In December, an unseen disease arrived in a village. Ally was one of the victims. She lay, barely moving, in her bed staring at a wall out of the window under her blanket.

The doctor took her father, who was a painter, aside and claimed, “She has one chance in—let us say, ten. And that chance is for her to want to live. Try to encourage her to think more hopeful thoughts, about the future, about living.”

Her father took some paper and a pen into Ally’s room and began a pen drawing, in an attempt to raise Ally’s spirits. Ally’s eyes were open, but they weren’t watching him. Instead, she stared out the window and counted backwards, “Ten, nine, eight, seven…”

“What are you counting, dear?” asked her father. “They’re falling faster now,” replied Ally.

“Three days ago there were almost a hundred. But now there are only five left now. Five leaves on the ivy vine (常春藤). When the last one falls, I must go, too.”

“Oh, I never heard of such nonsense,” quickly replied her father. But Ally’s mind was made up. “I want to see the last one fall. I want to go sailing down, down, just like one of those poor, tired leaves.”

“Try to sleep,” said her father. Ally closed her eyes quietly. Watching her daughter’s pale face, he was lost in deep thought. As a painter, he had never produced a masterpiece he longed to paint in 40 years. As a father, he even couldn’t help her daughter cheer up. Looking out of the window, he noticed that there was just one remaining leaf. What’s more, a cold rain was falling mixed with snow. “Are there people in the world that are foolish to think they’ll die because leaves drop off from an ivy vine? This is not a place in which Ally shall lie sick.” He made up his mind to do something.

The next morning, Ally woke and asked for the curtains to be opened. One leaf remained on the ivy vine, bravely holding on in the wind and rain. “It will fall today. And I will die with it.”

The following day, Ally asked again for the curtains to be opened.

A few weeks later, Ally recovered completely and the secret was revealed.

When I started high school, I was fourteen years old and six foot tall. The scary thing about being so tall when you’re so young is that people automatically teat you as if you’re older. Yes, I was the size of an adult (actually, bigger than most! ) , but I was still just a kid. And acting more like an adult wouldn’t win me any fiends. As a card-carrying Good Boy, I wanted to meet adults’ expectations and get their praise, but as a Regular Kid, I wanted to be like my peers and get their friendship.

I walked into school that first day in my bluejacket and trousers, the school uniform. I noticed some of my old classmates from my junior high, the ones who had turned their backs on me, and we continued our policy of actively ignoring one another. I felt the pain of their betrayal (背叛) , but I forced my face to remain expressionless. I was here to study hard at academics and to work hard at basketball under my new coach, Jack Donahue. I was here to be excellent. Nothing else mattered.

Indeed I was excellent. I made the honor roll in the first semester, pleasing my parents and teachers. Leaming came naturally to me. I loved reading, especially about history and adventure stories like The Three Musketeers. Basketball, however, I had to work at to do well in.

As a freshman, my style of play reflected my personality: politely passive. I had some skills, but I didn’t have an aggressive nature: The good player around me knew how to play rough, use their bodies with authority, and power their way to a rebound (抢篮板球) . I knew I had to toughen up, and I was committed to getting better, but it wasn’t happening fast enough.

One morning, our school team was scheduled to play a game against Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, and Coach Donahue surprised me by taking me into his office. I figured he was going to discuss his disappointment in my progress as a player, maybe even say something about it all being a big mistake.

To my surprise, he handed me a team uniform.

All day, I allowed myself to imagine the game.

3 . In an increasingly globalized business world, companies demand Human Resources (HR) leaders who can overcome cultural barriers to achieve key goals. This year, students in the Master of Human Resources and Industrial Relations (MHRIR) Program will get hands-on experience leading multicultural teams as they work together with peers (同辈) from all corners of the globe.

“Our students get firsthand experience on global teams, which helps them understand the challenges and the opportunities they will face in the business world,” said MHRIR Program Director Stacy Hove.

Elishka Correa joined the program to explore how HR leaders can help businesses grow quickly in the global marketplace. “Companies appreciate diversity — not only in terms of products and markets, but the people they hire — so that they can expand their business and reach customers in different parts of the world,” she said. “When I go into an organization, I’m not only going to work with Indians or Americans, it’s going to be a mix of people. That trend is beginning to grow, so I think it’s very important to appreciate people from different backgrounds.”

