their resting heart rate has decreased. Highly trained Olympic cross-country skiers have resting heart rates between 28 and 40 beats per minute. Compare that to the resting heart rate of the average person, which is 60 to 80 beats per minute!

    The benefits of cross-country skiing extend beyond overall general health. A lot of evidence exists showing that regular physical activities increase the release of mood-lifting endorphins  (内啡肽) in the body. After fun skiing lessons, students will be full of energy; they will be relaxed and in a better mood than when they started class. Students will leave class with a sense of accomplishment, knowing that they have developed new skills in a fun activity.

Cross-country skiing is a great way to exercise the whole body. Now more and more students are taking part in this exercise outside during the winter months. They are enjoying it and benefiting from it!

    China is expected to see a record high number of college graduates in 2018 as around 8.2 million students will obtain their degree this year, according to the latest statistics from Ministry of Education. The number of college graduates in China has been rising since 2001, which leads to a more competitive employment market.

    However, besides fierce competition, many graduates admit that they face another big problem-employment discrimination. A research in 2017 shows that around 75.7 percent of new graduates said they were, to some extent, discriminated or suffered from injustice when finding jobs.

    Female college graduates still face great wall of discrimination in the employment market. “Males only”, “Married with children preferred”: These are some of the conditions commonly found in recruitment (招募) advertisements. According to a research by Renmin University of China in 2015, male college graduates do have more interview opportunities than female college graduates despite the similar academic background and work experience.

    Regional discrimination also becomes a barrier for job seekers. Some companies dismiss job seekers from specific regions due to the regional stereotypes (成见), like “Central China's Henan Province is the cradle of liars” and “people from Northeast region are usually rude.”

    Recruitment advertisements sometimes also show favor for local applicants. Non-locals had been denied jobs because their registered residence origin was not the same as the city where they were hunting for a job.

    Apart from “invisible thresholds (门槛)” like gender and region, college graduates in recent years were disappointed to find that personal details like superstitions (迷信) about blood type, zodiac, and facial structure were all part of the decision-making process by some potential employers.

    An applicant's surname can also help or hamper (妨碍) job prospects. A family name that suggests prosperity, like Jin, which means “gold”; while a last name like Pei, which can mean “to lose money”, would likely be negative. Besides, job seekers also found that some employers paid much attention to their appearance rather than the working performance.

    To fight against employment discrimination, both the government and society have made great efforts. In 2007, Employment Promotion Law was passed with the purpose of apposing employment discrimination and promoting justice in job recruitment.

    The Ministry of Education in 2017 issued regulations to ban work discrimination in on-campus job fairs. This year, several cities, bureau of human resources required job fair organizers to set special reception desks so as to deal with job seekers, complaints about discrimination.

    Non-profit organizations were established to oppose work discrimination, while legal aids were also provided to job seekers through social media platforms like Weibo and WeChat.

Ways to protect eyes from screens

    Too much screen time may cause serious eye strain(眼疲劳) and even a sharp decline of eyesight. That's a big problem a lot of people are faced with nowadays, especially those who work on a computer. The following tips may be helpful.

Get regular eye tests.

    Experts recommend having a comprehensive eye exam every year to detect (探测) problems before they develop. During this test, you should tell the doctor how often you use your phone and your computer. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}Tell your doctor about it, and your eyes can be tested more accurately at that distance.

Give your eyes space

     {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Studies on computer-related eye strain suggest that screens should be no closer than 40cm from your face. If this makes it hard for you to read, consider increasing the size of the text rather than moving the screen closer.

Take breaks

    This may not always be practical if you're quite busy, but it's important not to stare directly at a screen for too long.  {#blank#}3{#/blank#} While surveys have shown that many office workers take no more than half an hour a day away from their computer, it's recommended that you take a 15-minute break after every two hours spent at your screen.

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    Staring at a screen continuously for hours on end may make it difficult for you to focus. To avoid this, many eye experts recommend the “20-20-20 rule” --looking away from your phone/computer screen every 20 minutes and focusing on an object at least 20 feet away for at least 20 seconds. The science behind his trick is that looking at objects at a distance relaxes the focusing muscle in the eye.  {#blank#}5{#/blank#}.