Left-Field Leah

Leah Patt had never liked sports. She feared gym class and spent most of her time reading a book. The only reason Leah tried out for the softball league was that Anna Meese was trying out. Leah and Anna did everything together, so if Anna wanted to play, Leah did too.

At first, joining the Blue Sox didn’t _________ Leah’s feelings about sports. She went to the practices every week, but she didn’t take them seriously. No matter how _________ she played, Leah didn’t get discouraged. She didn’t want to become a star player. She was just there to have fun with Anna.

Before the season’s first game, Coach Meese read the list of players and their positions, but Leah’s name hadn’t been called.

“Leah,” Coach Meese finally said. “You’re starting off on the bench, but I’ll put you into the game if I get a chance.”

Nodding agreeably, Leah reminded herself to bring a _________ to the games.

In the season’s games, Leah even got to play in three of the games the Blue Sox won. However, Leah never got a hit and never made a good play in the outfield but she didn’t care. Leah _________ being on the winning team, even if she didn’t contribute to the win. More importantly, she _________ Anna.

The Blue Sox were ready to play their last game of the season, against the Sun Rays. If they won, the Blue Sox would be the league champions. The girls’ hopeful excitement grew as they did their pregame warm-ups. For the first time all season, even Leah started to have the _________ to win. When the game started, she sat on the bench and watched the action-instead of reading a book.

What a game it was! Then something _________ happened. As Anna jogged to left field, she tripped over a bat and she twisted（扭伤）her ankle. Coach Meese told Leah to take Anna’s place.

Leah saw Anna’s looking and took a deep breath. She went to the field. Crack! The ball sailed into left field, straight toward Leah. She reached her glove into the air and _________ on the ball. Thump! It was the sound of the ball landing in Leah’s glove. Then a much louder sound-the cheers and whoops of the Blue Sox, the winner-filled the air.

Believe in Yourself

Anita was an active girl who grew up in the eastern of Nepal. Her parents were shepherds. It was that point of the year when the sky was blue, the sun smiled upon the village and so the stars in the dark never looked brighter before. Anita found a lot of tourists visit her village. Watching people all over the world visit her village made Anita curious. "What are these people doing here, father?" asked Anita. Anita's father laughed and said, "Darling, they have all come to climb those mountains."

Amazed at their courage, Anita said, "Really, father? Is it possible to climb to the top? "

"Of course dear," replied her father, "Many people do it. "

"Someday, I will be able to climb to the highest of these mountains." said Anita with a burning dream brewing（酝酿）in her eyes. But life had other plans for her. Anita had a terrible accident when she was thirteen. Unluckily, she lost one leg. Clouds of hopelessness darkened her happy world.

"I will never be ready to climb those mountains!" cried Anita.

Her father loved her dearly. He couldn't see his little girl in pain. He was extremely sad. But he did not lose heart. He thought over and over and he couldn't sleep well. Finally, he had a good idea.

One day Anita's father built her a wooden leg, which she could wear and walk. "Never say ‘never’. Start climbing the mountains." said the determined father.

Anita was beside herself with joy. She wore the wooden leg and walked, and fell. Stood up, and tried to run, and fell again. The whole village laughed at the daddy and daughter's foolishness. But nothing pulled them down. Both the father and daughter were determined to win against all the odds. They kept practising.

After five years, Anita made it to the highest of the mountains. And she made her father very proud of her, along with her country.

My friend, Robert, has a twin sister named Amanda. Though they get along well, there are some things about Amanda and her friends that puzzle Robert. He can't understand how girls can talk for so long. For example, sometimes when he leaves home to play football, Amanda and her friend, Sharon, are sitting on the sofa, talking. When he comes back three and a half hours later, they're still sitting on the sofa, continuing the same conversation on the same topic. One day Robert was so curious that he asked Amanda what they talked about, but she replied, "We're best friends. We talk about almost everything—film stars, pop songs, recipes, everything!"

