The old man walked with a cane（拐杖）slowly into the restaurant. His poor jacket.

    patched（打补丁）trousers and worn-out shoes made him stand out from the usual Saturday morning breakfast crowd. Unforgettable were his pale blue eyes that sparkled like diamonds，large rosy cheeks，and thin lips held in a steady smile.

    He walked towards a table by the window. A young waitress watched him and ran over to him， saying，“Here, Sir. Let me give you a hand with that chair”

    Without a word，he smiled and nodded a thank you. She pulled the chair away from the table. Steadying him with one arm， she helped him move in front of the chair， and get comfortably seated. Then she pushed the table up close to him，and learned his cane against the table where he could reach it.

    In a soft，clear voice he said, “Thank you, Miss”

    “You are welcome, Sir.” she replied，“My name is Mary. I'll be back in a moment. If you need anything, just wave at me.”

    After he had finished a hearty meal of pancakes，bacon，and hot lemon tea，Mary brought him the change, helping him up from his chair and out from behind the table. She handed him his cane， and walked with him to the front door. Holding the door open for him, she said, “Come back and see us, Sir.”

    He nodded a thank you and said softly with a smile, “You are very kind！”

    When Mary went to clean his table，she was shocked. Under his plate she found a business card and a note written on the napkin, under which was a 100$ bill.

    The note on the napkin read，“Dear Mary，I respect you very much， and you respect yourself，too. It shows by the way you treat others. You have found the secret of happiness. Your kind gestures will shine through those who meet you. ”

    The man she had served was the owner of the restaurant. This was the first time that she，or any of his employees, had seen him in person.

    I am astonished at the way God knows when to send a special gift of encouragement at just the right time! It might be in a dream, a lost letter, a memory, or something found that we'd forgotten about.

    My grandmother was from a town in Michigan. And summer after summer I enjoyed staying with my grandparents as a young child. I was from the city and loved the small town where they lived. People knew everyone, their children, their pets, their ancestors.

    Grandma was always using her hands for something exciting …She would make sandwiches and we'd have tea parties, plant flowers and carefully tend them. She loved knitting sweaters as well as making beautiful quilts　for her grandchildren. I remember the small thimble ( 顶 针 ) she would place on her finger while doing her needlework.

    A few years ago, when Grandma left this earth for her new residence in Heaven, I bid farewell to my loving grandmother. How quickly our lives can change! We had just had tea together a couple of months earlier, on her 91st birthday. I missed her very much, but I noticed it mostly on my birthdays, because there was no card from Grandma. She'd never forgotten my birthday!

    On one particular birthday when I was feeling a little low, something happened and made me feel as if she was sharing that special day with me. I was arranging some colorful pillows that she had made, and suddenly I felt something inside one pillow; it was small and hard. I moved the object to a seam (缝) that I carefully opened, and, to my delight, out came a tiny silver thimble!

    How happy I was to find something that had been a part of her! Not realizing k had fallen off her finger, I pictured her sewing h into that little pillow that I just happened to fluff (抖松), to place on my bedspread (床罩) that day. I carefully laid the thimble alongside the others Id collected over the years. What a precious memory of a very special lady who, somehow, I knew, was laughing in delight at sewing her thimble into my pillow. I heated the kettle and made some tea, using my best china, as Grandma always did, and then enjoyed my tea and Grandma's thimble. What a wonderful birthday that was!

    July 16th was a bad day for Mr. Arthur Johnson. In the morning, he set out from his home in Santa Barbara, California. It was the start of his summer holidays and he decided to visit Wends at Las Vegas, then he hoped to go fishing in Lake Mead, 40 km from Las Vegas.

    Johnson's troubles started while he was driving happily across the Mojave Desert. His car went wrong and he tried to repair it. Then, to make matters worse, his attempts to start the car used up the battery (电池) and left it useless. After Johnson had waited an hour in the hot sun, a Canadian driver, John Williams, stopped and tried to help him. When both men failed, Williams promised to telephone a workshop to ask it to send a truck to pull the car away and repair its fuel pump.

    Johnson left the keys in his car and sat in the shade of a large tree. Soon he fell asleep. While he was sleeping, a repair truck arrived from San Pedro (the nearest town) and pulled his car away. Later on, Johnson woke up and thought that somebody had stolen his car. He started to walk back towards San Pedro but a police car stopped him to find out why he was walking in the desert.

    Johnson looked like a man wanted in Los Angels for robbery, so the police detained him at San Pedro for the night. The next day, Johnson telephoned his friends in Los Angeles. They drove to San Pedro and made the police believe that Johnson was a harmless salesman, so they set him free.

