【推荐2】Five years ago, a truly unforgettable event took place. My wife and I were celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary (纪念日) that year. To our delight, it was a splendid event, lovingly hosted by our sons just for us. Our dear, old friends gave us a wonderful surprise with their thoughtful gifts and heartfelt congratulations. Our gift to each other was a driving trip out west. We drove from Ontario into Alberta, then southward into Glacier National Park in Montana, and continued to Yellowstone National Park.

It was a cold spring day, and the Beartooth Highway had opened for the season just days before. Alongside the road, there was still a great amount of snow there. The scenery was so impressive that we made lots of stops to record memories with my camera. At the highest point of the highway, I stopped at a lookout to catch the amazing views, with my wife in the centre of my camera lens.

There were not many cars on the road. Sometimes, cars with energetic young tourists passed by. And then we heard a motorcycle in the distance. The driver of the motorcycle, who wore dirty clothes, parked behind our cars. Approaching us, he spoke only a simple command, “Give me your camera and get over there with your wife.” I must admit I felt nervous that we might be robbed where we just created some beautiful memories. Surprisingly, he just took a picture of us, handed back my camera and rode off before we could offer our thanks. Unexpectedly, the photo he took is now one of the most valuable and prized of our trip.

In that unexpected encounter, I absorbed a lesson in the most unlikely of places. We should never judge a man by his appearance. To the motorcyclist who may one day read this story and remember us: we wish to extend our deepest appreciation and a heartfelt “Thank you” for the kindness you showed us that day.

【推荐3】I grew up in a home with a mother who believes that vaccines (疫苗) cause brain damage, and do not contribute to the health and safety of a society. The only shot I received was for tetanus (破伤风) when I was two months old. After that, nothing.

At the beginning of each school year, I was very nervous. Delayed term paper? Mischievous (捣蛋的) behavior? Late for school? None of them. I’d be pulled out of class and brought to the headmaster’s office. The school doctor would tell me I hadn’t received any of the necessary shots to attend school. But the same thing occurred each time: my mom would free me from the shots and nothing would happen.

After doing a lot of research, I found although people who don’t vaccinate their children make up only a relatively small group, they can cause major consequences. People who, for health or age reasons, cannot receive vaccines are at a higher risk of catching a preventable disease.

Eventually, I turned 18. In Ohio, where I live, I had to wait until I became a legal adult to make the decision to receive vaccine shots. A huge factor in taking the step to ensure my health was the message board website Reddit. Last November, I asked Reddit users for advice about what vaccines to ask for and how to go about getting them from a doctor. After my post received more than 1,000 comments, I made an appointment with my family physician. Despite how strongly my mother felt, I went through with it anyway.

I did something every person should do. It wasn’t special in any way. Vaccines protect the health and safety of not only yourself but also other people. Vaccination is important because someone could die if you don’t get vaccinated. This was the biggest reason I got vaccines despite the opposition.

【推荐1】Educators today are more and more often heard to say that computer literacy is absolutely necessary for college students. Many even argue that each incoming freshman should have his or her own microcomputer. What advantages do computers offer the college students?

A few years ago, I stood in a small classroom just outside of New York City, watching a high schooler named Serena Stevenson answer math questions. An instructor read out numbers — 74,470, 70,809, 98,402 — and Stevenson added them in her head. For each question, she closed her eyes, and then the fingers of her right hand began to move. She answered most of the problems correctly.

The key to her success was an ancient technology called the abacus (算盘). Stevenson used a practice called “mental abacus”, imagining the abacus in her mind and then using her fingers to work through the problems.

From watching Stevenson, I knew that gaining skill at the abacus was more than a matter of counting beads, so I decided to sign up for an abacus course with my two daughters to see if we could also improve our math skills. I was one of the many who had some math doubts and I felt a touch of fear. My typical solution was avoidance, and if I had to calculate something like a percentage change, I would go online.

Then after a few abacus classes and a good amount of practice, math seemed a little less frightening. I didn’t become Euclid, the founder of geometry. But the practice brought my numerical fears down. This is a time-tested power of the abacus. Confidence grows easily in the device, and abacus students are less likely to be nervous about an upcoming math test, according to one study. Part of the reason, it seems, is that practice and outcomes appear to move in step.

