Li Xiaoyun's Personal Profile

阅读以上信息，完成下面短文。

    Li Xiaoyun is a 22-year-old girl. Her {#blank#}1{#/blank#} name is Michelle. She is Number One in the Super Girls of 2009. She is 1.68m tall. She was born in {#blank#}2{#/blank#}, China, but now she lives in Melbourne, Australia. She loves singing and {#blank#}3{#/blank#} to music very much. And also she can play {#blank#}4{#/blank#} and the piano. Her favourite colour is blue and {#blank#}5{#/blank#}.

    Today, I'd like to tell you something about the history of the United States. The United States covers a large part of North America. After winning freedom from England, it had only 13 states. Each of the states had a star on the national flag. As the nation grew, new states were formed and there were new stars on the flag. For a long time, there were 48 states. In 1959 and 1960, two more stars, standing for the new states of Alaska and Hawaii（阿拉斯加州和夏威夷州）,were added to the flag. Indians were the first people of the land. Many people came from England. It is for that reason that the language of the US is English.

    Here are some ideas for you on how to help others through volunteering.

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    When people get older, it becomes harder to do many things, from walking to the store to doing the housework. Old people living alone can also feel lonely. As a volunteer. You can do a lot to help the old in your neighborhood. You could visit them and help them with their housework.

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    Many people with disabilities need help. You could volunteer to read books to the blind or deliver(递送) something for people who can't get around too well.

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    There are lots of volunteer jobs to do in hospitals and health care centers. As a volunteer, you can make beds, deliver flowers and gifts, help serve meals, and do lots of other important jobs.

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    Some families don't have enough money to buy food and clothes for their kids. Some people don't have place to live at all. To help these people as a volunteer, you can give clothes, food or money t0, or raise money for, a charity(慈善机构).

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    Sometimes people need more help when the holidays come. Holidays are happy, but for people who are alone or unlucky, they can be a lonely, hard time. As a volunteer, you can deliver holiday dinners to less lucky people, visit the lonely old people and serve food to the homeless.

    In the 13th century, the famous Italian traveler, Marco Polo, traveled a long way to China. During his stay in China, he saw many wonderful things. One of the things he discovered was that the Chinese used paper money. In Western countries, people did not use paper money until the 15th century. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}.

    A Chinese man called Cai Lun invented paper almost 2,000years ago. He made it from wood. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} He then put these pieces of paper together and made them into a book.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#} We use a lot of paper every day. If we keep on wasting so much paper, there will not be any trees left on the earth. Every day, people throw away about 2,800 tons of paper. It takes 17 trees to make one ton of paper. This means that we are cutting nearly 48,000 trees every day.

    Since it takes more than 10 years for a tree to grow, we must start using less paper now. If we don't, we will not have enough time to grow more trees to take the place of those we use for paper.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} We can use both sides of every piece of paper, especially when we are making notes. We can choose drinks in bottles instead of those in paper packets. We can also use cotton handkerchiefs and not paper ones. When we go shopping, we can use fewer paper bags. If the shop assistant does give us a paper bag, we can save it and reuse it later.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} If we all think carefully, we can help protect trees. But we should do it now, before it is too late.