The next time you go grocery shopping, try speaking to other customers. One summer day, I took a smile and a warm heart into a small store in Oregon and got far more than groceries.
I love fresh produce(农产品) in the store, and not just for the amazing colors provided by summer's bounty (慷慨) or the chance to joy over new choices from other countries. It's also because I just love watching people pick their produce.
The day I was there I found a sale on amazing cherry tomatoes—along with a woman in her late 70s. Despite the fact that we were strangers, we began to discuss apples. She noted a problem with the Pink Ladies. "They tasted like I was eating an unripe green apple from the tree," she said, twisting her face as if still tasting the sour apple.
I wondered if this is something most of my generation can even remember doing. I surely do. I mentioned that I often could not resist the green yet tempting fruit swinging from an apple tree. This was the start for a series of discussions as we shopped-covering such topics as nutrition, new foods and the quality of produce.
By this time a third woman had joined in our conversation. The three of us continued along, unexpected friends, chatting about family size and the troubles a mom might have serving healthful foods that please the whole family.
Eventually we all went our separate ways, but in the dairy(奶制品) section I heard a small voice say, "I finally caught up with you." It was the first woman I'd talked to, extending a bag of apricots(杏) to me. "I don't know if your family will eat these," she added, "but they have a super deal on them."
Again I was brought back to my childhood, when I also ate apricots straight from the tree. My mouth watered at the remembered flavor.
The old lady didn't realize that she'd given me far more than produce. With that offering came a sense of community, a flashback to days when it was OK to talk to a stranger. She brought back memories of summer fruits right from the tree—and a feeling that somehow those apricots were a thank-you for sharing my time with her in a very unlikely place.
Tired of traditional running? Well, maybe it's time to try using your hands instead. That's what Shaun McCarty and other Australians are doing — running on all fours.
McCarthy, who comes from Melbourne, Australia, said he's the one behind the term “crunning.” “It's not crawling, it's not running.” he said. “Crunning is a better workout than running. It puts more of an emphasis（着重）on the body than traditional running does. ”
McCarthy thinks that he gets much more exhausted after crunning, so he believes it must burn more calories than running.
Some believe crunning could result in bad shoulder injuries or broken noses.
But McCarthy is not worried. Many Melbourne residents have been seen running around on all fours. In the Chinese city of Zhengzhou, crawling, a much slower version of crunning, has been a favourite activity for many years. According to some people there, the exercise is believed to date back two thousand years to the Han Dynasty.
Then McCarthy advises you to buy some good shoes, hand gloves and most important of all, a face mask!
A. Ready to give crunning a try?
B. As it turns out, they are not the only ones.
C. Crunning seems more difficult than traditional running.
D. It really exercises your legs and shoulders at the same time.
E. It's part of the Internet's latest fitness activities: “Crunning.”
F. However, many are not sure if it is the right exercise for humans.
G. He warns, however, that he can't say whether crunning is potentially harmful.
The Pacific island nation of Nauru used to be a beautiful place. Now it is an ecological disaster area. Nauru's heartbreaking story could have one good consequence — other countries might learn from its mistakes.
For thousands of years, Polynesian people lived the remote island of Nauru, far from western civilization. The first European to arrive was John Fearn in 1798. He was the British captain of the Hunter, a whaling ship. He called the island Pleasant Island.
However, because it was very remote, Nauru had little communication with Europeans at first. The whaling ships and other traders began to visit, bringing guns and alcohol. These elements destroyed the social balance of the twelve family groups on the island. A ten-year civil war started, which reduced the population from 1,400 to 900.
Nauru's real troubles began in 1899 when a British mining company discovered phosphate (磷酸盐)on the island. In fact, it found that the island of Nauru was nearly all phosphate, which a very important fertilizer for farming. The company began mining the phosphate.
A phosphate mine is not a hole in the ground; it is a strip mine. When a company strip-mines, it removes the top layer of soil. Then it takes away the material it wants. Strip mining totally destroys the land. Gradually, the lovely island of Nauru started to look like the moon.
