3 . There is a man who I’d like to tell you about. His name is Sandy Greenberg. Sandy was a very good student, but he came from a poor family. And so he went to Columbia University, but while there, he became blind.

But something else happened to Sandy that may surprise you. Sandy said that when he lost his sight, his roommate would read his textbooks to him, every night. As a result, Sandy went on to graduate. He got a scholarship, and he went off to study at Oxford.

One day, Sandy got a call at Oxford, and his former roommate said, “Sandy, I’m really unhappy. I really don’t like being in graduate school, and I don’t want to do this.”

So Sandy asked, “Well, what do you want to do?”

And his roommate told him, “Sandy, I really love to sing. I have a high school friend who plays the guitar. And we would really like to try the music business. But we need to make a record, and in order to do that I need $500.”

So Sandy Greenberg told me he took all his life savings and sent it to his roommate. He told me, “You know, what else could I do? He made my life; I needed to help make his life.”

I almost forgot. You probably are wanting to know who Sandy’s roommate was. I think you’ve heard of him. Sandy’s roommate was a fellow by the name of Art Garfunkel, and he teamed up with another musician by the name of Paul Simon. That $500 helped them make a record that eventually became “The Sound of Silence.”

I hope you’ll remember the power of doing well by doing good. Each of you, in your own lives, will be faced with challenges and problems that you didn’t expect. How you are able to deal with adversity will be influenced by how you deal with others along the way. What you get will depend a lot on what you give. And that’s the end of the story of doing well, by doing good.

More importantly, when you get to be my age, you will find yourself beginning to ask, did my life make a difference? I think the only way to face this question is to consider, every day of your life: How can I do something for somebody else? How can I give back to others? It may be teaching, it may be becoming a doctor, you may be successful in business — no matter what your career path, there will always be the opportunity to give back. The chance will present itself to give your time, give your money, but mostly, to give your own heart and soul.

4 . The clock rules our lives. The more we try to save time, the less time we seem to have. In every area of our lives we are doing things faster. And many of us live in towns and cities which are getting noisier and more stressful as each day passes. But now a worldwide movement, whose aim is to slow life down, has started. Its supporters are people who believe that a happier and healthier way of life is possible.

The Slow Food movement was founded the day that an Italian journalist, Carlo Petrini, saw that McDonald’s had opened a restaurant in a beautiful square in Rome. He thought it was sad that many people today live too quickly to sit down for a proper meal and only eat much fast food. He decided that he had to try to do something about it and so he started the Slow Food movement. Slow Food has become a global organization ever since and now has more than 80,000 members in 100 countries.

Slow Food also encourages people to eat local and regional food, to use local shops and markets, to eat out in small family restaurants, and to cook with traditional recipes.

The idea of Slow Cities was inspired by the Slow Food movement. The aim of Slow Cities is to improve people’s quality of life. Towns which want to become a Slow City have to reduce traffic and noise, increase the number of green areas, plant trees, build pedestrian zones, and promote local businesses and traditions. Now it has spread to other countries all over the world, from the UK to Japan and Australia. There are now 135 Slow Cities in 24 countries across the world that have been named since founding of the organization in 1999. Gao Chun County, in east China’s Jiangsu Province, is expected to be named the first “Slow City” in China next year.

“Slow Cities are about having a community life in the town,” said a local resident. “It is not ‘slow’ as in ‘stupid’. It is ‘slow’ as in the opposite of ‘worried’ and ‘stressful’.”

But not everybody is happy. For teenagers, who have to go 25km to Norwich, the nearest city, to buy CDs, living in a Slow City is not very attractive. “It’s all right here for adults,” says Lewis Cook, 16. “But if you want excitement, you have to go to Norwich. We need more things here for young people.”

6 . I was born and raised in Melbourne, Australia, and it was a shock to my parents that I arrived without arms or legs. My parents did their very best to keep me in the mainstream school system and give me every opportunity to live to the fullest.

We later moved to Brisbane, Australia. At age eight, I could not see a bright future ahead and I became depressed. When I was ten years old, I decided to end my life by drowning myself in a bathtub. After a couple of attempts, I realized that I did not want to leave my loved ones with the burden and guilt (愧疚) that would result from my suicide. I could not do that to them.

I wasn’t depressed my entire childhood, but I did have ups and downs. At age thirteen I hurt my foot, which I use for many things like typing, writing and swimming. That injury made me realize that I need to be more thankful for my abilities and less focused on my disabilities.

A cleaner at my high school inspired me to start speaking about my faith and overcoming adversity when I was seventeen. Then, I found myself in front of three hundred sophomore (grade 10) students and I was very nervous. My knees were shaking. Within the first three minutes of my talk, half the girls were crying, and most of the boys were struggling to hold their emotions together. One girl in particular was sobbing very hard. We all looked at her and she put her hand up. She said, “I am so sorry to interrupt, but can I come up and hug you?”

