A couple of months before I started high school, my parents gave me the greatest gift any teenage boy could ask for: a cellphone. I lived on that phone all summer with my face buried in its screen. I texted with every friend who was lucky enough to have a texting plan. I ignored my family and my surroundings. Being connected was more important than being present.

So, you can imagine my displeasure when l learned what my dad had planned for our family vacation that year. “This year,” my dad said, “we’ll be doing something special. We’re going camping!” His excitement was met with a disappointed sigh. It wasn’t my dream vacation, but I remained unbothered throughout the packing and planning. My mind was on my phone. I was so buried in the screen, in fact, that the first time I can remember truly looking up was when we drove across a bridge on the way to our campsite.

I stared out the window and saw redwoods towering above us, their branches threatening to pierce (刺破) the blue sky. I saw a roaring river, with slivers of silky black water appearing between crashing white rapids. The air blowing into the car from the open windows was hot and smelled of pine. But none of that mattered to me. The reason I had looked up was for something far more serious. My phone no longer had service.

The last hour of the drive was increasingly tense. My dad announced that he had chosen a campsite that had no cell service, and that my phone would be useless until we returned home. I would be trapped in the forest for four days with no way to contact the outside world! I went through the full cycle of teenage emotions during the first day of the trip. I raged (发怒). I bargained. I begged. I flip-flopped (转变) from a depressive state to anger and back.

I went to bed angrily that night. But when I awoke in the morning, something had changed.

Instead of burying myself in my phone, l focused on something else: my surroundings.

The next four days passed in a flash with many fun activities.

When school was over, the day was fading and it started to drizzle(毛毛雨). I stood at the school gate, with a loaded backpack on my shoulders. It was Friday again: a weekend of joy with unlimited sleeping hours and dinner courses specially made to my taste, a weekend at home. I waved goodbye to my friends as they jumped into their fathers’ warm and comfortable cars. Curiously, this gave rise to a disturbing feeling in me. It was not exactly what they called jealousy, but something like dismay(沮丧). I knew all I could expect was an old bike Mom would ride along on, with the badly-oiled chain creaking(嘎吱作响) against the wheel to announce her arrival.

Every Friday when Mom came to pick me up for the weekend, it was a moment full of great expectation and great unease. I always felt my face burning as we rode our way in and out of the numerous cars and saw my friends’ faces sticking out of the car windows. It was like stepping into a ballroom with beautifully dressed ladies and finding yourself in a smelly T-shirt.

To tell you the truth, Mom is quite a headache once in a while. She just looks a homely middle-aged housewife. Being a practitioner of DIY, she knits most of my sweaters, chiefly in old styles. Whenever caught by some curious classmates asking what brand my sweaters are, I’d force a smile and reply in a half joking manner: homemade.

I couldn’t remember when I started to find her such an embarrassment. As a little boy, I relied on her so much. She had been working at home, cooking in the kitchen, knitting by the lamp or riding across town to buy me a book I badly needed. It had always been much fun riding with mom. But just now there seemed to be something standing between us, something that made her so strange to me and me to her.

Today she showed up in a raincoat.

Mom tried to cover me with the back of the raincoat again as a storm set in.

Almost all the possessions had been sold to buy food and clothing for the family. At last, nothing was left but the pet lamb, Daisy. At the thought of parting with the little creature, Mrs. Grant’s felt sad because the children loved it very much. Having struggled hard, she had to make up her mind to sell the lamb. But she could not ask any child to go for the butcher. Finally, she went herself with a heavy heart, dragging her leaden feet, and bargained with the butcher for the sale of Daisy.

While the children were all playing with the lamb, the butcher and his boy came to the door. “ You see I am here for the lamb, ” said the butcher in a loud voice. Hearing this, one child ran to her mother’s side, and asked what was happening in alarm. Mrs. Grant gently pushed the child aside, bent down and was about to tell the truth.

“That’s my lamb now, Charlie! ” said the butcher’s boy in a playful tone, going up to Daisy with a rope in his hand.

“No, it is not your lamb. It is ours! ” said Charlie, placing himself in front of it.

But the boy, pushing him aside, threw a rope round Daisy’s neck, and began to drag the little creature away. The poor lamb bleated (咩咩叫) very sadly. The cry of grief which fell upon the mother’s ears was too much for her, and her heart sank within her. In a moment, begging with tearful eyes, the children were all around their mother with voices choking with sobs for their little pet.

“Please tell your boy to stop a moment, ” she said in husky tones to the butcher. The boy, at a word from the butcher, stopped dragging the lamb, and the little creature stopped its bleating.

In a trembling voice, Mrs. Grant explained to them how badly off they were after their father died. She also added that the kind butcher had given the money for Daisy. With this money, she could buy her children bread to eat.

But the more she explained, the stronger her children begged for Daisy.

The butcher, who had been watching all, was touched in his heart.

I took a job as a receptionist for a veterinarian weeks ago. As an enthusiastic animal lover, I accepted the position on the condition that I wouldn’t have to assist with any wounded animals. I couldn’t bear to see any creature in pain.

