On a stormy day last August, Tim heard some shouting. Looking out to the sea carefully, he saw a couple of kids in a rowboat were being pulled out to sea.

    Two 12-year-old boys, Christian and Jack, rowed out a boat to search for a football. Once they'd rowed beyond the calm waters, a beach umbrella tied to the boat caught the wind and pulled the boat into open water. The pair panicked and tried to row back to shore. But they were no match for it and the boat was out of control.

    Tim knew it would soon be swallowed by the waves.

    "Everything went quiet in my head," Tim recalls(回忆). "I was trying to figure out how to swim to the boys in a straight line."

    Tim took off his clothes and jumped into the water. Every 500 yards or so, he raised his head to judge his progress. "At one point, I considered turning back," he says. "I wondered if I was putting my life at risk." After 30 minutes of struggling, he was close enough to yell to the boys, "Take down the umbrella!"

    Christian made much effort to take down the umbrella. Then Tim was able to catch up and climb aboard the boat. He took over rowing, but the waves were almost too strong for him.

    "Let's aim for the pier(码头)," Jack said. Tim turned the boat toward it. Soon afterward, waves crashed over the boat, and it began to sink. "Can you guys swim?" he cried. "A little bit," the boys said.

    Once they were in the water, Tim decided it would be safer and faster for him to pull the boys toward the pier. Christian and Jack were wearing life jackets and floated on their backs. Tim swan toward land as water washed over the boys' faces.

    “Are we almost there?" they asked again and again. "Yes," Tim told them each time.

    After 30minutes, they reached the pier.

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    Few of us haven't read Cinderella, the story of a young woman living in poverty who meets the prince of her dreams. Some might not want to admit it, but there is a hidden Cinderella in everyone's heart—we all wish we could achieve recognition or success after a period of obscurity or neglect.

    Mary Santiago has that secret dream, too. Her story is featured in Another Cinderella Story, a film set in a US high school.

    Mary is shy but loves to dance. Compared with other girls, she is invisible. However, her world changes completely when a famous teenager pop singer, Joey Parker, appears.

    Joey is everything that the rest of the boys in her class are not — kind, handsome and desirable. Mary and Joey's paths cross at a ball. They meet and fall in love with each other. But when Mary has to rush back home, she leaves behind her MP3 player, which becomes the only clue Joey has to find the girl of his dreams. Of course, there is a wicked(邪恶的) stepmother, who turns out to be Dominique Blatt and she takes in Mary after her dancer mother dies. Dominique treats Mary like a maid and does everything she can to make sure Mary doesn't get into the top dance school. Her two daughters are equally determined to stop Joey falling for Mary, even if that means embarrassing her.

    The story, though it mostly follows Cinderella, does add a few modern day twists to the classic fairy tale. Refreshingly, the film, unlike many high school films, does not focus on looks, although the actors are all beautiful. There is also a lot less materialism in Another Cinderella Story than in many similar movies.

    “The movie takes the Cinderella fairytale as its jumping off point,” writes the movie critic Amber Wilkinson. “The focus is firmly on following your dream.”

    The trouble with school is that you can't choose the people you get to see every day. If you're unlucky enough to be stuck with classmates who don't really “get” you, you've just got to try to make the best of it.

    But that doesn't mean you need to “fit in”, or at least in the way that people think. If you try to transform yourself into a clone of everyone else, it won't help you make friends. It'll just make you feel like a fake.

    You also shouldn't shut down or refuse to be friends with everyone who doesn't like you. If you do that, you'll just make yourself miserable. Instead, you've got to work on being comfortable and confident with whom you are while ignoring（忽略）all the haters. Keep on speaking up, asking questions and getting to know people better. If you send out positive energy, then people will generally send some back to you. A couple of them will stay the same, and you're allowed to forget about them.

    If you feel like you've doing all that but still not getting anywhere, then don't give up. Just expand your circle. Get a part-time job at a cool-looking place, join an after-school art class or youth group—do whatever it takes to find a couple of like-minded people to connect with. Even if you don't find anyone right away, you'll still be getting some more social experiences under your belt, and that's always a good thing.

    A fun book called Uncool, by Erin Elisabeth Conley, has some tips for folks like you who want to stay positive at school while being true to your personality:

    Throw caution to the wind.

    Don't tolerate others' mistakes.

    Have patience with people who are different from you.

    Don't change just because someone else thinks you should.

    Know that even though you may be a misfit, there's always some place where you will be welcomed in the world.

    There is a story about a man who lost his legs and left arm in an accident. After the accident, only a finger and thumb on his right hand remained.

    He was a brilliant, creative, and educated man. He had gained a lot of experience while travelling around the world, so he became very depressed after his accident. He was afraid that he would spend the rest of his life suffering and would no longer be able to spend his life in a meaningful way. Then, he realized that he still had partial function of his right hand and could still write even though it was very difficult. An idea occurred to him. “Why not write to other people who need encouragement?”

