One Bite at a Time
Stephen was on campus to register when I first met him.
One summer day when I was heading for the administration building, I heard someone call my name. I 1 around and saw Philip, one of my colleagues standing with another young man. As Philip introduced me to the young man, named Stephen, he reminded him that he would be taking one of my classes, Introduction to Literature. With a somewhat 2 expression, Stephen asked if my class was going to be "hard". Would he be able to pass? I 3 he was concerned about failing before the opening day of classes. We talked about what the class would 4 and I saw Stephen's eyes getting big with fear.
Then I remembered a bit of classical dialog:
Question: "How do you eat an elephant?"
Answer: "One bite at a time."
I told him to 5 his work that way. To do his assignment, all of them, and to get them in on time. I added that most successful students I knew made a timetable of all the assignment so they could plan their workload.
As time went on, I learned more of Stephen's story. He had 6 in middle school. It had taken him longer to finish than most young people. Family members, including his mother, kept reminding him that he was a failure. Now, in the face of their negative-saying he had been admitted into college. He told me that before coming to our campus no one had believed he had much 7 .
Stephen didn't become an "A" student. He didn't make any honor rolls. Still, he managed to pass most of his courses by being in class every day, turning in all of his assignment on time and breaking down his studying into 8 digestible parts. By passing course after course he began to gain a measure of self-respect. He was a great singer and he was on the school's cross-country team.
Every time I saw him on campus, he would brighten up and say, "One bite at a time." Whenever he introduced me to his friends, he would tell them that he was 9 when he was supposed to be failing. His secret, he said, was that he was 10 what I taught him before classes ever started: "Take it one bite at a time."
It was the final sprint of a cyclo-cross race in Spain. Esteban, in third place, was just ahead of his competitor, Navarro, only 300 meters to the end. Suddenly Esteban got a puncture, so he threw his bike over his shoulders and raced towards the finishing line. Just a few seconds later, fourth-placed Navarro (catch) up with him. Surely, he could simply overtake Esteban and come third. But Navarro slowed down and let Esteban run ahead of him. The two cyclists reached the end with Esteban ahead on foot in third place, Navarro came fourth. The audience was (amaze) at his show of sportsmanship and cheered and clapped.
White Fang spent the first month of his life (stay)in the warmth of his mother. Never moving far from her side his whole world was the shadowy (safe)of the cave. Then one day, he noticed that one wall of the cave was different. This was the cave entrance that let in a little light. As time passed, he longed (go)towards that wall of light. But when he tried, his mother gave him a sharp whack on his nose. She knew he was too young to go outside. This was his first lesson—that taking risks can be painful.
More than just visual feast, an appealing opening ceremony wowed the world on Saturday September 23rd, as President Xi Jinping declared the 19th Asian Games open. With the giant floor screen lighting the way, the athletes'parade proceeded to the melody of Our Asia, was played to the pounding beat of drums built in the shape of osmanthus, the city flower of Hangzhou. During the parade, images of iconic scenic spots at Hangzhou's famous West Lake (project) onto the oval-shaped floor screen, allowing marching athletes and spectators to enjoy the city's picturesque scenery in an immersive way.
Tips for Writing a Cover Letter
If you are applying for an internship, you will likely have to submit a cover letter as part of your application. Read below for tips on writing an internship cover letter.
Use Business Letter Format
Use proper business letter format when sending a cover letter by mail. Include your contact information at the top, the date, and the contact information for the employer. Be sure to provide a proper salutation, and sign your name at the bottom.
Individualize Your Cover Letter
Make sure to write a unique cover letter for each internship for which you apply. Highlight skills and abilities you have that relate to the specific internship listing. The main emphasis of your cover letter should be convincing the reader that you will be a qualified intern.
Emphasize Your Academic Experience
In the letter, you can mention academic experience, if applicable. Especially if you have limited work experience, you might use examples from school to demonstrate that you have particular skills. For example, if the internship requires you to work as part of a team, provide an example of an assistant at the library or a successful team project you worked on during one of your college courses.
Include Extra Classroom Experiences
You can also include details about your relevant experience form extra classroom activities or volunteer work. For example, a reporter for a college newspaper can point to interviewing and writing skills; a history of volunteering at a shelter can provide an example of strong interpersonal and organizational skills.
