About five weeks ago, I noticed the skin of our pet lizard was growing dusty. Later, our lizard emerged (出现) from its tank with its old skin flowing behind it. I didn’t think about it much until a morning last week when I knocked my favorite teapot off the table. It burst into hundreds of pieces. As I swept up the mess, I wondered why we had been breaking so many things over the months.

The destruction started three months ago. It was my husband’s birthday. He had just lost his job. The uncertainty was starting to wear on us, so I wanted to do something special.

“Let’s make a cake for Dad!” I cried. My kids screamed with joy. We baked, iced and sprinkled for most of the day. Candles on the cake! Balloons on the walls! Flowers on the table!

Two hours before my husband came back home from another job interview, my daughter climbed up to grab a glass vase from a high shelf. It fell and crashed beside the cake. Tiny pieces of glass were everywhere. She sobbed loudly as I threw the cake away. My husband had banana pudding for his birthday.

Three days ago, the light in our living room suddenly went out. After several frustrating hours of unsuccessful attempts to fix it, my husband suggested watching the Michael Jordan documentary series The Last Dance.

The poignancy (酸楚) of Jordan retiring from his beloved basketball to play baseball and what had pushed him to make such a tough decision took me by surprise. As I watched him take off his basketball uniform and replace it with a baseball uniform, I saw him leaving behind the layer that no longer served him, just as our lizard had. Neither of them chose the moment that had transformed them. But they had to live with who they were after everything was different. Just like us. I realized that we have to learn to leave the past behind.

Humans do not shed skin (蜕皮) as easily as other animals. The beginning of change is upsetting. The process is tiring. Damage changes us before we are ready. I see our lizard, raw and nearly new.

Jordan said that no matter how it ends, it starts with hope. With our tender, hopeful skin, that is where we begin.

When I lived in Spain, some Spanish friends of mine decided to visit England by car. Before they left, they asked me for advice about how to find accommodation. I suggested that they should stay at “bed and breakfast” houses, because this kind of accommodation gives a foreign visitor a good chance to speak English with the family. My friends listened to my advice, but they came back with some funny stories.

“We didn’t stay at bed and breakfast houses,” they said, “because we found that most families were away on holiday.”

I thought this was strange. Finally I understood what had happened. My friends spoke little English, and they thought “VACANCIES” meant “holidays”, because the Spanish word for “holidays” is “vacaciones”. So they did not go to house where the sign outside said “VACANCIES”, which in English means there are free rooms. Then my friends went to house where the sign said “NO VACANCLES”, because they thought this meant the people who owned the house were not away on holiday. But they found that these houses were all full. As a result, they stayed at hotels!

We laughed about this and about mistakes my friends made in reading other signs. In Spanish, the word “DIVERSION” means fun. In English, it means that workmen are repairing the road, and that you must take a different road. When my friends saw the word “DIVERSION” on a road sign, they thought they were going to have fun. Instead, the road ended in a large hole.

English people have problems too when they learn foreign languages. Once in Paris, when someone offered me some more coffee, I said “Thank you” in French. I meant that I would like some more. However, to my surprise the coffee pot was taken away! Later I found out that “Thank you” in French means “No, thank you.”

You may have a drink at a coffee shop near your campus. But have you ever imagined running a school coffee shop all by yourself?

Eli Gutierrez and Isabella Bacciarini are both 17-year-old students in the USA. Along with some other students, they’re seeing what it’s like to work in the coffee business.

The school principal Jack Carr once suggested that being able to serve drinks at a comfortable area would “be great”. So, Gutierrez and his friends came up with the idea of Cafe Vine.

In order to manage the coffee business well,   Gutierrez took a one-month online course. After he had learned from professionals, Cafe Vine attracted many customers.

Given the success of the business, Gutierrez realized he needed help at the cafe. So he started teaching skills to other students, who could make up their community service hours by serving coffee.

“I actually run a business,” said Bacciarini, a   junior at String Theory High School and manager at Cafe Vine. “Being a girl, We always been told it’s usually a guy who opens a business.”

After becoming the manager and roaster (烘焙师) at the cafe, Gutierrez started to use his new skills after school at other coffee shops. And a surprise visit in the spring to Cafe Vine by David Wagaman, president and owner of Capriccio Management, led to another opportunity.

“I said to him, ‘It would be a good idea for you to buy our coffee beans,’” Gulierrez said. Bags of coffee beans from Cafe Vine are now available (可获得的) to buy at all three Capriccio cafes.

While lie’s helping the business in its early stages, Wagaman said he is also benefiting from the school’s coffee start-up.

“It’s helped us find qualified employees,” he said. “It’s not just a job. They feel worthy.”