Veteran Oksana Chusovitina ended her legendary career on Sunday night after competing at a record eighth Olympic Games. After failing to secure a spot in Sunday's vault final, the 46-year-old, representing Uzbekistan, waved to the small crowd inside Tokyo's Ariake Gymnastics Center, made a heart shape with her hands and briefly cried.
Born in Uzbek capital Tashkent in 1976, Chusovitina took up gymnastics at age 7, following her older brother into the sport. "My mother did not want me to do gymnastics, she was worried about me all the time. I wanted to prove to her that I was not doing it in vain, and I think I eventually succeeded in that," Chusovitina once said of her childhood.
She made her Olympic debut (首次亮相) at the 1992 Barcelona Games as part of the gold medal-winning Unified team, comprised of (由……组成) athletes from former Soviet states.
She then represented Uzbekistan, before being granted German citizenship in 2006. She took home a vault silver medal at the 2008 Beijing Games for Germany, but switched back to competing for Uzbekistan in 2013. Chusovitina is one of just two female gymnasts to represent three different nations at the Olympic Games.
When Chusovitina's 3-year-old son was diagnosed with leukemia in 2002, she sold her possessions and used any prize money she earned to pay for his medical treatment. Her switch to German citizenship was motivated by the promise of a higher income and better medical care.
After her son's recovery, Chusovitina continued to compete, but this time it was her love of gymnastics that kept her going. "There is no secret. I just love gymnastics and no one ever forced me to compete. I do so with pleasure," she said.
With COVID-19 rules keeping fans out of the venue, Chusovitina admitted the atmosphere wasn't what she had hoped. "I would have loved to have spectators, she said. "Of course in terms of performance, it's better when it's just you and the apparatus (器具). But every athlete needs this attention and applause. "
"Maybe Fil skip Paris (2024 Games), and go to Los Angeles (2028 Games) for the applause," she joked. At last, she told reporters, "My son is 22 years old and I want to spend time with him. I want to be a mom."
Cassius Marcellus Clay was born on January 17th, 1942 in Louisville, Kentucky. In his younger years he had no interest in sports until an accident happened.
When Cassius was 12, his new bike was missing. Reporting the theft to Policeman Joe Martin, he said that he was going to beat whoever had taken his bike. Martin, who had been coaching youth boxing for decades, asked the boy, "Do you know how to fight?" When Cassius admitted that he didn't, the officer suggested, "You'd better learn!
It was the beginning of his boxing career. Cassius devoted himself to boxing training. Although he wasn't very talented in boxing, he worked harder than anyone else in the gym. He'd rush to the gym every day as soon as school was over and would even train on Saturdays. Outside of the gym, Cassius stayed away from anything that would influence his training. He was showing the kind of determination and discipline that other boxers didn't have.
Under the guidance of Martin and his friend, young Clay began winning games one after another. By the age of 18 he had won 108 games, 6 Kentucky Golden Gloves championships and 2 national AAU titles.
Today he is recognized as the greatest athlete of modem times. He always carried a self confidence and believed in his ability that he can put his competitors off guard before the first round bell had even sounded.
2012 was one of the hardest years I have ever known because I lost my husband. For sea-eras months, I found it hard to write, think, eat or take pleasure in anything; I could not imagine what it would be like to feel happy again; I could not find any hope or purpose.
I cannot remember the reason why one Monday morning I decided to go to a hot yoga studio in east London, where I signed up for a 3 O-day trial. I do not remember the class or how much I sweated. What I do know is that I started going to hot yoga every day, Sometimes, when my head felt as if it might collapse (崩溃), I went twice a day. I skipped parties, left social events and got up early to attend. There was something about the hot room that held me together, stopping all the dark thoughts inside my mind.
I chose the Bikram method of hot yoga: It has a set of 26 postured and two breathing exercises performed in heat over a period of 90 minutes. This form of yoga was founded by Bikram Choudhury. In 2015, he failed in an attempt to copyright (取得版权) his method. Many practitioners (从业人员) believe that Bikram is not real yoga. Some question the limita-lions of just 26 postured. Others wonder why the class has to be performed before a wall of mirrors. However, something in those 26 postured freed my mind, dragged me out of my thoughts and back into the present. I was able to focus on how my body behaved differently each day.
Working at a bank in New York City in the mid-2010s, Anna Sacks was living the life - just not the life she wanted. Sure, she was happy. But she wanted to do something that felt important and was fulfilling on a deeper level.
Some people seeking meaning might read a self-help book or perhaps volunteer a few hours a week. Sacks packed up her life and moved to Connecticut for three months to participate in Adamah, a Jewish farming program that focuses on sustainable (可持续的) living and growing sustainable food. She returned to New York with a new purpose and a variety of new skills to make her dreams a reality.
"One of the things that really stuck with me from Adamah, which means 'Earth' in Hebrew, was how they handled the waste they had, primarily through composting (堆肥)，" she says. "And I just thought, 'Why aren't we doing that here?"
