A minister was on a long flight from China to London. The first warning of the approaching problems came when the sign on the airplane flashed on: Fasten your seat belts. Then, after a while, a calm voice said, "We shall not be serving the drinks at this time as there is going to be something unexpected. Please be sure seat belt is fastened."

    Soon the storm broke out. One moment the airplane was lifted on terrific currents of air. The plane dropped as if it were about to crash.

    The minister believed that he shared the discomfort and fear of those around him. As he looked around the plane, he could see that nearly all the passengers were upset and alarmed. The future seemed ominous and many were wondering if they would make it through the storm. Then he suddenly saw a little girl. Apparently the storm meant nothing to her. She was reading a book and everything within her small world was calm orderly. Sometimes she closed her eyes and then she would read again. Then she would straighten her legs, worry and fear were not in her world. The minister could hardly believe his eyes.

    It was not surprising therefore that when the plane finally reached its destination and all the passengers hurried to leave, the minister walked up to the girl he had watched for such a long time. Having commented about the storm and the behavior of the plane, he asked why she had not been afraid. The girl replied, "Because my dad is the pilot, and he's taking me home."

    If women are mercilessly exploited（剥削）year after year,they have only themselves to blame.Because they tremble at the thought of being seen in public in clothes that are out of fashion,they are always taken advantage of by the designers and the big stores.Clothes which have been worn only a few times have to be put aside because of the change of fashion.When you come to think of it,only a woman is capable of standing in front of a wardrobe（衣橱）packed full of clothes and announcing sadly that she has nothing to wear.

    Changing fashions are nothing more than the intentional creation of waste.Many women spend vast sums of money each year to replace clothes that have hardly been worn.Women who cannot afford to throw away clothing in this way,waste hours of their time altering（政变）the dresses they have.Skirts are lengthened or shortened;neck-line are lowered or raised,and so on.

    No one can claim that the fashion industry contributes anything really important to society.Fashion designers are rarely concerned with vital things like warmth,comfort and durability（耐用）.They are only interested in outward appearance and they take advantage of the fact that women will put up with any amount of discomfort,as long as they look right.There can hardly be a man who hasn't at some times in his life smiled at the sight of a woman shaking in a thin dress on a winter day,or delicately picking her way through deep snow in high-heeled shoes.

    When comparing men and women in the matter of fashion,the conclusions to be drawn are obvious.Do the constantly changing fashions of women's clothes,one wonders,reflect basic qualities of inconstancy and instability （不稳定）?Men are too clever to let themselves be cheated by fashion designers.Do their unchanging styles of dress reflect basic qualities of stability and reliability（可靠）?That is for you to decide.

    There is a common belief among parents that schools are no longer interested in spelling. No school I have taught in has ever considered spelling unimportant as a basic skill. There are, however, quite different ideas about how to teach it, or how much priority(优先) it must be given over general language development and writing ability. The problem is, how to encourage a child to express himself freely in writing without holding him back with spelling.

    If spelling becomes the only point of his teacher's interest, clearly a bright child will be likely to "play safe". He will write only words within his spelling range(范围). That's why teachers often encourage the early use of dictionaries and pay attention to content rather than technical ability.

    I was once shocked to read on the bottom of a sensitive piece of writing about a personal experience: "This work is terrible! There are far too many spelling mistakes." It may have been a sharp criticism(批评) of the pupils technical abilities in writing, but it was also a sad thing for the teacher who had omitted to read the composition, which contained some beautiful expressions of the child's deep feelings. The teacher was not wrong to draw attention to the mistakes, but if his priority had centered on the child's ideas, an expression of his disappointment with the presentation would have given the pupil more hope to seek improvement.

    As Internet users become more dependent on the Internet to store information, are people remembering less? If you know your computer will save information, why store it in your own personal memory, your brain? Experts are wondering if the Internet is changing what we remember and how.