My kids gained much as well. My youngest daughter could work out those math problems that once baffled her, while my older child brought her abacus to school to show it to her classmates and teacher. These were just small successes for them, but that was how they finally developed confidence.

【推荐2】I received a call today asking if I would be willing to bring food to a family in need. The mother was having a major operation and would be lying down for several weeks. Of course, I responded with an immediate ＂Yes!＂. As I planned the meal in my head, I reflected on how many times over the years I had been asked to prepare food. I have done so countless times with a very open heart.

But the truly amazing thing is that I have received double over the course of my life. When my mother passed away, our house was filled with fresh dinners for weeks. A woman from the church of our community stepped by each evening with some food. The gift of food was her small way of trying to ease our pain.

Later in my life, when I was on bed rest during my pregnancy with twins, women of the church again stepped in to help. They arranged babysitting for my two-year-old daughter, and brought lovely dinners to our house. Even when I was put in the hospital, my husband would bring cooked meals to my hospital room. How we relied on these dinners to feed my tired husband and young daughter!

Food is all about comfort. It feeds our bodies, but it can also feed our souls. When you hear people talking about their favourite holidays, it usually includes their feelings connected with sharing food. I know that I will have many more opportunities in my lifetime to prepare food for others. It is truly a gift I want to prepare and deliver to someone in need.

【推荐3】After years of observing human nature, I have decided that two qualities make a difference between men of great achievement and men of average performance — curiosity and discontent. I have never known an outstanding man who lacked either. And I have never known an average man who had both.

Together, these deep human urges (驱策力) count for much more than ambition. Galileo was not merely ambitious when he dropped objects of varying weights from the Leaning Tower at Pisa and timed their fall to the ground. Like Galileo, all the great names in history were curious and asked in discontent, “Why? Why? Why?”

Fortunately, curiosity and discontent don’t have to be learned. We are born with them and need only to recapture them. “The great man,” said Mencius, “is he who does not lose his child’s heart.” Yet most of us do lose it. We stop asking questions. We stop challenging custom. We just follow the crowd. And the crowd desires only the calm and restful average.

Most of us meet new people, and new ideas, with hesitation. But once having met and liked them, we think how terrible it would have been, had we missed the chance. We will probably have to force ourselves to waken our curiosity and discontent and keep them awake.

How should you start? Modestly, so as not to become discouraged. I think of one friend who couldn’t arrange flowers to satisfy herself. She was curious about how the experts did it.

The way to begin is to answer your own excuses. You haven’t any special ability? Most people don’t; there are only a few geniuses. You haven’t any time? That’s good, because it’s always the people with no time who get things done. Harriet Stowe, mother of six, wrote parts of Uncle Tom’s Cabin while cooking. You’re too old? Remember that Thomas Costain was 57 when he published his first novel, and that Grandma Moses showed her first pictures when she was 78.

However you start, remember there is no better time to start than right now, for you’ll never be more alive than you are at this moment.

【推荐1】First, I thought I was pregnant (怀孕的). Shortly after, I had a shooting pain in my stomach. Finally, I went to the emergency room and they said, “Listen, something is wrong.” Then I was told I might lose my hair for my wedding due to the chemical treatment.

When it came out, I just felt like I wanted to shave it. I didn’t want to sit around and wait for my hair to fall out. I wanted to have control in a situation where I had zero control. This was the one area I could have some sort of control.

I went to a hair salon that day, and it was super emotional. I cried in the chair the whole time. I was terrified to see that my head looked like bald (秃头的). I didn’t know whether it was going to be malformed or not and I couldn’t help worrying whether there was any unnatural part on it. I also have a mole (胎记) on my head that I’ve always been really self-conscious about.

Once I got home, I realized my head was extremely round and the mole wasn’t that noticeable. Over time, I actually enjoyed being bald. I never had to do my hair. Getting ready was quick and easy. I just knew it was something I couldn’t control, and I needed to accept it and learn to love myself in a new way.

Even when I was first diagnosed (诊断), there was no way I was going to sit there and feel sorry for myself. I told myself, “I’m gonna get up. I’m gonna fight this thing. I’m not going to lose.” I always said I would win.

