People come in all shapes and sizes, colors and races. Some speak differently while others act differently.
My mother is in a wheelchair(轮椅). I would like to say something about this special woman I call "Mommy".
My mom does what a mom needs to do every day. She picks me up from school, drives me to meetings, cook dinner, and helps me with my homework. This is just part of what makes her great, though.
She is my best friend and can immediately notice when I am unhappy. She helps me solve problems that my friends do not understand. Mommy makes me laugh when times are hard. I look forward to coming home because I know there is someone there who cares about what I have done.
Mommy has always tried to be like a "normal mom. But I think my mother is a wonderful woman and she doesn't need to change. She teaches me life lessons that no teacher or friend can. She shows me how to accept everyone for what is inside, rather than what is on the outside.
You may have realized that all the qualities I admire have nothing to do with what she looks like. Everyone could be the way he is, but most are not.
I want everyone to look beyond(超出) the surface and see what is inside others. You may fail to notice someone who is very special like my mom because you cannot accept their outside characters.
A primary school headmaster became a star on the Internet for dancing with his students.
Zhang Pengfei works in Xiguan Primary School in Linyi, Shanxi Province. Every morning, he leads 700 pupils to do the "ghost shuffle" routine（跳鬼步舞操）on the playground. They dance for 30 minutes every day. They like dancing more than doing the old exercise routine, so they don't do the old one now.
"I thought we needed a change because the students lost interest in doing the old exercise routine though it was useful for pupils" Zhang told the reporter. After all, they started to do the old exercise routine in 1951.
Mr. Zhang saw a group of people doing the "ghost shuffle" routine by accident. Then he decided to learn it on his own. "I thought the dance would be great for kids," he said, "The music is energetic and it really makes children relax." In October 2018, he introduced the dance to all the pupils of his school. Soon even teachers and workers there joined in the activity.
"Now the pupils don't keep playing games on their phones. Sometimes they watch different dancing videos and learn new moves!" the headmaster said.
Gu Ailing
One of the most popular players at Beijing 2022 is two—time freeski(自由式滑雪) world champion(冠军) Gu Ailing. Going into the Games, the 18—year. old girl set her sights high(目标远大).
In the women's freeski big air event, she won gold thanks to a left double cork 1620 jump. To complete the jump, she made four and a half rotations(旋转) in the air and landed backward (向后). It was a difficult jump that she had never done before. Her mother told her to play it safely. "But I didn't listen to her and gave it a go, not trying to beat anyone but to elevate(提升) myself to the next level. " said Gu.
Gu is known for her strong will and hard work. She encourages teenagers, especially girls, to challenge themselves through winter sports. "I love feeling nervous and then overcoming(克服)it, feeling that rush and that reward(回报). . that got me into skiing," Gu told The New York Times.
Gu is also a part—time model and piano player. She will start studying at Stanford University this autumn.
According to a common saying, "Honesty is the best policy."But in daily life, honesty can be difficult. Lying often seems like a good way to make people happy or avoid being punished for mistakes. Some people lie out of habit, without even realizing they're doing it. But despite（尽管）all this, honesty is really worth the effort.
One reason for honesty is that lies are difficult to maintain （保持）.There's always a chance that the person you lied to will find out the truth. Is the advantage from lying really worth the risk?
Lies are also difficult to hide because they are harder to remember than the truth. If you make up a story, you have to remember all about it. And the more lies you tell, the more stories you have to remember. But if you tell the truth, you will never have trouble remembering.
Another reason to avoid lying is that lying can harm others. People who believe your lies might make bad decisions because of them. If your friends find out you lied to them, they will question whether they can trust you.
Oppositely, if you always tell the truth, you will develop the fame for honesty. This will help you in every area of your life. Business deals, friendships, family and other relationships all depend on trust.
Honesty, however, doesn't mean that you have to say everything you think. Sometimes it's best to remain silent if your words might hurt someone else. Honesty means that when you speak, you tell the truth without holding any information back. When you do that, you will feel more relaxed and enjoy stronger relationships.
Mike Reynolds builds houses from recycled materials. These houses are a symbol of his war against waste. Mike's houses are built using the things that other people throw away. His Earthships (as his houses are called) are beautiful buildings. They are shaped and colored to reflect the fields around them. He uses bottles to create beautiful walls full of light. There are plants everywhere, inside and outside. But the plants and the bottles, like everything else in the Earthships, are not only there for decoration (装饰).
Every single material in an Earthship is carefully chosen. Old car tires are used to build strong outside walls. The rubber protects the houses from the cold winds in winter. These walls are built at the back of the house. The walls at the front of the house are built from metal cans or glass bottles. They're held together with earth from the ground around them.
The beautiful bottle walls are built to the south to give light during the day. The larger front windows heat the house. They also create perfect conditions for growing all kinds of fruits and vegetables because the plants are protected against the bad weather. When you live in an Earthship, you don't need anything from the outside world. You grow your own food. You get electricity from the sun and wind, and you get water from the rain and snow.
Mike and some other Earthship builders use their ability and experience to help people all over the world. In 2010, they visited Haiti in the earthquake. They taught people there how to build safe, new homes quickly and cheaply from materials that they could find around them. Mike points out that waste is always there because we humans create it—but we can also learn to recycle it.