In 1968, Nauru became one of the richest countries in the world. Every year the government received millions and millions of dollars for its phosphate.
Unfortunately, the leaders invested the money unwisely and lost millions of dollars. In addition, they used millions more dollars for personal expenses. Soon people realized that they had a terrible problem — their phosphate was running out. Ninety percent of their island was destroyed and they had nothing. By 2000, Nauru was financially ruined. Experts say that it would take approximately $433,600,000 and more than 20 years to repair the island. This will probably never happen.
About 30 years ago, I left Cuba for the United States with my son. After getting settled finally in Brunswick, New Jersey, I enrolled(注册) my son in kindergarten. Several weeks later, my son's teacher asked me to meet him at his office.
In the teacher's office, and exchange of greetings was followed by his questions: “Is your son mentally retarded(弱智的)？Does he suffer from any kind of mental disability?”
Was he talking about my wonderful Scola? NO, no, it can’t be. What a helpless, lonely moment! I told him that Scola was a quiet, sweet little boy, instead. I asked him why he was asking me all these questions.
My son could not follow the teacher's directions, he told me, and thus, Scola was disrupting the class, Didn’t he know my son did not speak English yet?
He was angry; “Why hasn’t your son been taught to speak English? Don’t you speak English at home?”
No, I didn’t speak English at home, I replied. I was sure my son would learn English in a couple of months, and I didn't want him to forget his native language. Well, wrong answer! What kind of person would not speak in English to her son at home and at all time? “Are you one of those people who come to this country to save dollars and send them back to their country, never wanting to be a part of this society?”
Needless to say, I tried to tell him I was not one of “those people.” Then he told me the meeting was over, and I left.
As I had expected, my son learned to speak English fluently before the school year was over. He went on to graduate from college and got a job, earning close to six figures. He travels widely and leads a well-adjusted, contented life. And he has benefited from being bilingual(双语的)。
Speaking more than one language allows people to communicate with others; it teaches people about other cultures and other places—something very basic and obviously lacking in the “educator” I met in New Jersey.
Like most July days, it was hot. I stepped into a tiny ice-cream shop to cool off with a chocolate ice-cream. It was an old-time store with little round tables and chairs.
As I entered, I found a very old woman bent over a table near the door. Her back was so badly twisted by some sadness that her face nearly touched the table top. I sat down facing her several tables away.
“Poor woman,” I thought. “What does she get out of life? Why God let people live so long past their prime?”
As I thought, another aged lady entered the shop and sat down with her. Soon the two of them were talking about childhood days. They talked of how little the shop had changed in 70 years… In minutes, the two of them were trembling with laughter.
I looked again at the first woman, then in the mirror on a nearby wall, catching a picture of myself.
I was wearing a dirty shirt. She was well dressed in white, her hands shining with gold rings.
I was gloomy(愁闷的). She was laughing, smiling.
I was putting the pieces of my life together. She had millions of wonderful memories to recall.
I sat alone. She was sharing the day with a good friend.
I was secretly worried about getting old. She was old, but it wasn't hurting her.
As I left the shop, I thought of my foolish question about God letting people live past their prime. Why, that woman was more alive, more sensitive to life than I was. Age has not bent her spirit.
In the early 1980s, one of our neighbors asked my mom if she would make a few gift baskets for her to give as gifts for the holidays. My mom agreed and news of the unique gift baskets my mom was making spread like wildfire throughout the neighborhood. My mom was busy throughout the holiday season, so she asked a friend to help her. When the orders continued after the holiday season for baby gifts, birthday gifts and more, it occurred to them that maybe this job could be turned into a business and they did it.
My mom went into her business because she had creative ideas. She got orders and filled order. But there was no goal and no real plan. In 1991, my mom's partner got into financial trouble and there was not enough money to support either mom or her partner.
So if you are led by your creativity or enthusiasm, make sure you ask yourself what you purpose to do your business is. If you don't set goals, how will you know which direction to go in? Do you want to create jobs and growth in the economy? Are you looking for a hobby? You can't keep scores if you don't know what game you are playing.
