Jamaican secrets

from August 19, 2008 China Daily

牙买加人的秘密

New Zealand's biggest free-to-air broadcaster TVNZ said the explanations for Jamaica's success in producing the fastest man and three fastest women at the Olympics range from the power of root vegetables to the study of genes.

新西兰最大的免费广播电视公司TVNZ说，牙买加之所以能在 奥运会上产生跑得最快的男运动员和3个女运动员，其解释从根类蔬菜的魔力到基因研究不一而足。

Jamaica, an island of 2.6 million people, has made remarkable achievements on the tracks of Beijing's Bird's Nest and let the yellow, green and black flag fly with pride.

牙买加，是一个260万人口的岛国，在北京鸟巢的田径赛场上取得了举世瞩目的成绩，让他们黄、绿和黑色相间的国旗熤熤生辉。

Once known for being the land of laid-back reggae culture, Jamaica's athletes are giving their country a new image as the island of power and pace and many are asking the question - why?

"It's part of the natural ability of Jamaicans," Jamaican Sports Minister Olivia Grange told Reuters when asked the question recently.

牙买家曾以其悠闲的瑞格舞文化闻名，牙买加运动员给他们的国创造了一 个全新的形象—力量和步伐。许多人问，为什么呢？

“这部分源于牙买加人的天份。”当最近被问到这个问题时，牙买加体育部长奥里沃告诉路透社说，

Men's 100-meter gold medalist Usain Bolt's father credited the local yam for his son's success and while that might raise smiles there are many on the Caribbean island who believe their diet - full of root vegetables and herbs - is behind the pace of their youth.

男子100米金牌得主博尔特的父亲把 儿子成功归功于当地的红薯，尽管这会引人发笑，他相信因为他们的食物基本上是根类植物和草本植物，这就是当地年轻跑得快的原因。

The popularly held idea among Jamaicans that they are born quick has been given some academic support by Professor Errol Morrison of the island's University of Technology.

牙买加人普遍认为他们天生跑得快得到了他们岛内的科技大学埃尔.莫里森授的理论支持。

Morrison told the Jamaica Gleaner newspaper that research conducted with the University of Glasgow has identified a special component, called Actinen A, found in the "fast twitch fibres" in muscles.

莫里森告诉牙买加格宁那报说，一项由格拉斯哥大学实施的研究已经证明在肌肉的“快速启动纤维”有一种称为肌动蛋白A的特殊成份。

Morrison says the gene is present in a disproportionately high number of Jamaicans and others of West African descent.

"What it says to us is what is happening is not a flash in the pan, but there will be many potential Asafa Powells, Sherone Simpsons and Sherikas (Sherika Williams), because the genetic predisposition is there," he added.

莫里森说这种基因大量存在于牙买加人身上，而其他西非人则相对很少。他又说：“这么说来所有发生的这一切对我们来说并不是昙花一现，而将来会有更多的阿萨法鲍威尔，沙龙辛普森，沙拉克威兼姆斯，因为具有这种基因。”

"The question is always there. What is it, nature or nurture, that makes us so good? The answer seems to be coming that there seems to be a strong underlying genetic or nature predisposition as to why we are able to perform like this." There is also the power of tradition - athletics has long had strong roots in Jamaica.

“总会有人问，究竟是什么，天性条件或是后天培养，使我们如此优秀呢？至于我们能够做得这样好，其答案似乎在于一种强大的未知的基因和先天优势。”另外还在于强大的传统力量，体育运动在牙买加源远流长。

Arthur Wint won the 100 metres gold medal at the 1948 Games, the first the country had entered while still a British colony, and Herb McKenley won four medals from 1948 to 1952 and later Merlene Ottey enjoyed success throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

亚瑟温特赢得1948年100米金牌，这是这个国家第一次参加（奥运会），当时它还是一个英国殖民地，哈博迈克科林从1948年至1952年先后获得4块奖牌，至后来的默林欧蒂从20世纪80年代至90年代一直享受着成功的喜悦。

"I think it's a combination of factors," Jamaican athletics chief Howard Aris told Reuters."We have the tradition from way back, from 1948. We have the talent, we have the certified coaches. From the very early stages, they are taught the right things - how to eat, how to train, how to sprint."

牙买加体育运动主席霍华德亚里斯告诉路透社，“我想是几种因素综合的结果，我们从1948年开始就有这个传统。我们有这个天分，我们有正规的教练。从最早的阶段开始，他们就受到正确的教导，如何吃，如何思考，如何奔跑。”

Whatever may be pushing Jamaicans to run fast - it is certainly working in Beijing.