Dogs can be good helpers to humans and what about monkeys? They can do a great job, too. Monkeys can help disabled people live a better life just as dogs do.
Like dogs, monkeys need lots of training to be human helpers. One difference is that monkeys live longer than dogs do. This means that a monkey's "childhood" is also longer than a dog's. So it may take them four to six years before they are ready to begin training. It's said that it is almost as much work as raising a young child!
After monkeys begin training, they usually take about a year to learn enough tasks to be good helpers. One important thing that they need to learn is how to follow commands(命令).For example, if a person wants to have the lights turned on, he or she might give the command "sun". As the monkeys get better at completing their tasks, they learn new and more difficult ones some monkeys can even learn how to use a computer!
Kitts is one of "Tomorrow's people"—people who have electronic body parts. She has an electronic arm. One year, Kitts lost her arm in a truck accident. She felt angry and sad. She couldn't accept it. But then she heard a piece of good news that a doctor could use her remaining nerves (神经) in her shoulder to fix an electronic arm.
Before long, the doctor decided to move Kitts's nerves to different areas of her top arm. For months, the nerves grew and moved deeper into their new homes gradually. After three months she started feeling a little painful. The doctor helped her a lot to reduce (减少) pains. A month later, her pains disappeared and she got her new electronic arm. An engineer worked with Kitts to connect the computer programs with her real movements more and more closely.
Today, Kitts's arm is great, but it's not yet perfect as normal people. She wants feelings in her hands. For example, she needs to feel whether something is smooth or not. She also needs feelings to do one of her favorite things—drinking coffee. One time at a coffee shop, she, together with her friends, wanted to drink coffee as they talked happily. However, her hand kept closing until it broke the coffee paper cup. "One day I'll be able to feel things with it, and clap my hands to the songs my kids are singing…" she said with hope and pride.
What are you going to do if you are in a burning house? How will you escape? Do you know how to save yourself? Please read the following passage.
Escaping from a fire is a serious matter. Knowing what to do during a fire can save your life. It's important to know the ways you can use and show them to everyone in the family, such as stairways and fire escapes, but not elevators.
From the lower floors of the buildings, escaping through windows is possible. Learn the best way of leaving by windows with the least chance of serious injury.
The second floor window is usually not very high from the ground. Of course, it is safer to jump a short way than to stay in a burning building.
Windows are also useful when you are waiting for help. Be sure to keep the door closed. Or smoke and fire may come into the room. Keep your head low at the window to be sure you get fresh air rather than smoke that may get into the room.
On a second or third floor, the best windows for escape are those that open onto a roof . From the roof a person can drop to the ground more safely. Dropping onto hard ground might end in injury. But shes and grass can help to break a fall.
Some people remember the things by writing notes to themselves. Then they leave the notes in obvious(明显的)places, such as on the table, on the floor or in the middle of the living room. I don't think I like to write notes to myself. Most of the time I lose them or forget to look at them until it's too late. I would rather use an alarm clock to tell me what I should do. I have ten alarm clocks in my house. They could tell me about things. For example, if I have to make a telephone call at a certain time, I'll set an alarm clock to go off a few minutes early and put the clock by the telephone. Or if I want to watch a certain television programme, I'll set an alarm clock at the right time and put the clock on top of the TV set, 1 can remember almost anything if I use my clocks. However, sometimes an alarm clock goes off and I don't know what it means. I always remember setting it, but not why I set it. If the clock is by the telephone, I know I may have set it to tell me to call someone, but I can't be sure. I might have set it to tell myself that somebody is to call me at a certain time.
With labels (标签) such as "zero sugar, zero fat, zero calories", some diet drinks(低糖饮料) have been placed in places that are easily seen in supermarkets. But how do these drinks taste sweet without sugar?
One of China's most popular drink brands, Genki Forest, apologized (道歉) on April 10 for deceptively(欺骗地) advertising its products as having no sugar. In a statement, the fast-growing companysaid that the difference between "sugar-free" and "sucrose-free(无蔗糖)"was not well explained in the product packaging, leading to a" misunderstanding?.
Now the company has changed the words from "sugar-free" to "low sugar" on the bottles. But many internet users don't buy the apology and feel like they've been tricked into putting on weight.
In fact, there are many kinds of sugar. Sucrose is just one of them. Other kinds of sugar, such as fructose(果糖) and sugar alcohol(糖醇), are still in Genki Forest drinks. These types of sugars offer little energy, but a small amount of them can make drinks taste sweet. That's why diet drinks like Genki Forest are popular among people who want to lose weight.
However, these sweeteners(甜味剂)might make people eat more. When you eat sweet-tasting things, it sends your brain a "sweet signal", which then tells your body to prepare itself to take in energy. But since diet soft drinks have little energy, the brain will not receive what it is expecting. In this situation, you will feel hungry and start eating more food to get energy.
According to China Daily, drinking too many diet drinks might lead to getting fat and Type 2 diabetes(糖尿病).Compared with sugar-sweetened drinks, zero-calorie sweet drinks are helpful for preventing from being overweight, but compared with water, diet drinks are not that healthy.
