【推荐2】When I graduated from college I dreamed of being a television news reporter. Having no experience, I had to work in a small town until I finally got my big break in the form of a job in Boston. I made it.

Soon, reality set in. I was too often sent to run after accused criminals out of courts, waiting outside of crime scene tape or at the doorstep of a family still crying for tragedy (悲剧). My breaking point came the day I accidentally informed a young woman that her mother died. It was the worst day of my professional life and the day I decided I no longer wanted to shine a light on these stories. My career was ebbing, and at the same time my personal life was too-I divorced.

My mom had always told me “When you’re feeling extremely upset, go help someone else.” So I started seeking out stories of people who had been in the news under tragic circumstances but were doing something inspiring with their lives: a young girl who was paralyzed (瘫痪的) by an accident but was uplifting her classmates with her positive spirit, a blind and autistic (自闭的) musician who learned to play 27 instruments, a disabled soldier who opened his own art studio. I started to tell and promote stories like them.

Over the last 10 years I have discovered my kindness gift: my ability to see the beautiful side of a person and reflect it back to them and the world. In telling stories of people turning their own hurt into acts of helping others I have become more sympathetic, more grateful and kinder. I have learned kindness is who we are, that our power for it is limitless and that, as we shine a light on it, it grows.

【推荐3】Let Moments Inspire You

When I was a teenager I volunteered to work at the water station at a 10,000m race. My job was to hand out water to the runners. I remember being so excited to see all the different kinds of people who passed by and grabbed a cup of water. I saw so many types of people doing it. I thought maybe I could do it too! So the next year I signed up for the race.

That first 10,000m race was quite an experience. At times, I didn’t know if I could finish. Then came a defining moment. At one point near the end, a 70-year-old ran past me, very fast and I felt embarrassed that I was 50 years younger than he and I couldn’t even keep up with him. I felt defeated for a second. But then I realized something. He was running his race and I was running mine. He had different abilities, experience, training and goals for himself. I had mine. Remember my goal was only to finish. After a minute, it hit me that this was a lesson I could draw from. I learned something about myself in that moment. I turned my embarrassment into inspiration. I decided that I would not give up on running races. In fact, I would run even more races and I would learn how to train and prepare properly and one day I would be one of those 70-year-olds who was still running. As I crossed the finish line, I was proud of my accomplishment.

In life we all have those moments when we compare ourselves to others. It’s natural. Don’t allow those moments to weaken you. Turn them into motivation and let them inspire you. Use them to show you what is possible. With a proper preparation and training, you can improve your results to achieve anything you want in life.

【推荐1】Why are so many people so afraid of failure? Quite simply because no one tells us how to fail so that failure becomes an experience that will lead to growth. We forget that failure is part of the human condition and that every person has the right to fail.

Most parents work hard at either preventing failure or protecting their children from the knowledge that they have failed. One way is to lower standards. A mother describes her child’s hasty-made table as “Perfect!” even though it doesn’t stand still. Another way is to shift blame. If John fails science, his teacher is unfair or stupid.

The trouble with failure-prevention devices is that they leave a child unequipped for life in the real world. The young need to learn that no one can be best at everything, no one can win all the time--- and that it’s possible to enjoy a game even when we don’t win. A child who’s not invited to a birthday party, who doesn’t make the honor roll on the baseball team, feels terrible, of course. But parents should not offer a quick consolation, prize or say, “It doesn’t matter.” because it does. The young should be allowed to experience disappointment—and be helped to master it.

Failure is never pleasurable. It hurts grown-ups and children alike. But it can make a positive contribution to your life once you learn to use it. Step one is to ask “Why did I fail?”

Don’t blame someone else. Ask yourself what you did wrong, how you can improve. If someone else can help, don’t be shy about inquiring. Success, which encourages repetition of old behavior, is not nearly as good a teacher as failure. You can learn from a bad party how to give a good one, from an ill-chosen first house what to look for in a second. Even a failure that seems definitive can prompt fresh thinking, a change of direction. After 12 years of studying ballet, a friend of mine auditioned for a professional company. She was turned down. “ Would further training help?” she asked. The ballet master shook his head. “ You will never be a dancer”, he said, “You haven’t the body for it.”

In such cases, the way to use failure is to take stock(估量) of the situation bravely asking, “What have I left? What else can I do?” My friend put away her shoes and moved into dance treatment center, a field where she’s both able and useful. Failure frees one to take risks because there’s less to lose. Often there is recovery of energy—a way to find new possibilities.

