【推荐1】When we’re studying a new language, many of us approach it with dread. If we make a mistake or say something wrong, we judge ourselves strictly. But as it turns out, however, we’d benefit by shifting (转移) our focus and worrying less about getting it right, according to Marianna Pascal, a communication skills trainer.

As a teacher who’s spent 20 years in Malaysia helping people speak better English, Pascal noticed that some students didn’t get a high language level but could still communicate very effectively. She remembers one specific student named Faisal. Despite not knowing much English, she says, “This guy could just sit and listen to anybody very calmly, clearly, and then he could respond and express his thoughts beautifully.”

She also observed some students knew quite a bit of English but struggled to make themselves understood. Pascal noticed that a lot of these students’ attitude towards English is like her daughter’s attitude towards playing the piano. Pascal says her daughter hated piano and hated practicing, because she was afraid of being wrong. To her, her success in piano was measured by how few mistakes she made.

Then she shared her experience in a cafe. The person sitting next to her was playing a game while his friends watched, and he just wasn’t a very good player. But at the same time, she saw something amazing. Even though this guy was terrible and his friends were watching him, there was no embarrassment or shyness. There was no feeling of being judged. Instead, he focused completely on the task at hand. Pascal says, “I suddenly realized that this is it. This is the same attitude that people hike Faisal have when they speak English.”

Pascal believes that speaking a language isn’t like those exams many of us had to take in grade school, where a tiny mistake would result in a big red X from the teacher, In the real world, what matters is whether we can make ourselves understood. She says, “If you want to speak English well, don’t focus on yourself but focus on the other person and the goal you want to achieve.”

【推荐1】People often think that life is so hard and they don’t find any kind of motivation in life. I have seen people that have been so much disappointed by their failures and they decided to give up .Giving your life away isn’t the solution, but fighting back is.

What could be a bigger failure than a dropout university student? In a culture where people make fun of you and will treat you badly, but it isn’t like that if you don’t have a degree you will not succeed in life.

A friend of mine, a brilliant talent, was a university dropout but now is a partner at IT firm. There are ups and downs in everyone’s life. The friend of mine is 28 and has been working in the industry since 2014, he is a successful individual but he had a dark and unpleasant past which might have cost him his life.

As when he was the dropout of the university, that was the most difficult time of his life as he could not see anything but failures in life. At that time only his parents were there to support him in his bad time. .He could not see any light in the darkness. His future, his dreams were dying inside. He was helpless as only believing is everything. So a time came where he had to decide what to do. He was always gaming and was interested in computer programming, his mother told him to do what ever he felt right for him. He started taking online classes of HTML and CSS and the basic features. He was gaining interest in it and was coming back to a normal routine. He came to know the importance of education so he entered an information technology institute where he did complete courses of development. As time passed by he gained more and more interest in it and he started working on different online platforms and starting earning and now he is a business partner at an IT company.

【推荐1】Cimabue, the greatest painter in medieval(中世纪的)Italy, was surprised one day when he came back from his lunch break and discovered a fly was under the nose of a character he had been working on. So he reached out to touch the insect. To his surprise, he found only wet paint. Turning around, he saw that his apprentice(学徒), Giotto di Bondone, was doing everything he could to keep from laughing. Giotto had painted the fly when Cimabue was away, and it looked so real that Cimabue had been completely fooled.

Giotto was born into a poor farming family. Legend has it that one day when Cimabue was walking around the countryside, he spotted a young shepherd(牧羊人)boy. The boy was not tending his sheep. Instead, he was drawing pictures of them, and the sheep he drew were so lifelike that Cimabue stopped to ask the boy his name. The boy replied that it was Giotto, and Cimabue immediately asked him to come to Florence so that the young shepherd could learn how to paint.

In the Middle Ages, an artist not only had to concern himself with things like design and technique, but he also had to learn how to make paints. Almost all artists were men, and they began their apprenticeships at an early age. An apprentice’s job was to copy his master as exactly as he could. The unfortunate result of this imitation(模仿)was a lack of new ideas.

In fact, art in the Middle Ages remained the same for hundreds of years. The people in paintings didn’t look like real people, and the symbolism of art was often so remote that it must have been difficult for viewers to connect with it on a personal level. Giotto used many techniques that were uncommon at the time to bring the paintings to life for viewers. He painted people the way he saw them, instead of the overly tall people that other artists painted. He created three-dimensional space by using perspective, something that had not been done since Roman times. Finally, he threw out parts of the symbolism associated with medieval painting.

【推荐2】Born in a musical family in 1925 in New Orleans, Renald Richard spent his childhood filled with music. At the age of 13, he went to see a band perform at a church where he fell in love with trumpet. So he started lessons on it, and later played it in the high school band. After high school, he was sent into military service and played his trumpet in the United States Navy Band. After ending up studying music at Xavier University of Louisiana, he played clubs on the famous Bourbon Street and also toured with many bands.

In 1954, Richard was approached by Jeff Brown, the manager of musician Ray Charles. He invited Richard to join Ray Charles’ new band. “To be selected by Ray Charles was an honor to me. Ray Charles was exacting.” said Richard, “He was a perfectionist and was rather demanding about his music.”

Renald Richard toured all over the South and West with Ray Charles. Sitting in the back seat of the car on the way to a concert, Richard wrote the song “I Got a Woman” for Charles, which became Ray Charles’ first number one radio hit. In 1954,Renald Richard left Ray Charles’ band. However, he stayed friendly with Ray Charles over the years. He became the high school’s band director in his hometown until 1962. Four years later, he moved again to New York City. Over the years, Richard has written many other songs that have been recorded by artists including Joe Turner, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Elvis Presley to name a few. Living now in Southern Florida, Richard is still active at the age of 92. As you can see, Renald Richard’s musical days are by no means near an end.

That is today’s Celebrity Introduction. Any comments? Please write to us in the Comments Section on this page.

【推荐3】Banksy is a world-famous artist, but no one knows exactly who Banksy is—or even if Banksy is male or female. That’s because Banksy is a “street artist.” Most of the art Banksy creates is painted on the sides of buildings, public walls and other places that are out in the open. And the art is created without anyone seeing them being created. So Banksy has remained anonymous.

Banksy’s art is “political.” That means it’s not just interesting to look at, but it makes a point about something. One of Banksy’s most famous paintings is called Girl with Balloon, which shows a young girl painted in black and white reaching out towards a bright red, heart-shaped balloon dangling from a string. It was painted in 2002 on a wall in the UK. Recently, a framed copy of Girl with Balloon was auctioned off (拍卖) for nearly two million dollars.

The painting was on the wall at the auction house, known as Sotheby’s, and suddenly something very surprising happened. The painting started to drop down in its frame and was shredded (切碎) by some blades hidden in the bottom of the frame. The painting started getting cut into pieces. And what is even more astonishing was that it was Banksy who destroyed the painting.

Shortly after the auction, Banksy posted a video on Instagram showing how the shredder was put into the frame-on purpose- “in case it was ever put up for auction,” according to the video.

No one knows exactly why Banksy did it, but on Instagram Banksy put a quote from another famous painter, Picasso, that said, “The urge to destroy is also a creative urge.” Some people from Sotheby’s grabbed the painting when they saw what was happening, and stopped the shredding about half-way through.

The new owner of the painting was at first shocked but them realized the painting is now even more interesting. The painting has now been renamed “Love Is in the Bin,” and it may even be more valuable than ever.