Proofread and Edit
Be sure to thoroughly proofread your cover letter for spelling and grammar errors. Many internships are very competitive, and any error can hurt your chances of getting an interview. Also, avoid using too many words to convey your information and intention.
My morning routine varies little from day to day. I walk the dog, eat breakfast at the kitchen counter with Katie and Matt, and then settle in for a day at the computer. And because I work mostly from home, I have learned that little walks into the outside world are important for psychological well-being. So before I begin attempting to put sentences together, I walk over to a little coffee shop in my neighborhood, and chat with the folks behind the counter.
The coffee shop is on the other side of the historic Chesapeaker & Ohio Canal from my house. Whenever in season, tourists line up to take a slow boat, if not to India, at least into the 19th century.
One warm day last fall, I turned the corner to see one of the boatmen sitting alone on the boat, bathed in early-morning light. He was playing the violin. The scene stopped me in my tracks. What I witnessed could only be described as a perfect moment. Ten seconds at most. But months later I still remember just standıng there, watching, listening, and taking it all in.
We all have such moments put before us. Little surprises. Whether we're wise enough to see them is another thing.
I thought of the violin man one Sunday afternoon while reading the biographies of those killed in the Columbia incident. The specialist Laurel Clark, talking from the shuttle a few days before it was to land, said it was blissful to see the simple unexpected wonders of space like a sunset. "There's a flash; the whole payload bay turns this rosy pink," she said. "It only lasts about 15 seconds, and then it's gone."
I once had a friend who had a strange habit that never stopped to amuse me, maybe because I never quite knew when she was going to spring it on me. It could come in the middle of a particularly lively dinner with old friends. Out of the blue, she'd say, "Stop! I want to remember this moment." I realize now, after her death, what wise advice that is.
Children often learn new languages more easily than adults do, but it's unclear why. Some theorize that grasping a language requires absorbing subtle patterns unconsciously and that adults'superior conscious reasoning is to blame. New research suggests that, indeed, grown-ups might just be too smart for their own good.
For a recent study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, a group of Belgian adults at the same time read and heard strings of four made-up words(such as "kieng nief siet hiem"). Specific consonants (辅音) always appeared at the beginning or end of a word if the word contained a certain vowel (元音). Participants next read the sequences aloud quickly. Their ability to avoid mistakes doing so indicated how well they absorbed the consonant-vowel patterns.
But before exposure to the new words, the participants had carried out a separate test: pressing keys to react to letters and numbers. Some got a much faster, more mentally draining version of this test. Those who did the difficult version claimed greater mental exhaustion afterward—but performed better on the following language task. The researchers assume that tired learners used less conscious analysis on the word rules: they were free to learn like a child.
For a related paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, the research team had English-speaking adults listen to streams of syllables (音节) secretly grouped into three-syllable "words." Later, they played pairs of three-syllable units; one word in the pair came from the stream, and one was a new combination. The participants guessed which word was familiar, then rated their confidence.
In one participant group, some had first done the original mentally draining test. In another, some had received magnetic pulses to interrupt activity in a brain area that previous research has linked to executive control. In both groups, these measures improved participants' performance on the syllable task when they were unsure about their answers, indicating unconscious analysis of speech.
Neuroscientist Michael Ullman, who was not involved in either paper, likes that both the studies added to mental burden differently and measured different skills. That's really good in science because you've got evidences pointing to the same direction," he says, adding that he would like to see higher language skills such as grammar studied this way.
Casting blame is natural: it is tempting to fault someone else for a mistake rather than taking responsibility yourself. But blame is also harmful. It makes it less likely that people will admit mistakes, and thus less likely that organizations can learn from them. Research published in 2015 suggests that firms whose managers pointed to external factors to explain their failings underperformed companies that blamed themselves.
Blame culture asks, "who dropped the ball?" instead of "where did our systems and processes fail?" The focus is on the individuals, not the processes. It's much easier to point fingers at a person or department instead of doing the harder, but the more beneficial, exercise of fixing the root cause, so the problem does not happen again.
