【推荐1】When your friends suddenly stop talking to you, it can leave you confused on what to do next.     1     However, basically, your friends are either really upset with you, or it has nothing to do with you at all. But how can you tell? What’s more, what should you do?

Find out if they have shut all their friends out or just you. It’s important to figure out if your friends have moved on from everyone, or just you. If it’s just you, then you probably did something at some point.     2     They try to get their forgiveness.

Reflect on yourself. Have your friends been upset with you for a while? Would you get it if they were? Not all people yell or scream when they’re upset.     3     If you fail to hear exactly what they’re saying, or you keep doing the same thing over and over again, they may move on and completely shut you out.

Communicate in a different way. There’s always the possibility that your friends haven’t shut you out completely, but they are bored with a certain form of communication, like texting or chatting online.     4     If so, trying a different method to reach your friends could make things better.

    5     If you can’t get responses from your friends, consider reconciling (和解) with them at some point in the future. Send them a note—Let them know you care about them and leave the door open for them.

【推荐2】Life is filled with challenges. As we get older, we come to realize that those challenges are the very things that shape us and make us who we are. It is the same with the challenges that come with friendship. When we are faced with a challenge, we usually have two choices. We can try to accept it, or we can decide that the thing isn’t worth the trouble and call it quits. Although there are certainly times when calling it quits is the right thing to do, in most cases what we need are commitment(投入) and communication.  

When we are committed to something, it means that no matter how painful or how uncomfortable it is, we will always choose to face it instead of running away from it. Communication is making space for discussion and talking about how you feel instead of just saying what others did wrong. If you can say to a friend “I got my feelings hurt.” rather than “You hurt my feelings.”, you are going to be able to solve the problem much faster.

When dealing with many challenges that friendship will bring to you, try to see them for what they are: small hurdles(障碍) you need to jump or get through on your way through life. Nothing is so big that it is impossible to get over, and hurt only serves to make us stronger. It’s all part of growing up. It happens to everyone, and some day you will look back on all of this and say, “Hard as it was, it made me who I am today. And that is a benefit.”

【推荐3】A struggling Waffle House employee who was trying to serve nearly 30 people by himself after midnight got a full serving of kindness when some customers jumped behind the counter to help him.

Ethan Crispo, 24, witnessed the inspiring scene in the early hours of Nov. 3 at a Waffle House in Birmingham, Alabama.

Crispo told TODAY’s Kerry Sanders that he had come to the 24-hour restaurant from a friend’s birthday party and saw the struggling employee, identified only as Ben, trying to cook the food, serve it, bus tables and wash dishes while more than 25 people were waiting to eat.

“The look on his face was just confusion,” Crispo told Sanders.

An unidentified male customer then decided to help him out, grabbing an apron and going behind the counter to wash dishes.

Another customer, Alison Stanley, went behind the counter to make some coffee—still dressed from a night out on the town.

“I don’t think it’s anything special,” Stanley told Sanders. “He needed help, so I got up and helped out.”

Crispo took some photos of the scene as multiple customers worked to bus tables and wash dishes while Ben focused on taking orders and preparing the food.

Waffle House told TODAY that Ben was left to support himself due to a scheduling issue.

“We had two associates scheduled to leave, however, due to a communication mix-up, their relief did not show up on time,” Waffle House director of PR Pat Warner said in a statement. “That left Ben, our cook, alone in the restaurant with hungry customers. He worked the grill (烤架) and got the orders out.”

The company was also thankful for the customers who joined in and helped Ben out.

“We are grateful that many of our customers feel like they are part of our Waffle House family,” Warner said. “There is a sense of community in each and every one of our restaurants, and we appreciate the fact that they consider our associates like family.”

“We are also very thankful for Ben, who kept the restaurant open. He is a representative of our Waffle House culture by always putting the customers first.”

Crispo had his usual order, double plain waffle, as he took in the scene of strangers helping out Ben on his shift.

“Humanity truly isn’t good, it’s great!” he said.

【推荐2】Ireland has had a very difficult history. The problems started in the 16th century when English rulers tried to conquer (征服) Ireland. For hundreds of years, the Irish people fought against the English. Finally,in 1921, the British government was forced to give independence to the south of Ireland. The result is that today there are two "Irelands". Northern Ireland, in the north, is part of the United Kingdom. The republic of Ireland, in the south, is an independent country.

In the 1840s the main crop, potatoes was affected by disease and about 750,000 people died of hunger. This, and a lack of work, forced many people to leave Ireland and live in the USA, the UK, Australia and Canada. As a result of these problems, the population fell from 8.2 million in 1841 to 6.6 million in 1851.