After my mom's partner quit, she had to abandon her business to support herself. She swore she would run a business again and do it differently the next time. However, there wasn't a “next time” for her. She passed away just after her 51st birthday. She never had someone tell her how important having a goal was, she never had a chance to be everything she could be.
There are no right or wrong goals, only the ones that matter to you. Set them so that you can make progress and achieve success, whatever they may mean to you.
On November 24, 1868, Scott Joplin was born in Texas. He became famous as a ragtime (拉格泰姆音乐) composer and piano player. Ragtime music was an early form of jazz. This music has a lively beat and was developed from the music of African Americans.
Ragtime became popular in the early 1890s, and the music was played on the piano. The piano player usually made up a melody, then changed it a little bit every time he played. Scott Joplin was very good at composing, or making up music and playing the piano. When he was growing up, Joplin's home was filled with music. Still, Joplin's father did not want him to be a musician. When he was about 14 years old, Joplin left home to travel and start a life of his own. He traveled all over the Midwest playing the piano and composing music. Sometimes he played with music groups. Other times he sang by himself in noisy saloons and bars. In 1899, Joplin wrote Maple Leaf Rag, a ragtime song that became a big hit and earned Joplin the title of The King of Ragtime. In all, he wrote more than 500 songs. Joplin's biggest dream was to compose a ragtime opera. Finally, after 10 years, Joplin completed a ragtime opera which he called Treemonisha. This opera was about a young black woman who became a leader of her people. She tried to help her people gain their freedom and their rights.
1916, Joplin became very sick. He had a disease that made him forget things and become easily afraid of things. In 1917, he was put in the hospital. He finally died there on April 1, 1917. Scott Joplin's music became popular again in the early 1970s when it was used in a movie called The Sting.
Not so long ago, most people didn't know who Shelly Ann Francis Pryce was going to become. She was just an average high school athlete. There was every indication that she was just another Jamaican teenager without much of a future. However, one person wants to change this. Stephen Francis observed then eighteen-year-old Shelly Ann as a track meet and was convinced that he had seen the beginning of true greatness. Her time were not exactly impressive, but even so, he seemed there was something trying to get out, something the other coaches had overlooked when they had assessed her and found her lacking. He decided to offer Shelly Ann a place in his very strict training seasons. Their cooperation quickly produced results, and a few year later at Jamaica's Olympic games in early 2008, Shelly Ann, who at that time only ranked number 70 in the world, beat Jamaica's unchallenged queen of the sprint(短跑).
“Where did she come from?” asked an astonished sprinting world, before concluding that she must be one of those one-hit wonders that spring up from time to time, only to disappear again without signs. But Shelly Ann was to prove that she was anything but a one-hit wonder. At the Beijing Olympic she swept away any doubts about her ability to perform consistently by becoming the first Jamaican woman ever to win the 100 meters Olympic gold. She did it again one year on at the World Championship in Briton, becoming world champion with a time of 10.73—the fourth record ever.
Shelly-Ann is a little woman with a big smile. She has a mental toughness that did not come about by chance. Her journey to becoming the fastest woman on earth has been anything but smooth and effortless. She grew up in one of Jamaica's toughest inner-city communities known as Waterhouse, where she lived in a one-room apartment, sleeping four in a bed with her mother and two brothers. Waterhouse, one of the poorest communities in Jamaica, is a really violent and overpopulated place. Several of Shelly-Ann's friends and family were caught up in the killings; one of her cousins was shot dead only a few streets away from where she lived. Sometimes her family didn't have enough to eat. She ran at the school championships barefooted because she couldn't afford shoes. Her mother Maxime, one of a family of fourteen, had been an athlete herself as a young girl but, like so many other girls in Waterhouse, had to stop after she had her first baby. Maxime's early entry into the adult world with its responsibilities gave her the determination to ensure that her kids would not end up in Waterhouse's roundabout of poverty. One of the first things Maxime used to do with Shelly-Ann was taking her to the track, and she was ready to sacrifice everything.
