【推荐1】When I was in the eighth grade, my class was assigned (指派) to be friends with the second-grade kids. I got this little girl named Shelley. The first time I saw her, she was silent and cold. She was small for her age, and she didn’t play with the other kids in her class.

I tried all kinds of things to get her to talk to me. I bought her toys, crayons and candies. But try as I might, nothing worked. One time, I gave her a coloring book and said, “Shelley, now you can color in it any time.”

Shelley looked at the coloring book and then looked up at me, and finally looked away. By that, I didn’t know how I was going to get through to the little girl, but I knew I wouldn’t give up on her.

One Friday, I decided to tell her a story about my childhood. I told her that I felt lonely when I was with my classmates, and how I thought only my teachers liked me. I also told her that every day was a battle (战役) for me and I fought back tears so people wouldn’t know how much I was hurting.

She sat there just listening, trying to decide whether I was lying or not. Finally, when my story ended, there were tears in her eyes. And then she did the unthinkable. She said, “Thank you.” From then on, Shelley was a different little girl. She started smiling and talking with other kids.

Looking back at this I’m in awe, because all I did was to help her realize that she wasn’t alone. I didn’t ask her to tell her story, because her story is my story.

【推荐1】Timothy is a 5-year-old boy with autism(自闭症). In October of 2018, doctors told his parents that he suffered   brain tumor(肿瘤).

Two thieves who specialized in stealing packages from people’s front gates had no idea that one of those packages contained a WWE wrestling belt belonging to Timothy. At the time, the belt was on the front gate of Sergio Moriers’s house, whose job was decorating stuff. “Timothy’s father doesn’t make a lot of money. But he wanted to give his son an amazing gift, and I told him I would do everything for free. I said, ‘Just ship it over and I’ll do everything you want on the belt, and he’ll have the belt of a lifetime.’” He said.

When the belt was taken, Sergio was extremely disturbed, “I want them to know they took hope from a 5-year-old boy who is looking forward to that item coming back to him… You stole that from him. You broke a child’s heart.” Timothy’s father shared what that belt meant to his son, “Timothy would not go anywhere without that belt… Most kids have balls, while he had a belt.” All hope was lost.

Then something unexpected happened. “I saw two women appeared at the gate. They put down the bag there. My guard went over and I realized what was happening. That bag contained the stolen wrestling belt,” Sergio said. The two women apologized to Sergio. They said that they were thrown out of a friend’s apartment after the friend saw the news report of the theft on TV. In fact, they were trying to kick a drug habit. They cried with guilt and shame.

Seeing the returned belt, Timothy’s father said, “It’s one of those things you always hear about, those crazy stories about people, but you never think it’ll happen to yourself. I’m still taken aback, to be honest.”

【推荐2】While many people prefer to buy a new dog from a breeder, another option is to adopt a rescue dog. As the Svilicics already had a healthy daughter Charlotte, they felt fortunate enough to save another life. Thus, Catherine adopted a dog and named it Khan. Catherine was hopeful this would provide valuable lessons for her baby, such as sharing, learning to love and responsibility to care for animals.

They trained Khan during the first few days and everything began smoothly. Charlotte and the new dog made a habit of playing out in the backyard. However, things were different this day. They began running through the backyard grass together. That was until Khan’s temperament seemed to change dramatically. Khan began acting wildly aggressively (富于攻击性的), grabbing the baby.

This was not the normal play between the two. Mouth open, Catherine watched in complete and utter shock. She watched as Khan tossed (抛) Charlotte across their lawn. What happened next alarmed Catherine and everyone present. He tightly clenched his jaws into her diaper to toss her back and forth. Therefore, with urgency, she ran to Charlotte and carried her to safety.       

Miraculously, her child was unharmed. While Catherine brought her baby to shelter, Khan barked madly and then collapsed. The dog began crying. No one understood what was going on! Khan was obviously not doing well. The dog continued crying and then fell lifeless. Catherine focused on the dog, watching his dying eyes and realized he had been protecting her child. It turned out that Khan was protecting Charlotte from a poisonous, dangerous snake. She used all her strength to bring the dog to her car and sped for the vet, hearing his breath slow. When the vet took over, Catherine cried and felt totally helpless, so she prayed for his recovery.

