In many respects one could call John Beltzer the world's most successful songwriter. Every song that he writes is guaranteed to be a real hit not on the popularity charts, but in a child's heart. The reason for this is that every song that Beltzer writes is for a seriously ill child. The songs never fail to make the children smile and to raise their spirits. They also play them over and over. This means more by far to Beltzer than being ranked high on the popularity charts.
Thirty-eight year old Beltzer is the founder and president of Songs of Love, a nonprofit group. This group combines the volunteer efforts of musicians, songwriters, singers, and studio technicians to create unique, happy songs that reflect a child's personality.
Beltzer believes that music is very healing. When an adult listens to a favorite song. it makes him feel good: thus when a little child listens to a song written just for him, the result is very uplifting. Since its founding in 1996, Songs of Love has been responsible for the composition, taping and sending more than 780 songs to children in life-threatening conditions, all for free.
Unmarried with no children of his own, Beltzer had never thought much about writing songs for children. He says that one day while he was walking down the street the idea came to him and he instantly felt that he could make a success of it. He went home and called St Jude's Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. He told them he wanted to write songs for seriously ill children, and wrote six songs in four days. Upon receiving the songs, the hospital called him with high praise. Soon after that the mother of a little girl with cancer called him to thank him and then the little girl herself did so. At that point he knew that this was his"calling".
As is true with most charitable ventures, Songs of Love is almost always in need of money. To help in this respect, Beltzer has moved back home to live with his retired parents, who also help support his work. His long-term goal is to offer Songs of Love to patients of all ages, including nursing home residents and the mentally ill. Among other efforts to raise money, Beltzer sells CDs and tapes, expecting much bigger sales. Meanwhile, Beltzer himself continues to be the most productive writer in Songs of Love, making sure that all requests for songs written for critically ill children will be met.
Why do some people live to be older than others? You know the standard explanations: keeping a moderate diet, engaging in regular exercise, etc. but what effect does your personality have on your longevity? Do some kinds of personalities lead to longer lives? A new study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society looked at this question by examining the personality characteristics of 246 children of people who had lived to be at least 100.
The study shows that those living the longest are more outgoing, more active and less neurotic (神经质的) than other people. Long-living women are also more likely to be sympathetic and cooperative than women with a normal life span. These findings are in agreement with what you would expect from the evolutionary theory: those who like to make friends and help others can gather enough resources to make it through tough times.
Interestingly, however, other characteristics that you might consider advantageous had no impact on whether study participants were likely to live longer. Those who were more self-disciplined, for instance, were no more likely to live to be very old. Also, being open to new ideas had no relationship to long life, which might explain all those bad-tempered old people who are fixed in their ways.
Whether you can successfully change your personality as an adult is the subject of a longstanding psychological debate. But the new paper suggests that if you want long life, you should strive to be as outgoing as possible.
Unfortunately, another recent study shows that your mother's personality may also help determine your longevity. That study looked at nearly 28,000 Norwegian mothers and found that those moms who were more anxious, depressed and angry were more likely to feed their kids unhealthy diets, Patterns of childhood eating can be hard to break when we're adults, which may mean that kids of depressed moms end up dying younger.
Personality isn't destiny, and everyone knows that individuals can learn to change. But both studies show that long life isn't just a matter of your physical health but of your mental health.
People have been painting pictures for at least 30,000 years. The earliest pictures were painted by people who hunted animals. They used to paint pictures of the animals they wanted to catch and kill. Pictures of this kind have been found on the walls of caves in France and Spain. No one knows why they were painted there, Perhaps the painters thought that their pictures would help them to catch these animals. Or perhaps human beings have always wanted to tell stories in pictures.
About 5,000 years ago, the Egyptians and other people in the Near East began to use pictures as kind of writing. They drew simple pictures or signs to represent things and ideas, and also to represent the sounds of their language. The signs these people used became a kind of alphabet. The Egyptians used to record information and to tell stories by putting picture writing and pictures together. When an important person died, scenes and stories from his life were painted and carved on the walls of the place where he was buried. Some of these pictures are like modern comic strip stories. It has been said that Egypt is the home of the comic strip. But, for the Egyptians, pictures still had magic power. So they did not try to make their way of writing simple. The ordinary people could not understand it.
By the year 1,000 BC, people who lived in the area around the Mediterranean Sea had developed a simpler system of writing. The signs they used were very easy to write, and there were fewer of them than in the Egyptian system. This was because each sign, or letter, represented only one sound in their language. The Greeks developed this system and formed the letters of the Greek alphabet. The Romans copied the idea, and the Roman alphabet is now used all over the world.
These days, we can write down a story, or record information, without using pictures. But we still need pictures of all kinds: drawing, photographs, signs and diagrams. We find them everywhere: in books and newspapers, in the street, and on the walls of the places where we live and work. Pictures help us to understand and remember things more easily, and they can make a story much more interesting.
Life is like a big swing, dangling (摇摆) between happiness and sadness. As soon as we go down the slope of sadness, we accelerate over the ever-feel-good activity of happiness. At times of suffering, one who can rise above the occasion is the architect of many wins over sorrows.
To come through tougher times you have to encourage yourself up, when you are feeling low, lost and confused. This can be done effectively by self-talk. It can be effectively used for soul searching. When talking to ourselves, we hardly lie as our conscience controls our speech. Self talk is efficient because when we speak out our thoughts, it makes a larger impact on our mind. This repetition of energetic talks and thoughts fine tunes the performance of brain.
