【推荐2】A Four-Year-Old Boy Convinced Father Is a Fool After 45th Hide-and-Seek Victory

GLENDALE, PENNSYLVANIA-Expressing embarrassment and disappointment over being the son of such a loser, local four-year-old Connor Heyward was convinced that his father, Craig Heyward, was a fool after losing 45 games of hide-and-seek. “God, this is bad. I’ve hidden behind that bush a dozen times, and he still can’t find me, “ said Connor, admitting that after finding his father crouched behind a chair half his size, he had started to worry he might grow up to be a “ complete idiot” just like his dad. “At first, I thought I might be really good at this game, but after succeeding in hiding underneath a clothes basket with visible holes, I realized the kind of game was not his cake. It’d be one thing if he were only bad at seeking, but so far, his best hiding spot was behind the back door. Who hides behind a door? There’s no strategy to it whatsoever. “

Reality of Fatherhood Never Truly Dawned on Man Until He Held Newborn Son’s Hospital Bill

MISSOULA, MONTANA-Describing how he suddenly found himself overwhelmed by a flood of intense emotions, local man Mike Bentzen told reporters the reality of fatherhood didn’t truly set in for him until the moment he held his newborn son’s hospital bill. “Wow, this is going to totally change my life,” said Bentzen as tears welled up in his eyes. “Some friends tell me about their experience, but you can’t understand what it feels like until you’re looking down at it in your own hands.” Bentzen reportedly started weeping softly as he sat down with his son’s hospital bill in his lap and began imagining how he would deal with this for the next 18 years.

【推荐3】Across Britain, burnt toast will be served to mothers in bed this morning as older sons and daughters rush to deliver their supermarket bunches of flowers. But, according to a new study, we should be placing a higher value on motherhood all year.

Mothers have long known that their home workload was just as heavy as paid work. Now, the new study has shown that if they were paid for their parental labours, they would earn as much as $ 172,000 a year.

The study looked at the range of jobs mothers do, as well as the hours they are working, to determine the figure. This would make their yearly income $ 30,000 more than the Prime Minister earns.

By analysing the numbers, it found the average mother works 119 hours a week, 40 of which would usually be paid at a standard rate and 79 hours as overtime. After questioning 1,000 mothers with children under 18, it found that, on most days, mums started their routine work at 7am and finished at around 11pm.

To calculate just how much mothers would earn from that labour, it suggested some of the roles that mums could take on, including housekeeper, part-time lawyer, personal trainer and entertainer. Being a part-time lawyer, at £ 48.98 an hour, would prove to be the most profitable of the “mum jobs”, with psychologist (心理学家) a close second.

It also asked mothers about the challenges they face, with 80 percent making emotional demand as the hardest thing about motherhood.

Over a third of .mums felt they needed more training and around half said they missed going out with friends.

The study shows mothers matter all year long and not just on Mother’s Day. The emotional, physical and mental energy mothers devote to their, children can be never-ending, but children are also sources of great joy and happiness. Investing (投入) in time for parenting and raising relationships is money well spent.

【推荐1】I had an experience some years ago, which taught me something about the ways in which people make a bad situation worse by blaming themselves. One January, I had to hold two funerals on successive(连续的) days for two elderly women in my community. Both had died “full of years”, as the Bible would say. Their homes happened to be near each other, so I paid condolence(吊唁) calls on the two families on the same afternoon.

At the first home, the son of the deceased(已故的) woman said to me, “If only I had sent my mother to Florida and gotten her out of this cold and snow, she would be alive today. It’s my fault that she died.” At the second home, the son of the other deceased woman said, “If only I hadn’t insisted on my mother's going to Florida, she would be alive today. That long airplane ride, the sudden change of climate, was more than she could take. It’s my fault that she’s dead.”

You see that any time there is a death, the survivors will feel guilty. Because the course of action they took turned out badly, they believe that the opposite course—keeping Mother at home, putting off the operation—would have turned out better. After all, how could it have turned out any worse?

There seem to be two elements involved in our willingness to feel guilty. The first is our pressing need to believe that the world makes sense, that there is a cause for every effect and a reason for everything that happens. That leads us to find patterns and connections both where they really exist and where they exist only in our minds.

