【推荐1】Adrian's "Amazing Race" started early when his parents realized that he, as a baby, couldn't hear a thing, not even loud noises. In a special school for the hearing-impaired (听觉受损的)，he learned sign language and got to mix with other disabled children. However, the sight of all the disabled children communicating with one another upset his mother. She wanted him to lead a normal life. So after speaking to an advisor, she sent him to private classes where he learned to read lips and pronounce words.

Later on, Adrian's parents decided to send him to a regular school. But the headmaster tried to prevent them from doing so, saying regular school couldn't take care of a special needs student. His parents were determined to take the risk and push him hard to go through his work everyday because they wanted to prove that, given the opportunity, he could do anything. Adrian made the grade and got accepted. It was a big challenge. The pace （节奏）was faster so he had to sit at the front of the class and really pay attention to the teacher, which wasn't always easy. But he stuck to it and did a lot of extra work after school.

The efforts made by Adrian and his parents paid off. Adrian graduated with good grades and got into a top high school. He also achieved a lot in life outside school. He developed a love for the outdoors and went to Nepal to climb mountains. He even entered the World Yacht Race 05/06 ---- being the first hearing-impaired Asian to do so.

But none of these achievements would have been possible without one of the most important lessons from his mother."If you believe in yourself and work hard, you can achieve great results." She often said.

【推荐3】My nephew came for a visit one hot,July weekend. I persuaded him to stay inside by joining him in a Nintendo game. After being mercilessly defeated by a more experienced player,I suggested that we relax for a while. He slipped out of the room and I caught a few moments of peace and quiet.

"Look,Alice," he said enthusiastically as he ran over to the chair where I was recovering." I found a kite. Could we go outside and fly it?"

Glancing out of a nearby window,I noticed there was not a breeze(微风). "T' m sorry, Tripper," I said, sad to see his disappointed eyes, but thankful for the short period of rest from more activities. "The wind is not blowing today.The kite won't fly."

The determined 10-year-old replied. "I think it's windy enough.I can get it to fly," he answered,as he hurried out through the back door.I peeked(窥视)through the curtains to watch determination in action.Up and down the yard he ran, pulling the kite attached to a small length of string.The plastic kite, proudly displaying a picture of Batman, remained about shoulder level. He ran back and forth, as hard as his ten-year-old legs would carry him, looking back hopefully at the kite trailing behind. After about ten minutes of unsuccessful determination, he came back in.

I asked, "How did it go?" "Fine, "he said," I got it to fly some." As he walked past me to return the kite to the closet shelf, I heard him say under his breath, "I guess I'll have to wait for the wind.”

At that moment I heard another voice speak to my heart. "Alice, sometimes you are just like that. You want to do it your way instead of waiting for the wind." And the voice was right. We usually want to use our own efforts to accomplish what we want to do. We wait for the wind only after we have done all we can and have exhausted our own strength. We must learn how to rely on Him in the first place!

【推荐2】William Purkey, a well-known professor of education, said, “Dance like no one is watching, love like you'll never be hurt, sing like no one is listening, and live like it's heaven on earth.” It seems like the perfect life philosophy-- and one I've learned to apply to running over the year.

But I didn't always feel this way. In my early days, when I weighed 240 pounds, I ran like everyone was watching and judging. If I was on a run and saw a car approaching, 1'dstop and pretend I was looking for something I'd lost. I bought the high-tech gear and clothes that I thought would make people believe I was a runner. And I didn't have a clue if the expensive shoes I was wearing were the right kind for me --I just wanted to look like I fit in with this group.

To be honest, I felt a certain satisfaction in believing that someone was watching. I really thought that other people cared about my performance. The best example of this was a combined, two-lap marathon in Florence, Italy. As I approached the finishing line, the crowd began to cheer. I was surprised. Here I was, thousands of miles from home, and the Italians were shouting for “IIpenguino.”

About 20 yards from the finishing, the truth set in when the winner of the full marathon went past me as I was finishing the half-marathon. No one was cheering for me. No one probably even noticed that I was finishing. I couldn't help but smile at my own illusion of self-importance.

That's when I realized I had been running for every reason except the right one. I ran to make other people happy, ran to live up to their expectations. But no one was watching --no one cared. So I decided I was going to run for me, just me, and gained a new enjoyment from the sport I hadn't truly experienced yet. I've learned to run like no one is watching.

So if you see me at race, and I look like a 60-year-old guy waddling（蹒跚） along, don't worry. I'm fine. The miracle isn't that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start.

【推荐2】Katherine Johnson was the most recognized of the African American “human computers”, and she was a NASA female mathematician who calculated(计算)trajectories for early space flights-from the 1930s until the 1980s.

Born in 1918, in the little town of White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, Katherine Johnson was simply attracted by numbers. As a child, she counted everything. She counted the steps on the road, the steps up to school, the number of dishes she washed. By the time she was 10 years old, she had been a high school freshman, which was truly amazing in a time when school for African-Americans normally stopped at eighth grade. To realize her math potential, her father drove his family 120 miles to Institute, West Virginia, where blacks could continue high school education. Katherine’s excellent performance proved her father’s decision was the right one：Teachers allowed Katherine to skip several grades to graduate from high school at 14 and from college at 18, majoring in mathematics, as the top student of the historically black West Virginia State College in Institute.

In 1953, after years as a teacher and later as a stay-at-home mom, she began working for NASA, which began hiring women to measure and calculate the results of wind tunnel tests in 1935. In a time before the electronic computers, these women were called “computer”. Even after NASA began using electronic computers, the astronaut John Glenn requested that she should personally recheck the calculations made by the new electronic computers before his flight.