It didn't take long for Shelly-Ann to realize that sports could be her way out of Waterhouse. On a summer evening in Beijing in 2008, all those long, hard hours of work and commitment finally bore fruit. The barefoot kid who just a few years previously had been living in poverty, surrounded by criminals and violence, had written a new chapter in the history of sports.
But Shelly-Ann's victory was far greater than that. The night she won Olympic gold in Beijing, the routine murders in Waterhouse and the drug wars in the neighboring streets stopped. The dark cloud above one of the world's toughest criminal neighborhoods simply disappeared for a few days. “I have so much fire burning for my country,” Shelly said. She plans to start a foundation for homeless children and wants to build a community centre in Waterhouse. She hopes to inspire the Jamaicans to lay down their weapons. She intends to fight to make it a woman's as well as a man's world.
As Muhammad Ali puts it, “Champions aren't made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them. A desire, a dream, a vision.” One of the things Shelly-Ann can be proud of is her understanding of this truth.
A mother stared down at her son who was dying of terminal leukemia (白血病). Like any parent she wanted her son to grow up and realize all his dreams. She took her son's hand and asked, "Bopsy, did you ever think about what you wanted to be when you grew up?"
"Mommy, I always wanted to be a fireman when I grew up."
Mom smiled back and said, "Let's see if we can make your wish come true." Later that day she went to her local fire department in Phoenix, Arizona, where she met Fireman Bob. She explained her son's final wish and asked if it might be possible to give her six-year-old son a ride around the block on a fire engine. Fireman Bob said, "Look, we can do better than that. If you'll have your son ready at seven o'clock Wednesday morning, well make him an honorary fireman for the whole day, He can come down to the fire station; eat with us, go out on all the fire calls, the whole nine yards! And, if you'll give us his sizes, we'll get a real fire uniform made for him."
Three days later Fireman Bob picked up Bopsy, dressed him in his fire uniform and escorted（护送）him from his hospital bed to the waiting hook and ladder truck. Bopsy got to sit up on the back of the truck and help steer it back to the fire station. He was in heaven.
There were three fire calls in Phoenix that day and Bopsy got to go out on all three calls. He rode in the different fire engines and even the fire chief's car. Having his dream come true, with all the love and attention that was lavished（慷慨给予）upon him, Bopsy lived three months longer than any doctor thought possible.
One night all of his vital signs began to drop and the head nurse began to call the family members to the hospital. Then she remembered the day Bopsy bad spent as a fireman, so she called the fire chief and asked if it would be possible to send a fireman in uniform to the hospital to be with Bopsy as he made his transition. The chief replied, "We can do better than that. We'll be there in five minutes. Will you please do me a favor? When you hear the sirens（警报器）screaming and see the lights flashing, will you announce over the PA system that it's just the fire department coming to see one of its finest members one more time? And will you open the window to his room? Thanks?"
About five minutes later a hook and ladder truck arrived at the hospital, extended its ladder up to Bopsy's third floor open window and 14 firemen and two fire-women climbed up the ladder into Bopsy's room. With his mother's permission, they hugged him and held him and told him how much they loved him. With his dying breath, Bopsy looked up at the fire chief and said, "Chief, am I really a fireman now?"
"Bopsy, you are," the chief said. With those words, Bopsy smiled and closed his eyes for the last time.
An elderly carpenter(木匠) was ready to retire. He told his employer, a contractor, of his plans to leave the house-building business and live a more leisurely life with his wife enjoying his extended family. He would miss the paycheck, but he needed to retire. They could get by.
The contractor was sorry to see his good worker go and asked if he could build just one more house as a personal favor. The carpenter said yes, but in time it was easy to see that his heart was not in his work. He resorted to shoddy(粗糙的) workmanship and used inferior materials. It was an unfortunate way to end his career.
When the carpenter finished his work and the builder came to inspect the house, the contractor handed the front-door key to the carpenter. "This is your house," he said, "my gift to you." What a shock! What a shame! If he had only known he was building his own house, he would have done it all so differently. Now he had to live in the home he had built none too well.
