3 . Returning to nature

Imagine getting the chance to go camping for five days. It would be an adventure (冒险) in the wild. You could row on a lake every day and leave your smartphone at home. Would you want to try this?

In June, four teenage girls from Minnesota, US, went camping in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (边界水域泛舟区). They had a great time——even without their smartphones.

Julia Ruelle, 16, put the group together. Earlier this year, she won an essay contest sponsored (赞助) by a company. The award was a five-day canoe and camping adventure with up to three friends. No parents or guides would be there. This award was supposed to encourage kids to be less dependent on technology.

Ruelle had been to the area before, but she had always gone with her parents. Sharing the experience with friends would be very different. She invited three friends: Anna Wander, Madeline Wilson, and Julianna Torelli.

They came up with a daily plan. “We would wake up early every day. We were done paddling (划桨) by noon. We ate lunch at the campsite. Then it was time for hammocks (吊床), reading, writing, making friendship bracelets (手链), talking and napping,” Ruelle said.

“I’m a lot less worried about things,” Wander said when asked how she felt without her cellphone. Her favorite thing to do was lie in her hammock and look at the lake. Torelli enjoyed cooking. She made blueberry pancakes and sandwiches.

No one felt hungry or homesick. “Mental (心理的) health can be improved so much. It really helps to get away and reconnect with yourself,” Ruelle said.

Robert Armstrong’s favorite food has been his grandma’s cookies ever since he was a child.

Years later and armed with a business degree, Armstrong, 28, is turning his grandma’s cookie recipe into a national brand, G. Mommas Southern Style Cookies, featuring chocolate chip pecan(美洲山核桃) and “buddascotch” oatmeal(燕麦片) flavors.

In February, California-based specialty retailer(零售店), Cost Plus World-Market, with 265 stores in 31 states selling home decor(装饰), food and drink, started selling the cookies. They will also be in 800 Cracker Barrel stores this fall.

After graduating from college in 2008 and unable to find a job, Robert Armstrong asked his grandmother, Anice Morris Armstrong, to teach him how to bake, which he thought would take an afternoon.

“It was harder than college,” he said.

With basic cooking tools and an oven in an abandoned kitchen, he set up his own business, Selma Good, and began producing cookies in an old warehouse. Baking 10 to 12 hours a day, he managed to deliver cookies to 35 stores. His grandmother helped him develop the “buddascotch” recipe before her death, aged 88, last July. “She inspirited me in ways no one else ever could,” said Armstrong.

He reached out via LinkedIn, a website, to a national distributor, who asked for samples. Within a year, he found a commercial bakery in Pennsylvania and a deal to go national with World Market. “Everybody has a grandma recipe, but I was lucky to find people that would take a chance on me,” Armstrong said. “They’re crunchy, but light, like feathers, and taste extremely good,” said Judy McKinny at Mark’s Market, one of Armstrong’s first retail customers in his hometown of Selma, Alabama.

World Market is ordering two cases per store each quarter, a huge leap from the 9,000 bags he made himself per quarter.

His goal is to one day move production back to his native Selma to help its development. Selma has struggled economically since the closure of a candy factory several years ago.

6 . I was ready for bed when the phone rang. “This cannot be good,” I thought as I hurried to see why I was called so late at night. My mind quickly ran through the list of family members that might need my help.

“Lindy, this is Leslie,” she said. “I hope I didn’t disturb your sleeping.” I was confused that she should call me at 11 pm. We occasionally spoke with each other at some community events, but to say we were friends was a stretch.

I asked what she needed. She replied, “Do you have room for turkeys in your freezer?” We had lots of room in our freezer. My husband’s business had taken a downturn and we were pretty much at the bottom of our food supply. “Sure,” I responded. “Did your freezer break down?” “Not exactly,” Leslie replied. “But if you give me directions to your house, I will explain when I get there.”

Later a huge freezer truck pulled into the driveway. Leslie and her husband got off the truck. Leslie explained her husband owned a small grocery store that had just lost its lease(租约). They had to empty all the freezers before midnight that night. They thought it was a shame to just cast all this good food into garbage cans. So she began to go through her list of contacts, dropping off food to those who might be willing to take it. When Leslie put turkeys in our freezer, she asked, “Is it OK if we just fill this up?” She told me that ours was the last place they planned to stop at and anything left would have to be discarded.

At last, I asked her, “When will you come back for all this?” Leslie just laughed and replied, “We don’t want it back. It is yours. We have been delivering food since 5 pm and have exhausted our list of contacts. That’s the end of it. Thanks for helping out.”

Over the next several months we ate well and shared turkeys with friends, family and neighbors. When the food in our freezer finally ran out in May, we were back on our feet. Our income increased and buying groceries was no longer a problem.

7 . As I was walking along a river this evening, I intended to do something nice for a stranger. I started to look around for a _________ to do a random act of kindness. Two minutes later I was _________ by a complete stranger. I wasn’t sure why he came close to me, _________ I could tell he was drunk. I just stayed _________ and kept walking ahead. There were hundreds of people sitting on _________ nearby, so I wasn’t really worried.

As I tried to walk along, he _________ saying bad things to me. Then I tried to change my _________ and he kept following me, coming closer each time. I got really scared and didn’t know what to _________. I was praying that one of the many people sitting on benches nearby would be _________ enough to help me out of this situation.

Seconds later, just when I felt really __________, a couple had seen everything happen. The lady __________ and linked her arm into mine, saying “Dear, why don’t you come with us?” and __________ walking me away from the guy. The guy started __________ and getting angry, while this sweet lady was __________ me, saying “Don’t worry.” Finally, once he __________, she said, “You’d better carry on __________ where you were going and we’ll make sure he goes the other way.”

As I rushed away, I was shaken up, but at the same time had feelings of __________ for that couple. I started with the __________ of doing a random act of kindness. __________, I ended up on the receiving end. One thing is for certain though — it is equally important to learn how to receive and to feel grateful for the __________ of others.

10 . Professional critics and news consumers alike have long blamed the news media for running sensational (轰动的) content, but is sensationalism in the news media really such a bad thing?

According to NYU professor Mitchell Stephens, sensationalism has been around ever since early humans began telling stories. “I have never found a time when there wasn’t a form for the exchange of news that included sensationalism. This goes back to societies before written language appeared,” he said. In the 19th century, newspaper wars broke out and some businessmen were accused of sensationalizing the news in order to sell more papers. Whatever the time or setting, sensationalism is unavoidable in news.

Sensationalism serves a function by improving the spread of information to less-educated audiences and strengthening the social structure, Stephens said. “While there is plenty of silliness in various tales, they do manage to serve various important social or cultural functions. They help establish or question, for example, norms(规范) and limitations,” Stephens said .

Critics of sensationalism have always complained that when there is a limited amount of space available for news, the important news gets put aside when more sensational content comes along. That argument might be popular when the news universe was limited to newspapers and radio. But it doesn’t really make sense in an age when it’s possible to call up news from every corner of the world, from various newspapers, blogs, and news sites.

There’s another point to be made about sensational news stories: We love them. Sensational stories are the junk food of our news diet, the ice cream that you eagerly want. You know it’s bad for you but it’s delicious, and you can always have a salad tomorrow. It’s the same with news. Despite what high-minded critics might say, there’s nothing wrong with that. Indeed, an interest in the sensational news stories seems to be an all-too-human quality.