It was 3: 34 in the morning. Suddenly the bed moved a little. I woke up. That bed used to move a lot so I just thought it was my wife rolling (翻)over. I looked over to her and she was fast asleep. So I thought it was just another small tremor (轻微地震). We used to get many small tremors in Chile. But then everything in the room started making noise. The tremor got a bit stronger. My wife woke up.

I went to open the front door to make sure it wouldn’t get stuck while my wife went to see how the kids were. They were still fast asleep.

I got to the front door and left it open. When I turned around to go back to the bedroom, the full force of the earthquake started to hit. I couldn’t move forward. While I was trying to hold myself up against the wall, I looked out the window. It was frightening, some buildings coming in and out of view and some already falling down. Then the earthquake made a strong push and our lights went out. In the darkness, I thought, “This is it! We’re not coming out of this alive. ”

Luckily, the violent(剧烈的)shaking gradually slowed down and then stopped. I could finally walk to our children’s room. My wife had been standing over them during the strongest part of the earthquake, making sure nothing fell on them.

After such a big earthquake, we expected the “smaller” aftershocks to be still very strong. There was still a chance that the building could collapse. So we woke the kids up, got some basic things and started to walk down the emergency(紧急情况)stairs. . . all 22 floors of them.

When we finally arrived at the ground floor many other people had already arrived, some in pajamas (睡衣), some half-dressed. The good news was everyone got out of the building safe and sound.

7 . If you’re worried about the planet, please make sure your rubbish is buried under the ground.

People talk about “reduce, reuse, recycle.” It sounds like a good idea. There is a problem, though. Recycling costs too much money.

Even the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency(EPA) says it only makes sense economically and environmentally to recycle about 35 percent of thrown materials, Among those materials are paper and aluminum cans (铝罐), Recycling 1 ton of paper or aluminum cans, the agency says, can save about 3 tons of CO2 emissions (排放) overproducing those materials again. Paper producers pay for the trees they process If it was cost-effective to recycle paper. producers would be beating down your door to bay it. But they aren’t. That means it’s more expensive to recycle old paper than to cut trees and then replant trees for processing.

Plastic can be recycled too. Because of the recent drop in crude oil (原油) prices. it is now cheaper to make a new plastic container (塑料容器) than to recycle an old one. Even if that were not true, the EPA says that recycling a ton of plastic saves only about a ton of CO2. However, it doesn’t take into consideration the water most people use to wash their plastic containers before having them recycled. The New York Times Journalist John

Tierney recently wrote. “If you wash plastic in water that was heated by electricity, them the effect of your recycling could be mere carbon in the air.

Glass is another recyclable material. To reduce greenhouse gas emissions by I ton, you have to recycle 3 tons of glass. If one includes the cost of collecting glass waste from neighborhoods, and the pollution produced by the collection trucks and the recycling process itself, glass recycling creates more greenhouse gas emissions and is more expensive than making new glass, which comes primarily from sand that exists everywhere.

If recycling were truly cost-effective, private companies would be lining up at your doorstep to buy your rubbish. Don’t look now because they’re not there.

I was sitting in an introduction to calligraphy workshop when a fellow student asked the teacher, “ What do I need to become a professional calligrapher? ” We were all on the edge of our seats with that one. It was as if we were about to learn the secret ingredient to Grandma’s cookies. The answer, to our surprise, was pen and paper.

“ The materials are no different than that of a beginner calligrapher, ” the instructor explained. The difference between a beginner and professional calligrapher is not in the tools they use, but rather in the professional’s commitment (奉献) to practice and the time they took to learn and do something.

The same goes for any professional at their craft.

When we look up to the expert, we think that increasing the quality of materials or having access to nicer resources is what makes them great. This assumption doesn’t take into account the time it would have taken them to learn something new and to achieve their goals.

Instead, we want to cut corners, looking for a shortcut. We want to make progress as soon as possible. But it is not a strategy that necessarily benefits us.

My current goal is to become an independent filmmaker. What would it take, what would I need to make the best movies? I too, wanted the shortcut. The direct way to achieve my goal. Is there a certain camera I need to have, light kit (工具箱), microphone or skill that would lead me right to success? After watching online videos about film-making, I realized I had all that I needed to achieve my goal. There was no shortcut to film-making. It was just going to take time.

It’s easy to get caught in wasting time looking for a solution instead of time. In the end, we lose energy and motivation looking for the right tools or answers.

We do things to go fast rather than far. We focus on the end result instead of allowing ourselves to enjoy the journey. Go for. Reach farther. Take the time to become your best self.

9 . Dr. Teruo Higa was born on December 28, 1941 on Okinawa and grew up there. He studied agriculture and took his doctorate from the Agricultural Research Department of Kyushu University Graduate School. He became a lecturer in 1970 and has been professor horticulture (园艺) since 1982.

Dr. Higa is famous for creating EM technology. He created EM technology in order to address the problem of excess waste and bad farming techniques in the present-day world. EM stands for effective microorganisms (有效微生物群). It is a multi-culture of coexisting anaerobic (无氧的，厌氧的) and aerobic (需氧的，有氧的) microorganisms. Microorganisms (微生物) are the smallest complete units of life. They can exist independent of a bigger organism. Bacteria are considered microorganisms. They are constantly at work, some helping bigger organisms, and others bringing decay and bad health. These opposing processes of constructive and destructive forces are always ongoing, creating a balance. If the balance tips towards the destructive side, the host organism grows ill. If it tips towards the constructive side, the organism experiences good health.

These organisms can be used in farming to create a good growing environment for all kinds of crops and animals. The process involves collecting human and animal waste products such as kitchen garbage and manure. This is then sealed into a barrel along with a certain amount of EM powder. The microorganisms then turn the waste into mulch (覆盖物，护根), which acts as a great source of nutrients for crops and animals. Rice paddies (稻田) that are treated with EM produce harvests that are much bigger than those of conventional farms. Moreover, EM rice paddies require less tilling (耕作) and weeding than other paddies.

Dr. Higa’s ideas have caught on around the world. One of his biggest successes was in North Korea, where his technology was used to create a record-breaking crop yield. EM helped many crops, such as corn, Welsh onions and Chinese cabbages in North Korea. For North Korea, this was a godsend.

When I was 10, my friend Sydney suffered from a brain cancer. Sydney fought against it, but the cancer did not respond to the treatment, and could not be removed. Sydney died at the age of 11.

After her death, I felt sad and discouraged. I decided to turn these negative emotions into positive actions. When I was 15 years old, I founded the Pink Polka Dots Guild (PPD) with two friends. My goal is to raise enough money to find a cure for brain cancer, which is the second most common cancer in children.

Over the years, PPD had held fundraisers (募捐活动) across the city. The first Pink Polka Dots Guild event, a garage sale, just raised $900, but our latest fundraiser, the 2012 golf tournament, brought in over $73,000. In the past five years, we have raised almost a million dollars to help do a research on removing brain cancer.

I’ve been shocked by the public recognition that PPD has earned. It received an award from President. This great honour raised awareness and money for our cause.

The efforts that we have made has truly helped cancer research. PPD has provided start-up funding for scientific discoveries, such as “Tumor Paint”, which illuminates (照射) cancerous cells so that doctors can remove them with amazing accuracy. The discovery appeared in Time Magazine. I was very proud to have helped fund the research of this life-saving technology.

Pink Polka Dots has inspired me to be an activist. My experience has taught me that with devotion, it is possible to make a difference in the world. The determination that Pink Polka Dots set off in me has carried over to all aspects of my life, making me a competitive speaker and a devoted volunteer.