Music is an important part in our life. We may feel boring without music. Today when you go to stores, stations, restaurants and other places, do you notice music playing at any of these places? The answer must be “Yes”. And you might even hear music in an office or on a farm.

    I like many kinds of music. Classical music is great. Rock music is fast. Light music is relaxing. But I like folk music best. It sounds very beautiful. It can bring me into the dream land. It can make me relax and forget all the problems. It makes me learn better and helps me to be more active. It is true that I learn better when I am relaxed.

Music can also influence(影响) people's behavior(行为). Classical music makes people feel rich(富裕). When a restaurant plays classical music, people spend more money on food and drinks. When the restaurant plays modern music, people spend less money. Without music, people spend even less. Restaurants can make more money in this way.

Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452 in Italy. He is best known as an artist today. One of his famous paintings is called Mona Lisa. However, Leonardo had many other natural abilities. He was also a great inventor. Many of his inventions have become important in modern daily life.

Although Leonardo hated war, he invented many different machines used for war. His most special invention was the machine gun, which was produced and used in war many years later.

    By watching the way birds fly, Leonardo tried to find out the secret of flying. Among his sketch (素描) we can see several objects. We consider them as modern flying machines.

    Leonardo spent many hours thinking about how to make good use of time. He developed ideas for labor-saving machines like cutting machines.

Leonardo was a strange man. He didn't eat any meat, which was very unusual in those times. He never published(发表) his ideas and scientific discoveries. He usually used mirror writing, which looks like writing in a mirror, starting from the right side of the page and moving to the left.

    We have very little of his work today. Leonardo finished only a few of his paintings. He left many unfinished because he thought they were not perfect. No one in his life time knew how great Leonardo was. We now believe, however, that he was one of the cleverest men the world has ever known.

B

    Some people like to collect stamps. Others prefer posters or coins. But Pinky Bhutia is different. She collects children. In her mountain village, in Sikkim, she is known as the wonderful young woman who adopts(领养) all the children she can.

    Pinky was 14 when she adopted her first child, a Nepali baby girl, whose patents passed away. Pinky's parents did not mind. Pinky left school and started working full time because she had a baby to feed. Today, she has twelve adopted children, and two sons from her marriage.

    Pinky is about 30 years old and she comes from a common family. If you passed her on the street, you wouldn't give her a second look. She lives in a brown mud-washed(泥刷的) house. There is a vegetable garden outside. Red hens with noisy chicks run all over the garden looking for food.

    If you ask her why she provides a home to so many kids, she smiles shyly. But her eyes are serious. “I know what it is to be poor and hungry.” As a child, her only dream was to eat a full meal, and her favorite amusement was watching people with shoes and imagining what it felt like. By adopting poor and homeless children she is making sure that they never feel that hopeless.

    Pinky feels very proud when she sees her children happy and bright, Her oldest baby, Aarita Rai, is now 20 years old, Then, there is  19-year-old Nimbe who came to Pinky because her mother was unable to look after her. She started to work in a government office two years ago. Ten-year-old Bhim and 14-year-old Kumar came to Pinky five years ago, after their father's death. They started living on a patch of land given by Pinky and grew vegetables for sale.

    “I like children. It's not one more mouth to feed but one more soul saved,” Pinky says.

    Many expressions(表达方式) we use in American English come from movies and books. Today we will learn some expressions from Lewis Carol's famous book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. This book is better known as Alice in Wonderland.

    The story is about a young girl falling for a long time down a rabbit hole. When she finally lands, she finds herself in a strange world. In this strange world are some of the most popular characters in children's books. Many of the expressions from the book have found their way into American English.

    The first character Alice meets is the White Rabbit. The White Rabbit is not a usual rabbit. Alice chases (追赶) after him, and that is where her adventures begin.

    In English, "chasing a white rabbit" means to chase an impossible dream. "Following the white rabbit" means you are in the middle of an unusual situation. This situation often challenges your thinking and changes your life. Like "chasing a white rabbit", "falling down the rabbit hole" means we get interested in something else and lose ideas about time.

    Later in the story, Alice is the guest at a tea party— a crazy tea party! There she meets the March Hare. The hare seems to be truly crazy. To be "mad as a March hare" means that someone is completely mad or crazy.

Using expressions from popular books can add special flavor(味道). And when used properly, they also show you have a deeper understanding of the English language.