无论是什么使牙买加人跑得快---它确定无疑地在北京发挥了作用。

孩子们需要这种美味的冒险

Here's a news story guaranteed to provoke a fusillade of indignant spluttering: German politicians are reportedly planning to ban Kinder Surprise eggs on the grounds that they're a safety hazard.

这条消息注定要成为众矢之的：有报道称德国的政治家们计划彻底禁止“巧克力惊喜蛋”，因为它们对孩子们存在安全威胁。

In case you're not familiar with the concept, the "surprise" inside each Kinder egg is a cheapo little toy housed within a plastic shell. Anyway, the Germans are worried that hungry, gurgling kiddywinks might mistake the gifts for food and wind up choking to death. "Children can't differentiate between toys and nutritional items," said Miriam Gruss, a member of the German parliamentary children's committee.

或许你还不了解这个概念，每个“巧克力蛋”中的“惊喜”是一种塑料壳里包着的一个便宜的小玩具。无论如何，德国人但心那些肚子饿的咕咕作响的小家伙们会错误地把这些小礼物当作食物吞下去，并导致窒息死亡。

“小孩们不能区分玩具和有营养东西。”米尔曼.葛鲁斯说。他是德国议会儿童委员会的一名成员。

What, really? Don't get me wrong - I think children are idiots. But even I find that statement a tad unfair and sweeping. I used to have a spud gun when I was a kid. In case you're not familiar with that concept either, it was a small metal pistol that fired chunks of potato. Not once did I aim the potato at anyone. Or try to deep-fry the gun. And I was thick as shit. I guess it was luck.

果真如此吗？不要误会我--我认为小孩子们是白痴。但我更认为这项决定有点不公正和笼统。我小时候曾有把马铃薯小枪。也许你对此也不太了解，它是一个用来射击马铃薯的小小的金属手枪。我不止一次地对着任何人瞄准马铃薯，或者用油炸这个手枪。我笨得出奇。我猜这是幸运的。

In fact my run of luck was pretty impressive. Other toys I failed to ingest include a Scalextric, several boxes of space Lego, the board games Operation and Mousetrap, and a complete collection of Paul Daniels' TV Magic Tricks - even though the latter included an egg-shaped gizmo called The Magic Egg. Somehow, miraculously, my conker-sized kiddywink brain managed to differentiate it from a real egg. Thus my life was saved by a whisker.

事实上，我对我的好运气记忆深刻。我没有吞下的玩具还包括一个赛车模型，几箱子的乐高积木块，棋子和老鼠夹，普尔丹尼尔的全套魔术道具，甚至后者还包括一个叫做“魔蛋”的蛋形的小玩艺儿。从某种程度上说，这真是奇迹，我的小脑袋能够把它和真正的蛋区分开。这样说来，我曾经命悬一线。

Gruss won't countenance such a slapdash approach to child safety. Not on her watch. "It's a sad fact," she said. "Kinder Surprise eggs have to go."

葛鲁斯不赞成涉及儿童安全的这样的草率决定。并不是出于她的愿望。她说，“这是一个可悲的事，金德惊喜蛋不得不消失。”

As you can imagine, the committee's proclamation has already caused a fair bit of outraged huffing, not least from the manufacturer, Ferrero.

你可以想象，委员会的声明已经引起了较多的公愤，而并不仅仅来其制造商弗列罗公司。

"There is absolutely no evidence that the Kinder Surprise eggs, as a combination of toy and foodstuff, are dangerous," said Ferrero's spokeswoman. Now I'm no fan of Ferrero chocolate, which vaguely tastes like regurgitated icing sugar to me, but I can't help thinking that it would be hugely unfair on the company if an unsubstantiated link between Kinder eggs and danger began to form in parents' minds and sales suffered accordingly. Let's face it, even though Kinder eggs are generally bought for the gift rather than the sickly chocolate shell, and even though many of the toys are so ingeniously designed they could easily be sold on their own, munching through the outside to get at the inedible inside is half the fun.