Actually many times in our life, we find others advising us to do better in studies, sports, life etc. We usually get annoyed by these people and blank our ears to their constructive suggestions. And when something comes from within us, we always try our best to do justice to it. Self-talk can thus improve our status.
all you need to do is talk to yourself, Tell yourself with all the sincerity and emotions that" I can be like him. I am a natural born speaker, I do like people and speaking comes naturally to me. I just have to be ready to listen and speak". Suppose you love a person and want to tell him or her, then just say to yourselves" I love her with all my heart. She is the only one and I know it. If I don't let her know, it would be grave injustice on my part. Every person loves to be loved Even she will".
These are just some examples. So, guys, start talking!
A. Self-talk encourages us to learn from others.
B If you are shy and you want to be a social person like your friend next door.
C. Our brain then receives the same message from the mind as well as the cars.
D Self-talk is a way of talking to oneself.
E. If you are highly optimistic about doing better, there is no better motivator than self-talk.
F. You'll never know how wonderful you are.
G. It is because they don't come from within us.
Emily had been bleeding all day! She was my closest professional colleague and good friend at the time when we worked in an IT company. It was her first day back at work after an operation and I thought she 1 have taken a few more days to 2 .
Realizing that we couldn't stop the bleeding, we 3 to the emergency room and spent hours there waiting to be seen. After the treatment, I drove her to my apartment. Once I got her 4 , I had to leave her in my apartment 5 I dashed off to take a final exam for a very important evening course I was taking. Upon my 6 , we decided Emily was in good enough 7 to sustain a trip back from my Northem Virginia apartment to her home in Maryland.
Although it was nearly midnight and we were both 8 , we still decided to set off. Unfortunately, once on a highway, in a not particularly safe part of town, we heard my car make a 9 noise, and then It was shaking 10 as we drove along. Instantly, I pulled off to the shoulder and determined a 11 had blown out. Never having changed a tire and feeling scared, I was trying to 12 what to do next.
Emily, definitely 13 from losing all that blood all day and weighing only about eighty pounds, came out and tried to help me. I had to 14 to her to get back in the car and relax.
Within seconds, a taxi 15 behind us. A huge man seemingly somewhat aggressive emerged and began walking toward us. I felt that the blood drained (流光) out of my face and I nearly fainted in 16 . "Got a flat tire, girls? "he asked. "Yes, "I answered in a trembling voice. In no time at all, the man 17 the tire for us and rushed off back to his taxi. He refused any 18 and did not even tell me his name. He would never know how 19 we needed his services that particular evening, 20 that I, with a grateful heart, will never forget his kindness.
Career planning does not (necessary) follow routine or logical steps. Each of us places weight on different factors and may consider certain phases of career planning at different times. Career planning includes (gather) information about ourselves and about (occupy), estimating the probable outcomes, and eventually, choosing alternatives that we find attractive.
Many observers have pointed out that students are not efficient career planners. There (exist) convincing evidence that most students choose from among a very narrow group of choices. Young people show a striking lack of into sales and service, these fields offer more opportunities. Actually, the best coping behavior is vigilance (警醒), which occurs when people believe that a choice is supposed to (make), they can seek a solution Under these conditions, students can conduct effective search, carefully evaluate each alternative and work out plans. Moreover, having your own strengths (study) and writing down your goals turn out to be helpful when faced with difficulties. Nobody can foreseethe future holds for any of us, but the most important lesson is that progress comes with planning.
内容包括：1）活动介绍2）活动影响
注意：词数80左右，可适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
参考词汇：成人礼 the coming-of-age ceremony
John was waiting for the girl whose heart he knew, but whose face he didn't. Thirteen months ago, in a Florida library he took a book randomly off the shelf and took great interest in the notes in the margin (页边空白). The further he read, the more intrigued (着迷) he was by the notes. The soft handwriting reflected a thoughtful soul and insightful and profound mind. John couldn't help picturing in his mind what kind of people the owner would be.
In front of the book, he discovered the previous owner's name, Miss Hollis Maynell. With extreme delight, he couldn't contain his curiosity and spared a lot of time and effort to locate her address. Eventually and fortunately, all the efforts paid off, He wrote her a letter without any hesitation introducing himself and inviting her to respond.
During the following years the two grew to know each other through the mail, exchanging ideas covering all aspects ranging from classic works to current events, which brightened each other's life handsomely. John once requested a photograph, but she refused. She felt that if he really cared, it wouldn't matter what she looked like. Later they scheduled their first meeting--7: 00 pm at Grand Central Station in New York. "You'll recognize me, "she wrote, "by the red rose I'll be wearing on my lapel (翻领)."So at 7: 00 he was in the station looking for the girl with the red rose.
A girl in a green suit was coming toward him, and she has black hair pulled tightly into a knot at the back of her head, her figure long and slim and her eyes amazingly charming blue, which quickened his heartbeat. Almost uncontrollably he made one step closer to her, with a strong voice yelling at the bottom of his heart but didn't spot the red rose on her lapel. It was just at this moment that he saw Hollis Maynell—a woman well past 40, with a bright-colored rose on her coat. The girl was walking quickly away.
Paragraph 1:
He felt as though he split (裂开) In two.
Paragraph 2
The woman smiled. "I don't know what this is about, son,"
注意：
1）所续写短文的词数应为150左右；
2）至少使用5个短文中标有下划线的关键词语；
3）续写部分分成两段,每段的开头语已为你写好；
4）续写完成后,请用下划线标出你使用的关键词语.