At the end of my first week, we were about to close the office for the day when a young man in his thirties ran up to us holding a severely injured Doberman pinscher puppy in his arms and begging us to save his life. The four-month-old pup had been hit by a car.

The doctor and I rushed back into the operating room immediately. The poor creature was in critical condition. The only place the skin was still attached to this poor little animal’s body was around one shoulder. The vet worked tirelessly for what seemed like hours, stitching him back together again. That was the easy part. The puppy had broken multiple bones, including his spine. If he was lucky enough to survive the next few days, we were quite sure he would never walk again.

The day forever changed my life. The veterinarian instructed me, and I became his assistant in all things medical. One of my first jobs was to give that Doberman puppy daily physical therapy. I moved his tiny legs on a regular basis to keep his muscles from weakening.

Weeks went by until one day, I felt this little fighter push back ever so slightly. And he continued to push back till he could finally use his legs. What a miracle!

Day by day, the little fighter made a little bit progress until the vet called his owner telling him that his puppy was ready to go home. Having accompanied the puppy for several months, I could imagine how excited and relieved the young man was. And I was sure he would took good care of. Two days later, the puppy was taken away by his owner.   

About a year passed, I walked into the clinic’s crowded waiting room.

I went on to be a vet tech for 14 years, and since retirement, I’ve volunteered at a no-kill animal shelter.

Two months ago, my friend Lisa, Harry and I, planned to do something adventurous, so we decided to explore a deep cave in the outskirt of our city with some food, water, torches and most importantly our cell phones. But things were not going well. We could not find any vehicle to drop us there. At long last, we managed to find a taxi which took us to the outskirt of the city. Another evidence of bad luck was that Harry had left his cell phone at home.

After we got out of the taxi, some of the locals told us the way to the cave. The cave looked very attractive yet still mysterious: the cave was so dark, and the tiny sounds made by the insects and animals could be heard properly, pulling us into the cave with some unknown supernatural power. As we were moving forward we made marks on the rocks along our path to remind us of the exit of the cave. And we always kept our mobiles in switch on mode to contact each other in case we got separated and even worse, lost in the cave.

As we were moving forward, Harry felt that somebody was following our footsteps but he left his intuition to a joke. When we reached in the deep of the cave, we lost our way and gradually the fog spread everywhere and we were not able to see each other properly. All of us got very scared of what was happening around us. Suddenly, we noticed that Harry was not with us and then we vaguely heard a shout from the depth of the cave and we thought it was Harry, so we started searching for him. But our torches were left no use in such thick fog.

So we groped our way towards the direction of the shout.

After we reunited with Harry, we tried to find the way out.

Is a knife useful instrument or a dangerous weapon? It depends on how it is used. It’s the same with technology and one of those greatest inventions is cell phones. They have revolutionized the human existence. This is possible only because they are getting cheaper and cheaper. The technology has made it even easier to give them a longer life.

Undoubtedly, if cell phones are in right hands, no matter how far we are setting we can talk anytime anywhere! We can watch favourite TV shows, listen to favourite songs,etc, as cell phones are equipped with all high-tech features. In fact, it’s good to parents as well as children. Parents can monitor their children and children are also safe. If anyone is in any kind of danger, she or he can call for help immediately.

There are always two sides of a coin. The technology has caused a danger that we keep ignoring. The cell phones have progressed rapidly and at the same time they provide us with more tasks than what we would attempt. When a person is multitasking rather than complete a single task, this causes burden and results in stress. Also cell phones have made terrorist attacks in the world very easy. Besides, children spend much of their time in playing games instead of going out and playing, which is very harmful to them.

We should always remember that there lives a wise man between the valley of two mountains. Are cell phones a useful instrument or a dangerous weapon? The answer lies in our hands.

Advertising plays a major role in the competitive business world. Many industries take advantage of the power of advertising to attract or to win customers away from their business competitors. The influence of advertising is so huge that it causes many people to buy things that they don't want at the start.

Advertising encourages people to buy things they don't want through misleading ideas. Advertising is proven to be a successful tool to stress the features of their product to the public even though it's regarded undesirable such as cigarettes，drugs，alcohol and so on. For example，Dunhill，a cigarette company which sponsors many football teams，seems to be promoting cigarettes to the public. Without the sponsorship，the company will be less known to the public，resulting in fewer sales of cigarettes.

Besides that，advertising has a large influence on the decisions made by the people in their everyday life. Many businesses use advertising as a form of promoting to create awareness about their product in the market. For instance，in a fast food industry，the introduction of a new flavor of burger needs advertising to reach the public while the other burgers require advertising to increase sales. Children，especially，are easily influenced by advertisements and will have the desire to dine at fast food restaurants after that. Although fast food is bad for health，it has successfully become appealing to the public through advertising.

However, advertising plays a part in helping customers to compare a product in terms of price, quality, reliability and so on. Without advertising, it will be very difficult for customers to judge the worthiness of a product. For example, advertisements published by various companies have given the customers the opportunity to choose wisely when they are purchasing an item. Without the power of advertising, customers will be stuck to a brand which may not offer the best choice.