【推荐2】I once knew a high school teacher who made, in my mind, a curious comment. Referring to a naughty student, he remarked, with a tone of gloomy resignation, “People don’t change.” I knew the kid well. He was what one would call a “juvenile delinquent”. But if schooling held no promise of making positive changes in kids, what was the point teaching?

My own son, Alyosha, growing up, was athletic, energetic, and occasionally hard to handle. But he never showed the least interest in tools, or working with his hands in any way. The result was that he couldn’t tell a screwdriver from a paintbrush. I recall one day, as I fussed under the car, calling out to him to bring me an adjustable wrench. He fetched a pair of pliers. “No,” I pleaded while trying to hold an oily car part in place. “Pliers.” He went back into the garage and returned with a bar. “No, no,” I corrected him. “The adjustable wrench! For loosening a nut.” To which, in his own defennce, he exclaimed, “Well, I don’t know!”

Years passed. And then, one day, well into his 20s, he told me he had decided on a technical school: machinery technology. I nodded approvingly, but already knew that it was a challenging field, full of moving parts, tools, and dreaded math.

During his period in Coast Guard technical school I thought about him daily, wondering what the outcome would be. I had prepared myself for the phone call telling me that it was just too much and he was being sent to sea as a deckhand.

It didn’t happen. The phone did ring, but it was Alyosha asking me to fly to Virginia to attend his graduation and pin his new rank on his collar. Prouder I couldn’t have been.

As I stood before my son, Alyosha, standing at attention and staring dead ahead, glanced at me. “You want me to help you, Dad?” he said. “Always,” I answered, “but not this time.”

Yeah, people do chance. And, in my experience, it’s usually something to see.

【推荐3】Ready to take a gap year？ A "Gap Year" is a period of time when a student takes a break before going to university. It is often spent travelling or working．    1    

Gap years are popular with European and Australian students, but remain less popular in America. However, in recent years, more and more American students are preparing for college by taking a gap year. The advantages of taking a gap year are as follows：

    2    

Although you don't have to go abroad to experience gap years, most gap year students catch the chance to travel abroad. You are able to work out who you are and what you are for. The experiences of different cultures offer you interesting lessons. You can learn more about the world and get to know yourself better．

A gap year is not only a time to take a vacation, but also a time to face challenges. Gap year students usually work, volunteer or take service projects. You have to learn how to get along in the real world. This process isn't always easy, but it is an important part of growing up．    3    

Save money and improve your college admission chances

There's a common thought that gap years are only for rich students, but it's not true. Actually, taking a gap year can save your money. Gap year students often take a part-time job. Besides, at the end of a gap year, students are much more likely to know what to study in college.     4    

    5    Both of them are excellent and have high grades. However, one student has much practical experience or has volunteered in his vacation. Who do you think the admission officer will choose？

【推荐1】When I was eight, I got my first pair of glasses. Far from being made fun of at school, the only struggle I got was endless requests to try on my new glasses. Hearing about what happened at school, my father once looked at me and asked whether I had pretended to be the blindness just to look like Harry Potter?

With my strange hair and glasses, I did nothing to avoid it, either. The Harry Potter books were the great pop cultural event of my generation, who began reading again. My school librarian, both confused and annoyed by us Potter fans, dealt with fights over the schools few old copies by setting a new rule: Harry Potter could be borrowed for only three days, instead of the whole week of borrowing period every other title was allowed.

In the 20 years since the first book arrived on shelves, publishers and parents have been asking what has made J.K. Rowling's books so loved. It is better to look at the influence they have had on their readers. Yes, the books were about a boy taking on a dark and powerful enemy in the magical world, but they were also about love defeating hate, determination and choosing" between what is easy and what is right". Rowling’s entire magical characters were all people we want to be.

I grew up with Harry and together we became children with our own opinions, teens easy to get angry and young adults thinking of everything as normal. When the final book came out in 2007.I read it for 12 hours without a break and cried as I finished it. I felt something sad: the end of Harry’s story signaled the end of my childhood. I was suddenly aimless. Meanwhile, my now Potter-mad father walked impatiently nearby, waiting for the proper moment to take the book away from his daughter.

Harry Potter did shape my generation. As a girl who grew up mostly in peacetime, many of the ideas I found in these books were ones we had never come across before. The magical world’s terrible treatment of non-human beings was the first description of slavery I knew. The treatment of Harry’s teacher Remus Lupin, who hides his condition at work, is a metaphor(比喻) for the shame surrounding those who suffer from AIDS. And all settings like this may have real-world reflections .A study found that teenage Harry Potter readers showed more tolerance (包容) towards those who were suffering. Is it possible that Jeremy Corbyn's popularity among the young had anything to do with their literary education? Is it possible that Harry Potter, in the 20 years he has been with us, has inspired a generation to be more empathetic（感同身受）， welcoming and socially open－ minded than those before it? We will see If not, at least my glasses are still cool.

