【推荐1】A girl went to her father to ask for his advice. She was having a hard time in life. It seemed that when one problem disappeared, another one appeared. It was terrible!

Her father, a cook, took her into the kitchen. He poured water into three pans (平底锅) and put them on to boil (煮). After the water boiled, he put some carrots into the first pan, some eggs into the second pan and coffee beans into the last one.

After 20 minutes, her father turned off the stove (炉子), took out the carrots and eggs and put them in a bowl. He poured the coffee into a cup.

“Dear, what do you see?” he asked his daughter.

“Carrots, eggs, and coffee,” she said.

“Touch the carrots,” he told her. She did and felt that the carrots were soft (软的). After that he asked her to take an egg and break it. She found that the egg was hard (硬的). At last, her father asked her to taste the coffee.

“What’s the meaning, Father?” she asked.

“The strong and hard carrots became soft and weak after boiling. The fragile (脆弱的) eggs became hard in the boiling water. The coffee beans were very special, but they changed the water around them.” her father said, “As you can see, each thing reacted differently to the boiling water.”

“Who are you?” asked her father. “When you have problems, what will you do? Are you carrots, eggs, or coffee?”

【推荐3】Most of us get our earliest life lessons from fairy tales, like “True love can overcome anything.” and “Even a frog can turn into a prince". However, at a certain age, we start to learn new things about life, especially that love doesn't always win, and that a frog is just a frog..

“Fairy tales have always been with us because they are the stories of our lives in their simplest form.” wrote US author Laura Packer on the National Storytelling Network website. “They are stories of love and loss, desire and death, riches and ruin.”

Fairy tales are all about reality (现实). But if children only see just one side of reality, adults usually see the other.

For example, in the 2014 film Maleficent, we’re told the tale of Sleeping Beauty from the eyes of the evil(邪恶的) queen. Unlike the children’s eyes of the story, we see that the queen wasn’t born evil. Instead, she is in a lot of troubles as she grows up, which leads to the creation of her “evil” side. And in US author James Finn Gamer’s book Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, he tells the classic story of Little Red Riding Hood, but with a modern version: When the wolf tells Red Riding Hood that it isn't safe for a little girl to walk through the woods alone, she calls the wolf sexist(性别歧视者), which relates to today’s opinions that girls aren't weaker than boys.

It seems that fairy tales aren't just stories that our parents read us at bedtime. They may usually start with "Once upon a time.” but as we grow older, we learn that every story doesn't always need a "Happily ever after" to be a good one.

【推荐1】There are millions of recipes(菜谱) hidden in the boxes and hearts of grandmother and parents. These family recipes are a special part of our family history. Some of them have been passed down from generation(一代人) to generation.

“I realized I couldn't go home every weekend for my mom's delicious dishes,” says Shreya, who is about to enter university. Shreya has recently started following her mother around the kitchen, taking notes on how to make her “masala chai” and tasty kachoris.

"Those special tastes can immediately unlock a whole flood of emotions, memories and feelings of family, love, and comfort," says she.

She adds, "I am looking to the day when my kids will come to know of their grandmothers through the dishes they cooked."

But many of us find it difficult to keep the food connection with our busy life. Even if we have time, not many of us take the effort to collect and record the recipes from our grandmothers and parents. We often get a recipe on the phone and take it down quickly on a piece of paper. We just stick it onto the fridge for a week or two and forget about it as soon as the paper disappears from there.

Actually, there are simple ways to keep family recipes, Scrapbooks（剪贴薄）are easily found in the market. You can even add photos to record every detail of your memories about the recipe. With the help of some popular apps like Story Scans, recording family recipes has never been easier. What is needed is to scan（扫描） the recipes and record the story behind each of them. It can become the most meaningful work you have ever done with and for your family.

Keeping family recipes is saving and honoring our tradition so that future generations can continue to make family ties stronger. Every time you remember your loved ones, recreate one of the dishes from your collection and let the memories from the good old days comfort you. So why not gift your kids a family recipe book when they are starting a new life?

【推荐2】Fast walking is the exercise between walking and race walking. A study shows that fast walking has become the most popular exercise in China and many people walk more than 5,000 steps a day. The results of the study are from QQ users. About 37% of the people choose fast walking as their favorite exercise: over 23% choose running and more than 14% choose riding bikes.

Fast walking and running are easy, cost little and work well, so they are popular. And many people like doing exercise in nature better than going to gyms. It's best to walk fast for at least 10 minutes at a time and walk up to 6,000 steps every day.

The study also shows that people in Guiyang, Guizhou love sports most. On average (平均), everyone there walks 5,941 steps every day. It seems (似乎) that people in places with better environment (环境) and air prefer to do sports than those in worse environment and air.

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【推荐3】At 15, Stephen Sutton found out that he had cancer. Instead of feeling sorry for himself, he decided to make the most of the day and live every second to the fullest. He ended up achieving more in a few years than many could in a lifetime.

Stephen made a long list, which had goals ranging from skydiving to hugging a huge animal. He didn’t manage to check off all the items on his list, but he did achieve the first item, which was to raise money for Teenage Cancer Trust.

At first, he set out to raise 10,000 dollars for the Trust. However, the passion(热情) he put into his fund-raising efforts drew the attention of many famous people. In a matter of months, Stephen raised over 3 million dollars.

Stephen had wanted to study hard and become a doctor so that he could make a contribution(贡献) to the world. However, his doctors suggested that he take a year off from school. Instead of following their suggestion, Stephen continued with his studies, receiving excellent grades.

In December 2018, doctors told him that his disease was not able to be cured. That was when he made his list and decided to put his energy into raising money for young people with cancer. Stephen saw this as the best way to make his own life better. “I don’t see the point in measuring(测量) life in terms of time anymore. I’d rather measure life in terms of making a difference.” he said.