Boys and girls have different attitudes towards friendship. Friendships between girls are usually based on shared feelings and support, but friendships between boys are based on shared activities or interests. A boy is likely to be careful about sharing his feelings with his close friends. A girl's closest friend, however, might be eager to tell her about something that has happened in her life.

Many studies worldwide show that girls have more friendships than boys. In fact, many teenage boys cannot name a single best friend. When asked, they hesitate before answering, "My best friend? I can't think about that. I am busy with my homework, and I have so many different friends that it is hard to choose just one best friend.”

Girls who have been asked can usually answer the question without pausing, “A best friend? Of course. We have a lot to share with each other. We do a lot of things together such as talking and shopping.”

We have to realize: boys share activities, while girls share feelings. The qualities that boys and girls consider important in a friend seem to be the same, regardless of（无论）the basis of these friendships. The important thing to remember is that both of them are friendships. We all need friends in our lives.

Everything in our body needs water to work! But sadly, not everyone has access to clean drinking water. In the US, for example, a lot of people living in the countryside get their water from wells and springs—and it can have bacteria in it.

If you drink water with bacteria in it, you might get very sick—some people even die. That’s why people living in the countryside need to clean their water before they drink it. There are a few quite efficient ways to do this. But all of them have at least one disadvantage. Iodine tablets（碘片） have negative side effects on your body if you use them for too long. Ultraviolet（紫外线的）lamps use a lot of energy and filtration（过滤）systems are expensive.

Therefore, we wanted to use a simple energy source. Everyone nowadays carries with them: a smartphone! What if we could clean water with such a common device? Wouldn’t that save a lot of trouble?

We designed a downloadable app and a cheap device that can be plugged into a smartphone to disinfect（杀毒）water（Figure. 1）.

The method that our device uses is called electrochemical disinfection. It uses electric currents（电流）to produce substances that can kill bacteria. In our experiments, we used a smartphone to produce the electric current and copper（铜）wires as a source for the antibacterial substance. Copper ions（离子）are released from the copper wire. These copper ions kill bacteria.

Copper can also be dangerous for humans but only in much higher concentrate. We tried to find the perfect balance: where just enough copper ions are released to kill the bacteria, without reaching a harmful level for humans.

With our new device, we were able to kill almost all bacteria in the treated water. Although our device worked really well, we only tested it in a limited laboratory setting—so some things could be different in real life.

We were able to clean three liters（or 8 cups）of water by only using less than 1% of the phone’s battery. However, the disinfection of these three liters took about five hours—which is too long.

Still, all of our tests suggest that it is possible to improve the speed of our device quite easily. When this is done, anyone with a smartphone can use our device to disinfect their drinking water.

Hopefully, our device will be ready for everyday use very soon!

The Story of Braille

Usually, when we talk about reading, we think of using our eyes to see letters written in ink on paper. However, this is not always true. For example, blind people cannot see, but they can still read books.

The man who introduced blind people to reading was Louis Braille（1809-1852）. Braille lost his eyesight at the age of three as a result of an injury. When he was ten, he went to a school for the blind in Paris. In those days, books for blind people used paper pressed against metal wire to form letters. Since the metal wire was heavy, each book weighed as much as 100 pounds. The whole system was not convenient for use. Indeed, the school library only had fourteen such books in it.

In 1821, a soldier visited the school and showed the students a system for passing messages at night during times of battle. His system used paper with small, raised dots that could be felt with the fingers. Each letter of the alphabet was represented by a different pattern which consisted of twelve dots. The soldiers would drag（缓慢地移动）their fingers over the raised dots to read the message.

While the students found the soldier's idea interesting, the system was too difficult to be of practical use. However, young Louis Braille took the idea and worked on it. At the age of fifteen, he created a system with patterns of six raised dots representing each letter. “Braille”, the system for reading used today by blind people around the world, was thus born.

The blind can easily recognize Braille with the fingers. They can also easily write in Braille with a special typewriter. Today, it is the most common system used by blind people for reading and writing, and nearly every language, including Chinese, has its own version of Braille for its people to use.