The second element is the view that we are the cause of what happens, especially the bad things that happen. It seems to be a short step from believing that every event has a cause to believing that every disaster is our fault. The roots of this feeling may lie in our childhood.

A baby comes to think that the world exists to meet his needs, and that he makes everything happen in it. He wakes up in the morning and summons the rest of the world to its tasks. He cries, and someone comes to attend to him. When he is hungry, people feed him, and when he is wet, people change him. Very often, we do not completely outgrow that childish view that our wishes cause things to happen.

CLAIM AL54323432 — STORM DAMAGE TO ROOF

I received a cheque for $623 dated 26 January in payment of my recent claim. However, I wish to tell you how upset I have been by the way your Claims Assessor Mr. Michael Tan handled this claim.

When Mr. Tan first called me, he specifically told me that he believed I had been overcharged, and he would expect to pay that price for work on a double garage, rather than a single garage like mine. Mr. Tan suggested that I neither use nor recommend this contractor again. He continued to tell me it was unlikely for me to receive full payment. Never during this conversation did he mention that the reason for not receiving full payment was because of the nature of my insurance policy.

Consequently, I wrote to Mr. Lance Ashe to complain about his pricing, stating that I was very upset thinking that he could have taken advantage by overcharging a 73-year-old woman. Mr. Ashe telephoned me immediately and explained his charges in detail. He later reported back to me that Mr. Tan explained that I would not receive full payment because of the type of policy I hold which does not cover wear and tear. This was the first time this issue had been brought to my attention, so you can imagine my surprise.

When I received Mr. Tan's letter of 2 February, this situation was explained. If this had been explained in the first place I would have accepted it and would not have questioned Mr. Ashe’s charges. Instead, by telling me initially that I had been overcharged for this work, he caused a great deal of upset, not only for me but also for Mr. Ashe.

I believed this claim was handled badly by Mr. Tan from the beginning. Therefore, a great deal of embarrassment has been caused over this issue.

I felt you should know how disappointed and upset I am. I trust you will look into this and ensure that such claims are handled more appropriately in the future.

Yours sincerely,

Mrs. Richard

【推荐3】Have you thought about the idea of using energy to overcome health problems, stress and even disease? Dealing with stress and illness can have a negative impact on more than just your physical self, burning to a deep emotional space. Entire families and circles of friends feel worried about someone when they are dealing with a tough situation. But what if positive thinking could have the power to turn things around?

I have certainly heard many stories about people who have used a great attitude to overcome life–changing obstacles, and I am a total believer. I have seen the power of positive energy work for me—when I believe, I can handle anything that life sends my way.

【推荐1】I sometimes wonder if old Finchley has the right personality to be a research scientist. He keeps asking when he’ll be coming back. After all, it was his own fault. Nobody tries out what has just been invented on themselves any more but Finchley. Well, he must have pumped about a thousand cc into himself before I noticed he was clearly becoming smaller.

It was funny watching him, because his clothes remained the same in size. They simply piled up around him so that he looked like a small boy in his father’s clothes. But he kept getting smaller and smaller. As my colleague Dawson and I watched him, he disappeared! All we could see was Finchley’s clothes on the floor. They looked so strange, because the lab coat was on top, shirt and trousers inside and, I suppose, underclothes inside again. It gave me a strange feeling, and I think Dawson was a bit shaken, too.

Dawson was sitting on his chair in front of a microscope he’d been using to examine a family of mites (螨). He looked through the scope kind of absently again, and was nearly scared to lose awareness when he found old Finchley waving back from the other end.

It seems as if Finchley had taken a free ride on a dust mite and landed on the land of the mite family. Of course, we didn’t know till Finchley told us later. But anyhow, as I said, Dawson nearly passed out. He jumped off his chair and pointed at the microscope, too shocked to speak.

【推荐2】Two weeks ago, a 5-year-old girl named Sunshine Oelfke emptied out her piggy bank (存钱罐) onto the living room floor and immediately started counting. Her grandmother, Jackie Oelfke, thought she was playing as she carefully lined up the coins, but then she saw the girl put the coins into a plastic bag and place it in her backpack.