So it is with us. We build our lives in a distracted way, reacting rather than acting, willing to put up less than the best. At important points we do not give the job our best effort. Then with a shock we look at the situation we have created and find that we are now living in the house we have built. If we had realized that we would have done it differently.
Think of yourself as the carpenter. Think about your house. Each day you hammer a nail, place a board, or erect a wall. Build wisely. It is the only life you will ever build. Even if you live it for only one more day, that day deserves to be lived graciously and with dignity. The plaque on the wall says, "Life is a do-it-yourself project." Your life tomorrow will be the result of your attitudes and the choices you make today.
John Perry decided it was time to go home. It had been a perfect day. He had filled his bag with all sorts of seashells, enough to study for a month. The island had been a good place to find shell but mow the sun was going down, he must leave before it got dark. He came to the sand reef that connected the island and the shore of the mainland. He stopped for a moment to enjoy the sunset on the ocean water, Then he began to walk along the sand reef toward the shore.
He hurried on. Then, suddenly he stepped into the water Before he knew What had happened, he dropped down and down. The water was covering his head. He rose to the top of the water, struggling to get back on to the dry sand, surprised. To his horror he saw long grey sharks there in the sea, but where was the sand reef? What had happened to it?
He began to walk back toward the island. While he had searched for shells on the island, the strong ocean waves had washed a large part of the sand reef away. He did not know much about Sharks/but he was a good swimmer. He tried to remember what he had read about sharks. Did sharks find their food by smelling it? If they did, it meant they looked for food at all times, even during the night, ① Most of the night he lay down and looked up at the stars thinking. He thought of the people in the village. He was their doctor, the only doctor in the village. K felt good to be needed. He thought of wood for a fire, wood to signal for help, but there was no wood. At last he thought of sleep. He slept until the sun rose.
② The sharks were there because the fish were there. The same waves that had washed the sand reef away had somehow pushed large schools of fish into the area , He watched the sharks kill.
He looked at the sea, if he swam to shore, he would be in the water 5, 6 minutes. A lot could happen during that time.)A wind blew across the water. Small waves rushed across the top and stopped him from seeing the bottom. He hoped the wind would stop Somehow, clear water seemed less dangerous.
③ But first, he looked all around before he took off all his clothes He kept only his belt and his small knife. He silently slipped into the water. He went deep down and looked around. He was about to rise to the top and start swimming when he saw a long grey body below him. He kicked himself up to the top and struggled to the sand.
④ He stood up and looked around again. How could he make the sharks move out to sea? He put the knife against his leg and cut deep into the flesh, blood running out, He caught it on his white shirt. When the shirt was red and wet, he tied some cloths around his leg to stop the flow of blood. He tied a long piece of cloth to the shirt, then he threw the shirt into the water and pulled it with a piece of cloth.
The sharks smelled the blood; they came racing toward the shirt. He was leading then away from shore, Suddenly he dropped the cloth turned toward shore and ran as fast as he could He jumped into the water and swam, He kicked and shouted as loud as he could. He touched the shore with his fingers and pulled himself up the stones.
The shark was excited by the smell of blood and the chase went after him; its great body crushed against the stones. The other sharks jumped on it. The end came quickly as the sharks blood turned the water red. The injured shark was eaten alive as it tried to escape.
Perry slowly got to his feet. So, he said," you did not get me."
He looked down at the sharks still eating even though they were full of food.
A Kenyan teacher who gave away . most of his monthly salary (工资)to poor people has won a $1 -million Global Teacher Prize.
In 2016, Peter Tabichi came to Keriko Mixed Day Secondary School, a public school, in a faraway Kenya s Rift Valley. The school had just a single computer and had problems connecting to the Internet. It had no library or laboratory, as well. To make matters worse, the students came from poor families where basics like food and clothing were hard to come by. While these difficulties would have caused most people to leave quickly, Tabichi stayed.
