【推荐1】I once knew a high school teacher who made, in my mind, a curious comment. Referring to a naughty student, he remarked, with a tone of gloomy resignation, “People don’t change.” I knew the kid well. He was what one would call a “juvenile delinquent”. But if schooling held no promise of making positive changes in kids, what was the point teaching?

My own son, Alyosha, growing up, was athletic, energetic, and occasionally hard to handle. But he never showed the least interest in tools, or working with his hands in any way. The result was that he couldn’t tell a screwdriver from a paintbrush. I recall one day, as I fussed under the car, calling out to him to bring me an adjustable wrench. He fetched a pair of pliers. “No,” I pleaded while trying to hold an oily car part in place. “Pliers.” He went back into the garage and returned with a bar. “No, no,” I corrected him. “The adjustable wrench! For loosening a nut.” To which, in his own defennce, he exclaimed, “Well, I don’t know!”

Years passed. And then, one day, well into his 20s, he told me he had decided on a technical school: machinery technology. I nodded approvingly, but already knew that it was a challenging field, full of moving parts, tools, and dreaded math.

During his period in Coast Guard technical school I thought about him daily, wondering what the outcome would be. I had prepared myself for the phone call telling me that it was just too much and he was being sent to sea as a deckhand.

It didn’t happen. The phone did ring, but it was Alyosha asking me to fly to Virginia to attend his graduation and pin his new rank on his collar. Prouder I couldn’t have been.

As I stood before my son, Alyosha, standing at attention and staring dead ahead, glanced at me. “You want me to help you, Dad?” he said. “Always,” I answered, “but not this time.”

Yeah, people do chance. And, in my experience, it’s usually something to see.

【推荐2】Alex Elman runs a big business --- something hard to imagine after she lost her sight in her twenties. But Elman says that losing her sight helped her focus on finding success.

Elman’s father planted a hillside vineyard in western Massachusetts in 1981. It’s where Elman fled during the darkest period of her life. When she was 27 years old, she went blind due to complications from juvenile diabetes (幼年型糖尿病) 17 years ago. She recalled, “I hid in my home. I hid in the place, to me, that was the safest place in the world.”

Elman is now the founder of Alex Elman Wines, a growing portfolio (股份) of organic wines from all around the world: Chianti from Italy, Torrontes from Argentina. Elman doesn’t work alone. Her assistant, a guide dog named Hanley, is something of a wine snob, and quite a beggar. Hanley travels to all of the wineries that Elman does, from South America to Europe.

At first, Elman resisted the idea of a seeing-eye-dog. Now it’s hard to imagine her life, or her business, without him. She said. “When someone tells me something is organic and I don’t really believe it because I taste something funny on it, I’ll put it in front of his face and if he likes the wine, he’ll actually go in and sniff it. If it’s not right, he’ll turn his head away…He gets in the dirt with me. He scratches around. He makes sure that we see earthworms and butterflies. That’s how we know that the soil is actually organic, that there are no chemicals.”

Elman told CBS News she believes the loss of her vision was a gift. She said, “It allowed me to pay attention to what I thought was important and also to be able to teach people that the broken hang nail is not a big deal, you know what I mean? Don’t sweat the small stuff. Don’t sweat the big stuff either.”

【推荐3】A little before nine o'clock on Tuesday night, Antonio Gutierrez found himself facing a welcome dilemma. Might he, a waitress asked, have room for a second helping of pudding?

By day, the Robin Hood restaurant, which sits on a side street near the centre of Madrid, is a typical Spanish bar. But at night, it transforms itself into a pioneering place where homeless people, such as Antonio Gutiérrez, can dine, free of charge, at tables set with flowers and proper glasses.

The restaurant is the latest plan from the charity Mensajeros de la Paz, meaning messengers of peace, which was founded 54 years ago by Father Angel(安吉神父)García Rodriguez. “The inspiration came from Pope (教皇)Francis, who’s spoken again and again about the importance of giving people dignity, whether it’s through bread or through work,” said Father Angel. “So we thought, why not open a restaurant? People with nothing can come and eat here and get the same treatment as everyone else.”

Like many Spanish charities, Mensajeros de la Paz is still dealing with the human consequences of the country’s financial crisis, which has left the overall unemployment rate close to 20% and youth unemployment among Europe’s highest at 42%.

Each day, Father Angel’s nearby church provides 200 homeless people with breakfast and lunch. In the evening, the new restaurant feeds 100 homeless people. If the restaurant proves successful, the charity plans to extend the scheme and hopes it will attract famous chefs who will come to cook in the kitchen occasionally.

