【推荐1】You run into the grocery store to pick up one bottle of water. You get what you need, head to the front, and choose the line that looks fastest.

You chose wrong. People who you swear got in other lines long after you are already checked out and off to the parking lot.     1    

It turns out, it’s just math working against you; chances are, the other line really is faster.

Grocery stores try to have enough employees at checkout to get all their customers through with minimum delay.     2    Any small interruption-a price check, a chatty customer-can have downstream effects, holding up an entire line.

If there are three lines in the store, delays will happen randomly at different registers. Think about the probability:    3    So it's not just in your mind: Another line probably is moving faster.

Researchers have a good way to deal with this problem. Make all customers stand in one long, snaking line- called a serpentine line-and serve each person at the front with the next available register.     4    This is what they do at most banks and fast-food restaurants. With a serpentine line, a long delay at one register won't unfairly punish the people who lined up behind it. Instead, it will slow down everyone a little bit but speed up checkout overall.

    5    It takes many registers to keep one line moving quickly, and some stores can't afford the space or manpower. So wherever your next wait may be: Good luck.

【推荐2】Earlier this year, my husband and I were presented with the chance to make our home in an urban “micro” space. As we initially considered it, it seemed crazy. Would we even make it a week without going mad? Living room, kitchen, office, dining room, all in one small four-walled space.

There were a number of other potential options. We could move out into the suburbs like most people do in our extraordinarily expensive city and have a small yard maybe even a basement. But there was something about this neat “tiny” home that aroused our interest, which challenged us. We like to live differently from the crowd, to avoid what everyone else is doing “just because” everyone else is.

“Let’s try it for six months. If it makes us crazy, we’ll move. We can do anything for 6 months,” my husband said. It was challenging squeezing into the space at first, but then something caught us by surprise. We started having a ton of fun with our tiny space.

In the past, sometimes we had quite different ideas about which art or decorating style we found appealing. But here, in this tiny space, we found ourselves having a ton of fun exploring possible options. There’s no room for clutter(凌乱的东西), either. This is a gift!

It’s been 8 months, and we’re staying. Perhaps forever. When a space is this small, you don’t need to spend much in furnishing it, and you can’t keep endlessly buying things. There’s nowhere to put them!

This leaves us more financial resources and more time to go out into the much bigger world and enjoy life. For us, living in a “tiny” home has filled us with a feeling of abundance. It’s so much better than feeling weighed down, paying for a big space and more and more things. I highly recommend it.

【推荐1】Unlike most other holidays, the history of April Fools’ Day, sometimes called All Fools’ Day, is not totally clear. The only point in time that can be agreed on as the beginning of this tradition was 1582, in France. Before that year, the New Year was celebrated for eight days, beginning on March 25th. The celebration reached the highest point on April 1st. With the reform of the calendar under Charles IX，the Gregorian calendar(公历，阳历) was introduced, and New Year’s Day was moved to January 1st.

However, because in those days communications were not as developed as they are today, many people did not receive the news for several years. Some people refused to accept the new calendar and continued to celebrate the New Year on April 1st.These backward people were considered “fools” by other people. They   were often sent on “fools” errands(徒劳无益的工作)   or were made the targets of jokes.

This developed, over time, into a tradition of playing a trick on someone on the first day of April. The tradition eventually spread to England and Scotland in the eighteenth century. It was later introduced to the American colonies of both the Britain and France. April Fools’ Day thus developed into an international fun feast, so to speak, with different nationalities specializing in their own kind of humor at the expense of their friends and families.

【推荐2】The Thanksgiving Day ,the fourth Thursday in November, is coming in America. But do you know something about the annual(每年的)Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade(游行) in New York?

There are thousands of bystanders(看热闹的人)and millions of television viewers. The Parade is as traditional as turkey. The year 2016 was the 90th year of Macy’s parade. It featured 15 huge balloons in the shape of cartoon and pop culture characters, 1,200 dancers and cheerleaders, 900 clowns(小丑),10 marching bands and nearly 9,000 workers, almost all of whom were volunteers.

