I was eleven years old. This was my first soccer game. As the tall and skinny kid stuck in the middle of the muddy field, with little knowledge of the rules and regulations of the game, I was nervous, but still excited. With kids running at me from all directions, I observed the skills that many of my teammates possessed. Their motions appeared to be so smooth and effortless, while their faces revealed their attachment to the game. I, on the other hand, lacked the commitment that many of the other kids had.

Little to my knowledge, this game turned out to be an intense one. My team was trailing (落后) behind the entire game, but toward the end, we tied it up. Suddenly, it was my turn to kick the ball. This was my chance to reveal that I was as good as everyone else. I brought my leg back and was ready to kick with all my strength. I gave a good and hard kick, but unfortunately, I kicked the ball in the wrong direction. Seeing the disappointed faces of the members of my team, I felt my face went from pale white to bright red. I wanted to run home. faster than I ever ran in a soccer practice.

Over the next few years, I continued to participate in a variety of sports, trying to find the one where I would be the center of attention for the right reasons. That never happened. I began to feel like an outsider. Whenever I was introduced to a kid in school or a friend of my parents, I was always asked if I played soccer—a natural question to a teenager. When I responded “No”, everyone would tell me that I should. But I did not want to, and I was never able to figure out why it mattered so much. I longed to find something that really interested me.

At senior high, I gave up my attempt to try various sports.

I turned to the other aspects of my life, the ones I enjoyed.

6 . Maintaining an ideal relationship can be a lifelong journey.     1     However, by committing to your future and treating your partner with love and respect, you are sure to maintain a relationship that is ideal for you.

    2     One of the most beautiful things about being in a relationship is creating special routines and inside jokes that only the two of you share. These shared behaviors help create a stronger bond in an ideal relationship. You shouldn't rely on your relationship behaviors from the past, especially if they clearly didn't work out the last time.

Communicate clearly. Being able to effectively convey your feelings to your partner is an important part of being in a relationship. Your partner isn't able to read your mind, so you'll need to work on talking things out, even when you are upset at one another.     3    .

Handle disagreements fairly. If you disagree about something, try not to get too upset about it. It might help you to take a moment to calm down and then try to talk calmly about the situation.    4     Then try to see the problem from his point of view so that you can come to a compromise to resolve the problem.

Keep your promises. Your partner needs to be able to trust you completely to maintain an ideal relationship. Because of this, it's important that you always stay true to your word and keep any promise you make to your partner.    5     It's better to avoid a potential situation in the future where you might have to take back something you said.

I was a single mother in my 30s who lived down and out with my daughter Peggy in a small apartment, struggling hard to make our needs meet.

One day, I headed to the downtown for an interview. I sat down in the streetcar, and there against the seat was a beautiful silk umbrella with a silver handle decorated with gold scrolls, among which there was a name carved.

On impulse(冲动) I determined to find the owner myself. I got off the streetcar in the heavy rain and thankfully opened the umbrella to protect myself. Then I searched a telephone book for the name, I found it immediately and called it, waiting patiently, and then a lady answered.

"Yes, “she said in surprise, with extreme excitement." It was my umbrella which had been stolen a year ago.”

So appealing was her pleasure that I forgot I was looking for a job and went directly to her small house. She took the umbrella, with teary eyes, explaining with choking voice that the umbrella was given by her parents, now dead, Her happiness at retrieving(找回)this special possession was such that to have accepted her reward would have spoiled something, so I refused her offer and left.

The following months were hard. I can only obtain temporary employment, for a small salary. What was worse, I had just lost my last job before Christmas, with only fifteen dollars left. Unless a miracle happened, I would be homeless in January, foodless and jobless. I had prayed steadily for weeks, and there had been no answer but this coldness and darkness.

The air was full of Christmas merriment, with the bells ringing and children shouting in the bitter dusk of the evening. But there should be no Christmas for me, I knew, no gifts, no remembrance whatsoever.

Thinking of this, I couldn’t control my tears on my way home, but I managed a smile so could greet my little daughter. She opened the door for me and threw herself in my arms, screaming joyously and demanding desirably for her Christmas gift. There I stood, frozen, overwhelmed by misery.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang and Peggy rushed to answer it, calling that it must be Santa Claus.

