Foul your mouth—while expanding your Mandarin vocabulary—with a guide to the phrases that could get you a laugh . . . or a punch in the face. Next time you’re traveling or just chattin’ in Chinese with your friends, drop the textbook formality and bust out with expressions they never teach you in school, including: Cool slang Funny insults Explicit sex terms Raw swear words Dirty Chinese teaches the casual expressions heard every day on the streets of China: What’s up? Zenmeyàng? Fuck it, let’s party. Qù tama, zánmen chuqù feng ba. Who farted? Shéi fàng de pì? Wanna try doggy-style? Yàobù zánliar shìshì gou cào shì? Son of a bitch! Gouniángyang de! I’m getting smashed. Wo ganjué heduo le. I can’t eat this shit! Wo chi bù xià qù!

This highly illustrated book explains the business of logging railroads and provides examples of prototype operations. Photos of locomotives, equipment, and structures set the stage for modeling logging scenes and designing a logging layout.

Most people thought the Great Depression was the end of the world. To one man, it was. Amos "Black Dog" Harlow, an aging hobo and failed bluesman with no prospects, no family, and no place to call to home, wanders the hellish backdrop of Dust Bowl America with a guitar on his back and a grim past on his shoulders, following a spectral black dog only he can see down the dimly-lit backroads and blighted byways of a forsaken land. The black dog is an ill omen, and death and sorrow its only promises. But Amos must follow, drawn by the dog into the thick of supernatural danger, battling horrors and facing down evil that has crawled out of the Depression's dark underbelly with nothing but his wits, his music, and a bit of folk magic. But there is an even greater shadow on the land. A dark killer with dark purpose strides the country, cutting a swath through the innocent and leaving a trail of blood in his wake. And if the serial killer the papers call Herod has his way, the world will drown in it. Amos must battle his own demons and find Herod before the killer can finish his task-literally bringing Hell to earth. Follow Amos and the black dog down the road to redemption in BLACK DOG: The Long Dark Road (2012) and the forthcoming BLACK DOG: Prophet in the Wilderness (2013).

This policy brief discusses the United State's bias toward college-going as the gold standard and how to counteract that singular mode of thinking. The Educational Policy Improvement Center (EPIC) outlines why definitions of K-12 success should balance an emphasis on each C (college and career). EPIC also shows the related pitfalls of districts failing to attend to the issues that are most salient for their communities. To avoid those dangers, EPIC recommends democratizing postsecondary pathway access to ensure equity, localizing districts' definitions of success to suit community needs, and personalizing educational experiences so students can become ready on their own terms.

Raquel "Rocky" Champagnolle is an antisocialite. Swift-thinking. Stiff-drinking. Quick with a joke between Cape Cods, but would rather get lost in a book than a nightclub. Nevertheless, when divorce leaves her stripped bare of everything except wit and a winning smile, Rocky does the unthinkable. She joins the Junior League of Texarkana. Brimming with blondes, the Junior League affords Rocky the opportunity to sip cocktails and make fun of wealthy people. She even starts to eyeroll her way into a little philanthropy until Junior League matriarch Waverly St. Laurent insults Rocky's weight. After that, Rocky refuses to put her skills to use solving a string of home invasions plaguing Texarkana's wealthiest benefactors. Instead, she channels her contempt into spurning the usual Junior League fundraising efforts in favor of transforming a pack of soccer moms into drug dealers. But then Waverly St. Laurent mistakes her husband for the home invader and shoots him dead. And Rocky finds all the inspiration she needs to awaken her greatest talent. Not solving mysteries. Spite. When Rocky's finished, Waverly St. Laurent may find herself guilty of killing her husband to cover up a string of decades-old murders. In addition to her greatest crime: fat shaming Rocky Champagnolle.

"A divinely-entertaining comedic feast... dripping with double entendre and crowd-pleasing innuendo." Shawn Statler, onstageblog.com "Lyle especially is adept at absurdist, Texas-based comedies (consider BIG SCARY ANIMALS and BARBECUE APOCALYPSE), and he has a good-ol'-boy-time poking the bear of Baptist hypocrisy." Arnold Wayne Jones, Dallasvoice.com "To say I enjoyed the RAPTURED is an understatement. I basically laughed for two hours and I'm still chuckling the next day. We all can use a great laugh." Ann Saucer, The Column "What makes RAPTURED such phenomenal comedy is Lyle and Coleman's astonishing instincts. Their timing, lingo, imagination, blue streak and sense of absurdity are the stuff of genius." sharpcritic.com

Graffiti Creek--with its shadowed canopy of trees and evidence-destroying stream and the namesake bridge with its puzzle of spray paint--is not the place mysteries get solved. It's the place where they begin. And Cary Trubody's mystery began there before she even realized she was a part of it.

Ellis Mazer is a soon-to-be father, a first year English teacher, and a directionless twenty-something entering the directionless 2000-somethings. Local and national tragedies feed Mr. Mazer's seventh graders the essay fodder that almost makes his job bearable. But when Spencer--trailer trash with more ring worms than friends--stops coming to school, Ellis discovers that he may be the only person who even notices, much less cares. What begins as a good-natured attempt to deliver some make-up work tumbles headlong into a quest deep into hillbilly noir in an attempt to verify that there is still some good in what appears to be a crumbling world. Ellis is partnered with The Drew--full-time assistant principal, part-time private detective. He and The Drew explore the shadows and calluses of backwoods Arkansas to find that Spencer's disappearance is directly linked to the disappearance of a little girl. And it doesn't much feel like anyone wants the truth of what happened to either kid to emerge. Even Ellis is unsure of how much he cares. He only knows that in order to believe in his ability to be a husband or father, for some reason, he must find Spencer. Among the swirling depravity of society, the crippling panic of impending parenthood, and the mounting scrap heap of seventh grade essays, one Arkansas town sees two kids go missing. Ellis Mazer only wants to find one of them. And if he can pull that off, he might not ever become a good teacher, but he might at least become a good person

"Understanding Entry-Level Courses in American Institutions of Higher Education" outlines a study conducted by EPIC that empirically identifies the characteristics of work at the college- and career-readiness level in English/language arts, science, and social sciences courses. Using a previously collected national sample of over two thousand entry-level college course documents, EPIC used an emergent coding design to analyze the content of postsecondary syllabi, assignments, and assessments. The analysis revealed information about the content, requirements, and challenge level expected of students in thirteen entry-level college courses in both two- and four-year institutions of higher education across the country. Researchers then used the findings of this study to develop a set of high school performance assessment tasks that represent the types of activities and assessments required in entry-level college courses. This article outlines the methods and rationale for the study, the specific data that were collected from the entry-level college course documents, and the outcomes of interrater reliability tests. Finally, this report includes a discussion of possible implications of the study, including the need to raise the level of cognitive demand in secondary and postsecondary settings. This information has the potential to inform changes in curriculum and instruction, assessment, graduation, and admissions decisions at both the secondary and postsecondary levels.