The floats(彩车)and balloons have been getting larger ,more colorful and more surprising since Macy’s immigrant (移民的) workers organized the first Thanksgiving Day Parade.

In 2016, school children were invited to the Macy’s parade studios(画室) outside New York City, for a first look at several just completed floats.

Bella was excited to be there. “I think it’s great because I get to see all of these floats before anyone else does in the parade,” said Bella.

John Piper is the president of Macy’s Studio. He said his work was fun all the time. “It’s a lot of work. All year long, the artists at Macy’s Studio all build these floats. We create them from scratch(涂抹). I have the finest carpenters(木匠), metal workers, painters all cooperating(合作) together,” said Piper.

The floats were supposed to advertise for commercial sponsors(赞助商) for the start of the Christmas season. But Amy Kule, the event producer said, “ And the floats are used to keep the beauty and the majesty(庄严)of the parade. A Thanksgiving parade is always about giving back and entertaining(娱乐). But most importantly, it’s about leaving it for the next generation.”

【推荐3】For most of us Veterans Day just means a chance to enjoy an extra day off from school or work．However this November 11th，be sure to spend a few minutes on its true purpose，by acknowledging（感谢）the men and women who have served in our armed forces．

And you don't have to stop at just this one day．Join the over 10，000youth members of the Young Marines group that honor these brave men and women all year long with special events and completely spoil them for an entire week，from November 4th to 11th，by visiting hospitalized veterans，performing chores for disabled veterans and even organizing community－wide social event．The program open to kids ranging from the age of eight all the way to high school，is a great way to not only show your appreciation，but also get a chance to do some fun activities with like－minded kids and make a real difference in a veteran's life．

People often believe that Memorial Day and Veterans Day are celebrated for the same reason．There is however a subtle but important difference between the two．While both honor our military personnel，the former is a day to remember and pay respect to all the men and women that died serving our country in a war，while Veterans Day is to celebrate the soldiers who are still alive and served in the forces at any time，during peace or war． Though several other countries celebrate this day in honor of their own veterans，the meaning is slightly different for each one．Some like the United Kingdom，celebrate it in honorof all soldiers－living or dead，while others like Canada celebrate it to honor all living veterans．They also call it different names．France and New Zealand silll call it Armistice Day．In the United Kingdom，Australia and Canada it is referred to as Remembrance Day，while Malta and South Africa celebrate it as Poppy Day．

No matter what it is called，the reason for observing the day is the same－to show our appreciation to the brave men and women who sacrifice（牺牲）everything to make this world a safer place for the rest of us．

【推荐1】“What kind of rubbish are you?” This question might normally cause anger, but in Shanghai it has become a special “greeting” among people over the past week. On July 1, the city introduced strict trash-sorting regulations that are required to follow and expected to be used as a model for our country. Residents must divide their waste into four separate categories and throw it into specific public dustbins. They must do so at regulated times, when monitors are present to ensure correct trash-throwing and to ask the nature of one’s rubbish. Individuals who fail to follow the regulations face the possibility of fines and worse. They could be punished with fines (罚款) of up to 200 yuan (＄29). For those who repeat to go against them, the government can add black marks to their credit records, making it harder for them to get bank loans or even buy train tickets.

Shanghai government is responding to an obvious environmental problem. It generates 9 million tons of garbage a year, more than London’s annual output, which is rising quickly. But like other cities in China, it lacks a recycling system. Instead, it has relied on trash pickers to sift (筛选) through the waste, picking out whatever can be reused. This has limits. As people get wealthier, fewer of them want to do such dirty work. The waste, meanwhile, just keeps piling up.

Many residents appear to support the idea of recycling in general but are annoyed by the details. Rubbish must be divided according to whether it is food, recyclable, dry or harmful, the distinctions among which can be confusing, though there are apps to help work it out. Some have complained about the rules concerning food waste. They must put it straight in the required public bins, forcing them to tear open plastic bags and throw it by hand. What they complain most is the short periods for dropping trash, typically a couple of hours, morning and evening. Along with the monitors at the bins, this means that people go at around the same time and can keep an eye on what is being thrown out. No one wants to look bad.