【推荐2】When I was small，my mother and I would walk to our local library in Franklin Square. As we didn't always have access to a reliable car，walking hand in hand was the most convenient way to get anywhere. It was at story time for children that both my mother and I made lasting friendships.

Today，I am fortunate to live around the corner from the Cold Coast Public Library in Glen Head and a short walk to the Sea Cliff Children's Library. My 18-imonth-old son，Colin，and I find ourselves in Sea Cliff several times a week，meeting and making friends. Well，that is what many people don't understand-a library is more than books；it's a community.

Sure，the library in Franklin Square was the place where I was introduced to Judy Blume novels. But it was also the place where I got my first email address in 1997. At the library，friends and I learned how to research colleges and search for scholarships on the Internet. The library was the place where we sometimes giggled（咯咯笑）too loudly，and where the librarians knew us by name. Their knowing our names wasn't a bad thing. When I came home from my first term at Binghamton University，Mary LaRosa，the librarian at the Franklin Square library，offered me my first teaching job.

I now teach reading at Nassau Community College. My students are often amazed that they can check out books via their smartphones and virtually（虚拟地）visit a variety of Long Island libraries. The app used by Nassau and Suffolk county public libraries，as well as the college library，makes their homework easier by helping them find resources. Even though they can't always easily visit their local libraries，the library is always with them.

【推荐3】Although Bertha Young was thirty she still had moments like this when she wanted to run instead of walk, to take dancing steps on and off the pavement, to throw something up in the air and catch it again, or to stand still and laugh at —nothing — at nothing, simply.

What can you do if you are thirty and, turning the corner of your own street, you suddenly feel happy — absolutely happy.

Oh, is there no way you can express it without being “drunk and disorderly"? How stupid civilization is! Why should you be given a body if you have to keep it shut up in a case like a rare, rare fiddle (小提琴)?

"No, that about the fiddle is not quite what I mean," she thought, running up the steps and feeling in her bag for the key—she'd forgotten it, as usual—and rattling the letter-box. "It's not what I mean, because—Thank you, Mary"— she went into the hall. “Is nurse back?”

“Yes, M’m."

"I'll go upstairs." And she ran upstairs to the nursery.

Nurse sat at a low table giving Little B her supper after her bath. The baby looked up when she saw her mother and began to jump.

“Now, my lovey, eat it up like a good girl," said nurse, setting her lips in a way that Bertha knew, and that meant she had come into the nursery at another wrong moment.

“Has she been good, Nanny?”

“She's been a little sweet all the afternoon," whispered Nanny. "We went to the park and I sat down on a chair and took her out of the pram(婴儿车) and a big dog came along and she pulled its ear. Oh, you should have seen her."

Bertha wanted to ask if it wasn't rather dangerous to let her pull a strange dog's ear. But she did not dare to. She stood watching them, her hands by her side. like the poor little girl in front of the rich girl with the doll.

The baby looked up at her again, stared, and then smiled so charmingly that Bertha couldn't help crying.

“Oh, Nanny, do let me finish giving her supper while you put the bath things away.

“Well, M’m, she oughtn't to be changed hands while she's eating,” said Nanny, still whispering. “It unsettles her, it's very likely to upset her.”

How absurd it was. Why have a baby if it has to be kept—not in a case like a rare, rare fiddle—but in another woman's arms?”

“Oh, I must!” said she.

Very offended, Nanny handed her over.

Now, don't excite her after her supper. You know you do, M'm. And I have such a time with her after!"

Thank heaven! Nanny went out of the room with the bath towels.

"Now I've got you to myself, my little precious," said Bertha, as the baby learned against her.

She ate delightfully, holding up her lips for the spoon and then waving her hands. Sometimes she wouldn't let the spoon go; and sometimes just as Bertha had filled it, she waved it away to the four winds.

When the soup was finished Bertha turned round to the fire. "You're nice—you're very nice!" said she, kissing her warm baby. "I'm fond of you. I like you."

And indeed, she loved Little B so much—her neck as she bent forward, her pretty toes as they shone transparent in the firelight that all her feeling of happiness came back again, and again she didn't know how to express it—what to do with it.

“You’re wanted on the telephone," said Nanny, coming back in victory and seizing her Little B.