弗列罗公司发言人说，“绝对还没有证据表明这种玩具和食物相结合的出奇蛋是危险的。”现在我并不是弗列罗巧克力的追捧者，这种巧克力的奇妙味道像是冰糖的回味样。但我忍不住想对于公司而言这是一个巨大的不公，一个未经证实的奇异蛋与危险相关联的概念一旦在父母们的脑海里形成，其巧克力的销售会相应地遭秧。让我们来面对这一事实，假如奇异蛋总体来说是作为礼物而非粘滑的巧克力外壳被购买，而其许多玩具也是设计精巧，单独卖也很好卖，通过吃掉包装来获得其中不能吃的部分，也占一半的乐趣。

What's more, jittery, neurotic parents don't need any more false scares to piss their pants over. They're already raising their twatty little offspring like mollycoddled prisoners: banned from playing outdoors in case a paedophile ring burrows through the pavement and eats them, locked indoors with nothing but anti-bacterial plasma screens for company, ferried to and from school in spluttering rollcaged tanks... Christ, half these kids would view choking to death as a release.

更为重要的是，那些神经过敏的父母们不想冒任何不利的风险。他们对自己的宝贝孩子一向如笼中鸟样娇生惯养：孩子们被禁止在室外活动，以免被从马路边的地洞钻出来的恋童廦们吃掉，被锁在家中只有抗菌的等离子电视屏幕相伴，每天上学放学由封闭严密的大车子接送...天啊，有一半的孩子会因得到放松而窒息的。

No wonder they grow up to become tiresome whooping advocates for extreme sports. If I'd spent the first 18 years of my life doing time in a joyless cotton-wool cell, listening to some angsty bloody parent banging on about how precious and special I was every pissing day, I'd snowboard off a cliff at the first opportunity too. Under those circumstances, tumbling down a rockface and cracking your skull open must feel like a declaration of independence .

怪不得他们会因剧烈运动而累得气喘吁吁。如果我人生中的头18年是在一个毫无乐趣的舒适的小窝里度过，听着激动得血脉膨胀的父母大声谈论我的每一次撒尿是多么珍贵和特别，我一定也会在第一时间乘着雪撬从悬崖上滑下去。在那种环境中，因磕着岩石摔倒并摔破脑壳似乎就是一种独立宣言。

How did we get to this point? Our sense of self grew too strong. We gazed up our own bums for so long, we each became the centre of the universe. We're not mere specks of flesh, jostled by the forces of chance. We're flawless deities, and we deny - deny! - the very existence of simple bad luck. If we trip on the pavement, someone else is to blame. Of course they are. And we'll sue them to prove it if necessary.

我们为什么这样说？我们的自我意识太强了。我们关注自己太多，每个人成了宇宙的中心。我们是完美的女神，我们拒绝，坚决拒绝任何一个微小的不幸的存在。如果我们流浪街头，一定是某人的罪过。当然，就是他们。如果必要的话，我们将起诉他们以证明这一点。

In a bid to pre-empt our self-important litigiousness, armies of risk assessors scan the horizon, dreaming of every conceivable threat. You could bang your head on that branch. Crack a rib on that teaspoon. Choke to death on that chocolate egg.

 在试图避免我们可能惹上对我们很重要的诉讼中,考虑到到每一种可以想到的威胁.可以发现我们身边潜在太多的风险.可能被树枝撞破头,可能被茶勺伤了肋骨,可能因吃巧克力鸡蛋而窒息死亡.

Well, it stops here. And it stops now. I'm launching my own range of Kinder eggs. They're called Unkinder Eggs. And they don't contain sweets. They contain specially designed hazards. Spiked ball bearings. Spring-loaded razor-blade traps. Flimsy balloons filled with acid. Miniature land mines powerful enough to punch holes in your cheeks and embed your teeth in the wall. The idea is to carefully nibble away all the chocolate without incurring a serious injury. Thrills! Tension! Chocolate! It's the confectionery equivalent of extreme sports. You'll love it.

好，到此为止。到目前为止。我在思考我自己的一系列的“金德蛋”。他们叫“非金德蛋”。它们不含甜点。它们含有特别设计的陷井。锥形的滚轴，带有发条的旅行剃须刀。装有酸物的软汽球。其威力足可以把脸面颊打穿，把牙齿嵌入墙内的地雷模型。这个点子是要你十分小心地吃掉所有外面的巧克力而不遭致严重的伤害。惊险！紧张！巧克力！这是糖果店里极限运动。你们会喜欢的！

And hey - that's not just cocoa butter and milk solids you're savouring. It's better than that. It's the great taste of risk.