    In a recent study, Professor Betsy Sparrow conducted some experiments. She and her research team wanted to know the Internet is changing memory. In the first experiment, they gave people 40 unimportant facts to type into a computer. The first group of people understood that the computer would save the information. The second group understood that the computer would not save it. Later, the second group remembered the information better. People in the first group knew they could find the information again, so they did not try to remember it.

    In another experiment, the researchers gave people facts to remember, and told them where to find the information on the Internet. The information was in a specific computer folder(文件夹). Surprisingly, people later remember the folder location(位置)better than the facts. When people use the Internet, they do not remember the information. Rather, they remember how to find it. This is called “transactive memory”.

    According to Sparrow, we are not becoming people with poor memories as a result of the Internet. Instead, computer users are developing stronger transactive memories; that is, people are learning how to organize large amounts of information so that they are able to find it at a later date. This doesn't mean we are becoming either more or less intelligent, but there is no doubt that the way we use memory is changing.

    The Pope John XXIII Regional High School robotics team has brought about many crea-tions in its laboratories. Most of these creations have earned them prizes in their robotics leagues, articles in local media and praise from many people around the world. None of them, however, can equal to what they experienced during one of their most recent projects.

    The robotics team helped design and build an electrically during one of their most recent projects, girl during an event snonsored by the GoBabyGo program and Toyota. The goal of the disabled is to build an electncally opiated vehicle and meet the needs of a specific disabled child. After hearing about the program, the robotics team jumped on the opportunity.

    When they got to the hospital for the event，the team members joined forces with engi-neers from University of Delaware, Toyota employees and and doctors to help a girl named Jaleah.

    Using instructions provided on an iPad by GoBabyGo,they put together a plastic battery-oper-ated vehicle-one of 12 that were made at the event-that was bespoke to Jaleah. Her vehicle was a baby blue jeep that had designs from the hit Disney movie Frozen and was decorated with snowflakes (雪花)，butterflies and flowers.

    More importantly，the team rerouted the electrical system in the car so that Jaleah only needed to push a large button on the steering wheel to drive the car, giving her the freedom to move. In addition, they helped design special seating structure to keep Jaleah safely secured.

    When they completed the project, Jaleah and her parents' reactions took the PJ robotics members by surprise.“ It was really satisfying,” PJ junior Austin Fett said. “When she was riding it, she was having so much fun. It was a great feeling. ”

    While they are looking forward to their future projects and competitions in the FIRST Technology Challenge league, the robotics team will always remember the days they helped Jaleah become a mobile kid.

    “We made something that she will love and use forever,” PJ senior Keith Johnson said.

    Most heroes are not super. They don't appear in comic books, on television, or in movies. They just do what they believe needs to be done to make their world a better place. Bike Batman is one of them.

    Bike Batman is a 30-year-old married engineer who lives in Seattle, Washington. He's a cyclist who also buys and sells bikes as a hobby.

    About three years ago, he was looking for a bike for his wife. He found one on Craigslist, a website where people list things they want to sell. As he often does, he also looked at Bike Index, a popular website that allows users to register their bikes and post reports when they're taken. The bike, which he was considering purchasing, clearly matched one reported stolen on Bike Index. Then he called the person who claimed to be the bike's owner and arranged to meet him-- supposedly to complete the sale. When the two men met, Bike Batman told the thief, "You've got two options. You can wait until a police officer gets here, or you can just get out of here." You can imagine what the thief did.

    After that first success, Bike Batman developed a safer routine. When he sees questionable bike ads on Craigslist, he cross-references the image with bikes reported on Bike Index. Once he has confirmed it with the owner, he arranges a meet-up with the thief and will call the Seattle police department so that officers can participate in the action. In more than half of the 22 cases in which he has got back and returned bikes, the thieves have been arrested. In one case, Bike Batman even helped a family recover a wide range of prized possessions that suspects had stolen during a home burglary.

    His nickname came from a discussion with a police officer who suggested he be called "Robin Hood". Since he wasn't exactly stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, "Batman" seemed a better fit. The idea of a superhero punishing criminals feels pretty silly to him, but the main reason he continues his work is to keep up Seattle's reputation as a friendly city.