Looking at things in a positive way really helped me, so that’s what I did with my bald head. I would say, “Yeah, this sucks, but at least I don’t have to wash my hair. At least I don’t have to dry it. At least I can get ready in five minutes.” I always tried to put a positive spin on it.

【推荐2】Around this time of a year when the weather gets cooler in Arkansas, there are a lot of homeless people, as well as people with different situations who need help.

Oftentimes our family serves at a soup kitchen where they give out bags of food to needy families in our area. And we’ll help put those bags of food together and hand them out, among other things.

There are a lot of reasons why serving the community is important to me, but one of them has to do with my father. My grandfather died when my father was 4 years old and my grandmother had four kids all under the age of 5, all born pretty close together. That was a time when things were so bad in the country. There wasn’t work and often the family hardly made ends meet, so my grandmother put the kids in a children’s home so that they could at least have food to survive.

My dad said he never forgot the local charity would bring the kids a gift for Christmas. The kids worked hard in the children’s home and the only present they got was from the local charity. He never forgot this kindness and always appreciated the local Charity for what it did when he was a little boy.

My dad was such a hardworking worker --- family meant the world to him. I was the seventh baby in my family and my mother had me just after she turned 40. She was one of those high-risk pregnancy mums, and I'm so grateful she had me. My mum and dad made a happy home for us, and I'm so grateful for that. I hope my children are catching those lessons, not just from Mum and Dad, but from grandparents and everyone else in their lives.

【推荐1】When I was a child, I dreamed of becoming many things. Sometimes, I wished I was an astronaut going up into space, finding new planets and jumping around in a cool space suit. Other times, I imagined being a cowboy in the Wild West, wearing stylish cowboy boots. On other occasions, I pretended to be a famous footballer, using my skills to score lots of goals for my team.

Looking back, I realize that imagination is a wonderful thing. I was able to create entire environments and scenarios in my head, using nothing more than my brain, and to be able to adapt things in my everyday surroundings to fit the specific story of the day. Growing up with siblings (兄弟姐妹) also helped, as it meant that even bigger stories could be created, combining our ideas and putting our thoughts into action. It also allowed for more varieties in the stories, as sometimes I could be the hero while on other occasions, I would be the bad guy.

One of my all-time favorite memories as a kid was playing in my back garden. I played the role of Indiana Jones, which cleaned up at the cinema at that time, with my younger sister as my assistant and my brother as a bad person. We used everything in our garden, from the path to the fence, as part of the storyline to create obstacles that needed to be overcome, and we would keep the story going for hours!

My personal favorite game was Indiana Jones and the Stolen Easter Eggs, where my brother hid small chocolate eggs around the garden and my sister and I had to find them by answering questions or solving a puzzle. It was difficult, but eventually we found all the eggs and shared them together.

Since then, I have seen many great things and met many amazing people. The elements of fun and varieties of my creative imaginations are what I try to bring into every part of my positive life. So I can enjoy sharing with and hearing about other people’s stories, too.

【推荐3】WASHINGTON—US President Donald Trump on August 6,2020 issued an executive order banning any U.S. transactions with Chinese tech firm ByteDance, owner of popular video-sharing app TikTok, starting in 45 days, a controversial move widely criticized by experts.

The app has been downloaded over 175 million times in the United States and over one billion times globally, according to the executive order, which says that the app automatically captures “vast information” from its users, posing risks to U.S. “national security.”

A similar executive order has also been issued for WeChat, a messaging and social media app owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent.

At a White House briefing earlier this week, Trump told reporters that he is open to a deal in which Microsoft Corp. or another U. S. company buy TikTok, setting Sept 15 as the deadline.

During a news briefing while commenting on the issue, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Wang Wenbin said Tuesday that China firmly opposes the U. S. side’s blatant bullying of certain non-U.S. enterprises in violation of market economy rules and the World Trade Organizations principles of openness, transparency and non-discrimination.

“It is a blatant act of bullying, to which China firmly opposes. We have noticed that it has also drawn a lot of criticisms and doubts in the united states and from the international community,” Wang added.