【推荐2】I opened my car window and called out “Ma’am! Ma’am!” The only lady in the parking lot looked around until she saw me. “I just wanted to tell how nice you look today,” I said. “The colors you have on are beautiful on you.” Her face registered surprise for a second, and then she smiled. “Thank you!” she called back. Her final steps to her car seemed lighter, and I smiled to myself.

I grew up with very few cheerleaders in my own life. When I was in the middle of fighting a battle for my life, I had been confirmed depression, along with anxiety. It has taken many years and more effort and determination than I thought I was capable of recovering from this illness. With no cheerleaders in my court, I fought this battle alone. I am proud of the progress I have made thus far. There are times when I thought, if only I had had someone to hold me and say, “Susan, I believe in you. You can do this, and I’ll be there every step of the way.” I wonder how much sooner I would have recovered. I’ll never know.

So I have made it a point in recent years to praise people, especially women and girls. Instead of just thinking that someone looks nice or did a great job, I say it out loud. It doesn’t take long, and it’s easy. So, I wonder, why don’t more people do this? As women, we have learned from our role models to be quiet. We downplay (淡化) our own achievements even when we do receive a rare compliment (恭维). Now, when I compliment someone and she denies, I say to her, “Just say thank you.” Most women are relieved that they don’t have to deny the compliment; they can accept the praise without guilt.

Cheerleading doesn’t require any skills. It only takes a few seconds, although you do have to remind yourself to do it. Eventually, it becomes a habit.

【推荐2】To discuss bow to improve the game of football, President Roosevelt called coaches and athletic advisers from Yale University, Princeton University and Harvard University to White House.

The changes caused by the President were the first steps in a long line of reforms to make American football safer.

At that time, football was very dangerous and violent. In 1904 alone, at least 18 people died and more than 150 were injured because of playing football. According to The Washington Post, at least 45 football players died from 1900 to October 1905.

Roosevelt liked football and thought being violent wasn't necessarily a bad thing. But his son was injured while playing as a freshman at Harvard, bleeding badly from a cut over his eye, and the nation was shocked at the number of young men who died or were seriously injured in playing the game. People were especially shaken by the death of Union College player Harold Moore, who died after being kicked on the head.

A movement rose up to ban the sport, which was led by the president of Harvard and a number of other well-known people. They thought football had no place in civilized society and wanted to throw it away. Roosevelt wanted to reform the game and complained in a letter that Eliot wanted to kill it.

Roosevelt again called Harvard, Yale and other football coaches and officials to the White House with a view to a taking away its dangerous features. A committee was formed after the 1905 season to look at changing the rules.

The rules were changed for the 1906 season, but there were still some doubts. The head coach at Swarthmore College wrote a series of articles called How to Play Football. And it took several years for the rules to be accepted.

【推荐1】When I was in primary school, my favorite place was the library, I was the kid who got shouted at for trying to bring home sixty books at a time because I just couldn’t decide which world I wanted to experience that week. I remember spending my weekends glued to a book, hungering for experiencing lives other than my own. Up until middle school, reading was a passion(酷爱)of mine.

Something changed after I entered senior high school though. All of a sudden, reading was a task that I could not avoid fast enough. The books that I read in school bored me, or even if I enjoyed the books themselves, the challenging homework we completed based on those books made me hate reading as a whole.

It actually wasn’t until recently that I rediscovered my love for reading. How you may ask? Audiobooks(有声书). Last summer, I spent every morning taking long walks while listening to them, and I would find myself lost in the stories for hours. And now I’m rediscovering my passion for reading. I feel that pull again. That curiosity.

My love story with reading may have had a happy ending, but not everyone is as lucky as me. What went wrong?

What will happen is that students lose their love for reading because of the way many schools try to encourage children to read. For example, when a child is told to read for twenty minutes every night, they will read for the required amount of time and then check the task off on their list. In this way, reading has suddenly become a boring task instead of an exciting experience.

Making sure that kids keep their passion for reading will require us to rethink how we teach reading in schools and how we introduce books to children outside of school as well. There needs to be less of a focus on meeting reading requirements and more of a focus on creating an environment in which students are actually excited to read.

【推荐2】I was 18 when I first went to sea as a tourist. As a teenager who always looked for novelty and a real adventure, I joined the Merchant Navy immediately after school. I got a round-the-world journey as my first trip we went to South Africa, Australia and New Zealand and sailed down the Panama Canal. Over the next 15 years, I enjoyed a joyful life as a steward, working long hours but playing hard during my time of. Then on the evening of my 33rd birthday in November 1983, we stopped in Trinidad and a group of us went to the land to celebrate. But when I opened my eyes at noon the next day, I knew I was suffering from more than just the typical effects of being drunk and staying up all night-I found I could see nothing.

As I was helped off the ship, I tried to calm down, assuming the situation was temporary. Later, I flew back to the UK and was examined by a specialist. He told me I had a rare serious medical condition,which could make me blind for the rest of my life. I couldn’t process what I’d heard at first; it just didn’t seem to make sense.

In the following months, I felt my life was over. I had lost not only my sight but also my independence-I was trapped in my house with no income. At first, I found it difficult to make my way from one room to another, and the thought of going outside filled me with anxiety.

The turning point came when I went on a camping holiday wit other visually impaired people-it made such a difference to be able to talk to people who understood my situation. Later, I started a two-year course at the Royal National Institute for the Blind, learning new skills. Halfway through the course, I got my first guide dog, Otis, which changed everything. I had a friend who always stayed with me-it was as if all the difficulties had disappeared and the sense of regained freedom was exciting.

Shortly after that, I started working again, and have since enjoyed a rewarding career with organizations that help visually impaired people.

【推荐3】TAMPA, Fla,—At USF, 21-year-old Alexander Mercier of Odessa, majored in mathematics and microbiology, which leads him to start important research that may make him the school’s first Rhodes Scholar.

“I would say I am stubborn,” explained Mercier, who could hear as early as Saturday if he gets the honor. He says the honor is due to more than just brains. Instead, it was determination that made him an accomplished pianist. He says his biggest natural talent was drawing and he also has a love of art. But it was math that attracted him and he wouldn’t let go. He was studying how math may help control the spread of diseases.

“I would sleep on the couch next to the computer,” he said. “I saw a gap in epidemiological (流行病学的) research in the study of how diseases spread. I didn’t know at the time that it would become one of the most important topics in the world.”

While his work is timely and important, there’s lots of competition. Eleven other finalists from this region of the country are also vying for the honor. They attend schools like MIT, Stanford and the University of Chicago.

Mercier owes it to his school that he can have as good a chance as any of the others and he feels that USF has prepared him well. If he doesn’t win the honor and get to study expense-free at Oxford, he says he’ll have many options. “I will continue to do the work that I enjoy and that I think will benefit people,” he said.

Some are surprised that USF hasn’t had a previous Rhodes Scholar. However, many schools haven’t had one. Only 32 are selected each year from across the nation. USF has only been in existence since 1956. By contrast, the first classes at Oxford were held in 1096.