The No Blame Culture was introduced to make sure errors and deficiencies(缺陷)were highlighted by employees as early as possible. It originated in organizations like-hospitals, submarines and airlines. Because errors can be so disastrous in these organizations, it's dangerous to operate in an environment where employees don't feel able to report errors that have been made or raise concerns that deficiencies may turn into future errors. The No Blame Culture maximizes responsibility because all contributions to the event occurring are identified and reviewed for possible change and improvement.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which supervises air traffic across the United States, makes it clear that its role is not to assign blame or legal responsibility but to find out what went wrong and to issue recommendations to avoid a repeat. The proud record of the airline industry in reducing accidents partly reflects no-blame processes for investigating crashes and close calls. The motive to learn from errors also exists when the risks are lower. That is why software engineers and developers routinely investigate what went wrong if a website crashes or a server goes down.
There is an obvious worry about embracing blamelessness. What if the website keeps crashing and the same person is at fault? Sometimes, after all, blame is deserved. The "just culture" developed by James Reason, addresses the concern that the incompetent and the malevolent(恶意的)will be let off the hook. The line that Britain's aviation regulator draws between honest errors and the other sort is a good starting-point. It promises a culture in which people "are not punished for actions or decisions taken by them that go with their experience and training". That narrows room for blame but does not remove it entirely.
How to Turn Your Goals into Habits
First we make our habits, then our habits make us. It's such a simple concept, yet it's something we don't always do.
I believe that having ONE goal to focus on is much more powerful than having many goals. By putting the belief into practice, I have achieved a lot of personal goals over time. My answer takes a little explaining. I try to turn my goals into habits, and in doing so, I put my goals on autopilot. Turning a goal into a habit means really focusing on it for at least a month. The more you can focus, the more it'll be on autopilot. You'll still do it, but you only have to use minimal force to maintain it, and you can focus on your next goal or habit.
Take my marathon goal as an example. I was just starting running and had the brilliant idea to run a marathon within a year. So that was my goal. First, I had to make running a daily habit. Second, I had to report to people in order to have accountability (负责) so that I could not quit easily. I focused on the daily running habit for about a month, and didn't have any other goals or habits. When the running habit stuck, I started reporting to people I knew and blogging about my running every day.
I could focus on new goals without having to worry about the marathon. I still had to do the running, of course, but it didn't require constant focus. I was able to achieve this because, all year long, I had daily running and accountability habits. I put my marathon goal into autopilot, so instead of struggling with it daily for an entire year, I focused on it for one month and was able to accomplish it while focusing on new habits and goals.
A. And eventually, I ran the first marathon in my life.
B. At the beginning, it was very difficult for me to achieve this goal.
C. But in order to achieve it I broke it down into two habits.
D. With this accountability, there's no way I could stop running.
E. Once you put it on autopilot, you don't have to focus on it much.
F. My readers asked me how I was able to achieve them while working on different projects.
G. Once those two habits were established, my marathon goal was pretty much on autopilot.
From the cheeky sound of a whoopee cushion to a spring-loaded spider rocketing from a glass, pranks (恶作剧) are a popular way of making fun of others and getting a laugh. While some experts point out potential negatives, pranking can also decrease stress, raise a smile, and strengthen relationships.
It's little wonder that best-selling children's author Matt Stanton has shaped his latest book around pranks for young jokesters. Part of his Funny Kid book series, Prank Aliens, is about a boy named Max who is searching for the greatest prank of all time. Stanton said that pranking in the home can build strong relationships between parents and kids.
"Some of the best relationship-building moments I have with my own kids are when I enter into their space," Stanton said. "An adult joining in their games can be surprising for kids and bring wonderful moments of joy. It's a great way to demonstrate to our kids that we can laugh at ourselves and still feel loved and secure," he added.
But playing tricks can come with unintended consequences, said psychiatrist Mark Cross. Pranks that are intended to harm or embarrass can anger the target and even ruin a relationship. However, Cross also added "Pranking can be good when the outcome is laughter for everyone, including the pranked person. It can be a great release of stress. When you laugh, you breathe deeper, which helps ease anxiety."
So why not try some pranks? Wrapping vegetables and shoes up as presents for kids on their birthdays always gets a great reaction. Putting plastic spiders in guests' drinks or placing a whoopee cushion on an unsuspecting person's chair is sure to cause a belly laugh. All these might just be good for you and everyone involved.
Pranking is good when everyone laughs at the pranked person, since laughter releases stress.
