1 . Turning soil, pulling weeds, and harvesting cabbage sound like tough work for middle and high school kids. And at first it is, says Abby Jaramillo, who with another teacher started Urban Sprouts, a school garden program at four low-income schools. The program aims to help students develop science skills, environmental awareness, and healthy lifestyles.

Jaramillo’s students live in neighborhoods where fresh food and green space are not easy to find and fast food restaurants outnumber grocery stores. “The kids literally come to school with bags of snacks and large bottles of soft drinks,” she says. “They come to us thinking vegetables are awful, dirt is awful, insects are awful.” Though some are initially scared of the insects and turned off by the dirt, most are eager to try something new.

Urban Sprouts’ classes, at two middle schools and two high schools, include hands-on experiments such as soil testing, flower-and-seed dissection, tastings of fresh or dried produce, and work in the garden. Several times a year, students cook the vegetables they grow, and they occasionally make salads for their entire schools.

Program evaluations show that kids eat more vegetables as a result of the classes. “We have students who say they went home and talked to their parents and now they’re eating differently,” Jaramillo says.

She adds that the program’s benefits go beyond nutrition. Some students get so interested in gardening that they bring home seeds to start their own vegetable gardens. Besides, working in the garden seems to have a calming effect on Jaramillo’s special education students, many of whom have emotional control issues. “They get outside,” she says, “and they feel successful.”

2 . Nowadays, family life has become even more challenging than before. Then, how can we create a happier family life? Let’s see some advice.

Enjoy togetherness. When children are babies, parents are advised to spend one-on-one time with their babies.     1     This can be a big mistake since enjoying each other’s company (陪伴) is one of the easiest ways for families to create lasting happiness. Parents should regularly spend quality time with their children doing activities together like playing games, sports.

    2     Although the Internet has certainly made communication easier, it is still important to have face-to-face time with your family members. Try to avoid using your cell phone so much.     3     Many families have regular meetings where they discuss issues affecting (影响) the family. This can be a great way to start talking face to face. You can talk about your family’s values, or how you can work together as a group to solve problems that affect the family.     4    

Plan fun activities as a family. This can be something that you do once or twice a month, or even once a week. This can be something as easy as going to the beach, a park, or going on a trip to visit relatives.     5     Doing the activities regularly can help you build stronger relationships with your family members, and relieve (释放) stress that many families feel.

3 . The Decluttering Philosophy That Keeps Your Home Organized

When you sit at your desk, you may constantly be confronted by chaos.     1     Here an expert shares about some useful strategies to keep our messes at bay and her decluttering philosophy — getting rid of unnecessary possessions and distractions.

    2     “What becomes clutter and where your clutter collects can say a lot about what’s going on with you.” Thus the first thing you should keep in mind is to understand your clutter. When you understand the reasons behind your clutter, it’s a lot easier to know what to keep and what to get rid of.

When it comes to organizing, don’t bite off more than you can chew. If you start off with too big a goal, you might get discouraged if the job takes too long.     3     Instead, start with something less challenging. You can also work within short time restrictions. All in all, setting realistic goals and breaking tasks up into manageable portions can really help.

Once you’ve chosen an area to declutter, make a list of everything you have in that space. Then comes the hardest part: figuring out what to get rid of. At this stage, please look at your items with neutral eyes.     4    

Admittedly, it’s easy to be organized the day after decluttering, when tidiness is still top of mind. But what happens when you come home from a trip and are too tired to unpack your luggage? Or when you get the flu and are too sick to clean up?     5       In other words, make a system that works for you even when you’ve got to work or when you’ve got a cold.

6 . A letter written to a 12-year-old girl in Lithuania was delivered in December, almost 51 years after it was sent by a pen pal in Poland. “I thought that someone was pranking me,” said Genovefa Klonovska after being handed the letter, which included a handmade colored rose and two paper dolls.

The letter, together with 17 others, fell out of a ventilation hole (通风口) this summer, dirty and wrinkled, as a wall was taken down in a former post office on the suburb of Vilnius. Jurgis Vilnius, owner of the building immediately called the post office. “I’m so happy they got interested,” said he.

Street names and their numbering have changed in Vilnius, and post office workers spent months looking for the right houses and talking to current renters and neighbors, tracking down where the recipients moved to. Only five were found. In several cases children of late recipients were handed a lost letter.

“We felt a moral duty to do this,” said Deimante Zebrauskaite, head of the customer experience department at Lithuania Post.

One lady compared the experience to receiving a message from a bottle thrown into sea. People were emotional. “Some felt they saw a part of daily life of their deceased parents,” Zebrauskaite said.

In the letter to Klonovska, sent from Koezary in Poland and stamped in 1970, a girl named Ewa complains buses no longer reach her village, so she has to walk in minus 23 degree Celsius cold, and asks for pictures of actors.

Now in her 60s, Klonovska has no memory of Ewa. She probably wrote Ewa after finding her address advertising for pen pals in a newspaper, and the relationship ceased after the letter got undelivered.

“So good that the letter didn't matter much. The loss was not life-changing,” said Klonovska “What if they delivered a lost letter from a suitor (求婚者) to his love, and their wedding never happened?”

7 . Summer Badminton Camp

Our annual badminton camps are back this June holidays! Come and join us for some fun and action! All camps will be held at the Chestnut Sports Hall. There are a total of 4 fun-filled camps lined up for this amazing holiday. The aim is to allow them to understand and lift their game to the next level or just for recreation, at the same time adding fun elements in training to build a strong interest in the sport.

9 . There are things we all do, or don’t do, that lead us to waste far more time than we realize in the moment. The biggest time regret, I think, is dwelling on (沉湎于) mistakes and shortcomings.

    1     In a study, researchers asked subjects to spend money during an imaginary trip to the mall. Before “shopping”, some subjects were asked to recall a past financial mistake. They found those subjects were more likely to incur (招致) debt. Dwelling made them feel like a failure and told them there was no need to try, because they already sucked. So, they got further into debt when already feeling like an over spender. Of course, we don’t want to skip over our mistakes or ignore them either.     2    

I also missed too much for fear of my own shortcomings.     3     I wanted to travel after high school, but I went to university close to home instead, because I was too shy to meet new people and was afraid I couldn’t make it in another city. After university, I wanted to be a writer, but I decided to find a more stable, accessible job instead, because that’s easier.     4     I decided to find work I actually enjoyed, travel more and live somewhere else. I made a ton of mistakes along the way, but the bigger mistake was not trying sooner.

    5     So, never beat yourself up over your mistakes and shortcomings. The sooner you learn from them, the sooner you can free up your time and energy to live the life you want.