On May 14, 2020, Stephen passed away in his sleep. He was 19. Tributes(哀悼) poured in from all over the world, calling him exactly what he was   a selfless and inspiring person. His experience teaches us the importance of appreciating life and helping others.

【推荐2】One day, there was a blind(瞎的) man called John sitting on the bench with a hat by his feet and a sign   that read, “I am blind. Please help me.”

A creative publicist（广告员）named Kim was walking by the blind man and stopped to see that the man only had a few coins in his hat. He put a few of his own corns in the hat. Without asking for permission, he took the sign, turned it around and wrote some new words. Then he put the sign by the feet of the blind man, and left.

Later that afternoon the publicist returned to the blind man and noticed that his hat was almost full of bills(钞票) and coins. The blind man recognized his footsteps and asked if it was he who had changed his sign. He also wanted to know what the man wrote on it.

The publicist said, “I just wrote the sign a little differently.” He smiled and went on his way.

The new sign read,   “Spring has come, but I can't see anything.

【推荐3】One of China’s top technology companies is trying to push the artificial intelligence (人工智能，简称AI) by teaching computers to understand scenes from the 1990’s romance-disaster (灾难) Titanic.

The technology, from China company Sense Time, is supposed to distinguish (辨别) Titanic’s romantic scenes from disaster scenes. Although most humans would have no problem distinguishing Jack and Rose’s deep love from the Titantic’s sinking, the scene is highly complex for computers.

In a show at MIT Technology Review’s EmTech Digital meeting in San Francisco last Monday, the technology performed well and was able to sort the scenes correctly. It points out the progress of artificial intelligence, but also how far it still has to go before being able to understand more difficult movie scenes outside of public shows.

Dahua Lin, the director of a joint research lab between SenseTime and the Chinese University of Hong Kong where he’s also a professor, played a video of the scene from Titanic in which Jack gently holds Rose as she stands over the bow (船首) of the ship like she’s flying. Below the video was a small chart showing whether the company’s computers thought the scene was romantic or action – packed. After processing data, probably taken from thousands of videos and pictures stills in video clips (剪辑)，the computer determined that the scene was more “romantic” than a “disaster”. Then later, when Lin showed the clip of the Titanic sinking, the computers quickly named the scene as more of a “disaster” than “romantic”.

【推荐1】Mr. Sun is in the hot seat for stealing a woman’s seat on a high-speed train on Aug 21, 2018.

A video online showed the man, Sun, taking a window seat in a second-class coach（车厢）of a train from Jinan to Beijing on Tuesday and refusing to give it to the woman who had the seat on her ticket.

“You have three choices — stand, take my seat or go to the dining coach,” Sun told the young woman in the video. According to the tickets, Sun’s seat was one row behind the woman’s. Sun refused to return to his own seat, saying that he couldn’t stand up. When asked by a train worker why he did not stand up, he answered “I did not know how”. He kept his words even after the train arrived at his stop, requiring train workers to find a wheelchair for him. Clearly, he did not need one when getting on the train. Later, the woman was led to the business-class coach where she was given a better seat for the trip.

The video quickly spread online. Many internet users criticized（批评）Sun for his actions. Some even dug up his name, education and work history and posted the information online. In the end, Sun was fined 200 yuan and will not be allowed to buy train tickets for 180 days.       

This punishment was based on rules for dealing with troublesome passengers set out by railway authorities（政府部门）. The rules came into use on May 1, 2018. According to the rules, passengers who disturb（扰乱）public order will be fined up to 500 yuan and be prevented from buying train tickets for some time.

However, more things like this have still happened, pushing authorities to work out even more strict rules. On Sept 19, Mrs. Zhou took a window seat on a train from Hunan to Guangdong. When the window seat passenger asked her to give the seat back, she refused.

In turn, the government of Guangdong province set up new rules that came into use on Dec 1. High-speed train passengers who refuse to move after taking others’ seats will face fines from 500 to 2,000 yuan. Their information will be shared with other parts of the national railway network, which will influence their right to buy train tickets.

【推荐2】Scrapbooking is a hobby. It was popular for more than 500 years. People called it a friendship book. They kept pictures, letters, poems and other things they wanted to remember.

Today people collect many things in scrapbooks. Some people have funny collections, like the world’s most awkward ideas or pictures of the world’s most ugly dogs. Other people may collect stories about the bad weather.

It is easy to get started. First, you should decide what you want to collect. Start with just one idea. Next, you will need a book with background paper, scissors and glue. You need the scissors to cut out the pictures or stories. You need the glue to stick them to the background paper.

You can be busy and collect many things or lazy and collect few things. It’ll be lots of fun to make your scrapbook and you can share it with your friends.

【推荐3】There's a heat that's so hot you can literally(不加夸张地) fry an egg in the sun. This is a serious side to summer in Australia that you might not know about.

In February there were more than 80 different bushfires burning at the same time in New South Wales, a southeastern state of Australia. The Guardian newspaper reported that 42 homes were burned to the ground because of these fires. These homes are not like Chinese ones. They are huge farms. Many Australian properties are larger than 1,000 sq km, while the biggest is more than 20,000 sq km, even larger than Beijing!

Every family prepares for bushfire season and protects their property. But sometimes the fires are too big and people have to move to safety

The hot weather also causes other problems. It was so hot in February that thousands of bats(蝙蝠) died from the heat. People can get sick if they stay outside for too long or don't drink enough water The heat can also cause power problems for homes and businesses

The heat, which can go above 40 ℃ in some cities, is very dangerous. There are lots of trees and dry grass in areas far away that can easily catch fire. Even throwing a burning cigarette out of a car window can start a dangerous fire. That is why summer is also known as "bushfire season" in Australia.