    Italian Language Immersion Class in Chicago, Illinois

    Language stars:

    FunImmersion Italian class at Language Stars in Illinois provides fun, full language immersion programs (全语言沉浸式教学) for children aged (1-10). Also: Spanish, French, German and Mandarin Chinese. Throughout their 3-hour class every day, the children take part in full-immersion activities, create art projects, sing and enjoy themselves all in Italian!

    Quality teachers:

    Teachers are the single greatest driver of the quality of our programs! Language Stars carefully selects our native-speaking Italian teachers, who have received extensive (广泛的) training before starting their teaching careers.

    Teaching Style:

    Language Stars makes learning a language fun, through a mix of games, songs, puppet shows, arts & crafts, cooking projects, treasure hunts, movement and drama, all in the foreign language. Our unique FunImmersion method is the best way for children to enjoy learning a foreign language.

    The Benefits of Learning a Language at a Young Age:

    It is uniquely suitable for young children to learn a second language. Exposing your child to a second language allows a child to optimize (使最优化) his or her learning potential, helping to shape the brain at its most flexible stage. Learning a second language at a young age is as easy as learning a first language.

    Language Immersion Programs for Kids (Aged 1-10):

    Language Stars offers play-based, full immersion programs in small groups of 4-8 children in Italian, Spanish, French, German and Mandarin Chinese in three exciting formats:

    Parents & kids (Aged 1-3)

    Kids Only Classes (Aged 3-5, 5-8, 8-10)

    Summer Immersion Camp

    Free Trial Class:

    During a free class we encourage your child to participate as if he / she is enrolled.

    Tuition Fee:

    $ 600

    Address:

    2105 N. Southport, Chicago, Illinois, USA

    HANGZHOU — Chinese internet giant Alibaba on Tuesday opened a hotel loaded with artificial intelligence (AI) and robots, automating a series of procedures like check­ in, lights control and room service.

    FlyZoo Hotel, opened in Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang province, where Alibaba is headquartered, is known as the company's "first future hotel". Customers can check into the hotel by simply scanning their faces. The facial recognition system installed in the hotel also enables customers to use their faces as key cards to open doors and access another hotel service. Users can also control the lights, televisions and curtains in the room via Alibaba's voice­activated digital assistant, while robots are deployed to serve dishes, cocktails and coffee. Hotel bookings and check­out can also be done with a few clicks on mobile through an app. "The AI­based solution can help customers save time and relieve hotel employees from repetitive work," said Wang Qun, CEO of FlyZoo Hotel. The hotel is the latest example of Chinese tech companies' attempt into traditional industries such as the hotel industry.

    E­commerce giant JD.com announced in October its strategy to put smart home and electronic devices sold on its platform into hotels, in an effort to improve online sales.

    In July, Baidu teamed up with Intercontinental Hotels Group in Beijing to allow guests to use its voice­ controlled assistant to adjust room temperature and order room service at ease.

    Before that, social media giant Tencent introduced QQfamily, a similar tech solution for hotel operators, in the southern city of Zhuhai last year.

    "We want to install a 'smart brain' for hotels," said Wang. "In the future, we will continue to make hotels smarter and more automated, as well as create more personalized experiences for consumers."

    Jim suffered heart problems. In conversation he expressed little joy and it seemed that his life was drawing to a close.

    When his heart problems led to operation, Jim went through it successfully, and a full recovery was expected. Within days, however, his heart was not beating properly. Jim was rushed back to operation, but nothing was found to explain the cause of his illness. He died on the operating table on the day before his 48th birthday.

    Dr. Bruce Smoller, a psychologist(心理学家), had had many conversations with him, and the more he learned, the stranger he realized Jim's case was. When Jim was a child, his father, a teacher, suffered a heart attack and stayed home to recover. One morning Jim asked his father to look over his homework, promising to come home from school at noon to pick it up. His father agreed, but when Jim returned his father had died. Jim's father was 48.

    "I think all his life Jim believed he killed his father," Dr. Smoller says. "He felt that if he had not asked him to look at his homework, his father would have lived. Jim had been troubled by the idea. The operation was the trial(判决) he had expected for forty years." Smoller believes that Jim willed himself not to live to the age of 48.

    Jim's case shows the powerful role that attitude(态度) plays in physical health, and that childhood experiences produce far-reaching effect on the health of grown-ups. Although most cases are less direct than Jim's, studies show that childhood events, besides genes, may well cause such midlife diseases as cancer, heart disease and mental illness.