“That aroused my curiosity,” Jackie told CBS News. “Nobody messes with the piggy bank.” After observing Sunshine at work a few minutes long, Jackie decided to find out why the little girl broke into her savings.

“What are you doing with that money?” Jackie asked her granddaughter.

“I’m taking it to school,” Sunshine replied. The little girl finally stated the real reason why she needed the money. “I’m going to take it for milk money. My friend Layla doesn’t get milk—her mom doesn’t have milk money but I do.”

Jackie’s heart melted at Sunshine’s words. Choked with strong feelings, Jackie held her sweet granddaughter tightly in her arms.

Last week, Jackie and Sunshine met with her teacher, Rita Hausher, and handed her the $ 30 the kindergartner had saved. There are 20 kids in Sunshine’s class and about half don’t get milk. It costs $ 0.45 a carton (纸 盒). The total adds up to about $ 180 a month for every child in the class to have milk every day.

After dropping Sunshine off at school, Jackie posted a tearful video on Facebook to explain her granddaughter’s plan. To her surprise, dozens of people offered to donate toward the cause. Within a week, Jackie raised more than $1,000. Now every student in Sunshine’s class can get free milk for the rest of the year.

Jackie said Sunshine didn’t see her kind act as a big deal. She was just trying to look out for her friends. “She doesn’t understand the effect she’s brought about,” said Jackie. “But now she knows she can do whatever she puts her mind to.”

【推荐3】For Mother’s Day I asked for one thing: a house cleaning service. Bathrooms and floors specifically, windows if the extra expense was reasonable. The gift , for me, was not so much in the cleaning itself but the fact that for once I would not be in charge of the household office work. Iwould not have to make the calls, get multiple quotes, research and ve t each service, arrange payment and schedule the appointment. The real gift I wanted was to be relieved of the emotional labor of a single task that had been ringing at the back of my mind. The clean house would simply be a bonus.

My husband waited for me to change my mind to an “easier” gift than housecleaning, something he could one-click order on Amazon. The day before Mother’s Day, disappointed by my unwavering desire, he called a single service, decided they were too expensive, and vowed to clean the bathrooms himself. He still gave me the choice, of course. He told me the high dollar amount of completing the cleaning services I requested and asked if I still wanted him to book it.

What I wanted was for him to ask friends on Facebook for a recommendation, call four or five more services, do the emotional labor I would have done if the job had fallen to me. I knew exactly how exhausting it was going to be. That’s why I asked my husband to do it as a gift.

“In general, we classify gender emotions in our society by continuing to emphasize the false idea that women are always able to feel, express, and manage our emotions better than men,” says Dr. Lisa Huebner, a sociologist of gender. “This is not to say that some individuals do not manage emotion better than others as part of their own individual personality, but I would argue that we still have no firm evidence that this ability is biologically determined by sex. At the same time, we find all kinds of ways in society to ensure that girls and women are responsible for emotions and, then, men get a pass.”

【推荐1】Against the supposition that forest fires in Alaska, Canada and Siberia warm the climate, scientists have discovered that cooling may occur in areas where burnt trees allow more snow to mirror sunlight into space.

This finding suggests that taking steps to prevent northern forest fires to limit the release of greenhouse gases may warm the climate in northern regions. Usually large fires destroyed forests in these areas over the past decade. Scientists predict that with climate warming, fires may occur more frequently over the next several centuries as a result of a longer fire season. Sunlight taken in by the Earth tends to cause warming, while heat mirrored back into space tends to cause cooling.

This is the first study to analyze all aspects of how northern fires influence climate. Earlier studies by other scientists had suggested that fires in northern regions sped up climate warming because greenhouse gases from burning trees and plants were released into the atmosphere and thus trapped heat.

Scientists found that right after the fire, large amounts of greenhouse gases entered the atmosphere and caused warming. Ozone (臭氧) levels increased, and ashes from the fire fell on far­off sea ice, darkening the surface and causing more radiation from the sun to be taken in. The following spring, however, the landscape within the area of the fire was brighter than before the fire, because fewer trees covered the ground. Snow on the ground mirrored more sunlight back into space, leading to cooling.