She came and hugged me in front of everyone, and whispered in my ear, “Thank you, thank you, thank you. No one has ever told me that they loved me and that I am beautiful the way I am.” Her gratitude inspired me to go across 44 countries and speak 2,000 times. I realized that we all need love and hope.

I spoke on motivational topics after creating the company ‘Attitude is Altitude’ to spread my messages of faith and hope around the world.

Dream big, my friend and never give up. We all make mistakes, but none of us are mistakes. Take one day at a time. Embrace (拥抱) the positive attitudes, perspectives (思考方法), principles (原则) and truths I share, and you too will overcome.

7 . Time magazine named its choice of the 100 “Most Influential (有影响力的) People in the World” on Wednesday. On the _________ were Barack Obama; Mitt Romney; Hillary Clinton; Warren Buffett; Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge; Pippa Middleton; Tim Tebow; Jeremy Lin and Matt Lauer.

Jeremy Lin, New York Knicks starting point guard, is a person that many _________ can take as an example, according to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan who _________ the ball player for being one of the world’s most _________ persons. In the article, the secretary of education said kids can learn a great _________ from the injured Knicks point guard who is a _________ of Harvard University.

“Jeremy Lin’s story is a great lesson for kids everywhere. In life, there are many prejudices (偏见) that _________ hold children back. However, Lin’s success can show that these prejudices are _________. For example, in the past, many people didn’t believe an Asian-American could _________ in the NBA, but Lin has proved them wrong - and he’s shown that it’s ______________ to be a world-class athlete on the court as well as a(n) ______________ student off the court.” Duncan wrote.

“It’s great to see good values and the right attitude ______________ in professional sports because that doesn’t always happen,” Duncan said in the Time report. “Often it’s the selfish sportsman that gets celebrated - not people who play for the ______________ and work together to achieve a goal bigger than themselves.”

We spoke to Lin’s ______________, and they seemed to be proud of the young basketball star and praised the amazing effect he’d had on their team, but Lin stayed ______________ about the recognition, and reacted on Twitter by saying “Now I’m blushing (脸红).”

8 . When Lenore Skenazy let her 9-year-old son take the New York subway home by himself 10 years ago, you would have thought that she’d carried out a crime. Now Skenazy started the movement Free Range (放养的) Kids to bring up safe and independent children. Just this month, Utah became a free range state, changing its law to protect parents from being charged with neglect (疏忽)for letting their kids walk alone, or wait in a car for an adult.

Skenazy argues that the risks of giving children some freedom are exaggerated (夸大). Skenazy’s mother used to send her outside at 5 to walk to school. That was just normal back then. And suddenly we hear stories about parents getting punished for letting their 10-year-old son play outside.

We get so used to not knowing our neighbors, not letting our kids walk to school, or play outside, that nowadays, the kids are either in a car or in the backyard, and they don’t get to know the neighborhood. In fact, the world has become safer. We have the technologies to keep track of almost everything our kids do. And so you think you must control them, and you think your child is something that has to be tracked like a package.

The famous case for many parents was the Etan Patz case in New York in 1979. Patz’s parents gave him permission for the first time to walk to the bus stop nearby. He was killed. The story is so terrible that we remember it two generations later. And we don’t allow our kids to walk alone because of one terrible thing that happened 39 years ago. But we don’t say, “I want to drive you to the dentist, but what if we get in a car accident? Think of those people who died in a car accident 39 years ago. I don’t want to be like them. No, we’re not going.” And we recognize that it would be funny to think that way.

9 . I took a seat on a park bench under an old tree. I was out of work and didn’t have enough money to support my family, which made me feel ________ upset. A young boy ran towards me out of breath. He ________ right before me and said with great________, “Have a look at what I found!” 

In his hand was a flower, whose petals (花瓣) had fallen. Wanting him to take his ________ flower and go off to play, I forced a ________ smile and then turned around. He didn’t leave, but sat next to my side and put the flower to his ________ and said, “It smells good and it surely looks ________, too. That’s why I picked it. Here you are. It’s for you.” 

I knew I must take it, or he might never leave. So I ________ for the flower and replied, “Just what I need.” But________ putting the flower in my hand, he held it in mid-air. At that moment, I was ________ to find that the young boy could not   ________ anything at all. 

I was so touched that I almost ________. Tears shone in the sun. I really ________ his kindness. And this time, I said with a big smile, “You picked the best flower for me.” He also smiled, “You’re welcome.” Then he ran off happily. 

Through the eyes of the ________, I finally realized that I had ignored the wonderful world around me because of my family economic ________. After that, I decided to cheer up and face life bravely.