Realizing that starving kids make for poor students, the teacher began using as much as 80 percent of his monthly salary to buy food and learning objects for them. He set up a science club to get kids interested in the topic. "Our laboratory does not have everything, but I encourage them to think wider and use what we can get locally. "
Tabichi and other four teachers regularly visit low-achieving, at-risk, students at their homes to provide one- on-one help and to understand the difficulties these children face daily. Tabichi also encourages parents to allow girls to continue their high-school education.
Tabichi's efforts have made a difference. School registration (注册)has more than doubled to almost 400 now since he came . In 2017, 16 of the 59 graduating students went to college, while in 2018, the number rose to 26. In 2017 , five students qualified(有资格)for the Intel ISEF (International Science and Engineering Fair). This year, two other students will compete in the 2019 Intel ISEF to be held in Phoenix, Arizona.
The teacher, however, owes his success to his students, saying,"I am only here because of what my students have achieved. This prize gives them a chance. It tells the world that they can do anything. " As would be expected, Tabichi plans to spend the prize money on his school community and to feed the poor.
Joe and his wife moved to a new farm with their three sons. A nearby farmer told Joe that there was gold in the soil of his new land. Joe believed and told his sons about it.
His sons actually began digging for gold in the land. Once they finished one piece they would start another. They began to realize that digging for gold was fun! Seeing that, Joe thought he would plant some crops where the dirt had been turned thoroughly. He planted com, tomatoes, and potatoes. His sons continued to dig through the soil, determined to find gold.
As each different crop became ready to be harvested, Joe started to realize that there was more than he and his family could ever eat. One of Joe 's neighbors suggested that he set up a vegetable stand. Joe and his wife did that very thing. This process went on for three years and Joe and his wife became quite rich from it. They were even able to send their sons off to college.
Remember at the beginning of the story Joe was told by his new neighbor that there was gold in the land? Well, the truth is, Joe' s understanding of the English language was less than perfect. His new neighbor friend actually told him that his land had rich soil.
Go out and believe that there is gold in all your challenges so that you can be inspired to pursue(追求)all that you need. The fate will never give up on you, if you never give up on yourself.
On the day the tornado hit, there was no sign that the fierce weather was on its way —the sky was blue and the sun had been out. The first warning my husband, Jimmy, 67, and I, 65, got came around 9 p.m., from some text on the TV Jimmy was watching. He ran upstairs to find me in our third-floor bedroom, and we changed the channel from the national television to our local Pensacola, Florida, station.
Soon the tornado was on top of us. It was the loudest thing I had ever heard. The house shook, and the power went out. And the wind began to roar (咆哮) through the house, most likely through windows and the door to our garage. Everything was moving. And the back wall of the house came off and flew into the darkness outside. We had three flights of steps to get to the storeroom down there, the relative safety of the first floor.
I didn't know how or if we would make it down the steps. It felt as if there was no floor as the wind lifted me off my feet. As we finally reached the last flight of steps, our front door blew open. Suddenly, a three-foot-long tree branch (树枝) flew over our heads, missing us by inches.
By the time I reached the storeroom, the tornado had been over us for about a minute, Jimmy pushed me down to the storeroom floor, but he couldn't get inside himself because of the wind. I held Jimmy's arm as the tornado blew the door open. My knees were full of glass, but I felt no pain. If I had let go, Jimmy would have flown right out of the house.
All of a sudden, Jimmy lifted off his feet. I thought he was gone. And then everything stopped. He landed on his feet. In those first quiet moments, I couldn't believe it was over. Our neighbor said the storm lasted four minutes. In that time, four of the twelve town houses in our unit were completely destroyed. Luckily, none of us were seriously injured.
As a Hollywood film star in the 1930s and 1940s, Hedy Lamarr at one point was called "the most beautiful woman in the world." What she was less known for was her scientific intellect.
Lamarr had a natural curiosity about the world around her. As young as age 5, she would spend time taking apart and rebuilding her music box to understand how it worked. But her technical mind was overshadowed by her looks-at 16, she got her first film role and quickly became an international icon.