“We need to find out all possible ways to reduce the growth of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” scientists said. They tracked the change in the amount of radiation entering and leaving the climate system as a result of the fire, and found a measurement closely related to the global air temperature. Typically, fire in northern regions occurs in the same area every 80 to 150 years. Scientists, however, found that when fire occurs more frequently, more radiation is lost from the Earth and cooling results. Specifically, they determined when fire returns 20 years earlier than predicted, 0.5 watts per square meter of area burned are soaked up by the Earth from greenhouse gases, but 0.9 watts per square meter will be sent back into space. The net effect is cooling. Watts are used to measure the rate at which energy is gained or lost from the Earth.

【推荐2】Probably no other musical instrument is as popular as the guitar. Musicians use the guitar for almost every kind of music. Country and western music would not be the same without a guitar. The traditional Spanish folk music called Flamenco could not exist without a guitar. The sound of American blues music would not be the same without the sad cry of the guitar. And rock and roll music would almost be impossible Without this instrument.

Some music experts say an instrument very much like a guitar was played in Egypt more than one thousand years ago. Some other experts say that the ancestor of the modern guitar was brought to Spain from Persia sometime in the twelfth century. The guitar continued to develop in Spain. In the 1700s, it became similar to the instrument we know today.

Many famous musicians played the instrument. The famous Italian violinist Niccolo Paganinni played and wrote music for the guitar in the early 1800s. Franz Schubert used the guitar to write some of his famous works. One kind of music for the guitar developed in the southern area of Spain called Adalusia. It will always be strongly linked with the Spanish guitar. It is called Flamenco.

In the 1930s, Les Paul began experimenting with ways to make an electric guitar. He invented the solid body electric guitar in 1946. The guitar has always been important to blues music. With the electric guitar, Les Paul helped make modern blues music possible. There have been many great blues guitarists. Yet, music experts say all blues guitar players are measured against one man and his famous guitar. That man is B. B. King. Every blues fan knows that years ago B. B. King named his guitar Lucille. Here B. B. King plays Lucille on his famous recording of “The Thrill Is Gone”. Lucille, B. B. King's large, beautiful black guitar, is important to American music. Visitors can see King's very first guitar at the Rock and Soul Museum in Memphis, Tennessee. The museum is the only permanent exhibit organized by the Smithsonian Institution outside Washington, D. C., and New York City.

【推荐3】It is hard, it hurts —and yet more than two million of us in the UK run at least once a week.

Of course, some people run to lose weight, or to get fit, and these are great reasons. Running is also easy to do, it's cheap, and you can do it when you want. All these factors certainly contribute to the fact that running is one of the most popular sports in the UK.

But for many of those two million runners, the real reason we head out to beat the roads until our legs hurt is more intangible (无形的) than weight loss or fitness.

Many runners become interested in times. They try to break the 40-minute barrier for the 10K, or run under four hours for the marathon. Yet, really, these times are almost meaningless. And as soon as they are achieved, another target is thrown out almost immediately.

The times are only the carrots we put in front of ourselves. But why do we put them there in the first place? Nobody ever gives a wise answer Deep down, we all know the answer.

Running brings us joy. Watch small children when they are excited, at play, and mostly they can't stop running. There's a great moment in The Catcher in the Rye when Holden Caulfield, caught in the uneasy space between childhood and adulthood, is walking across his school grounds one evening and he suddenly starts to run. “I don't ever know what I was running for---I guess I just felt like it,” he says.

This will to run is born. In fact, humans may well have evolved (进化) the way we did because of our ability to run. As children, and even adolescents, we can respond to this natural call to run whenever the feeling takes us.As we run, we begin to sense that childish joy, which is born to live a wilder existence. As we run, the layers of responsibility and identity we have gathered in our lives, father, mother, lawyer, teacher, all fall away, leaving us with the raw human being.

If we push on, running harder, deeper into the loneliness, further away from the world and the structure of our lives, we begin to feel strangely excited, separated yet a the same time connected, to ourselves. With nothing but our own two legs moving us, we begin 1o get a sense of who, or what, we really are. After a long run, everything seems right in the world. Everything is at peace. To experiencethisis a powerful feeling, strong enough to have us coming back, again and again, for more.