Valerie Jarrett, 58, is serving as a top adviser to President Obama and has been close to the first family since the early 1990s. Joe Heim from WashingtonPost had an interview with her.
Joe Heim: What do you think of a reporter who interviews you for 25 minutes, then later finds out his recorder stopped working and asks you to do the interview again?
Valerie Jarrett: That he's human. Everybody could make mistakes.
Joe Heim: You're considered the president's closest adviser. What do you think the role of an adviser is?
Valerie Jarrett: I think so as that the president's management style is very effective (有效的), all of his advisers should speak openly about their advice.
Joe Heim: What misunderstandings are there of you?
Valerie Jarrett: A little-known fact is that I started my life very shy and remained very shy well into adulthood. Painfully shy, I would call it. And I often share this, particularly with young people, because it's something I really had to work hard to overcome. And for all the shy people out there I say, you, too, can overcome it. But it took a lot of hard work on my part, and I discovered along the way that just because you're nervous and you have butterflies in your stomach doesn't mean that it has to show. My point in sharing it with you is that part of life is pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone (舒适区). And if you're going to grow, you have to learn how to take on new challenges that you might not be good at.
Joe Heim: Will you stay until the end of his term?
Valerie Jarrett: I serve at the pleasure of the president. If he wants me to stay, I will.
Emily and Zach are confused! Their parents told them they could choose between Massachusetts and Arizona for their vacation this summer.
Emily has always wanted to visit Boston, the capital of Massachusetts. Zach and she both agree that walking along the Freedom Trail would enable them to see Boston's most famous places of historic interest, like the site of the school Ben Franklin attended and the Old State House. If Emily and Zach went to Massachusetts, they could spend a few days at the beaches on Cape Cod. Emily loves body boarding, and Zach is great at body surfing. They both enjoy building sandcastles .
Zach finds learning about Native Americans wonderful and has always wanted to travel along the Apache Trail in Arizona. This mountain highway passes Native American ruins in Tonto National Forest. Emily is not as interested in traveling along this trail as Zach, but they both would like to visit Phoenix, the capital, and then travel to Grand Canyon National Park and Meteor Crater (陨石坑). Zach learned in science class that Meteor Crater is a hole over 4,000 feet wide and 520 feet deep that was created when a huge object from space fell to Earth. The object went so deep that it has never been found. Zach would really like to try to discover it. But Emily thinks if experienced scientists and researchers cannot find it, Zach might as well not even bother (费工夫) to try.
The only drawback for Zach and Emily if they choose Arizona would be the heat. It is very hot and dry in this southwestern state. Massachusetts, on the other hand, is in the northeastern United States. Here Zach and Emily and their parents could enjoy mild (温和的) temperatures. Their parents love hot weather, but Zach and Emily do not really like to sweat.
How will they ever decide to which state they should travel? If only they could take two trips!
In the U.S., speaking more than one language fluently is not very common — except in Los Angeles, California. The city has one of the largest populations in the U.S. of young people between the ages of 18 and 34. More than half of them in Los Angeles are bilingual (会说两种语言的).
Maria Elena Burgos, a mother of two American-born daughters, is cooking a Mexican breakfast. She says making Mexican food is just one of the many traditions in her home. Another is speaking Spanish to her children. “We want to keep Spanish somewhere in their learning too, not only at home.” Ms. Burgos thinks being bilingual will give them more opportunities in the competitive world. Knowing Spanish also means the children can talk with their relatives in Mexico.
Ms. Burgos' daughters both want to know their family's culture. “We are doing this in order to go back to our roots because that's part of who we are,” they say.
The U.S. Census Bureau (人口普查局) says more than half the adults in the Los Angeles area between 18 and 34 years old speak a language other than English at home. For the whole country, the number of bilingual adults is only 25 percent. The number of bilingual speakers has gone up since the 1990s.
University of California Los Angeles professor Raul Hinojosa says that in the past, the children and grandchildren of immigrants (移民) did not continue to speak the parents' native language. But now the opposite is true.
In the last ten years, more immigrant parents say they want their children to keep speaking their native language. Mr. Hinojosa calls their choice the “path of pride”. The decision to keep a native language is clear in Los Angeles now. And, as the number of minorities in the U.S. continues to grow, he thinks bilingualism will spread to the rest of the country.
“To another little girl.”
That's what 3-year-old Ariana of Winterport, Maine, said when her father Josh Smith asked where her donated (捐赠的) hair was going to go. It was then that the dad of two realized his young daughter had a heart that was too big for words.
“I run a charity called Extra Life where I play video games to help raise money for kids,” he said. “Ariana happened to be sitting next to me when a video was playing, showing a little girl who was bald(秃顶的), lying in a hospital bed with tubes in her.” When their daughter got curious, Smith and his wife Crystal explained how medicine was what made the child in the video lose her hair.
“Without a second thought, Ariana said, 'She can have some of my hair,'” Smith said. “That's when my wife told me that there are many organizations that we could donate it to.” The Smiths chose “Locks of Love” to send Ariana's generous gift to a child with medical hair loss.