嘿！那不仅仅是你喜欢的橄榄油和牛奶做成的固体。它比那些更好。这是一种伟大的味觉冒险。

Guardian News Service

According to the College Board,U,S. college students and their families are paying, on average,$167 go $1,132 more for this year's tuition and fees than they did in 2003-2004. The average annual cost of a public college education, for tuition and fees, is now $11,000, while private college are $27,000 or more.Over the past decade, college tuition has climbed 90 percent.

根据美国大学入学考试委员会的说法，美国大学生和他们的家庭今年平均要比2003至2004年多支出167美元至1132美元的学费杂费。公立大学年均学杂费现在是11000美元，私立大学为27000美元甚至更多。过去10年，大学学费上攀升了90%.

 The cost of a college education is heading north quickly, and many families around the United States now face a dilemma-- they make too much for their kids to qualify for full scholarships to attend college, but not enough to pay the entire cost of tuition, books,lab fees and other costs. They start eyeing the part-time student jobs at Starbucks.

大学教育费用快速增长，许多美国家庭左右为难，他们收入很高，孩子们没有资格申请助学金，但他们的收入不够支付全部学费、书本、实验费和其它费用。他们开始把目光转向在星巴克打工这样的学生兼职工作。

In reality, however,a lot of people incorrectly assume their income is too high and they don't bothering applying for financial aid. There are several options worth considering if you know where to look.

然而事实上，许多人错误地高估了他们的收入，以致懒得申请财政援助。如果你知道到哪儿申请的话，下面有几种途径可以考虑。

Indeed, there is more financial aid than ever before. Nearly 70 percent of students attending four year schools pay less than$8,000 for tuition and fees, according to the College Board, a not-for-profit membership association that is composed of more than 4,7000 schools, colleges, universities, and other educational organizations. Students are currently receiving over $122 billion in aid each year. After grants are taken into consideration, the net price the average undergraduate pays for a college education is significantly lower than the published tuition and fees.

的确，现在的财政援助途径比以往任何时候都多。根据教育委员会的资料，在由47000多所学校、学院、大学和其它教育机构组成的非盈利会员协会里就读的70%的4年制大学生支付的学杂费不超过8000美元。并且那里的学生现在每年会收到超过122亿美元的财政援助，把津贴算进去，一个大学生所支付的净教育费用明显低于公布的学杂费。

 There are even options for a family that earns too much money to qualify for financial aid. A great option to consider is the Federal Parent Loan for Undergraduate Students(PLUS) loan program, which currently have a variable interest rate that is capped at 9 percent but is currently 4.17 percent. These loans are available regardless of income or assets, and are not based on financial aid and do not require collateral, but applicants cannot have filed for bankruptcy,defaulted on student loans in the past or have any tax liens. PLUS loans are part of a federally subsidized educational loan program that allows families with college-aged children to borrow an amount up to the entire cost of the undergraduate college education,minus the sum covered by grants, scholarships or other financial aid. PLUS loans have flexible repayment options, giving borrowers up to ten years to repay. 

对于收入较高，没有资格申请助学金的的家庭而言，也有可供考虑的选择。最值得考虑的是联邦大学生父母贷款项目。这个项目采取浮动利息制，最高9%封顶，现在是4.17%.这些贷款不考虑收入或财产多少，也不是基于接受经济援助的多少或需要中介人，但是申请人必须是没有申请破产，没有不良还款记录或和税务滞留金负担的人。联邦大学生父母贷款项目是联邦资助的教育贷款项目的组成部分，这个项目允许有大学生年龄孩子的家庭借款，最高可达大学生上大学的全部费用，要减去所获得的助学金、奖学金和其他资助的总额。联邦大学生父母贷款有多种还款方式，为贷款者提供长达10年的还款期。

Life Is Short...

Sure, Michael Phelps may have snapped a string of Olympic records like so many Rice Krispies in milk, but what was this child of Poseidon up against, anyway? Elite human athletes from 250 countries.

当然，迈克尔.菲尔普斯可能像牛奶里的大量噼叭作响的麦通一样打破一系列的奥运记录，但这个海神之子所面临的是什么呢？他面临的是来自250个国家的体育精英。

small, speckled, asparagus-green chameleon of Madagascar, by contrast, holds a world speed record among just about all of the nearly 30,000 different animals equipped with four limbs and a backbone.

相比而言，个头小，浑身布满斑点，披着芦荟色外衣的马达加斯加变色龙，在所有世界上拥有四条腿和脊骨的近3万种不同的动物中，保持着一项世界记录。

Admittedly, it’s not a record many of us would aspire to best. As researchers recently reported in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the entire life span of the Furcifer labordi chameleon — from the moment of conception to development in the egg, hatching, maturation, breeding and right through to its last little lizardly thud to the ground — clocks in at barely a year.

