2 . I have the same 24 hours in a day as you do, but I have made specific choice that allow me to make the most of every day and still feel happy and relaxed.     1    

Pick the most important.

    2     Focus on spending time that for you is fun and productive. I chose the life of an adviser because I like to work with companies, but don't want the life of a big company CEO. My choices are based on the lifestyle I want.

Combine your activities.

Many people go crazy trying to figure out how to spend time with friends, family, work, play, etc.     3     Find ways to enjoy them in a combined manner. Build your social life around people in your work environment. Find people in your company who share common interests and develop your career (职业) around the people and activities you love.

    4    

You would think learning takes more time from you, but actually there are always new ways of doing things that can save you time on daily tasks, freeing you up for the most important. Always be looking for a new way to gain back an hour here or there.

Lighten up.

The world won't come to an end in most cases just because you left a few things undone. Celebrate progress and keep refining (改进) toward a happy productive existence.     5     Every completion is a small victory that adds up in a big way.

3 . Simply saying thank you doesn’t seem enough in certain situations. I was considering this while working as a _______ just a few weeks ago. And it came to me then how much easier it would be if we had a range of words that express different _______ of gratitude (感谢).

My thoughts were soon _______. We had a woman patient who was _______ from a knee replacement operation. One afternoon, while _______ to get into bed she collapsed (倒下) from what was _______ discovered to be a heart attack. The collapse was disastrous, _______the emergency medical team and good teamwork. But she recovered, though _______, and was ready for discharge (出院) after four weeks.

She was _______ for everything that the medical and nursing team had done for her. On her day of discharge, we shared in her ____________ at her recovery. As she was ____________ she was eager to say ____________ to each of us in the nursing team. When she ____________ one nurse, she tried to press a five-pound note into her hand. My colleague ____________ to accept it, saying that we were all just ____________ our job. The patient looked puzzled, and then ____________:“Oh this isn’t for the____________ I had. I take that as a ____________. No, this is for setting my hair yesterday.”

4 . Swap, Don’t shop!

You keep hearing about recycling, right? But it doesn’t end with bottles, cans, and paper. Clothing takes a huge amount of natural resources(资源)to make, and buying loads of new clothing(or throwing out old clothing)is not healthy for the environment. So what to do with all those perfectly-good-but-you’re-maybe-a-little-sick-of-them clothes piled on your bedroom floor?     1    . It’s the best way to get rid of your used clothes, score clothes from your friends, and have a party all at the same time.

A successful swap depends on the selection of clothes, the organization of the event, and, obviously, how much fun is had. It’s really easy to do! Here are a few pointers.

●Invite 5—10 people so you have a nice selection.     2     , and there may not be enough things to choose from; more than that, and it becomes uncontrollable.

●    3    . They should also prepare plenty of reusable bags to carry their “new” clothes home.

●Put different types of clothing on different surfaces in the room.    4    . Place a few mirrors around your room so people can see how things look when they try them on. One of the ground rules of the swap should be that everyone must try on the clothes before they take them—things always look different when you put them on.

●Set a starting time. Maybe you say “go,” or turn on a certain song, or whatever.     5    . And don’t forget to put out some cookies and fruits. Remember, it’s a party!

5 . When I was 9, we packed up our home in Los Angeles and arrived at Heathrow, London on a gray January morning. Everyone in the family settled quickly into the city except me. Without my beloved beaches and endless blue—sky days, I felt at a loss and out of place. Until I made a discovery.

Southbank, at an eastern bend in the Thames, is the center of British skateboarding, where the continuous crashing of skateboards left your head ringing .I loved it. I soon made friends with the local skaters. We spoke our own language. And my favorite: Safe. Safe meant cool. It meant hello. It meant don’t worry about it. Once, when trying a certain trick on the beam(横杆), I fell onto the stones, damaging a nerve in my hand, and Toby came over, helping me up: Safe, man. Safe. A few minutes later, when I landed the trick, my friends beat their boards loud, shouting: “ Safe! Safe! Safe!” And that’s what mattered—landing tricks, being a good skater.

When I was 15, my family moved to Washington. I tried skateboarding there, but the locals were far less welcoming. Within a couple of years, I’d given it up.

When I returned to London in 2004, I found myself wandering down to Southbank, spending hours there. I’ve traveled back several times since, most recently this past spring. The day was cold but clear: tourists and Londoners stopped to watch the skaters. Weaving(穿梭)among the kids who rushed by on their boards, I found my way to the beam. Then a rail—thin teenager, in a baggy white T—shirt, skidded(滑)up to the beam. He sat next to me. He seemed not to notice the man next to him. But soon I caught a few of his glances. “I was a local here 20 years ago,” I told him. Then, slowly, he began to nod his head. “Safe, man. Safe.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Safe.”

