In one of the old buildings near our school,one could see an old man sitting by a large window on the first floor,His name was James.During the three years at school,I had hardly ever found him missing from his usual position.

He was a high-ranking government official and lived happily with his wife .Once there was a bus accident,in which a number of passengers were seriously injured and taken to the hospital for treatment.James was responsible for the rescue operation.It was a big hospital,but James was shocked to notice how ill-equipped it was.There was no enough life-saving drugs and life-supporting equipment.The injured and their companions had to struggle there .James attempted to help .However,though he emptied his pockets,many of them died that day.

That was a turning point in his life.He made a decision to devote his life to helping others,particularly the poor and needy patients and their companions.He began to spend much of his income on these people.Since this required much time and energy,he found it difficult to fulfill his official duties and therefore chose to retire,which,in turn,reduced his income considerably.

His wife was deeply worried.Most of the time,James was out and paid least attention to home affairs.Meanwhile,as he was spending a lot helping others,she had struggle even to meet the household expenses.Though she was not against his helping the poor,she urged him not to ignore his own home and life,but it had no effect on him.She decided to leave him ,never to return.Though he continued his work, this was a great blow and did serious harm to his health and enthusiasm and he was soon forced to stay indoors.That was when he took his position by the window,spending his time looking outside.

    A few weeks after my graduation,I returned to school,only to find the building gone.I heard that they were torn down.Everyone left except James.He refused to go and the next morning,he was found at his usual place by the window,dead.

    On a cold winter day, many years ago, a French art teacher named Pierre Chevalier got on a train in Lyon to go to Paris. When he started his journey, he didn't know that it was the beginning of almost 40 years of accidents and near death experiences.

    During the journey, the train fell into an icy river, killing 12 passengers. Chevalier managed to swim back to the river bank. He only had a broken leg.

    Two years later, Chevalier was on a plane from Paris to Moscow when a door suddenly opened and he fell out. A few minutes later, the plane crashed(坠毁); 27 people were killed. Chevalier was so lucky that he landed in a haystack(干草堆).

    A few years later, he was hit by a bus, but again had no serious injuries. Then a year after that, he was driving on a mountain road when he saw a truck coming straight at him. He drove the car off the road, jumped out, landed in a tree—and watched his car fall 100 metres down the mountain.

    “There are two ways you can look at it,” Chevalier said. “I'm either the world's unluckiest man, or the world's luckiest.” When a reporter asked Chevalier what he thought, he chose the “luckiest” one.

    Two years ago, aged 71, Chevalier bought his first lottery ticket(彩票) in 50 years and won more than 2 million.

    After this, a TV company in America said they wanted him to make an advertisement. At first he accepted, but then he changed his mind. Chevalier said he wouldn't fly to Los Angeles for the filming, because he didn't want to push his luck. Who knows? If he had accepted the invitation, maybe he would have had another accident. But Mr Chevalier is a lucky man. If he'd had another accident, he probably would have survived that too!

    Someone had given our name and phone number to a charity, and its staff were bringing us Christmas presents.

    I made sure the house was as spotless as it could be with four children living in it, as the due time drew near, I sat on the edge of the couch. Each time I heard a car, I jumped up to see if they were here. Each time it wasn't them, I was relieved, yet disappointed.

    Finally a huge car pulled into the driveway, and four people got out. Now I was embarrassed as well as grateful, excited and nervous. I greeted them with a smile. They made several trips and soon my living room was full of boxes and bags.

    I tried to say “thank you” but my throat suddenly closed up and tears welled up in my eyes.

    I watched through the window as they drove away, wondering what they thought of me. I had always donated, but not received. We weren't always like this. My husband had been out of work, and we were struggling. I'd wanted to say this to them, but the words wouldn't come out.

    I quickly put away the gifts before the school-aged children came home. I hid them in closets and under beds as quickly as I could. On Christmas morning I felt a little guilty as our four children tore open the boxes and bags with pleasure, thinking they were from us.

    My nine-year-old son opened a game box and taped inside the lid was an envelope. I opened it and read aloud: May the joy of Christmas be with you all through the year. At the bottom of the card, written in small, neat letters was a sentence, it said: Although the sea gets rough, no storm lasts forever.