She continued to work at NASA until her retirement in 1986. Her calculations proved important to the success of the Apollo lunar landing program and the United States journey into space. Her story was the basis for the 2016 film Hidden Figures.

Katherine Johnson, a great mathematician, physicist, space scientist and the last “computer” who wore skirts, passed away on February 24, 2020.

Most people think that making a film is exciting. In fact, sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t. Earlier this year, I worked in a new film. It was about a bomb threat on a big British ship. Two hundred people were needed to act as the passengers in the film. I was one of them.

Before we left, we were wanted to bring some warm clothes. These were necessary because the ship was going to spend the whole 16 days sailing in bad weather.

Then the day came and we sailed out of Dover. The boat had on board the film crew, the director, the actors and actresses including Brinksley Meers, who acted the leading role, and us-200 amateur(业余的) extras.

People came for different purposes. Some wanted to meet Brinksley Meers in person. Others were curious to see how a film was made. A housewife with her three children came for free holiday and a bit of adventure.

During the voyage, a lot of people were very seasick. And although the work was very interesting, it was also very hard. We often worked all day on one scene, performing it again and again under the hot lights. In the evenings, there were drinks in the bar, but most people were so tired that they went to bed early. The next day often began at 6:30 in the morning, sometimes with breakfast being filmed.

When the ship finally returned to port, most people had enjoyed the trip, but were also so tired that they at least needed a week’s holiday. Answer the following questions:

【推荐1】I’m going to be completely honest. I have no idea how I ended up with this opportunity, I have no idea what I’m doing, but I am very happy to be here.

Last summer a friend tagged me in a Facebook post from BBC Earth and encouraged me to apply to the BBC Presenter Search 2018. The assignment was easy and hard, make a video shorter than 60 seconds where you talk about something in science you think is cool. Simple concept, but for me it was challenging as I want to talk about bryophytes(苔藓植物) forever (which is slightly longer than 60 seconds).

So I decided to make an attempt. I was going to make a 60 second video about sphagnum(水苔), commonly known as peat moss and uncommonly known as an unsung climate hero. Sphagnum is the plant genus that holds the most carbon in the world, it slowly builds up its carbon storage over hundreds of thousands of years and if undisturbed, they never let go of the carbon they gathered.

Making a short video on this was hard because I wanted to include everything. And it became even harder as I had no one to hold the camera. I tied my camera to the scrawniest little tree, swinging in the wind as a bird tried to chase me away from the mud. This chaos ended up as the video “Why sphagnum is awesome” on my channel. I submitted the video, but didn’t dare to write in the description section of the video that it was a submission, because I never imagined that I could win!

But I did.

I waited two months before I could tell people that I had won the search, and when the news came out, I received the most attention I’ve had in my entire life.

No matter your background, whether you want to pass the time or pass an exam, I really hope you enjoy the video!

【推荐2】If you find yourself waiting in a long queue at an airport this holiday, will you try to analyse what it is about queuing. that makes you angry?

Professor Richard Larson, an electrical engineer, hates queuing, but rather than tearing his hair out, he decided to study. the subject. His first finding was that the degree of annoyance was not directly related to the time. He cites an experiment at Houston airport where passengers had to walk for one minute from the plane to the baggage reclaim(行李领取处)and then wait further seven minutes to collect their luggage. Complaints were frequent, especially from those who had spent seven minutes watching passengers with just hand baggage get out immediately.

The airport authorities decided to lengthen the walk from the aircraft, so that instead of a one-minute fast walk, the passengers spent six minutes walking. When they finally arrived at the baggage reclaim, the delay was then only two minutes. The extra walk extended the delay by five minutes for those carrying only hand baggage, but passenger complaints dropped almost to zero.

The reason? Larson suggests that it all has to do with what he calls “social justice”. If people see others taking a short cut, they will find the wait unbearable. So in the case of the airport, it was preferable to delay everyone.

Another aspect Larson studied was the observation that people get more annoyed if they are not told what is going on. Passengers told that there will be a half-hour delay are less unhappy than those left waiting even twenty minutes without an explanation.

But even knowing how long we have to wait isn't the whole answer. We must also believe that everything is being done to minimize our delay. Larson cites the example of two neighbouring American banks. One was highly computerised and served a customer, on average, every 30 seconds. The other bank was less automated(自动化的)and took twice as long. But because the tellers at the second bank looked extremely busy, customers believed the service was faster and many transferred(转移)their accounts to the slower bank. Finally, the first bank had to introduce time-wasting ways of appearing busier.

【推荐3】Before the December holiday craze and celebrations start, November is an ideal time to visit the southeast states to enjoy mild temperatures and unique festivals and events.

Head to downtown Florence for this popular annual community event held the first Saturday of November. There are stages with live music, over 250 food and craft vendors, art exhibitions, amusement rides, antique tractor show, car show, and pecan cooking competition with celebrity judges.

This yearly festival features hand-made pottery, colonial crafts, and pottery-making demonstrations. Pottery collectors can pick up some limited-edition pieces signed and dated by local potters. Always the weekend before Thanksgiving, the event starts on Friday, with a duration of three days.

Labeled as the largest one — day festival in southwest Georgia, this annual event, always held the first Saturday in November, features a sunrise breakfast, mule parade(骡子游行)，flea market with hundreds of booths, a barbecue and fish fry, regional entertainment, and more. Mule Day celebrates the mules’ significant contribution to the area’s agriculture.

Veterans Day, a federal and state holiday in the United States, is always celebrated on November 11th. There are events throughout the Southeast, including parades and ceremonies on or close to Veterans Day.