It is probably the strangest sport anyone has ever invented. And at first sight, it looks like the easiest. Competitors have to do two things. The first is to stand still. The second is to place their hands anywhere on the body of a car, and keep it there.

    This is where things start getting difficult. Lots of people are doing the same thing. And the winner of the “handstand” contest is the person who can carry on doing it for the longest time. That person gets to own the car.

It still seems to be an easy thing to do. At the beginning it is. Anyone can stand still. But when the contest has been going for four or five days, standing still seems like the most difficult job in the world . And keeping the hand in place over this time becomes an act of serious attention. After a few days, the hand seems to belong to someone else—-someone who wants to go home and get some sleep.

    Competitors are allowed to take a five-minute break every hour to eat, drink or do whatever else is necessary. No one is allowed to lean on the car for support. Winners need to be able to show great powers of attention. They also need to be able to develop special skills.

    Maybe the popularity of the “handathon” is due to the fact that it is not necessary to be a trained athlete to enter. Competitors in the Longview handathon certainly don't seem to do much preparation. Most say they will prepare by “getting lots of sleep”. Others say they will “eat healthy food” or “pray for success”.  The whole event gives ordinary people the chance to do something interesting and win something in the end.

    Handathons are competitions, but there is little rivalry (竞争) between competitors. They help each other out and keep each other's spitits up. People who drop out early return with food, drink and encouragement.

    If you are a recent social science graduate who has had to listen to jokes about unemployment from your computer major classmates, you may have had the last laugh. There are many advantages for the social science major because this high-tech "Information Age" demands people who are flexible (灵活) and who have good communication skills.

    There are many social science majors in large companies who fill important positions. For example, a number of research studies found that social science majors had achieved greater managerial success than those who had technical training or pre-professional courses. Studies show that social science majors are most suited for change, which is the leading feature (特点) of the kind of high-speed, high-pressure, high-tech world we now live in.

    Social science majors are not only experiencing success in their long term company jobs, but they are also finding jobs more easily. A study showed that many companies had filled a large percentage of their entry level positions with social science graduates. The study also showed that the most sought-after quality in a person who was looking for a job was communication skills, noted as "very important" by 92 percent of the companies. Social science majors have these skills, often without knowing how important they are. It is probably due to these skills that they have been offered a wide variety of positions.

    Finally, although some social science majors may still find it more difficult than their technically trained classmates to land the first job, recent graduates report that they don't regret their choice of study.

    Helen Monson has always been interested in helping her community. Her first volunteer experience was for the American Red Cross when she was in high school. When she was a school teacher, she also found time to volunteer.

After she retired, she started volunteering to help the old. When her father was older, he was not able to see as well as he used to, which made her sad because he had always enjoyed reading.

    She decided it would be fun to read to elderly people in her community. She also helped one woman write her stories. Ann was almost 100 years old, and Helen wrote down information about her life when she visited Ann. She put the information in a book and got it published. Ann was very excited to share her life story with her children and grandchildren.

    One day Helen read an article in the newspaper about refugees (难民) who needed to learn English. Now, she meets once a week with Sahra, a 38-year-old woman from Somalia. Sahra is learning reading and writing skills. Helen gave Sahra a camera and asked her to take pictures of her daily life. She developed the pictures, and then asked Sahra questions about them. In the end they wrote a book together and used the photos in the book. This helped Sahra learn many new words about her everyday life.

    Helen says, “The most rewarding part of volunteer work is becoming friends with the people I help. They enrich my life as well as I enrich theirs.”

    Fire fighting is a serious matter. Knowing what to do during a fire can save people's lives. It is important to know the ways you can use and show them to everyone else in the family, such as stairways and emergency exits, but not elevators.

    From the lower floors of buildings, escape through windows is possible. Learn the best way to get out from a window with the least chance of serious injury.

    The second floor window is usually not very high from the ground. An average person, hanging by the fingertips will have a drop of about 6 feet to the ground. It is about the height of an average man. Of course, it is safer to jump a short way down than to stay in a burning building.

    Windows are also useful when you are waiting for help. Be sure to keep the door closed before opening the window. Otherwise, smoke and fire may be drawn into the room. Keep your head low at the window to be sure you get fresh air rather than smoke that may have leaked(漏)into the room.

    On the second or third floor, the best windows for escape are those which open onto a roof. From the roof a person can drop to the ground more safely. Dropping onto cement might end in injury. Bushes and trees can help you to have a soft landing.

    When a terrible earthquake hit, many people were killed and many houses fell down. After the earthquake, all the newspapers reported many stories about some of the families who were in trouble.

    One Sunday, when I was reading a newspaper, a special picture touched me. It gave the clothing sizes of each family member. I thought that this would be a good chance to teach my children to help those who were less lucky than ourselves. I said to my seven-year-old twins, Brad and Brett, and three-year-old Meghan. "We have so much, and these poor people now have nothing. We'll share what we have with them."

    I filled a box with foods and clothes. While I was doing this, I encouraged the boys to choose their toys and donate some of their less favorite things. Meghan watched quietly as the boys took out their old toys and games and put them together. Then she walked away. A few minutes later she came back with Lucy, her much-loved doll. She put the doll on top of the other toys. "Oh, dear," I said. "You don't have to give Lucy. You love her so much." Meghan said, "Lucy makes me happy, Mommy. Maybe she'll make another little girl happy, too."

    I looked at Meghan for a long moment. She taught me a lesson. It's easy to give something that we don't want any more, but harder to give what we cherish (珍爱), isn't it?

Over the years, electronic commerce or e-commerce has grown rapidly. The rise of e-commerce large enterprises such as Amazon and Alibaba in the mid-90s changed the face of the retail (零售) industry. E-commerce may be thought of as an open, global marketplace or a digital version of mail-order catalogue (目录). Nearly every imaginable product and service is available through e-commerce dealings these days.

Many young entrepreneurs have dived into the e-commerce world, ambitious and hoping to succeed. Some, like Mitchell Zvagelskiy. Zvagelskiy is the co-founder of Scale Online, a fast-growing startup in California and runs several e-commerce stores. Zvagelskiy and his business partner began opening online stores and building a team to grow them, allowing the stores to earn as much as $100.000＋ in monthly revenue. Zvagelskiy owes his success to teamwork and his willingness to seize opportunity.

"Being able to do this all by the age of 20 is something I didn't expect and would not be able to do if I constantly listened to other people and just went the typical college then job route," he said. "Life can change fast if you change fast."

Thanks to the rapid success of his YouTube channel, Mitchell has been able to not only make great profit from his companies, but help others in starting and growing their own e-commerce stores too. "My meaning of success arises from my relationships with other people," he said. "By focusing on building strong relationships with others, I'm able to partner up and work with like-minded individuals in finding market opportunities and solving whatever problems people are facing."