1 . One day, 12-year-old Sean Redden surfed the Internet and went to a popular chat room. Just as he was about to be offline, he saw a name he’d never seen there before, Susan. Her brief message was “Would someone help me?”

Sean typed back, “What’s wrong?” A moment later he received this message, “I can’t breathe. Help me! I can’t get out of my chair.”

Oh, man, Sean thought. Pretending to be paralyzed (瘫痪) was a bad joke. Then he wondered what if she really is sick? “Hey. Mom.” he called. “There’s a kid here who’s sick or something.” Sharon looked at the computer screen. “It’s not just some game, is it?” she asked.

The message was not a joke. Susan was actually a 20-year-old student, working late at night at a college library near Helsinki, Finland - almost 7,000 miles away from Sean’s home in Texas. While searching the Internet, she began to feel terrible pain all through her body. The library was silent and empty. The nearest phone was outside in the hallway. She couldn’t move that far. Any movement caused the pain to get worse. Then she realized she might get help on the Internet.

“I don’t think it’s a joke, Mom, “Sean said. And he typed, “Where are you?” After a long while, the letters appeared, “Finland.” Sean and Sharon couldn’t believe it. Not knowing what else to do, Sharon called the local police.

Sharon explained the situation to the officer Amy Schmidt. Schmidt told Sharon to try to get the sick girl’s phone number. Texas police called the international telephone operator and asked to be connected to the proper agency (机构) in Finland. The call was put through to a nearby rescue station. The Texas police gave Susan’s address to the Finnish operator. When Sean heard that, he typed, “Help is on the way.”

In a few minutes, Susan heard people running down the hallway outside the door. Suddenly, the door opened. Emergency workers and three policemen ran in. Susan turned once more to the computer, “They are here. Thanks. Bye-bye.”

Four days later, the police in Texas received a message from officers in Finland: “Thanks to her Internet friend. Susan has received medical treatment she badly needed. She is doing well.”

2 . Some Strangest Festivals From Around The World

Through the years, people have found many ways to celebrate important occasions in their lives. If you’re looking for an interesting and off-the-beaten-path travel place, here are some most wonderful and unusual festivals from around the world.

Boryeong Annual Mud Festival, Boryeong rock

This festival takes place at the beach, with much mud (泥巴) resource from the sea. At this festival, people take part in a number of activities involving (涉及) mud, which not only brings back happy childhood memories but is good for the skin.

World Body-painting Festival, Pörtschach, Austria

This entire festival is not strange because of the activities that occur (发生) during it, but because of the way people look when it’s over. During this time, artists worldwide flood in and hold live body-painting activities. They are painting creative designs on willing participants (参与者).

Underwater Music Festival, Florida, America

Rather than being held at a typical concert hall, the underwater Music Festival takes place on the seabed. This special custom is unlike any others because it featured musicians playing music below water level. 100 feet deep in clear water, talented musicians wear diving (潜水) equipment, performing free concerts for sea creatures and humans alike.

Battle of the orange, Ivrea, Italy

This Italian town hosts one of the most unusual festivals. Each year in February, a battle (战斗) takes place among thousands of participants who have to throw orange at each other during a 30-minute fight. The aim is to try and knock down other participants by attacking them with oranges so that they cannot stand any longer.

3 . A famous magazine, Amusement Today, does a survey among park lovers every year both in the US and overseas, based on which, “Top 5 List of the Best Amusement Parks in the World” has come out as follows:

Disneyland, California

Disneyland is a theme park in Anaheim, California, the US. More than 515 million guests have traveled to this American landmark from around the world since the park first opened to guests on July 17, 1955. The park consists of many world-famous sections, such as Main Street, Adventure land, New Orleans Square, and so on.

Magic Kingdom, Disney World, Florida

Magic Kingdom is a theme park within the Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, near Orlando opened on October 1, 1971. It is the most famous theme park in Florida. The park’s design and attractions don’t make much difference from Disneyland Park in Anaheim.

EPCOT, Disney World, Florida

EPCOT is the second theme park built at the Walt Disney World Resort near Orlando, Florida. The park opened on October 1, 1982, and was named EPCOT Center from 1982 to 1993. It was the largest Disney theme park in the world until 1998, when Disney’s Animal Kingdom opened.

Disney­MGM Studios, Florida

MGM’s streets are the home for some great movie­themed attractions with a history of less than 30 years. With the addition of the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and the Rock and Roller Coaster, the park is now home to Disney World’s most thrilling rides.