As her acting career continued to take off during World War II, Lamarr became restless, feeling that she should do more to contribute to the Allies' war efforts. Together with her friend Antheil, Lamarr came up with a groundbreaking new form of wireless communication known as spread spectrum (光谱).The concept was to create a wireless signal that could hop from frequency to frequency, making it impossible to track or jam. They received a patent for their technology in 1942, but the military refused to implement (实施) it in their war effort.
The technology sat unused for years, until one day the military revived it in the 1960s and the system "spread like wildfire. "It became the backbone of Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS and a range of wireless communication mechanisms we rely on today. By the time the technology was implemented, Lamarr's patent had been due, and she never received a single payment for her revolutionary invention.
Hedy Lamarr played the role she was expected to play in Hollywood — a beautiful object to admire on the big screen. If she yielded to society's expectations in other ways, communication as we know it could look completely different today.
"I Went Skydiving at 84!"
As a young girl growing up in the 1930s, I always wanted to fly a plane, but back then it was almost unheard of a woman to do that. I got a taste of that dream in 2011, when my husband arranged for me ride in a hot air balloon for my birthday. But the experience turned out to be very dull. Around that time, I told my husband that I wanted to skydive. So when our retirement community (社区) announced that they were having an essay competition and the topic was an experience of a lifetime that you wanted to have, I decided to write about my dream.
In the essay, I wrote about my desire to skydive, stating George Brush Sr. did it at age 80. Why not me? I was just 84 and in pretty good health. A year went by and I heard nothing. But then at a community party in late April 2009, they announced that I was one of the winners. I just couldn't believe it.
One June 11, 2009, nearly 40 of my family and friends gathered in the area close to where I would land while I headed up in the airplane. My instructor, Jay, guided me through the experience. The plane was the noisiest one I had ever been in, but I wasn't frightened—I was really just looking forward to the experience. When we reached 13,000 feet, Jay instructed me to throw myself out of the plane. When we first hit the air, the wind was so strong that I could hardly breathe. For a second I thought, "What have I gotten myself into?" But then everything got calmer. We were in a free fall for about a minute before Jay opened the parachute (降落伞) , then we just floated downward fo zhout five minutes. Being up in the clouds and looking at the view below was unlike anything I have ever felt—much better than the hot air balloon. I was just enjoying it.
Skydiving was really one of the greatest experiences of my life. I hope other people will look at me and realize that you don't stop living just because you are 84 years old. If there's something you want to experience, look into it. If it's something that is possible, make it happen.
The other day I was shopping at a local store when I came across a lady from India squatting (蹲) on the floor and looking for a certain product on the bottom shelf. She stood up quickly when she saw me as if to get out of my way. Feeling sorry, she explained that she was a cashier at a nearby store and was on her lunch break, trying to get a few needed things before her time was up.
I comforted her, "I am in no hurry. Go ahead and do what you need to do. I have plenty of time." While she was searching for something, she said that sometimes customers were rude to her at the store and that she was really thankful for my kindness. I told her that I had noticed cashiers being treated rudely by some people and that those people needed to be more understanding.
She thanked me for being so nice and friendly. I told her, "The world would be a better place if we all acted kindly toward each other. Those who are rude may learn their lesson finally for treating people badly." She nodded and broke into a big smile and covered her mouth with her hand, laughing as she walked away.
It felt so good that I may have helped someone feel better for even a few seconds. In the brief exchange I showed her there are good and kind people in the world and may have added to her belief in humanity (人性). Maybe she thought about that later in the day, perhaps when someone was treating her unkindly.
Imagine your mind as a library. As pleasant a room as a reader could wish. Now let me describe different sort of library: The bookcases have fallen, their glass fronts broken, and their contents messed across the floor. This one belongs to the disordered, anorexic(厌食) mind. At the age of 15, 3 was the state of my mind. For 10 years, I suffered the mental and physical pain of anorexia.
A new year usually made me nervous: A time for resolutions. In January 2019, I was 24. Ten years after diagnosis, I was what doctors call a "functioning" anorexic. I would eat enough to get by: never with any flavor. That year, I made a different sort of January resolution: To read all novels Dickens by December. Something changed, I began to be curious about food, wanting to share it, taste it. His scenes, his meals made me hungry. It also turned me into a walker. I wanted to see London as he had seen it: At night, on foot.