    He wrote to the prison ministry about sending letters to the prisoners. The prison minister replied, “Writing to the prisoners is acceptable, but your letters will not be answered.”

    Filled with excitement, the man knew he could write his letters. He began sending one way messages of God's love, hope, strength, and encouragement. He wrote twice a week, testing his strength and ability to the limit. He poured his heart and soul into his words and shared his experience, sense of humor, optimism, and faith.

    It was difficult to write those letters, especially without hope of a reply. One day he received a letter from the prison ministry. It was a short note from the officer who monitored and checked the prison mail.

    The letter said, “Please write on the best paper you can afford. Your letters are passed from cell to cell until they literally fall to pieces!”

    No matter what circumstances life may present, we all have unique experiences, abilities, and God given talents. We can discover ways to reach others who desperately need messages of encouragement and strength.

    The haunting paintings of Helene Schjerfbeck, on show in the final leg of a travelling tour that has already attracted thousands of visitors in Hamburg and the Hague, may come as a surprise to many. Few outside the Nordic(北欧的) world would recognize the works of this Finnish artist who died in 1946. More people should. The 120 works have at their core 20 self-portraits, half the number she painted in all. The first, dated 1880, is of a wide-eyed teenager eager to absorb everything. The last is a sighting of the artist's ghost-to-be.

    Prematurely gifted, Schjerfbeck was 11 when she entered the Finnish Art Society's drawing school. “The Wounded Warrior in the Snow”, a history painting, was bought by a private collector and won her a state travel grant when she was 17. Schjerfbeck studied in Paris, went on to Pont-Aven, Brittany, where she painted for a year, then to Tuscany, Cornwall and St Petersburg. During her 1887 visit to St Ives, Cornwall, Schjerfbeck painted “The Convalescent”. A child wrapped in a blanket sits supported up in a large wicker(柳条编制的) chair, toying with a sprig(小枝条). The picture won a bronze medal at the 1889 Paris World Fair and was bought by the Finnish Art Society. To a modern eye it seems almost sentimental(感伤的) and is made up for only by the somewhat astonished, sad expression on the child's face, which may have been inspired by Schjerfbeck's early experiences. At four, she fell down a flight of steps and never fully recovered.

    In 1890, Schjerfbeck settled in Finland. Teaching exhausted her, she did not like the works of other local painters, and she was further isolated when she took on the care of her mother. “If I allow myself the freedom to live an isolated life”, she wrote, “then it is because it has to be that way.” In 1902, Schjerfbeck and her mother settled in the small, industrial town of Hyvinkaa, 50 kilometres north of Helsinki. Isolation had one desired effect for it was there that Schjerfbeck became a modern painter. She produced still lives and landscapes but above all moody yet sharp portraits of her mother, local school girls, women workers in town.

    “I have always searched for the dense depths of the soul, which have not yet been discovered by humans themselves”, she wrote, “where everything is still unconscious -- there one can make the greatest discoveries.” She experimented with different kinds of underpainting, scraped and rubbed, made bright rosy red spots; doing whatever had to be done to capture the subconscious — her own and that of her models. In 1913, Schjerfbeck was rediscovered by an art dealer and journalist, Gosta Stenman. Once again she was a success.

After months of expectation and secrecy, the official mascot (吉祥物) of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games－a giant panda-inspired cartoon character－made its first public debut with cheers at Beijing's Shougang Ice Hockey Arena.

The panda is named “Bing Dwen Dwen” in Chinese. Bing means “ice” in Chinese, while Dwen Dwen suggests “health and cleverness”－characteristics also shared by pandas. Pandas are perhaps the most recognized animal species in China, organizers said.

“Pandas combine China's traditional culture and its modern appearance together with winter sports elements in a fascinating image (形象) that shows our great expectations for the Games and shows that we welcome the world,” said Beijing Mayor Chen Jining, who also serves as an executive president on the organizing committee.

“I have already seen the mascot and from what I've seen, it's a wonderful choice,” IOC President Thomas Bach said before introducing the character.” “The mascot really takes in the best elements and characteristics of China and the Chinese people. It will be a great ambassador (大使) for the country and the 24th Winter Olympics.”

The ring of light surrounding the mascot's face is suggestive of ice and snow tracks, as well as the flowing “ribbons” of the National Speed Skating Oval. The oval is one of two new competition sites in downtown Beijing expected to become a landmark of the Games, according to its chief designer Cao Xue.

The introduction of the mascots marks the key point of a journey that began in August 2018, when Beijing organizers started a global design competition for the mascots. A total of 5,816 designs were received from 35 countries, and were reviewed by Chinese and international experts in a comprehensive evaluation and selection process.

The new mascot will serve as spirited symbol of the Games that will take place in the three zones of downtown Beijing, the suburban district of Yanqing and co-host city Zhangjiakou in surrounding Hebei province.