Universal Studios, Florida

Go behind the scenes, beyond the screen and jump right into the action of your favorite movies at Universal Studios, the number one movie and TV theme park in the world.

5 . My name is Jimmy. One Thursday afternoon, when I was in senior one, a new boy came into my classroom. He was short and thin. He walked up to the teacher and told her, very seriously, that he was new. His name was Christian. He sat down, took a look at me, and then looked away. I didn’t think he was very nice and I was sure he wasn’t the type I would like to become friends with.

During that year, I didn’t talk to him much, but he smiled at me when our eyes met, always shyly. He never ate lunch with anybody, and he never talked to anybody but me.

But one day I joined those unkind kids who were making fun of him. We made fun of him though I thought it was wrong.

“Haven’t you got any friends?” a kid asked Christian, who had walked past us alone, head down.

“No, he hasn’t got any friends. He’s too stupid and shy,” I said. Then Christian looked up at me with the saddest dog eyes I had ever seen. I felt very sorry at that moment.

That night, I couldn’t sleep because I couldn’t get Christian’s face out of my mind. In the weeks that followed, he never met my eyes in class and never smiled at me. It was really hard for me to decide to write him a note asking him to forgive (原谅) me. But I thought I should.

The next day in class, I wrote him a note telling him how sorry I felt. About five minutes later, I turned and saw tears in his eyes. “You will never realize what your apology (道歉) has meant to me, Jimmy.” he said to me. “I hope we can become friends.”

We had lunch together that noon and we had the best talk I had ever had. Over the years at high school, we were close friends.

When I think back, I realize that, if I had not apologized, I would never have known what a lovely person Christian was.

Apologies can really change your life, so never miss the chance to tell somebody you are sorry.

8 . Just Cycle And fold away

There’s no excuse not to get on your bike this spring. Get your indoor cycling fix and feel the benefits.

Great for general cardio (有氧的) fitness, exercise bikes can be a brilliant way of training at home. However, choosing the right bike is incredibly important, which is something that Roger Black and his team recognized when creating the Roger Black Folding Bike.

“Excellent value for money. Especially the ability to fold the exercise bike into a vertical (直立的) position and wheel it away for storage. This can also prevent you from throwing your clothes on it at the end of the day! Even if we are limited on space at home and work, we can continue physical activity with a Roger Black folding bike. This bike is helping me achieve my fitness goals following a recent running injury.”

——Brian Smith

“Best Present EVER are the words from my 77-year-old father who received his Roger Black fitness bike for his birthday. He said it is so simple and easy to use. The seat is VERY comfortable, so using it every day is a pleasure. It folds away nearly so it can be stored behind a door when necessary.”

——Anna Farnham

Roger Black is offering a 10% discount on the full www.rogerblackfitness.com range of home fitness equipment for all Reader’s Digest readers. Please use discount code DIGEST10 at checkout.

9 . How clever can a computer be? Maybe you can get the answer after reading the following passage about a newly-developed US computer program called Smarter Child.

If you ran into Smarter Child online, you would be surprised at this kid’s huge memory. It can remember many facts. For example, Smarter Child knows every baseball player in every team this season and the weather in every city across the US. He also knows every word in the dictionary. However, if you ask Smarter Child other private questions, you will get strange answers. A question about Smarter Child’s age returns, “I’ll be older than you after further study!”, and asking where he lives, you will get, “In a clean room in a high-tech building in California.”

Smarter Child uses the huge information on the World Wide Web as his memory bank. To answer questions about spelling, for example, Smarter Child goes to www.ahdictionary.com. For the weather, he visits www.intellicast.com. He turns to www.the-scientist.com for scientists and www.moviefone.com for a fantastic movie.

Some scientists believe that by joining many systems of the Internet, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) with the combined (结合的) knowledge of, say, Albert Einstein, Richard Nixon and Britney Spears could be born. However, Smarter Child has difficulty in discerning whether a behavior is right or wrong, which is obvious to any young child. If he wants to think and learn without any help from the programmers like boy-computer David in the movie Artificial Intelligence (AI), he must solve two problems.

The first is that computers find it difficult to read web pages because the files are sorted in different ways. That’s why programmers need to tell Smarter Child where to look for the weather. It would be a much more difficult task to let him find it by himself. Another problem is that while Smarter Child can deal with information more exactly and faster than any human, he needs programmers to make better systems that allow machines to solve problems of common sense, which is a huge challenge.