Friends are very important to us. Sometimes we just want to develop some new friendships. Here are some of the best apps for you to make new friends.

Atleto

Research shows that exercising with a friend promotes more motivation and healthier lifestyle habits. Atleto is an app that builds on this “exercise contagion (传染)” phenomenon by bringing together athletic people to take exercise and organize group activities. You can choose from over 40 sports and find your community of people who like to be in a sweat.

Friender

Studies show that we’re eager to find people similar to us. Suppose you’re sick of boring surface-level conversations. Then, Friender solves that problem quickly with an algorithm (算法) that only matches you based on your favorite activities and interests. This friend-finding app makes it easy to get into conversations that you care about. If you don’t have many hobbies to type into an app, one of the easiest ways to start is to try out new hobbies.

PawDate

Dogs are great companions, but sometimes it’s nice to talk to humans, too. This app connects pet owners to meet up at dog parks or walk with their pups. You get to set up doggie play dates and find new friends at the same time It’s a win-win.

Skout

Skout started back in 2007 to help people make new friends. The matches are based on geographical distances and preferences. It’s perfect for meeting people while traveling, moving and entering a new chapter of life. Skout is able to discover people directly by checking into a location and seeing who else on the app is there.

As a senior school graduate, with COVID-19 cases rising and lockdown hitting, I’ve had plenty of concerns. Losing my graduation ceremony was one of them. But being unable to lend a hand to my community at such a terrible time was the greatest concern. Except for wearing my mask, following the health officials’ guidelines, and assisting seniors to get their groceries, there wasn’t anything more I could do.

Then it struck me. Solving COVID-19 relied only on individual steps and the goodwill of human awareness. But the next challenge we have to deal with ahead is climate change known as the silent pandemic without a vaccine. So all I could think of was: Why don’t we do the same for it, and try to deal with global warming through our everyday activities?

I have decided to take a gap year and created an app to help people reduce carbon emissions from their shopping and transport activities. Even though I’d never written any program before, my will was greater than any excuse I could think of. The first version was just a one-screen app. Through the lockdown, I’ve had only 70 people to test the concept with and barely created any impact. Plus, the process of leading a social organization seemed like a small boat in a rough sea to me. But instead of giving up, I chose to fill the gap. And the coolest thing was that the more I was learning, the more people got interested in the idea. Through every leadership program, I built a stronger user community where each person was equally passionate and brave to make a change. Their enthusiasm was my greatest fuel for innovation.

Today, through the app, over 4,000 people reduced more than 150,000 kg carbon emissions. The app turned into an international movement. I proved to myself that miracles really happen when you dare to make a change.

In many countries of the world people do what is called house sitting. It means that if owners of the house are going away, they want someone to come into their home and look after the house and maybe pets while they are away.

In Australia, many people travel. After people retire, they might buy a van and travel all over the country.     16    

So if someone wants to travel or go away for some reason, they might want someone in their home to care for it and keep the gardens tidy. House sitters might have to care for pets. Also, quite a few people have swimming pools in their back yard and they need cleaning.    17     I feel it is a great way of seeing the country, because you go and stay in a new city, get to meet new people, and have time to go sightseeing in a new area.

    18     There are websites where you find the advertisements by people who want to travel, and by replying to the advertisement, you can make arrangements to go and look after their home.

There are some requirements to be a house sitter. You must be a trusted person, so that the home owner knows you will not steal anything. You must be able to go when the house owner wants you to go, so you need lots of free time.    19     You need to be good with pets, able to care for cats and dogs, or other pets they may have.

Some house sitting jobs are just for a few days or a couple of weeks while the house owners have a short holiday. Sometimes it is for much longer. We have had one house sit for six months, while the home owner travelled to Europe.

    20     Then you can travel to many different countries and stay there. One of the important things to get is references from the home owners where you have stayed. A reference is a written letter to say that you are trustworthy and have looked after their home well. You can show these letters to possible house sitting jobs and they know you will do a good job.

Most worthwhile careers require some kind of specialized training. Ideally, therefore, the choice of a（n） ______ should be made even before the choice of a curriculum in high school. Actually, ______ , most people make several job choices during their working live, partly ______ economic and industrial changes and partly to improve their positions. The "one perfect job" does not exist. Young people should therefore ______ into a broad flexible training program that will ______ them for a field of ______ rather than for a single job.

Unfortunately, many young people, knowing ______ about the occupational world or themselves for that matter, choose their lifework ______ a hit-or-miss basis. Some ______ from job to job. Others ______ to work in which they are unhappy and ______ they are not fitted.

One common mistake is choosing an occupation for ______ real or imagined prestige.

Too many high-school students—or their parents for them-choose the professional field, ______ both the relatively small proportion of work vacancies in the professions and the extremely high educational and personal ______ . The imagined or realprestige of a profession or a "white-collar" job is ______ good reason for choosing it as a life's work. ______ , these occupations are not always well paid. Since a large proportion of jobs are in mechanical and manual work, the majority of young people should give serious ______ to these fields.

Before making an occupational choice, a person should have a general idea of what he wants ______ life and how hard he is willing to work to get it. Some people desire social prestige, others intellectual satisfaction. Some want security; others are willing to take ______ for financial gain. Each occupational choice has its demands as well as its ______ .