然而，这种世界记录并不是我们当中许多人所渴望的。正如国家科学院最近在《进化》杂志中所报道的那样，这种变色龙的整个生命过程---从在卵中开始孕育到孵化，至成熟，到长成，直到最后那只小蜥蜴砰然落地---整个周期仅仅只有一年的时间。

That hypercondensed biography, the scientists said, may well make the chameleon the shortest-lived tetrapod on Earth, a creature chronologically more like a butterfly or a sea squirt than like the other reptiles, frogs, birds and mammals with which it is taxonomically bundled.

科学家说，这是一个浓缩的传记，最好把这种变色龙命名为地球上寿命最短的四足动物，按时间先后顺序排列，是一种更像蝴蝶或海鞘的生物，而不像其它的爬行动物，蛙类，鸟类和哺乳动物。

Equally bizarre, said Christopher J. Raxworthy, an author of the new report, the chameleon spends some two-thirds of its abbreviated existence as an egg buried in sand, with a mere 16 to 20 weeks allocated to all post-shellular affairs.

这份新报告的作者克里斯托夫J.热可斯说，同样奇怪的是，这种变色龙是在埋在沙中的卵中度过其短暂一生的三分之二的时间 ，即仅仅留下16至20周来度过出壳后所有生命时光。

Moreover, the chameleons operate by a synchronized schedule, hatching, growing, mating and dying at more or less the same times and at the same pace throughout the year. As a result, said Dr. Raxworthy, associate curator of herpetology at the American Museum of Natural History, “if you go into a forest during the dry season, the whole population of chameleons there will be represented by eggs.”

更有意思的是，这种变色龙都按照一种同步的时间表在成长，孵化，长大，交配，走向死亡，这些过程在整个一年中几乎按照相同的步调在进行。美国自然历史博物馆爬虫馆相关管理人员热可斯博士说，其结果是，如果你在干旱的季节去森林里，变色龙家族几乎都是以卵的形式存在。

Counterintuitive though it may seem, the extremity of F. labordi’s schedule could prove valuable for tracking down genes and other biological factors that promote longevity. The researchers observed that the chameleon is not merely short-lived as a matter of averages. It is an obligate annual species, destined for death after a single spin around the sun, and that stated fate differs markedly from the varying degrees of perenniality found throughout the tetrapod clan.

这似乎有点违背直觉，这种极其严格的时间表可能在查找基因和其他生物因子以促进延长寿命方面显示出价值。研究人员发现这种变色龙不仅是一种短命的普通生物。

“There are about a dozen lizard species known to be short-lived, in which a good proportion of individuals die off by a year,” said Kristopher B. Karsten of the zoology department at Oklahoma State University, another author of the report. “But there are always some that make it to the next year, so the species’ maximal longevity is greater than one year.”

No such luck for our bug-eyed Malagasy friends, which live in the arid, scrubby southwestern region of the giant island. “Once they reach the end of the season,” Dr. Karsten said, “they’re done,” and they will drop from the trees with the papery grace of autumn leaves.

Assuming the execution orders are somehow part of the chameleon’s program, researchers might be able to identify the specific genetic or hormonal assassins in lizard cells, find their analogues in human cells and put a cap in them.

The new work also underscores the growing use of so-called life history theory to trace the history and contours of life on Earth.

Scientists have determined that many essential features of an animal’s portfolio are linked, among them whether at birth it looks fetal and helpless like a newborn kitten or precocious and competent like a neonatal giraffe; how big the average litter is; the speed with which the animal reaches sexual maturity; the length of time between births; and the pace at which an adult ages.

Try to improve or optimize one of these parameters and you end up paying somewhere else along the line. “One of the most robust things to come out of life history theory is that trade-offs exist,” said Steven N. Austad, the author of “Why We Age” and a professor of cellular and structural biology at the University of Texas Health Science Center.

“If you increase the number of young, the cost is often accelerated aging. If you get something that lives longer, you get costs early in life, with lower fertility and even sterility.”

Selective pressures in the environment push species toward one life history course or another. One example is that if you’re a species in which the great majority of adults end up being killed by predators or disease, it’s best to invest your resources in breeding early and often and not to bother worrying about long-term needs like a robust DNA repair system. And so it is that rodents beloved by carnivores everywhere have high fecundity and relatively poor longevity.