7 . Sitting in the garden for my friend’s birthday. I felt a buzz (振动) in my pocket. My heart raced when I saw the email sender’s name. The email started off: “Dear Mr Green, thank you for your interest” and “the review process took longer than expected.” It ended with “We are sorry to inform you…” and my vision blurred (模糊). The position—measuring soil quality in the Sahara Desert as part of an undergraduate research programme — had felt like the answer I had spent years looking for.

I had put so much time and emotional energy into applying, and I thought the rejection meant the end of the road for my science career.

So I was shocked when, not long after the email, Professor Mary Devon, who was running the programme, invited me to observe the work being done in her lab. I jumped at the chance, and a few weeks later I was equally shocked—and overjoyed—when she invited me to talk with her about potential projects I could pursue in her lab. What she proposed didn’t seem as exciting as the original project I had applied to, but I was going to give it my all.

I found myself working with a robotics professor on techniques for collecting data from the desert remotely. That project, which I could complete from my sofa instead of in the burning heat of the desert, not only survived the lockdown but worked where traditional methods didn’t. In the end, I had a new scientific interest to pursue.

When I applied to graduate school, I found three programmes promising to allow me to follow my desired research direction. And I applied with the same anxious excitement as before. When I was rejected from one that had seemed like a perfect fit, it was undoubtedly difficult. But this time I had the perspective (视角) to keep it from sending me into panic. It helped that in the end I was accepted into one of the other programmes I was also excited about.

Rather than setting plans in stone, I’ve learned that sometimes I need to take the opportunities that are offered, even if they don’t sound perfect at the time, and make the most of them.

8 . Port Lympne Reserve, which runs a breeding (繁育) programme, has welcomed the arrival of a rare black rhino calf (犀牛幼崽). When the tiny creature arrived on January 31, she became the 40th black rhino to be born at the reserve. And officials at Port Lympne were delighted with the new arrival, especially as black rhinos are known for being difficult to breed in captivity (圈养).

Paul Beer, head of rhino section at Port Lympne, said: “Obviously we’re all absolutely delighted to welcome another calf to our black rhino family. She’s healthy, strong and already eager to play and explore. Her mother, Solio, is a first-time mum and she is doing a fantastic job. It’s still a little too cold for them to go out into the open, but as soon as the weather warms up, I have no doubt that the little one will be out and about exploring and playing every day.”

The adorable female calf is the second black rhino born this year at the reserve, but it is too early to tell if the calves will make good candidates to be returned to protected areas of the wild. The first rhino to be born at Port Lympne arrived on January 5 to first-time mother Kisima and weighed about 32kg. His mother, grandmother and great grandmother were all born at the reserve and still live there.

According to the World Wildlife Fund, the global black rhino population has dropped as low as 5500, giving the rhinos a “critically endangered” status.

The shelves in most supermarkets are full of family-size this and multi-buy that. However, if you’re shopping for one, buying extra     1     (benefit) from price reductions doesn’t make sense. Either your shopping is then too heavy to carry home     2     you can’t use what you’ve bought while it’s still fresh.

Of course, shops are not charities — they price goods in the way     3     will make them the most money. If most of their customers are happy to buy larger quantities, that’s     4     they’ll promote. But that leaves the solo (单独) customers out of pocket and disappointed.

Many supermarkets are no longer doing “buy one get one free” promotions because of the     5     (criticize) that they lead to waste. Consumers prefer money off individual items. However, though it’s nice to get a few cents off a pack of sausages, it would help even more if they could sometimes     6     (offer) in smaller packs. Even the biggest sausage fan doesn’t want to eat them every day.

If your supermarket sells loose produce, then buying smaller quantities is easier. Over the last two years, some supermarkets     7     (start) selling chicken or salad in packs     8     (design) with two halves containing separate portions (份). Then, when you use one section,     9     other stays fresh.

Who knows, perhaps some of the more forward-looking     10     (one) may yet come out with a whole range of “just for you” pack sizes with special offers as well.

10 . It’s a joyful and stressful time of year in the United States for students and their families as they make decisions about where to attend college. Families often turn to rankings systems to help make a decision.     1    

When I talk to families as a scholar of higher education, they’re often surprised that teaching excellence is not counted in rankings.     2    

Emerging research suggests that courses in lower-ranked universities, on average, scored higher on teaching than courses in higher-ranked universities.     3     The absence of teaching excellence from the rankings is surprising given the link between high-quality teaching and student success. Quality teaching is one of the most important predictors of a wide range of college outcomes.

Rankings, however, are only one reason why a low value is placed on teaching in higher education. Administrators often don’t view teaching excellence as a way to increase enrolment (注册) or funding.     4     Research shows that the more time instructors spend on teaching, the lower their salary. What is the result? Many instructors continue to teach using traditional lectures, which lead to lower success rates.

    5     Nevertheless, not much will change until schools with high-quality teaching are rewarded with more resources, higher rankings and increased enrolments. In the long term, universities, organisations that rank schools, and others should work to make teaching a valued, core part of the mission.

What should students and their families do? They should give strong consideration to universities where high-quality teaching is valued, even though the schools may be ranked lower.