When New Year is around the corner, people tend to make New Year resolutions. It's a moment many people resolve to change old habits and adapt to new ways of learning and life. New year resolutions, like many other trends, are easier said than done. The hard part is implementation: Bringing intents, dreams, resolutions and lofty expectations to reality through hard work and persistence is far more difficult. The resolutions like many other aims and objectives, are just verbal declarations that wouldn't matter, unless when backed with action and determination.

Dear Editor,
   It is a pleasant surprise for me to learn through your long-distance call that my research paper entitled The Cultural Connotation of Missouri's Nickname Show Me State and Its Different Chinese Versions will be published in the first issue of your journal in 2014, whose influencing factor is more than 1.0.
   Today I am writing to you to extend my sincere thanks for your repeated scrutiny and revision of my research paper. If it had not been for your warm-hearted help and patient tutelege, my research paper would have contained much more errors and imperfections than it actually does. For example, in this thesis, I simply put forward the cultural connotation of Missouri's nickname Show Me State and several Chinese translated names without remembering to point out its origin, by means of which the reading audience in the English- speaking world and the non-English-speaking world can have an in-depth understanding of its cultural connotation. It is your guidance that has enabled me to improve a lot my treatise, which has become more substantial than it used to be. Your advice is enlighening and has broadened my horizons. It is you who have given me confidence, inspiration and academic courage. I will stick to my current research orientation and strive to create more research papers related to American culture.
   Best Regards.
   

   Recently, there has been a heated discussion in a mainstream magazine as to whether a thrifty lifestyle will do harm to national economy. As this is a thought-provoking as well as a debatable issue, it is very hard for people to reach a concensus on it.
   According to a recent questionnaire conducted by an economic organization in China, 48 percent of respondents are of the opinion that a thrifty lifestyle does harm to national economy. In their eyes, a thrifty lifestyle can not stimulate the development of national economy. For example, during the long vacations in May and in October, if all of us stayed at home watching TV, playing cards or surfing the Internet instead of traveling all over the country, our country's aim of expanding domestic demand would be unable to be attained. If so, our spiritual life would be boring. If so, our national economy could not develop at a fast pace.
   On the contrary, 52 percent of respondents argue that a thrifty lifestyle will not do harm to national economy. For example, if we recycle waste things such as waste paper, waste rubber, waste plastic, waste water etc. , we can not only save a lot of energy but also protect our milieu, which is undoubtedly conducive to the sustainable development of our national economy.
   In my opinion, thrift should always be regarded as a traditional virtue of our nation. In the short run, a thrifty lifestyle seems to be a barrier to the development of our national economy. In the long run, being thrifty is to the advantage of national economy.