1 . The relationship between Jeffrey Pang and his son, Kevin Pang, was like hot-and-sour soup. It boiled over easily. The Pangs, who moved to the United States in 1988, wanted their son and daughter to know Chinese culture. As a video game-playing American teen, Kevin wasn’t interested.

But when Kevin became a food writer for the Chicago Tribune, he realized he had a valuable resource: his cook-laving dad. “My father and I shared, for the first time, a common interest. I would call to ask about recipes and cooking techniques. He would school me on the world of Chinese food,” Kevin writes in the introduction to the cookbook he has just published.

When it comes to cooking Chinese food, he points out that there is no one definition of Chinese food. “Chinese cooking is not hidebound. For example, consider baked pork chop rice, popularized in Hong Kong. It is a pork chop with egg-fried rice. And then you top it with this thick tomato sauce,” explains Kevin. “And then you top that with some cheese. It’s a very interesting combined dish that has some Western British influences, and it’s altogether very Chinese as well.”

By the time Kevin joined America’s Test Kitchen (ATK) staff in 2020 as its editorial director for digital content, his dad had become an Internet celebrity demonstrating the family’s recipes. Kevin recognized an opportunity not only to share his own family’s food stories but also to apply the ATK method of breaking down recipes into simple steps for the home cook.

“I think this cookbook can teach fathers and sons how to connect, how to find a common interest and improve their relationship, ” Kevin says. That feeling has found an enthusiastic fan base, generating nearly 3 million views, for their online cooking series “Hunger Pangs”, where viewers speak highly of their father-son bond as much as they do of their attractive dishes. Today the Pangs’ relationship is rarely sour or hot.

3 . Waking up at the crack of dawn and going for a run might feel awful when you start trying to make it a habit. Weaving a significant new activity such as this into your regular routine obviously takes determination and time.     1    

One popular idea suggests that it takes 21 days to solidify a habit. People tend to feel extra motivated to start a new habit or kick an old one.     2     Yet every January 21 very few people can boast that they have kept their resolutions.

Everyone has a unique habit-building timeline.     3     Experts suggest various individualized ways to practice frequently, which eventually turn a task into an unconscious habit.

    4     Teaching yourself a completely new skill or process obviously takes longer than remembering to drink more water in the morning. A 2015 study found that new gym-goers had to exercise at least four times a week for six weeks in order to develop an exercise habit. The results showed that creating a handwashing habit took a few weeks.     5     Anyway, handwashing is less complex and offers more opportunities to practice.

The researchers also suggested that habit formation depends on the effort that a person puts into practicing an activity and on the presence of environmental cues that would remind them to carry out the behavior.

5 . Bill Bryson’s phenomenally popular books are a great success of amateur enthusiasm over scholarly expertise. In the highly reviewed Shakespeare (2007), he raced us through the playwright’s life and works in 222 pages; A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003) was his 624-page analysis of “everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilisation” — and it remains the best-selling science book of the 21st century so far. Can he make it again with A Really Short Journey Through the Body, which promises us a “head to toe” tour in 138 pages?

In his books for adult readers, Bryson’s success has lain in an ability to turn vast, complex subjects into an easy and pleasant narrative, filled with tiny facts and odd stories. His latest book, which follows his adult title The Body (2020), is aimed at children as young as eight, for whom this proven writing style works well.

“No doubt about it, the human body is a truly remarkable thing,” Bryson writes, and it’s the remarkable facts that interest him the most. Did you know that you bl ink 14,000 times a day? Or that it takes seven billion billion billion atoms to make you? And that if you formed all your DNA into a single line, it would reach 10 billion miles across the solar system?

Fresh doctors might find some of the entries frustratingly brief. The tongue, for example, receives only a paragraph, while, a chapter, entitled ‘Poo and Farts’, is relatively detailed: “In your life, you’ll probably po o the weight of 5 cars but you’ll have eaten the weight of 60. So that’s not a terrible result.”

Biology books can be heavy weather, but Bryson’s skill, as ever, is to turn the story of the human body into a thoroughly digestible read.

7 . Is nearby neighbor better than a faraway cousin? An American lady, Anna Lane, believes it’s true. Her kind neighbors once helped her out when she was in a big trouble.

Mrs. Lane was living alone in a city in Texas, US. The woman is 75 and still could do a lot of housework herself. However, she was too old to cut the grass in her garden. Then a big trouble found her. The grass in her garden grew more than 18 inches high and it broke the law in her city. As a result, she was in danger of paying lots of money!

Luckily, her neighbors, the Adams brothers, heard the news about her on TV. They decided to do something to help her. “We haven’t met her yet, but she’s 75 years old and she needs some help,” said Sam Adams, one of the boys. “That’s the least we could do.”

The Adams brothers took their machines and came to Mrs. Lane’s house to help cut the grass without telling her. Once they got started, other neighbors saw what was going on and joined them.

Together they worked hard in the sun and finished cutting all the grass in about two hours. When Mrs. Lane saw what her neighbors did for her, she was surprised and moved to tears. “I cannot believe this,” she said “They were so kind to spend two hours helping me and I didn’t even know their names.” As for the Adams brothers, they said they would always be ready to help her.

9 . Live and learn like a college student this summer at Carleton College’s Summer Liberal Arts Institute (SLAI). Beginning on March 15, SLAI is an immersive (沉浸式的) summer learning experience for current 10th and 11th graders to explore liberal arts through rigorous and experiential curriculum. If you are academically curious, excited about learning, and thrive in cooperative work environments, SLAI is the program for you!

At SLAI, you will connect with like-minded peers from all over the nation and world, all while earning college credit and learning from top-ranked Carleton faculty, who are experts in their field. Choose from 6 programs, with topics in: History & Literature, Storytelling, Sociology, STEM, Computer Science and Neuroscience.

Students who attend SLAI come away from the program on April 6 with improved college-level reading, writing, and research skills, an increased knowledge of topics and majors they may want to study in the future, and a general sense of preparedness for college.

During the program, students spend their mornings and afternoons in class, conducting research, and in hands-on labs. Specially, a variety of social activities are available after class every day, from frisbee to beading to makings’ mores. Weekend field trips to attractions in surrounding cities are also included in the program. Past destinations have included amusement parks, museums, or even a day at the lake!

Visit our website to apply today! We have two rounds of application review. The first deadline is on February 5, and the second and final deadline is on March 11, Need-based scholarships are available.

10 . Have you ever considered what it would be like to be unable to smile? I hadn't, up until a few months ago, when I found that I actually couldn’t.

I went to the doctor and was diagnosed with Bell’s Palsy-A relatively unknown condition that paralyses one half of the face. This was quite a shock and depressed me enormously.     1    , the story is not about how tough life is, but how awesome it is when God challenges you in different ways.

Anyway, smiling is a part of everyday life for me. It is my way of greeting people, of laughing, silent communication and consolidation.     2    . Is it the lifting of the sides of a person’s mouth, the twinkling of the eye, or is it something beyond...or should I say behind the physical smile?

    3    , I came up with the conclusion that a genuine smile is not merely characterized by the upturning of the corners of the mouth, but by the actions, words, and thoughts of the smiler. This equipped me with hope and confidence. The reason was that I was aware smiling is not just an outward expression, but an inward lifestyle.

With this in mind, I set to learning how to smile through my actions. There are a few things I had to change, but it is thanks to this challenge God has given me that I have grown closer to him.     4    .

I would really encourage you to smile more often and not just with your face!     5    . For instance, Smile Cards with a chocolate bar/bookmark/bible verse/voucher! Slip it into someone’s hand/school bag and let them experience the true smile.