If you’re a species in which infant and juvenile mortality is comparatively great, as it is with giant tortoises, for example, the emphasis is often on making the best of adulthood, with delayed maturity and extended life spans.

Catastrophic extrinsic changes may quickly rewrite a species’ game plan. In another new report from the National Academies journal, researchers presented evidence that Tasmanian devils, the largest of all carnivorous marsupials, have responded to an epidemic of fatal transmissible tumors among adults with a 16-fold increase in precocious puberty among the young. If you’re likely to be gone tomorrow, you’d better start begetting today.

Furcifer labordi’s extreme life history likewise seems born of extreme adversity and volatility. The chameleon is one of the smallest members of its genus, and adults are readily, avidly snacked on by birds and snakes. The local climate is harsh and unpredictable, lowering the odds of survival beyond a single rainy season.

In addition, the rainy season, which begins in November, when the chameleons hatch en masse, is brief and must be frantically exploited. The young coil-tongued lizards immediately start lassoing insects, and they eat so much, Dr. Raxworthy said, “that they practically grow in front of your very eyes.”

By January the chameleons are ready to mate, a nasty, often violent business of males fighting males, females fighting males, and all of them wishing they were somewhere else. Despite their cuteness, Dr. Raxworthy said, “chameleons can be very antisocial, and if you crowd them, they’ll happily fight to the death.”

Dr. Karsten suspects that Furcifer labordi’s compressed breeding season fosters such high levels of aggression that the chameleons die, in part, of hormone overdose.

Another athletic career cut tragically short by steroids.

   Three Gorges facing flood peak, posing no threat to operation

  三峡大坝面临洪峰，仍保持平稳运行

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-08-18 07:50

   YICHANG, Hubei -- The Three Gorges reservoir on Sunday saw its highest flood peak this year, but without disrupting the shipping service on the Yangtze River.

位于湖北宜昌的三峡水库周日经历了本年来的最高水位，但其长江航运工作并未受到影响。

Located in central China's Hubei Province, the Three Gorges project, the world's largest hydroelectric project, had a water flow of 41,000 cubic meters per second at its maximum on Saturday night.

三峡工程位于中国中部的湖北省境内，是世界上最大的水电工程，周六晚上其水流量达到其最高值41000立方米每秒。

Persistent heavy rains on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River increased the water flow drastically from the average 28,000cubic meters per second, said Ji Yujian, vice director of the Yangtze Three Gorges shipping service bureau.

长江上游的持续暴雨使得三峡大坝水流量从原来的平均每秒28000立方米迅速增加，长江三峡航运局副主任季玉建说。

The peak, however, began ebbing on Sunday and reduced to 35,500cubic meters per second at about 8 p.m. It was expected to flow into the reservoir at 34,000 cubic meters per second at 8 a.m. on Monday and keep ebbing in the following days.

然而，洪峰从周日开始下降，至上午8点左右已减少到35000立方米每秒。到达水库时的流量可望在星期一上午8：点达到34000立方米每秒，并在未来几天保持持续下降。

The Changjiang Water Resources Commission predicted the flood peak might reach up to 55,000 cubic meters per second this year.

长江水利委员会预测今年洪峰可能达到55000立方米每秒。

   I moved to Hankou 15 days ago,so did my baby and mom. Now we live in my husband's apartment in his university where he worked for more than a decade. This apartment is much smaller than that we used live in Wuchang,and older too.Tt took us more than a week to move all kinds of our belongings from the "old" apartment to the "new". 

  Why do we move?For the baby. We hope she can enter a good but cheap kindergarten in the coming Septemper when she is 2 year and 7 months old.Tt is really a good choice foe us to live in a big university with a good and cheap kindergarten mainly for the teachers' children.

   But my life is ruined completely.My new home is too far from my work place. It took me about 1 hour by bus to get to work in the morning and 70 minutes to get home in the afternoon because of traffic jams. I used spent 10 minutes to get to work or back home by bicycle when I live in Wuchang.  It's really a big challenge for me. I have to be woken up by the clock ring as early as 6:10 in the morning and ride through the big campus and push my way to the crowded bus. And in the afternoon after a busy day I also have to stand in the over crowded bus for more than an hour. The worst thing is  that there is no nonstop bus between my office building and my home. I have to take a transfer. It's really a tiresome life to spent more than 2 hours on bus every day.

 Now I deeply know how happy when one could live near his workplace.