During the past few weekends, we held the first 24-Hour Play Festival on campus, the first event our school has held.

The event started in the Playhouse Theater at 8 p.m. on Friday with students who signed up to be either an actor, director or playwright (编剧).Then the chair announced the theme of the event from a pool of play themes. Playwrights had 12 hours to write a 10-miute play based on the theme, which meant that they had to work all night to get the scripts (剧本) ready before 8 a.m. on Saturday. Directors received scripts and had 12 hours with actors to start their rehearsals (排练). Everyone would perform at 8 p.m. on Saturday.

As a stage manager, I had to make sure everything went well. It was really exciting because this was our first time. The performers did an excellent job. I was amazed at the playwrights’ beautiful scripts and the ideas they represented. Among those stories, there were many themes including friendship, love and equality.

One of my favorite plays was about friendship. In the play, a girl and a boy haven’t seen each other for a long time. One day, they meet by accident. At first, they are nervous because they do not know where to start. It was so real that it reminded me of my friend and me. When they talked about good memories in the past and expectations of the future, I was moved. They moved like birds on the stage, and my heart followed.

The actors were amazing. They had to memorize all their lines in 12 hours. Directors also contributed great ideas in such a short time. I was really excited to watch the performance and be one of the staff. It was not easy starting from zero, but as long as there is a beginning, a story always forms.

Cala didn’t like us. Any of us. We didn’t do anything to offend her and she didn’t know us but that didn’t matter; she still didn’t like us.

As new teachers in the Emirati school, we Westerners greeted her every day. She ignored us. She came into our rooms and bypassed us as she shook hands with all the non-Westerners. Whenever we saw her, she avoided eye contact with us. Eventually, we stopped trying to befriend her.

I wouldn’t say her nationality but her friends had been fired from the school. We had been employed in their places and that was enough for her to have nothing to do with us.

Well after 16 months in the school we had a secret friend gifting. To my surprise, I drew her name from the glass jar and that meant she was my secret friend. My role was to buy her a gift and say something about her when we publicly acknowledged who our secret friend was.

I decided to gift her a coloured bangle (手镯). I added a postcard and wrote “ Love and Blessings, Rose Marie. ”

Then came the day. We all gathered in the meeting room. When you gave your gift, you said a few kind words about your secret friend and passed the gift to her. What could I say? Everyone knew she didn’t like the Westerners. She taught music in the school, so I said “ My secret friend is someone who brings music to our ears every day. ” She came forward with a huge warm smile. She hugged me and kissed me on both cheeks and accepted my gift.

Since then, she smiles often. We hug and shake hands when we meet. I have seen her wear my gift several times and I am so pleased.

In fairy tales, it’s usually the princess that needs protecting. At Google in Silicon Valley, the princess is the one defending the castle. Parisa Tabriz is a 31-year-old with perhaps the most unique job title in engineering-“Google Security Princess”. Her job is to hack into the most popular web browser ( 浏览器 ) on the planet, trying to find weaknesses in the system before the “black hats” do. To defeat Google’s attackers, Tabriz must first think like them.

Tabriz’s role has evolved dramatically in the eight years since she first started working at Google. Back then, the young graduate from Illinois University was one of 50 security engineers- today there are over 500.

Cybercrime ( 网络犯罪 ) has come a long way in the past decade-from the Nigerian Prince Scam to credit card theft. Tabriz’s biggest concern now is the people who find bugs in Google’s software, and sell the information to governments or criminals. To fight against this, the company has set up a “Vulnerability Rewards Programme”, paying anywhere from $100 to $ 20,000 for reported mistakes.

It’s a world away from Tabriz’s computer-free childhood home in Chicago. The daughter of an Iranian-American doctor father, and Polish-American nurse mother, Tabriz had little contact with computers until she started studying engineering at college. Gaze across a line-up of Google security staff today, and you’ll find women like Tabriz are few and far between ( 稀 少 的 )- though in the last few years she has hired more female tech geniuses. She admits there’s an obvious gender disequilibrium( 性别不平衡 ) in Silicon Valley.

Funnily enough, during training sessions, Tabriz first asks new colleagues to hack into not a computer, but a vending machine ( 自动售货机 ). Tabriz’s job is as much about technological know-how as understanding the psychology of attackers.