The vet had to remove all the snake poison from the body. Quite a few days later, Khan was slowly getting stronger through the vet’s effort. Eventually, he made progress and the snake’s venom was removed. Actually, Khan impressed even the vet with his rapid recovery and progress.   

The whole family could be reunited once again with this amazing and heroic animal. Catherine was determined to protect this amazing animal as if it were her own child.

【推荐3】Most of us travel with our parents as children and teenagers. For some of us, during the travel, our parents are our inspiration. These trips are normally full of rental cars, beaches, and hamburgers. My family would go to Galiano island every summer, and we did a week in Mexico in 1995, and then we did two different trips to Anaheim to experience the magic of Disney, Universal, and Knott’s Berry Farm.

But all of these are childhood experiences and memories. I didn’t really truly travel with my parents until I was an adult when I got the chance to travel with mom and dad.

I was in New Zealand for a study abroad, and invited my parents to come down for a 2-week road trip around the North Island and then 10 days in Fiji. Why not? They said, as if this was something they were invited to do every day. I didn’t really plan anything, but my mom had done some reading and I knew some highlights after living in New Zealand for 5 months.

I had booked a hotel for their first night in Auckland. The only other preparation I had done was to book a rental car. My parents immediately reached an agreement that I should be the driver, for the whole two weeks. The main reason for this, understandably, was that neither of them had ever been in a country where you drive on the left hand side of the road and on the right hand side of the car. This led to me driving my parents around the entire North Island of New Zealand for 2 weeks! But still, everybody had jobs. Dad had the maps, and mom had the guidebook, and I just took them where they told me to go.

Sometimes, I was asked who I was traveling with. When I said “my parents”, the response was, “Ohhh, older people.” Actually, I have some tips on travelling with parents happily.

【推荐1】I first saw a real durian (榴莲) in an Asian supermarket in Queens. That strange-looking fruit was big, heavy, and covered with sharp pricks (刺). I decided to buy one. The Chinese checkout girl carefully wrapped it thickly in a newspaper before putting it into a shopping bag.

On the train home, I cautiously opened the Chinese newspaper and lifted it out. Its strangeness made me think of kung fu, yoga and Taijiquan.

Upon arriving home, I dug out the biggest knife and cut through the tough prickly husk (壳). I tasted the pale-yellow flesh, delicious!

After that, durian was my favourite fruit. My skill at cutting durian open was improving. I showed the skill to my girlfriend.

A few years later, we moved to Taiwan. One day I noticed some durians had begun to open by themselves. The owner tried to get me to buy one but I shook my head, thinking it was far-gone. Instead I selected one whose outer husk wasn’t open.

The next morning I woke up to a strong durian smell. I found a small crack (裂缝) had appeared all on its own. I used the smallest pressure and tasted a more delicious durian. Suddenly, I realized something. I ha felt so satisfied with my own skill in opening the durian that I never thought about letting the durian open itself. The higher art was not in doing but in not doing — letting the thing happen on its own in the way it happens best.

【推荐3】In a town there lived a little, beautiful and smart girl. Her name was Rose. Everyone was very brave, but she was scared of the doctor. One day, one of her teeth was moving. Her mom saw it. She said, "One of your teeth is moving, and you need to visit Doctor Tim."

Rose said, "No! I'm not going to the doctor."Mom said, "Don't worry. It's not wobbly(摆动的) we needn't go to the doctor at once." That made Rose feel better.

After five weeks, Rose forgot about her tooth but her mom didn't. She checked her tooth again and it was wobblier, so she said, "It's time to see the doctor."

Rose was scared but she had to do what her mom told her, so they went to see the doctor Tim. They had to wait in the waiting room.

When it was her turn, her heart was beating very fast. She went into Doctor Tim's room. He was smiling. She sat on the chair. Doctor Tim said, "Close your eyes." Rose closed her eyes, but just before Doctor Tim started, tears started coming down from her eyes. When she opened her eyes, she saw Doctor Tim holding her tooth, smiling. Rose smiled. Then Doctor Tim gave her a teddy bear. From that time Rose wasn't scared of doctors anymore.