Suddenly, a note attached to one package caught my eyes.

8 . Race walking shares many fitness benefits with running, research shows, while most likely contributing to fewer injuries. It does, however, have its own problem.

Race walkers are conditioned athletes. The longest track and field event at the Summer Olympics is the 50-kilometer race walk, which is about five miles longer than the marathon. But the sport’s rules require that a race walker’s knees stay straight through most of the leg swing and one foot remain in contact (接触) with the ground at all times. It’s this strange form that makes race walking such an attractive activity, however, says Jaclyn Norberg, an assistant professor of exercise science at Salem State University in Salem, Mass.

Like running, race walking is physically demanding, she says, According to most calculations, race walkers moving at a pace of six miles per hour would burn about 800 calories(卡路里) per hour, which is approximately twice as many as they would burn walking, although fewer than running, which would probably burn about 1,000 or more calories per hour.

However, race walking does not pound the body as much as running does, Dr. Norberg says. According to her research, runners hit the ground with as much as four times their body weight per step, while race walkers, who do not leave the ground, create only about 1.4 times their body weight with each step.

As a result, she says, some of the injuries associated with running, such as runner’s knee, are uncommon among race walkers. But the sport’s strange form does place considerable stress on the ankles and hips, so people with a history of such injuries might want to be cautious in adopting the sport. In fact, anyone wishing to try race walking should probably first consult a coach or experienced racer to learn proper technique, she says. It takes some practice.

9 . It is common for adults to use ''baby talk'' when interacting with babies. This way of speaking attempts to imitate the sounds babies make when they first try to talk. But is this form of communication helpful to a child’s development?

Several studies have suggested a clear link between parental language methods and a child's early language development. Studies showed that language learning in babies was improved when parents spoke more than a few simple words and used a wider vocabulary. Earlier research found that the style of speech used by parents to communicate with their baby could have an influence on language development.

One such speaking style is known as ''parentese''. Research has shown that babies react better to this kind of language in the first months of life. Generally, parentese involves adults speaking in a higher voice and at a slower speed. The language is simplified, while sentences are short and often repeated. Studies from the past 30 years have confirmed that babies spoken to in parentese developed larger vocabularies throughout the first three years of life.

A new study on the subject, a project of the University of Washington's Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, examined whether parents can be effectively taught methods to improve their parentese skills.

Naj a Ferjan Ramírez. working in the Institute for Learning＆Brain Sciences, said that the parents involved in the research were first shown the importance of language input for their baby's development. Parents were then given suggestions on how to use different parentese methods, and then rated on how well they used these methods with their child. She added that the new study is important because there are still a 1ot of parents with little knowledge about how to use parentese to help their child. This was one reason the researchers included parents from different cultural and economic groupings.

10 . Celina Raddatz quit her job at a nursing home in 2014 to take care of her mother full-time who, 83, suffers from Alzheimer's.

Raddatz,57, and one of her sisters, Rosalia Lizarraga, 61, had been_________their mother together. But as the Alzheimer's_________, the task became too stressful for Lizarraga. The full_________fell on Raddatz, who was determined to perform a promise she and her siblings(兄弟姐妹)had made to their_________as children.

"When my mother was_________, she made us promise never to put her in a nursing home." Raddatz says. "But we never thought she would get_________like this."

Raddatz was born in Mexico. Her mother, a widow(遗婉),_________tune children as a food seller after they moved to America. "My mom was a very_________woman," Raddatz says. When Raddatz was growing up, her mother quit her_________so she could stay home and keep an eye on her children. "She would take us to school and bring us home. She wouldn't let us walk__________to school."

Raddatz and her siblings first began to notice their mother__________in 2005 after she had a bad fall while__________as a housekeeper. In 2006, Raddatz's mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

"It's just__________work. I need to care for her around the clock." But anyhow, she__________her job at the nursing home and__________her mother in with her. They also share a bedroom,__________Raddatz can assist her mother when she wakes up throughout the__________.

"It's a__________responsibility because of the promise we made her when she was younger," Raddatz says. It used to__________Raddatz to see families leave their relatives with this disease in a nursing home. Now she has a personal__________for the emotional(情感上的)and physical sacrifices that caring for an elderly loved one takes.