As they progress through the program, the students are discovering unexpected challenges as they work on projects in diverse teams. Each contributor brings a different approach to solving problems, communicating, and challenging one another’s opinions.

Devin Roll, a student from North Dakota, appreciating the unique views his classmates share, said, “The benefits of having cross-cultural experiences go far beyond the classroom. Diverse teams and companies outperform their competitors, and HR leaders act as a vital partner in acquiring and maintaining diversity in the workforce.”

Many of the international students in the program said they would return to their home countries after graduation and bring along connections to their classmates, who would build careers (职业) in countries around the world. They hope to stay in touch, and share their expert knowledge.

Sarah, a high school student, had a great passion for baking. With her parents’ support, Sarah dreamed of opening her own bakery, a place where she could turn her interest into a business. However, she knew the importance of improving her skills and gaining real-world experience.

Therefore, every Saturday, without fail, she would set up a small but charming table at a local park. The park, filled with families and laughter, was the perfect place for Sarah to sell her creations. Her table, neatly laid out with colorful homemade cookies and cakes, attracted passers-by with the desserts’ smell.

On a particularly bright and sunny afternoon, as Sarah was carefully arranging her chocolate cookies and cakes, her attention was drawn to an elderly woman sitting alone on a bench. The woman, with her silver hair and sad eyes, seemed lost in thought. As the hours went by, Sarah noticed that the woman remained where she was, seemingly forgotten by the world. A sense of concern washed over Sarah. So she decided to act. She poured a cup of warm tea carefully and cut a generous slice of her rich chocolate cake, a crowd favorite, and approached the woman.

“I thought you might like some snacks,” Sarah said with a warm, inviting smile. The woman’s face lit up as she accepted the treat. “Thank you, dear. I haven’t had such a delicious treat since my retirement,” she responded, her voice soft yet filled with gratitude. As she enjoyed the cake, tears rolled down her face.

A little shocked, Sarah asked what had happened. The woman introduced herself as Mrs. Wilson, who had been a baker before she retired. Since losing her husband to cancer a week ago, she had been living alone. Her visits to the park were her escape from the loneliness that filled her quiet home. Sarah listened attentively, her heart touched by the woman’s story.

Sarah decided to help Mrs. Wilson out.

Over time, their unlikely friendship became noticed in the park.

As a Texan, I’m not experienced in driving in snowy, icy road conditions. So, that snowy February morning I was unwilling to travel twenty-five miles to work, hoping to receive a text message from my school telling me that school would be closed for the day.

However, the text message never came. So I warmed up my car, melting (融化) the fresh layer of ice on the window, and then left for campus, slowly driving my car along city streets. To my relief, the road workers had treated streets with sand and salt, making them less dangerous. Nevertheless, I still drove carefully, keeping a safe distance between my car and the cars in front of me. Despite all my carefulness, I was still afraid of hitting another car because of the bad road conditions.

My heart raced and I told myself, “Relax. You will be fine.”But in a flash, the clouds disappeared and blinding snow came. My heart beat even faster. Within minutes, the blowing snow mixed together with the existing snow. Visibility was instantly reduced to near zero. Directional signs quickly were out of sight. The road itself disappeared, as did all the cars around me. I had no sense of direction, and no idea what I should do.

Suddenly, I hit a large piece of ice and my car began sliding. I was scared out of my mind. There were too many vehicles running slowly on the street. A sense of complete helplessness and fear enveloped me. I held the steering wheel (方向盘) harder, staring at my sweaty, trembling (颤抖的) hands, unsure what to do because I didn’t have the skills or experience to control myself out of the slide, let alone avoid crashing into other cars.

Just then, a truck appeared out of nowhere．

I thanked the driver again, watching him disappearing in his damaged truck

7 . “It’s too sugary, I can’t manage very many,” said a friend. She wasn’t talking about dessert but about some fresh cherries. I bit into another cherry and realized she was right. The fruit was so sweet that it was as if it had been pre-sugared.

But the cherries of my childhood were much less sweet than today’s cherries. Some of them were hardly sweet at all, which made it all the more exciting when you happened upon a super sweet one.

