【推荐2】How can teenagers keep themselves from suffering from loneliness? Here are some suggestions for speeding a recovery from loneliness.

    1     A smile and a friendly greeting for the student behind you in line at the cafeteria(餐厅) won't make you best friends. But it will make you both feel good. It also can make it easier to interact the next time, and the time after that.

Find a safe place to make connections. If going to the dancing party makes you feel like you just don't belong, try joining a special-interest group.     2     Just because you feel left out in one group doesn't mean you'll feel like an outsider in every other one. Look for a group that allows you to feel comfortable gradually.

Find other ways of making connections. Lonely people hunger for friendship. Sometimes feeling accepted and liked comes more easily when you do something for others rather than waiting for them to make you feel better.     3     Help a child in rending. Take notes for a disabled classmate. You might be surprised at the connections you make.

    4     Loneliness is an absence of quality friendship, not of a particular quantity of friends. That's why it's important to know how to select a friend.

You get what you expect, so expect the best. If you expect others to be friendly, you will behave in proper ways that encourage people to be friendlier to you.     5     But starting the first step of positive expectations can make all the difference.

【推荐3】I was first introduced to Puppies Behind Bars (PBB) when I watched a special on Animal Planet. This non-profit organization is the brainchild of Gloria Gilbert Stoga, a kind-hearted woman from New York PBB is a program in which specially-selected prisoners from prisons are trained in the preparation of puppies to become service dogs for the handicapped(残疾人), or police dogs to serve police forces.

My wife and I were so moved when we watched the program. It is a win-win situation at all points. First, it makes a prisoner, who may never have the chance to be released, go back to the community by joining in this program and offering every minute of every day working, loving, and training a puppy for future service. It is difficult for them, but they realize the importance of this program. In addition, most of them have the chance ( for the first time in their lives) to experience warm love through an animal.

Second, the program saves tens of thousands of dollars that it would cost to train these dogs through traditional ways. All donations to the program are used to buy dog food, training supplies, and veterinary care.

Finally, our society benefits from service dogs which can protect people from danger, search and rescue humans after a serious disaster, or become the lifeline for a handicapped person. The last of these goes far beyond the fact that dogs can open.

Fridges, answer the phone or do a dozen other daily tasks. They give a sense of freedom back to a person who has had it taken away by illness, accident, or warfare.

Because of this we have given a lot of monetary support of this meaningful program.

【推荐3】Asia has long tradition of tea-drinking. And China is no exception.

However, lately more and more Chinese people are turning to a different drink. Coffee has become an increasingly popular choice of Chinese people living abroad and in the country’s huge cities. It is also a popular crop among those living in the mountains of southern Yunnan Province.

In big cities such as Beijing, coffee shops seem to be on nearly every major street corner. These shops are not just selling drinks from Starbucks, the world-famous coffee company. Coffee businesses from South Korea, Taiwan, HongKong and Britain are also operating in China.

Tea-drinking is steeped in the culture and traditions of many countries, like China and Japan. But is that changing? Are young people from Asia now choosing a cup of coffee instead of tea?

BeiBei Su is from China. She has been living in the United States for the past eight years. Before that, she lived in Italy for two years. Ms. Su says she likes tea better than coffee. But she adds that may not be true among the young generation in China. Many young Chinese people drink coffee socially ---when meeting with friends. Yang Lin lives in the U.S. but comes from an area in China famous for growing tea. She used to only drink tea while in China. But now, she says, she drinks both and for different reasons.

Yang Lin says that drinking coffee for her is a social event. She and her co-workers like to sit in a cafe and talk over a cup of coffee. Voyo is another Chinese woman who now lives in Washington, D.C. She says that after moving to the U.S. her tastes changed. We would call her a coffee convert, someone who now chooses to drink coffee.

With more people drinking coffee, many see an economic(经济的）opportunity for Chinese-grown beans. China-grown coffee could be a money-maker even if most of the coffee on sale in China is imported(进口的).