The meaning of the word “volunteer” may be a little different in different countries, but it usually means “one who offers his or her services”. There _________ many different ways in which people _________ be volunteer, such as taking care of sick people, working in homes for homeless children, and _________ up rubbish from beaches and parks. Volunteers may work in their own countries or in _________ countries. They are often people _________ a strong wish to help those who are less luck than themselves. Volunteers don’t expect any kind of pay.

At the root of volunteering is the idea that one person may have the ability _________ services that can help other people. Tracy, a good friend of _________, however, came back from India with a new idea of what being a volunteer means. She _________ for two and a half weeks in one of Mother Teresa’s homes in Calcutta. The following is her story.

“I first heard about Mother Teresa in my high school. We watched _________ video about her work in India and all over the world. I was __________ moved by her spirit to help others and her endless love for every human being that after I graduated from high school, I also wanted to try her kind of work. So with two friends I flew to Calcutta for a few weeks.”

“I __________ to work in a home for sick people. I helped wash clothes and sheets, and pass out (分发) lunch. I also fed the people __________ were too weak to feed themselves and tried to cheer them up. I felt it was __________ to share with them than to think that I have helped them. To be honest, I don’t think I was helping very much. It was then that I realized that I had not really come to help, __________ to learn about and experience another culture that helped improve my own understanding of the __________ and the world.”

Thirty years ago, a dog called Cookie came to my home. Though it was hard for me to support another family _______, I never gave it a second thought.

I was a travel writer. I often traveled over the country to _______ material for writing. When I came back home and wrote my stories, Cookie always sat next to my desk and we could have conversations about where I’d been and what I’d seen. We _______ each other as only animals and those who love them can. I often read what I’d written to her. If she turned away to start cleaning a paw (爪), I knew that she didn’t like it and I had to _______ my story. Of course, she didn’t understand what I was really writing. But this kind of communication with her was my _______ of pushing a story to a higher level.

She encouraged me _______ in making up stories and became my partner in my travels. Some readers may think it _______ to have such a relationship, but dog owners like me would know it’s true and understand us. My heart was broken when my friend Cookie _______ me forever. Like many old friends, she and I shared a lot over the years. I miss her so much and I am also _______ to her for being at my side for all those years, listening and simply loving.

It doesn’t matter if she never understood a word I said or that she never left our home. She was my travel ________ and always will be.

Most architects (建筑师) hope to add to the character of a city, but Ieoh Ming Pei, one of the world’s best known architects, designs many iconic (符号的) buildings in cities around the world. The JFK President Library in Boston, US (1979), the Louvre Pyramid in Paris (1989), the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong (1990) and the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar (2008), are just a few of his many creations.

The man behind these landmark buildings died on May 16, at age 102.

Pei once noted that a typical style of design “is of no help to an architect”. Instead, he was known for his eclectic (兼收并蓄的) style, bringing together seemingly opposite ideas into each design—East and West, ancient and modern, natural and manmade.

This may come from his education. Born and raised in China, he went to the US to study architecture at 18. He studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and then completed his Master of Arts study at Harvard. “I’ve never left China,” the Chinese-American Pei once told The Financial Times. “My family’s been there for 600 years.” Pei tried to include local and historical ideas in his designs. When designing the Suzhou Museum in the 2000s, he took new ideas from the city’s beautiful classical gardens. Instead of building a giant to overshadow (使……失色) them, Pei built small halls with traditional white walls and dark roofs, in the style of other gardens.

Besides matching his design to the local surroundings, Pei also thought that light was a key factor to creating a lively atmosphere (氛围). He cares a lot about sunshine in his designs.

The glass pyramid of the Louvre Museum in Paris is a good example. It doesn’t hide the buildings around it. Instead, it reflects (映照) them in the sunlight. It also serves as a huge window, letting sunlight into the museum. Today, many people visit the Louvre and take photos of the pyramid.

In the end, what Pei valued most in architecture, he said, was that the buildings could “stand the test of time”. As The New York Times sums up, he didn’t just want to solve problems but also to produce “an architecture of ideas”.

For middle and primary school students, being able to cook has become a must. They will also need to learn how to plant vegetables, raise poultry（家禽）and mend home appliances under new requirements for labor（劳动）education.

The Ministry of Education（MOE）brought out a new standard for labor education in schools last year. Starting from the 2022 fall semester, students in primary and middle schools have to take courses on labor skills at least once a week.

Labor education helps students value hard work. It includes things like household chores, on-campus labor and community volunteer services.

The new standards include three types of labor tasks. The first is for things like everyday chores, including cleaning, organizing, cooking and using and maintaining home appliances. Next is productive labor, including agriculture, making traditional handicrafts, and applying new technologies such as 3D printing and laser cutting. The third type is service work, which includes volunteer work.

Schools in China have traditionally placed more focus on studying, and many have seen household chores as a waste of children's time. But according to the MOE, labor education must be built up to help students cultivate（培养）social values and develop an interest in labor.

Online, people have been busy discussing the now standards on social media.

Liu Fang, a mother of 6-year-old twins in Beijing, strongly supports labor education. For the past year, she has trained her daughters to do household chores and make simple dishes for the family.

“The main idea is to let them share responsibility as family members and become independent as they can,” said Liu. “Through doing housework, their hand-eye coordination（协调）, time management and organization skills can be trained and it’s also good to help them relax.”

Through such education, Liu said her twins have found fun in doing chores and are more independent.

Have you heard of TED?     41     TED is a set of meetings, held in different cities around the world every year. With different speakers—also from different parts of the world—all the speeches are uploaded（上传）to their websites, for everyone to see.

    42     The speakers usually have success in their fields and talk about new ideas and recent developments that are important to their work. The speakers are also well known. There are many talks on environment, international development and aid work.     43     As there are many kinds of topics, all speakers have a strict time limit—each speech must last less than 18 minutes.

Nowadays, www.tedorg, the organization’s website, is where the many interesting talks become reachable to everybody who bas an Internet connection. Every weekday, a new video is uploaded from a TED event, allowing people from around the world to listen to the talks for free.     44    

Most TED talks are in English but there are talks in other languages, too. Besides, most often English-language talks also have the choice of subtitles（字幕）in different languages and, as a result, the website is great for practising English and learning new vocabulary, especially in a topic that you find interesting and enjoyable.     45