The Adamah program opened Sacks' eyes to the damage that consumer culture is doing on a local, national, and global level, and the need to find solutions. So in 2016, she took a master composting course and started working with a food rescue program, which she named" trash walking. "
During walks around her neighborhood, Sacks, 31, picked through garbage to look for reusable items. Soon, her trash walks expanded to include company trash cans along with residential trash. Surprisingly, she discovered a wide range of really great stuff - like clothing, decorations, plates and food.
Sacks' main focus is simply getting people to pay attention to how many unnecessary things they buy and then throw away. "Once you become conscious of the way you consume, you can see ways you improve," she says.
For about two months, Frank Gordon and his dog Casey have been in intensive training. Casey is training to become a qualified service dog, and Gordon is training to use him to cope with what doctors have diagnosed as severe/post-traumatic stress disorder（PTSD 创伤后应激障碍）。
And that alone is a huge step for Gordon, who says he feels trapped in the real-life nightmare he endured during his military service. After having lived with invisible wounds for more than 30 years, he's now got Casey, a new solution to-a problem as old as war.
Casey and many other dogs at Wags for Warriors a non-profit organization in northeast Ohio, are trained to sense when their veterans（老兵）become anxious, and to pull them out of panic attacks. That's what a dog named Sophie was doing as she sat next to her owner and Wags for Warriors co-founder Frank Delorenzo. Sophie reminds Delorenzo to take his medication, pulls him out of crowded areas, and wakes him up from nightmares.
Army veteran Olena Fergurson, who had a brain injury in a plane crash, says, "Before I got my dog Vata and started my training, I could not attend an appointment. "
Since October of last year, Delorenzo and his wife have been training and providing service dogs to these veterans free of charge. They hold training classes between three and four days each week.
"Some veterans say that it improves theirquality of life, but we haven't been able yet to determine whether these dogs provide a medical benefit to veterans with mental illness, "says Mark Ballesteros, a spokesperson for the U. S. Department of Veteran Affairs.
Dr. Heather Axtell, a clinical psychologist, says, "I believe that service animals provide a lot of comfort. They make people feel more secure, but they can't take away what happened. Service dogs give veterans companions, and unconditional love. "
Instead of escaping the summer heat in air-conditioning indoors, Mustafa Furkan Ozgener prefers the sunshine in an experimental seed field of over 200 kinds of melons in Pingluo County, Northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. Picking melons, weighing them, observing their growth, tasting, recording and taking pictures, the 31-year-old Turkish man runs his tests on up to 50 kinds of melons every day. "I love working in the field. Melons are favored in Turkey in the hot summers and my job here is to choose the best kinds for Turkish customers," he said.
Influenced by his father who used to do business in China, Ozgener majored in Chinese at university and therefore expected a journey to China one day. The young man visited China for the first time as an exchange student in Beijing. Two years later, Ozgener applied for a master's degree in tourism management at China's Sun Yat-sen University. Since then, he's traveled around the country to learn about the colorful Chinese culture and enjoy different dishes. "The more I learn about China, the more I want to stay here," said Ozgener. He worked as a translator in Ningxia after graduation.
The company Ozgener works for now is a scientific and technological enterprise engaged in vegetable planting, production, promotion, import and export. It has bred over 70 new varieties of seeds and exported seeds to 27 countries and regions in Asia and Africa, including the Middle East.
Before the outbreak of COVID-19, Ozgener would spend two months in Hainan and another four months in Ningxia to help foreign clients select seeds. Then he would go back to Turkey. But due to the epidemic (流行病), he has stayed in Ningxia for more than a year, observing and selecting target seeds in the field every day.
"I used to do translation work only, but now I'm also responsible for all the stuff related to the seeds. It's tiring but rewarding, because I can learn a lot. I will continue to pursue my dream here," said Ozgener.
Born on April 2, 1805, in Odense, Denmark, Hans Christian Andersen was an emotional, yet imaginative, child. His father, a poor shoemaker, died in 1816. With a mother who was very superstitious (迷信的) and unable to read or write, the boy received little education as a child.
Andersen traveled to Copenhagen. There, he hoped to become an actor or singer. He was lucky enough to spend some time with the Royal Theater, but when his voice changed, he had to leave. Luckily, one of the directors helped him by arranging his education.
Andersen gained admission to the University of Copenhagen in 1828, and his literary career began soon afterwards. He hoped to achieve success with poems and plays, but underestimated the kind of stories which have made him famous. Though not particularly fond of children, he had a gift for entertaining them. This led a friend to suggest he write down the stories he invented.
Many of Andersen's tales are based on folklore, and many are products of his own imagination. All of them are told in a humorous and informal style that children loved from the start. Few serious critics, however, took notice of them when they first appeared.