Siegfried Sassoon also rescued me. The poet recalls cold mornings before a hunt: "We got up at four o'clock, and fed ourselves with boiled eggs." Stopping in a bush, he has sandwiches, and on the way home he keeps himself warm with thoughts of poached eggs on toast, tea. . . All those eggs! All that bread! Hot chocolate! (I hadn't had a cup of hot chocolate in a decade.) With Sassoon as guide, I learnt, at the age of 25, to boil an egg.
Most helpful to my recovery were the words of the wizard Merlyn in T. H. White's The Once and future King. "The best thing for being sad," he tells the boy who will become King Arthur, "is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails… " Too many self-help guides say: Get fit, lose weight, eat right, make friends, find a hobby… Better that they should say: Learn something, read something, see something new. Feed your mind. Trigger your appetite for new books, and the other appetites-for food, for friends, for life-will follow.
A year after I left college, I was given the opportunity to host the 6 o'clock news in Baltimore. The whole goal in the media at the time I was coming up was try to move to larger markets, so getting the job at 22 was such a big deal. And I was so proud，because I was finally going to have my chance to be like Barbara Walters, who had been my idol since the start of my TV career. I was 22 in 1976, making $22,000 a year, it didn't feel right yet.
The first sign was when they tried to change my name. The news director said to me at the time, "Nobody's going to remember Oprah. So, we want to change your name. We've come up with a name we think that people will remember and people will like. It's a friendly name: Suzie."
I grew up not loving the name, but once I was asked to change it, I thought, well, it is my name and do I look like a Suzie to you? I thought, no, it doesn't feel right. I'm not going to change my name. And whether people remember it or not, that's OK.
And then they said they didn't like the way I looked, so they sent me to a salon where they gave me a perm (烫发). After a few days all my hair fell out and I had to shave my head. At last, they really didn't like the way I looked, because I was black and bald and sitting on TV wasn't a pretty picture.
But even worse than being bald, I really hated being sent to report on other people's tragedies as a part of my daily duty. And after eight months, I lost that job. They said I was too emotional. But since they didn't want to pay out the contract, they put me on a talk show. And the moment I sat down on that show, the moment I felt like I'd come home. I realized that TV could be more than just a playground, but a platform for helping other people lift their lives. And the moment I sat down, doing that talk show, it felt like breathing. And that's where everything that followed for me began.
Jeremy and his wife Jennifer had recently moved to South Texas because of their love for nature. At the moment, they were living in a trailer(拖车) for the house was still under repair.
On a steamy Sunday morning in May, the couple were tidying their yard. At around 10:30 a.m., Jeremy began mowing the lawn while Jennifer worked on the garden. She had just reached down to grab a weed when she saw it: a western diamondback rattlesnake, right next to her hand. Jennifer leaped up as the snake, a yard long, rose into striking position, its dusty triangular head tensed and its tail rattling. "Snake!" yelled Jennifer as she backed away.
When Jeremy heard her cry, he figured she had run into one of the harmless rat snakes that often showed up on their land. He grabbed a shovel to shoo(用嘘声驱赶) the creature away and jogged around the house to the garden. Then he heard the rattling. His wife was cornered between some shrubs and the house, the snake directly in her path.
Jeremy first tried to scoop up the rattler using the shovel, without success. Then he did what was necessary: He raised the garden tool and brought the edge down hard through the snake's body, an inch and a half below the head to cut off its head. Then Jennifer went into the house, her heart hammering, while Jeremy decided to move the dead reptile. He bent down to pick up a stick lying next to the snake's head so that he could take it away. But before his hand even touched the ground, the snake attacked. The snake injected venom(毒液) into his hand.
"It bit me!" he yelled in horror. The truth is, the back-from-the-dead bites aren't uncommon. Hearing his yell, Jennifer ran back into the trailer to get the car keys and meanwhile called 911. Fortunately, they arrived at the nearest hospital in time and Jeremy received timely treatment.