    I was suddenly ashamed of being ashamed. I finally understood.

Research shows that isolation(隔绝，孤立)is bad for us and associated with certain diseases including depression, high blood pressure and heart disease. Yet teenagers seek isolation by using the device of our times—a screen, screens of all kinds. However, in whatever form, screens are addictive, and addictive from an early age. Research has shown that given the chance, six-month-old babies prefer screens to real human faces.

    Hand in hand with this addiction to screens, we are seeing an explosion of teenage mental health problems. Social media claims to be inclusive, keeping you connected. But it's not. It isolates you from real people. Screens have even been described as being poisonous for teenagers.

    Psychologist Jean Twenge, a professor at San Diego State University, believes today's teenagers are “on the edge” of a major mental health crisis and requestes, “do anything that doesn't involve a screen”. The problem is, she claims, children born between 1995 and 2012 have grown up with a smart phone in their hands, and it has “changed every aspect” of their lives. The number of teenagers who actually see their friends frequently has dropped by more than 40% since 2000. In 2015, only 56% of 17-year-old went on a date, down from 85%. Modern teenagers are slower to learn to drive, or earn money and spend more time at home. They're “on their phone, in their room, alone and often depressed”, she says.

    Some critics, however, say we should encourage our children to spend more time online. Robert Hannigan, former director of GCHQ, said in August that Britain is badly short of engineers and computer scientists, and urged children to develop cyber skill to compete in the digital economy.

    I' m not the first to say that social media is inferior to real human contact, and harms mental health. Studies show teens who spend three hours a day online are 35% more likely to suicide(自杀).

    The suicide rate among girls aged 12 to 14 has more than doubled in a decade.

Welcome to your future life!

    You get up in the morning and look into the mirror. Your face is firm and young-looking. In 2035, medical technology is better than ever. Many people at your age could live to be 150, so at 40, you're not old at all. And your parents just had an anti-aging(抗衰老的) treatment. Now, all three of you look the same age!

    You say to your shirt, "Turn red." It changes from blue to red. In 2035, "smart clothes" contain particles(粒子) much smaller than the cells in your body. The particles can be programmed to change clothes' color or pattern.

    You walk into the kitchen. You pick up the milk, but a voice says," You shouldn't drink that!" Your fridge has read the chip (芯片) that contains information about the milk, and it Knows the milk is old. In 2035, every article of food in the grocery store has such a chip.

    It's time to go to work. In 2035, cars drive themselves. Just tell your "smart car" where to go. On the way, you can call a friend using your jacket sleeve. Such "smart technology" is all around you.

    So will all these things come true? "For new technology to succeed," says scientist Andrew Zolli," it has to be so much better that it replaces what we have already." The Internet is one example what will be the next.

    Angel Garcia Crespo is a computer engineer at Carlos III University of Madrid in Spain. His group has invented a new way for deaf-blind people to “watch” TV. The idea for the technology grew out of previous work by his group. The team had already worked on making audiovisual(视听的) materials accessible to people with either vision or hearing disabilities. But the group wanted to help people with both challenges. So they asked some deaf-blind people what would help.

    In addition to relying on their sense of touch to communicate, deaf-blind people can also get and send information with a Braille line. The Braille system uses patterns of raised dots to stand for letters and numbers. A Braille line is an electronic machine with a changeable Braille display. Dots rise up or drop down based on the information sent to the machine.

    Now the new system changes TV signals to data a Braille line can use. “The key to the system is the possibility of using subtitles(字幕) to collect TV information, " Garcia Crespo explains. "Subtitles travel with the image(影像) and the audio in electromagnetic waves we don't see. But an electronic system can keep those waves."

    First, a computer program, or app, pulls out the subtitles and visual descriptions from the broadcast signal. The system then combines the information and changes both into data for Braille.

    Now another app gets to work, which sends the data out to people's Braille lines on demand. “This is done in real time, in less than a second, " Garcia Crespo says. This lets a deaf-blind person "watch" TV as it's broadcast. The system will work with various Braille lines, as long as there's a bluetooth connection available. Now, the system is only used in Europe, and it should soon be available in the US.