I'm Jim. Today is my birthday. I want to thank my family for their love. So I cook dinner for them. I know my mother likes hamburgers and salad. But my father likes chicken and tomato soup(汤). I have a brother. He likes hamburgers, too. But he doesn't like salad. He likes carrots. I have a sister, too. She likes fish(鱼肉) and bread. I like chicken and strawberries. I will buy these things for the birthday party.

    What is DIY? Why do many people like it? Yang Chen works for a computer business in Beijing. He enjoys his work, but it is not easy for him to relax(放松) after work. One day when he saw many toy dogs in a toy shop, he had an idea. "Why not make them myself?" Then he began to make model planes, model ships and something else. He was interested in it because it brings him lots of fun and makes life colourful. So what is DIY? Yes, it is making or creating (创造) things by yourselves, with your own hands.

    It may take much time, but some people, now known as DIYers—do-it-yourselfers, enjoy doing it very much. They enjoy it because it is fun. And they also say it helps them save money, too. What's more, they think it is a good way to protect the environment (环境). It is a kind of green life. In fact, DIY is not a modern thing in China. Many people remember when it was once a way of life in the past. During the 1960s and 1970s, when there were not enough living things for people to live on, they had to use their own hands to do many things. If you wanted something, you had to do it yourself, and if you needed something, you made it yourself.

    Times have changed and DIY also has different meanings.

A. lisa is a young singer. She loves kids and she is planning to do something for them. She has a lot of free time during the week.

B. Sam loves animals. He takes good care of his two dogs at home and he has a two-day weekend every week.

C. Judy often volunteers with many of her friends. She likes talking with people and is always full of energy.

She is usually free after three in the afternoon.

D. Ann is 20 years old. She will graduate from a medical college this July. She's looking for a chance to be a volunteer.

E. Helen is an English teacher in a city school. She always pays attention to improving rural children's English. She is never afraid of any difficulty in life.

    Typing(打字) is one of the most important and basic work skills of the 21st century. Because mobile phones are now so popular, there is a new kind of typing-thumbing. Thumbing means people use one or more thumbs(拇指) to touch the keys.

    Most people can type between 20 and 35 words a minute. Some typists, however, can work very quickly, at more than 110 words a minute. And people's left hand usually does 56 percent of the typing.

    The most common international English keyboard is QWERTY. People name it after the first letters on the top left side of the keyboard. It is more than 140 years old. Other keyboards include QWERTZ (in Central Europe) and AZERTY (used by most French speakers in Europe). Countries with non-Roman alphabets(字母系统), such as, Arabia, Russia or Japan, have their own keyboards.

    People practise the sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" to make their typing better. That's because it uses every letter of the English alphabet.

    Thumbing and typing can hurt you. RSI (repetitive strain injury) is the name of a medical condition you get if you type too much. However, most people do not understand what RSI is or how serious it can be. Anyone who uses a computer a lot is at risk and should know about RSI.

    Reading is fun! Besides for fun, we can also analyze (分析) texts to learn more from the texts and more about the texts. One way we can do this is by finding out the theme of the texts.

    The theme of a text is the "big idea" that runs through the text, connecting the characters and events. It is what the writer wants to tell us through the story. Usually the theme of a text isn't told directly, you have to use clues (线索) in the text to find it out. 83 Themes can be ideas like family, friendship, love and so on. The theme might not be just one word, but it might be an idea such as "Friendship is important." There may also be more than one theme in a story. How can we find out the theme of a text? The following steps may help you.

    Read through the whole text, usually characters change as the story goes on, so the theme you get at the beginning might not be true at the end! For this reason, you need to read through the whole text first.

    Find out the clue after reading the whole text, try to answer the following questions. What important events happened during the story? What was the problem? How did the problem get solved? How did the character(s) change? What did the character(s) learn? The answers may help you to get the clues.

    Get the big idea Read again for the writer's purpose of the text by answering the following questions. Was most of the plot(情节) around friendship? Did the characters solve problems with their families? Did the main character learn the importance of friendship? If one of the answers is "yes", you may get the big idea.

    Check the big idea out If you've found a "big idea", go through the text to find the evidence( 证 据 ) that supports this idea in the text. For example, if there was only one small problem with a character's family, then "family" might not be the theme of the text. You might find more evidence for other themes.

    Have you got the way to find out the theme of a text? 84 Get your favorite book quickly and see if you can find the theme out!