“The food here is tasty,” said Gutiérrez. “I’d give it lots of stars and I’ll be back tomorrow.” Gutiérrez had not eaten in such a restaurant for five years, except when Father Angel had taken him out.

【推荐1】My mom was an astrophysicist, and Dad was a microelectronics specialist, each dealing with phenomenon bigger or smaller than the eye can see. As a kid, I was often into daydreaming that I won Oscars or Grammys (格莱美奖).     1     My parents, however, applied science and logic to most of the situations, like the time they cut the last olive (橄榄) in quarters because there were four of us.

    2     I watched “Powers of Ten,” a film by Charles and Ray Eames. Initially, they zoom (疾驰) out beyond our galaxy, moving 10 times farther away every 10 seconds, and then quickly zoom back into Earth, into a couple having a picnic, and then into his arm, hand, skin, atoms. It gave me a mix of existential fear and comfort.

    3     But the solar system itself seemed to me like a bunch of friendly, protective neighbor — especially

Saturn is considered the master of the universe. Glancing at them has the effect of making you feel insignificant and momentous (重大的) at the same time.

This summer, I traveled home for my mother’s 60-birthday-party, It consisted of a workshop (研讨会) in her honor in a small coastal town, with current and former colleagues of hers. I spent the day alone, swimming in the sea and joined them for meals while they presented papers to one another. All I had to do was sit, chat and quietly observe details.     5     They would travel to a scenic location to celebrate a birthday, then windup sitting indoors all day to discuss stars and planets.

【推荐2】This year I’m buying presents for 16 children, as well as my own daughter, Mia-Grace, who will be two on Christmas Day. My tree will be beautifully decorated, I’m bringing the turkey to the family Christmas lunch and having an open house activity on Boxing Day. And the whole thing’s only going to cost me £150.

I’ve been careful with money since I was a teenager, for I came from a poor family with many children. I had to drop out of high school to earn money to support myself. I remember well that I went a bit mad back then when I got my first credit card and my parents had to leave me from home and cared little for me from then, which taught me a real lesson.

We’re very careful now and we don’t overspend or owe anything on credit cards. I work for an electrician and my husband Neil, 33, works in the construction business. We’re concerned about our jobs because our companies are quiet at the moment.

We’ve also been hit by rising prices, particularly food, petrol, gas and electricity. Everyone I know is worried. One of my friends’ husbands has just gone self-employed and if he doesn’t work, they have no money coming in.

Christmas has been playing on my mind for the past three or four months. We decided on a budget of £150 because that’s just under my weekly wage and it meant we could afford Christmas while using Neil’s salary for our essential bills.

We quickly realized that we buy some things every year just for the sake of it. Even though we have lots of decorations already, we usually buy something new for the tree but this Christmas we’re not going to. We’ve already got our tree – a big man-made one which I bought half-price in the January sales. It will last us for years.

After all, no one can escape from this financial crisis which is spreading throughout the globe.

【推荐3】For several days Ⅰ(Jane Eyre) saw little of Mr. Rochester. One evening, I was invited to talk to him after dinner. There was a smile on his lips, and his eyes were shining brightly. As I was looking at him, he suddenly turned around and asked me, "Do you think I'm handsome, Miss Eyre?"

The answer somehow slipped from my tongue before I realized it: "No, sir."

"Ah, you are really unusual! You look like a quiet, serious little person, but you can be almost rude."

"Sir, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have given an immediate answer to such a question about appearances; I should have said that beauty doesn't matter, or something like that."

"No, you shouldn't! I see, you criticize my appearance, and then you stick a sly penknife under my ear! You have honesty and feeling. There are not many girls like you. Perhaps you have awful faults to counterbalance(抵消) your few good points."

I thought to myself that he might have too. He seemed to read my mind, and said quickly, "Yes, you're right. I have plenty of faults. I went the wrong way when I was twenty-one, and have never found the right path again. I might have been as good as you, and perhaps wiser. I am not a bad man, take my word for it, but I have done wrong. It wasn't my character, but circumstances that were to blame. Why do I tell you all this? Because you're the sort of person people tell their problems and secrets to, because you're sympathetic and you give them hope."

"Don't be afraid of me, Miss Eyre," he continued." You don't relax or laugh very much, perhaps because of the effect Lowood has had on you. But in time you will be more natural when you're with me, and laugh, and speak freely. You're like a bird in a cage. When you get out of the cage, you'll fly very high. Good night."