For many years, the majority of Irish people earned their living as farmers. Today, many people still work on the land but more and more people are moving to the cities to work in factories and offices. Life in the   cities is very different from life in the countryside, where things move at a quieter and slower pace.

The Irish are famous for being warm-hearted and friendly, Oscar Wilde, a famous Irish writer, once said that the Irish were "the greatest talkers since the Greeks". Since independence, Ireland has revived (复兴) its own culture of music, language, literature and singing. Different areas have different styles of old Irish song which are sung without instruments. Other kinds of Irish music use many different instruments such as the violin, whistles, etc.

【推荐3】For Angelo and his sister Felana, it’s the beginning of another school day. They finish their homework, and then walk the few hundred meters from home to school.

Few children in the world look forward to this journey as much as they do. For them, this is a new life. They had nowhere to go before. Now, they have a proper house and go to school—the dream has come true.

In 1989, seventy percent of Malagasy’s people lived below the poverty line because of a war. Madagascar is one of the world’s poorest countries. Fifteen years ago, Father Pedro set up Akamasoa. It is a community of people who work together to help the poor. It has become the biggest humanitarian (人道主义的) project on the island. They’ve built 3,500 houses for 17,000 people.

Angelo’s mother says, “I had built a house with my husband in Tana before we lived in the city but it was destroyed by a big wind and my husband died, I couldn’t afford to send my children to school any more and the house rent in Tana was too high. Then, I was told to see Father Pedro. Thanks to him, today, my children eat at the canteen. We have a house, and I’m working I don’t earn much but we can live now.”

While Angelo shows off to the rest of the class, the fire is lit and lunch is being prepared. It’s Mama Jory’s job in Akamason to make sure that all the children are fed at lunchtime. Jory, the Akamasoa head cook, says, “We feed 7,000 children almost every day. The only day when we don’t cook is Sunday. They don’t eat beans all the time. On Mondays, they get rice, too and green vegetables on Tuesdays and when we have enough money, we cook meat, usually on the weekends.”

【推荐2】Throughout history people have always been surprised at the intelligence of some birds.Crows (乌鸦)are such an example.Crows’brain is only about the size of a human thumb,so how smart could they be?

While a crow’s brain may seem small compared with a human brain,what matters is the size of the brain in relation to the size of the animal.According to Professor John Marzluff at the University of Washington’s Aviation Conservation Lab,a crow is actually a flying monkey.Whether is is a friendly monkey or more like a bad one in The Wizard of Oz depends a lot on what you have done ot it(or any of its friends).

Can you tell one crow from another?In this way,a crow may be smarter that you because it can recognize human faces.Marzluff’s team caught some crows,made marks on them and released them.Members of the team wore different masks.Crows could attack people wearing a mask,but only if the mask had been worn by someone who had troubled them.

If you think two crows that are watching you and crying to each other are talking about you,you are probably right.In Marzluff’s study,even crows that were never caught attacked scientists.How did the crows describe their attackers to other crows?Their communication is poorly understood.The intensity(强度),rhythm(节奏),and lasting time of crying seem to form the basis of a possible language.It turns out that crows can pass on anger to their children—even the little crows attacked masked scientists.

Another case about crows’great memory comes from Chatham,Ontario.Around half a million crows would stop in Chatham during their regular travel,putting the farming community’s crops in danger.Head of the town declared war(宣战)on crows and the hunt began.Since then,the crows have,when passing Chatham,flown high enough to avoid being shot.However,this didn’t stop them from leaving all over the town.

【推荐3】Recent years have witnessed the growth of luxury(奢侈品) brands. It's clear that a new generation of young, materialistic people is increasingly relying on luxury brands to improve its self-image.

I am a fashionista too, at least in spirit —I love to look at clothes and shoes. But I don't understand why people spend lots of money on designer labels. When a young woman buys a handbag that costs two months of her salary, that's a scary thing.

What's interesting is that scientists have found that having luxury things doesn't lead to happiness.

Study after study has shown that although we want material things, when we get them we don't suddenly become "happy" people. In fact, a series of studies have shown that individuals who spend money on travel and similar experiences get more pleasure than those on material things. That's because experiences are more easily integrated into a person's identity. If I travel to Yunnan, that adventure affects how I think in the future. My memories become a part of me. Moreover, as Van Boven has observed, young people who pursue happiness through “things" are liked less by their peers. People prefer those who pursue happiness through experiences.

It's natural to want to express yourself through your appearance. So my advice is: create a look that isn't tied to a designer label. Convey your own message. Take some lessons from the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. He was always in Levis jeans and a black turtleneck. Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, routinely appears in hoodies and sneakers. These people, successful people, have style.

You don't have to break the bank to send a message about who you are. Take a trip. Go out into the world. Then come back and confidently create your own signature look.