Is modern fruit getting sweeter? The answer is yes. Some of the most powerful evidence comes from zoos. In 2018, Melbourne Zoo in Australia had stopped giving fruit to most of its animals because cultivated fruit was now so sweet that it was causing tooth decay and weight gain.

Breeding isn’t the only reason that modern fruit is sweeter; there’s also climate change. It’s found that since the 1970s, with rising temperatures, Fuji apples have become significantly sweeter and softer.

But the sweetness of modern fruit is not without its problems, especially for people with diabetes, who have to be careful to moderate their intake of higher - sugar fruits such as pineapple. Fruit that is bred sweeter also tends to be lower in the phytochemicals (植物化学成分) that make it so healthy.

Health aside, maybe the real problem with modern fruit is that it has become yet another sweet thing in a world filled with sugar. Even grapefruit, which used to be quite bitter, is sometimes now as sweet as oranges. If you’ve never tasted a sour cherry, how can you fully appreciate a sweet one? Experts put forwards some thoughts about how to appreciate the various tastes of modern fruit.

Today was Sunday, so I was in no hurry to get out of bed. As I rolled over and stretched, I heard my father shouted, “Oh, dear, fire!” There was unmistakable urgency in his voice. Upon hearing that, I got up and hurried downstairs. And my mother who was preparing breakfast also stopped cooking immediately. My father showed us a video shot by some witness, where we saw a fire inside a building. My mother stood beside him and shook her head.

“What a pity! Is it local?” my mother asked. As a policeman, my father had a keen observation ability. “It’s your hospital!” he watched the screen carefully and said in surprise.

It turned out that a building of the hospital where my mother worked as a head nurse was on fire. We found out later that an old wire first caused the building to catch fire and it began to spread. The camera captured the firefighters’ figures in black and orange uniform as they aimed endless streams of water at the fire.

“I have to get there,” said my mother, feeling anxious. My father and I offered to go with her. She threw on uniform and drove to the site.

Luckily, the fire didn’t spread to the building where my mother worked. After making sure that it was safe, we came to my mother’s office. My mother’s co-workers came to the office off and on as well. They were horrified at the sight of the next building but still thought about how to help.

Through a front window, I suddenly saw the rows of medical records in the next building, and I hurried to tell my mother. She felt really nervous and instantly consulted with her co-workers about how to cope. The situation was very urgent. They knew that if they waited until the firefighters who were busy evacuating (疏散) patients got here, those recordings might burn up. The fire broke out before the records, which were irreplaceable histories of their patients, could be entered into the computer.

They decided to rescue the records, and my father and I offered to help.

Finally, some firefighters arrived.

It was a beautiful May morning. As usual, I started my day by sitting outside breathing the fresh air as I read my book and drank my coffee. Afterwards, there were two things I was determined to do. First, make sure my husband got our small Christmas trees down from the attic(阁楼) and, second, take several bags of clothes, blankets and comforters to the donation center. I had been faithful in doing that every year, but for whatever reason, I had delayed this year and the bags were now piling up and overflowing.

After reading for a while, I went into the bedroom to ask my husband to bring the trees down. He was asleep so I figured I’d surprise him and get them down by myself.

I went to the garage to access the attic storage and moved our tall metal ladder into place. I had to move the bags of clothing and blankets out of the way, determined once again to get those to the donation center.

I climbed the ladder, and two steps from the top I was able to reach up and push open the attic door. Then, with my feet on the very last step and part of my upper body in the attic, I saw my trees. I awkwardly raised my leg to climb onto the attic floor. Looking down, and then looking up again, I decided that this was actually too much for me. I should wait for my husband to get them.

As I stepped down, my foot missed the shaky ladder’s step. With one foot swinging and the other on the top step, I grabbed(抓住) the attic floorboard and called my husband. Unfortunately, he couldn’t hear me. As I went to take another step down, the ladder suddenly came out from under me, loudly crashing onto the concrete(混凝土的) garage floor, leaving me hanging from the attic with sweaty hands. In that second, which seemed like a century, I prayed and then called my husband.

With my body swinging in midair and my hands slowly sliding closer to the edge, I fell.

Arriving at the emergency center, I anxiously waited to see the doctor.