Before his death in 1875, Andersen regularly traveled around Europe, and was enthusiastically welcomed everywhere he went. Because he had always wanted to be famous, he worked hard to gain a reputation in European literary circles. Being a rather vain man, he complained in "The Fairy Tale of My Life", one of three autobiographies he wrote, that people were not interested in his "serious" writing.
Nowadays, of course, Hans Christian Andersen is a household name. Whether he would have liked it or not, millions of children and adults will always be grateful for the magic his stories have brought to their lives.
Peggy Whitson's job demands a daily twohour workout in a gym where weight has no meaning and the view changes at 17, 000 miles an hour.
Whitson makes it look easy. At 57, she is the oldest woman to fly in space, breaking the record last November when she began her third longterm stay at the International Space Station. After returning home in September, 2017, the NASA astronaut felt matteroffact about the age milestone(里程碑).
"It wasn't a record I was seeking for, "Whitson said. "I was 42 and 48 for my first two space flights. I feel lucky that I was able to get to do another one in my 50s. I don't think people should let age discourage them, even on those jobs that require some amount of physical fitness. The oldest man is John Glenn (at 77), and we've had male astronauts in their 60s before, so it's just a matter of time before women start flying in space at this age".
On the earth, she stays fit by weightlifting, biking, playing basketball and water skiing. She shared what it's like to live in microgravity："It's like you're in a swimming pool, but you don't have to worry about breathing. If I push off from one side, I'm going to float to the other side. Every direction feels exactly the same, which is really hard for your brain to grasp, but it's amazing how fast you adapt.
It's a big shock for the body to come back to Earth—everything is so heavy. We spend a lot of time getting used to being back in gravity again. Back pain was really the most dramatic for me this time. For me, coming home is harder than going up into space. "
When Central Bucks South became one of the first Philadelphia-area high schools to close due to fear of novel coronavirus exposure in early March, 16-year-old sophomore Andrew knew that things were not going to return to normal as quickly as some of his peers hoped. But still, he disliked the uncomfortable feeling from seeing his friends on the swim team during daily practices to learning alone at home. "I only have three years here at South, and it pains me to see one of them being wasted," he said.
The coronavirus has affected everyone's life, especially for students. Schools closed and graduation ceremonies were canceled. Summer plans, like camps and internships are up in the air. And for recent college graduates, entering the job market in a time of unprecedented (空前的) unemployment rates is no easy task.
Josh Harycki, 17, a senior student at the Shipley School in Philadelphia, who created a "social distancing pledge" for young people. "I saw a lot of younger generations not paying attention," he said. "They were still going out, hanging out with people. I thought that there had to be a way to reach younger people, who were probably not watching the news."
Harycki launched a call to action on social media and then built a website with a map that tracked the locations of people who'd signed the pledge. The site also shares links to accurate sources of information like the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Going from being around with friends for eight hours a day at school to being isolated at home all day wasn't easy," said Harycki. "We've definitely had times when we feel kind of bored at home," he said. "We are very social beings and we are used to having that school experience."
Harycki knows that his peers are worried they can't connect with their friends in the same way, so he created the social distancing pledge to stress that while everyone might be physically distant they are still connected. "Part of what we are highlighting is that you might feel like you are the only one taking this seriously, but our map shows that you're not alone," he said.
The shift from adolescence (青春期) to adulthood can be hard and often filled with hardship and lessons learned, especially for young people experiencing homelessness.
Frankie, a young woman who feels lucky to have had the caring support from her dad Frankie's dad raised her, and they were very close. When he suddenly passed away two years ago, Frankie didn't know how she would survive. With no family or relatives to take her in, she fell into a depression. She bounced from home to home, losing trust she'd ever gain stability.
One Friday afternoon, Frankie sat at a park bench outside of school. As she was worrying about where she was going to live, she suddenly remembered something her dad would tell her when she was little.
"Don't ever give up," said Frankie. "If dad were here, he would tell me that."
Those words encouraged her to seek help from Noel, a YouthCare case manager, who helped her find accommodation at Catalyst, one of YouthCare's community living programs, YouthCare provided a path back to stability. Frankie was thankful to have a routine: dish washings after dinner, weekly game nights, and check-ins with a mental health doctor every Thursday. At Catalyst, Frankie received consistent support and found additional resources for her mental health care. Outside of her Thursday appointments, she participated in weekly homework assignments focused on well-being and goal-setting for the future.
Noel showed great surprise at Frankie's positive changes with each passing day. She earned her GED, and it wasn't long before she began searching for her first job. With the help of Noel, Frankie applied for a handful of positions in health or fitness. Frankie jumped with excitement when she received an interview call for a front desk position at a local gym!
Dressed in green, her dad's favorite color, Frankie entered her interview with confidence. Noel smiled very happily when Frankie received a second call later that day with news that she got the job.
Too many young people come to YouthCare with their own story. Each of them deserves a path back to stability a stable home, consistent support, and access to treatment services necessary to become well. Like Frankie, they can imagine new possibilities and change the course of their own story through encouragement and treatment.
