It was the day before Thanksgiving. Gray clouds covered the sky. The air was biting. The temperature was below freezing. And I was on the way home.

This is my driver Jacob, a tall, strong and middle-aged man. Jacob was sent to pick me up and take me three hours on a drive inland in Mexico. Like most drivers, he is very talkative. As we were driving, he started to tell me his story. Out of the habit shaped by my career, I like to chat and I like to get to know people and their stories.

He shared with me that since the pandemic, he had to change jobs and was currently spending six days a week away from his family in a town that had more work. This life certainly can seem full of pains at times. It is up to us, though, to make each one a blessing in disguise (伪装，掩饰).

He mentioned the name of his hometown ‘Nah Bok’ and shared that he had to spend five hours on his only day off on the three different buses to get there and back to spend one day with them. His mother, his wife and his kids are there, waiting for him. The weekly trips are tiring but worthwhile for those short moments of happiness and joy. Then they parted ways, wishing well thoughts for the week ahead.

I do understand such experience. Admittedly, I was one of those kids like his. My father had worked away when I was young, sometimes away for weeks and months at a time. I remember us kids waiting for our turn to have just a couple of minutes on the phone with him back before we had Skype (一种即时通讯软件).

After two hours into our drive, I saw a sign saying ‘Nah Bok’.

That’s a little moment of JOY I brought to the man.

It pays to have friends in “high” places!

Last year, Brody Ridder of Westminster, Colorado changed schools because hed was being bullied(霸凌). Sadly, the problem didn’t go away at his new school, The Academy of Charter Schools. When the school yearbook came out at the end of his sixth grade year, no one in his class wanted to sign his book.

Brody says he approached several classmates to ask them to sign, but they refused. The few who did sign only wrote down their names carelessly with no personal notes for Brody. Except for a couple of teachers’ notes, his pages were completely blank.

Greatly disappointed, Brody sat down and wrote in the book himself. ”Hope you make some more friends.—Brody Ridder,“ he wrote.

Mom Cassandra Ridder was sad indeed when she read the note and heard how cruelly he’d been treated. She took a picture of the note and shared it online for parents of students at Brody’s school. She had no idea it would lead to discussions all over town!

Parents were so sad to read Brody’s note to himself that they encouraged their children to reach out to the boy the next day. Rising senior Simone Lightfoot was one of the teenagers who heard the sixth grader’s story, and she understood his embarrassment. She and other high school students spent hours talking about Brody, coming up with a plan to help lift his spirits and make him feel less alone.

”We all just started planning that the next day we were going to go and sign this kid’s yearbook,“ said Logan South, another rising senior.

The next day, they did just that.

Not surprisingly, Brody’s classmates also reached out to him.

Music is playing an important part in our study and daily life.

In a word, music should make life better and help people become happier.

Elephants are known to have an excellent memory. According to studies, they could still recognize and remember a face, whether it is a human or another elephant. An elephant’s memory is important to its survival. Elephants living in a rainforest need to remember the place where they search for food.

It’s always joyous to watch elephants getting reunited (重聚) with fellow elephants or people they came across in their lives. And just like humans, elephants take note of the faces they see and recognize them like we remember our family, friends, and hundreds more of people. And when they see a familiar (熟悉的) face, you’d know how happy they are.

A veterinarian (兽医) recently had a heartwarming reunion with an elephant he saved. Pattarapol Maneeon saved a wild elephant named Plai Thang in Rayong, Eastern Thailand 12 years ago. Plai Thang was then suffering from a disease called Trypanosomiasis. Without proper treatment, the disease could cause an elephant’s sudden death. It can also be contagious (传染) to other animals. Elephants that suffer from Trypanosomiasis tend to go farther out of the area since they are weak and can’t fight.

Dr. Maneeon noticed that Plai Thang was very ill and it had very little chance to survive. The poor creature was struggling to eat or drink water, and it could hardly stand on its feet.

It took a while before the elephant allowed Dr. Maneeon to approach it. He shared that it was also challenging to find and reach for treatment. Plai Thang was so clever to be hiding farther from usual to avoid possible predators (捕食者), so it was no easy task to take it to treatment. Anyway, with the help of a team of volunteers, the veterinarian eventually managed to take Plai Thang to a nearby zoo.

Then, its treatments began.

They reunited last month when Pattarapol visited the area during Thailand’s National Elephant Day.

One Christmas Eve, my seventeen-year-old son called me from the bakery where he worked part-time. He was on the evening shift with a couple of co-workers, and the store was about to dose. The person from a local charity who was scheduled to pick up the leftover bread and cakes hadn’t shown up. He was worried about what to do with the food, so I suggested he call the manager to ask for advice. The manager told him to throw the leftovers into the garbage—approximately $1,500 worth of fresh baked goods.

It seemed completely wrong for all this good food to go to waste, so we talked about where we could take it. A new homeless shelter had just opened in our area, so I called and asked if they could use a delivery of free baked goods.

An excited staff member said, “Yes, please!” I drove to the bakery and, together with my son and his co-workers, we loaded up the truck and made our way to the homeless shelter. As we walked toward the entrance, a woman stopped and held open the door for us. Thinking we were staff, she thanked us for what we were doing and said she was really grateful for her new temporary home. She introduced herself and told us her street friends call her “Star”. We chatted for a while on the sidewalk with light snow falling around us. She said that moving off the streets into the shelter had saved her life.

Star told us she spent her days looking out for those who needed help and trying to do kind things for others whenever she could. Then she asked for a favor. She showed us a phone number. She’d wanted to tell her friend she was okay so he wouldn’t worry, but she couldn’t afford the long-distance call. I said I would be happy to pass on her message. She wrote his name on a card. Then she hugged us both, and we wished each other a merry Christmas.

On Christmas morning, I called the number on the card. A man answered the phone.

A few months later, I was driving when I saw Star standing in the middle of the crosswalk.

I was in 7th grade when my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was very sudden and unexpected for our family and obviously I was beaten. I tried my best to balance my first year of middle school and my home life, even if I knew this was impossible. I hated coming home from school every day for fear of what I would see when I got home. I hated seeing my mom sick all the time; she was not herself and all I wanted was for her to stop treatment and get better. Luckily, I had lots of support from my family, friends, and teachers during this hard time to help get me through it.

At the beginning of the year, I was determined to stay on track with my homework and studying and get through my first year at middle school successfully. Slowly, I started to become more distracted while at home with taking care of my mom, cleaning the house and helping my grandma cook our meals. While I was at school, I could escape and put my mom’s sickness in the back of my mind while I hung out with my friends and enjoyed playing. I noticed that my quiz and test grades were increasingly getting worse, but I never brought this to the attention of my mom because I did not want to worry her. Eventually, all of my grades were lower than C’s.

I knew that I was not doing well at school, and I needed to get my grades back up. I knew that a lot of my teachers were cutting me some unimportant work because they knew what was happening at home. Ms. Zazoski, my English teacher was the most supportive teacher that I have ever had and I am so glad that I was in her class that year.

One day my teacher had me stay after school to have a talk with her.

That was the motivation that I needed to improve my grades.