A week later, Ariana was taken to the family hairdresser where 10 inches was cut from her hair.
“It was her first haircut,” Smith told ABC News. “She can be so selfless like that. Her first reaction is 'How about me giving up something that I have, so a little girl can feel pretty?'” Smith posted his daughter's moving gesture on his personal webpage, where it has received almost 645,000 views in just two days.
“She'll take an adult-like approach and it's really amazing,” Smith said. “She is just a little kid, but if she sees somebody in need, she certainly cares for them. This made Ariana feel special and she'd definitely like to do it again.”
How teens can stay fit
Any type of regular physical activity can improve your fitness and your health.
Exercise should be a regular part of your day, like brushing your teeth, eating and sleeping. It can be in gym class, joining a sports team, or working out on your own. Keep the following tips in mind:
A good attitude is important. Find an activity that you think is fun. You are more likely to stick with it if you choose something you like. A lot of people find it's more fun to exercise with someone else, so see if you can find a friend or family member to be active with you.
Take a small step at a time. For example, walk or ride your bike to school. Get on or off the bus several blocks away and walk the rest of the way. Use the stairs instead of taking the elevator.
Get your heart pumping (跳动). Whatever you choose, make sure it includes aerobic (有氧的) activity that makes you breathe harder and increases your heart rate. This is the best type of exercise because it improve your fitness and makes your heart work better. Examples of aerobic activities are basketball, running, or swimming.
Don't forget to warm up. with some easy exercises or stretching (拉伸) before you do any physical activity. It is also important to stretch out after you exercise to cool down your muscles.
A. It also helps you to lose weight.
B. Stay positive and have fun.
C. Make physical activity a habit.
D. Small changes can add up to better fitness.
E. The most important thing is that you keep on it!
F. This warms your muscles up and may help protect against injury.
G. Do the activity as often as possible, but don't exercise to the point of pain.
University was a new experience for me. I had grown up in a small seaside town in the south of England, and suddenly I was 1 together with people of my age from all over the country. People were speaking in 2 that I had only ever heard on TV, and sometimes using words that I had 3 heard before.
I had only been at university for about a week when I 4 David Pitman, from Blackburn in the north of England. We 5 that we both played tennis, and arranged to meet up one afternoon for a 6.
I went to the sports hall at the time we'd 7, and went into the changing rooms. David was already there, and I could see that he wasn't very 8. He was searching anxiously for something inside his bag. He looked up at me as I 9.
“I've 10 my keks,” he said. “You haven't got any, have you?” 11 I had no idea what he was talking about. Tennis balls? Shorts? Trainers? What? I said: “Sorry?” David repeated: “Have you got any 12 keks with you?”
Of course, I could have asked him what the word meant, 13 I was too embarrassed (尴尬的) and didn't want to offend (冒犯) him. David saw the 14 on my face, and said: “You know — keks. Shorts. Tennis shorts.”
Now I 15, and luckily, I did have some 16 in my bag. I lent them to him, we 17, and he won. Then we went to get a 18. The woman at the canteen asked me what I wanted. “I'd like a Black Beauty, please,” I said. (Where I 19, that's cola and ice cream.) “What on earth is that?” said the woman. I 20 knew how she felt.
Food from the air
Everyone has seen plants growing, but have you ever thought they get their food? In the seventeenth century, a European scientist (call) Van Helmot asked this question. Like most people, he thought that plants must get their food from soil. However, Van Helmot decided (test) the theory with experiments.
First, he dried some soil, put it into a pot and weighed it. Next, he weighed a small tree, planted it in the pot and added rain water. Then, he watered it (regular) with rain water.
After five years, he removed the tree from the pot and weighed it again. He found that the tree had gained huge amount of weight. When he weighed the soil, however, it was almost exactly the same as it had been five years . So Van Helmot drew the (conclude) that the tree grew by drinking water. Though it turned out to be wrong, he showed the importance of the use of scientific evidence to support ideas.
We now know that plants and trees make their own food. Their leaves, when exposed the air and sun, are like factories can change the energy from the sun into chemical energy. During this process (过程), oxygen and sugar (produce). The oxygen is released back into the air, and the sugar is used by the plant as food.
增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号（∧），并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用斜线（＼）划掉。
修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词.
Li Hua and I were neighbors and we went to same school. We always go to school together. We were good friend and had a great deal to share with every day. However，one day，Li Hua copied my homework，which made me such angry that I did not want to be friends with him any long. Then on Monday morning I ran downstairs without realize it was raining，but there was no time to return home to fetch an umbrella. It happens that Li Hua was just around the corner and he offered to share her umbrella with me. He made an apology to me in a gently voice. I forgave him but gave him a hug.
1）旅游目的地：科罗拉多州（Colorado）；
原因：①风景优美（有激流、峡谷、森林等）；②便宜便捷（乘车约两小时可到）；
2）活动项目：国家公园宿营、河边野炊、垂钓、徒步、摄影、绘画等。
注意：1. 词数100左右；2. 信的开头和结尾已给出，但不计入总词数。
Dear Peter,
Yours,
Li Hua
