I walked to Mrs. Windsor's house and waited outside. She was working with another student, and I was not supposed to bother them by ringing the bell. I stood against the wall and daydreamed what I'd rather be doing. I had been tutored enough to read, understand, and even write some musical compositions, but I just didn't have a gift for it. Mrs. Windsor had offered to give me the lessons for free, so I felt my duty to try.

    The door opened and Wendy Barton came out. I walked in, sat down on the piano bench and began to sort through my sheet music. Today Mrs. Windsor introduced her niece Pasha to teach me. With a smile, Pasha sat beside me on the piano bench, opened my sheet music to the beginning page and asked me to play. I arranged my fingers on the keys. Then I frowned(皱眉) and concentrated to make the notes on the page match the finger movements. I had to admit I was a rather mechanical (呆板的) pianist.

    After about a page or two, Pasha gently put her hand on top of mine as if to calm my fingers. There was a long pause. "What are you hearing in the music?" I looked at her rather strangely and admitted I didn't know what she meant. "Like a story. Here, let me try and you listen," Pasha advised.

    She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting her fingers dance lightly over the keys. Then, she began to play. "See, it begins here beside some kind of river. Hear the water flowing beside you?"

    Her fingers rose and fell gently on the keys. "Now the princess appears and she's picking flowers from the water's edge." A happy piece of music filled the air in time to Pasha's dancing fingers. "Oh, but she slips!" The music changed. "And our princess is being carried off by the fast-flowing stream. Quickly, the princess' horse sees her plight (困境) and races to the river's edge where he swims out to let her catch hold of him. Luckily, they make it to the bank." Pasha said.

    I played many pieces of music that afternoon, finding the stories in the music and learning that sometimes it takes a friend to pull you out of the river onto dry land again.

    Sure, you talk to your parents, but what if you need to really talk? Maybe you have a problem you can't solve alone, or it could be that you want to feel closer to Mom and Dad.

    It's easy to say" Hi, Mom" or "Dad, can you pass the potatoes?", but it can be harder to start a discussion about tougher topics. When you were younger, it probably felt easy to tell your parents about your trouble. Even though you're older now, it's still perfectly OK to believe in your parents. In fact, it can help a lot.

    So why does it seem so uncomfortable at times? Why is it hard to bring up the important stuff? Sometimes kids don't speak up because they don't want to feel embarrassed. Let's face it—talking about personal stuff can make you feel embarrassed. But remember, your parents know you pretty well, and they were your age once, too! So don't let a little embarrassment stop you. It's OK to go ahead and share the personal stuff.

    Other times, kids might not want to make their parents anxious or upset. As you explain your problem, your mom might look sad or your dad might look worried. But that's OK. Your mom and dad can deal with knowing about your problem, big or small. That look on their face just means they care, and they feel for you. That's what families do—we feel for the people we love.

    Sometimes, kids don't bring up a problem because they just don't want to think about it. They hope it will just go away. When meeting a problem, they will likely choose not to face it or just keep it for themselves. But running away from a problem hardly ever solves it. And bottling up your feelings can make you feel stressed.

    Talking things over with a parent can help you feel less stressed. Together, you can think of ways to solve the problem and make you feel better. Just knowing your parent understands and cares about what you're going through can reduce your stress a lot.

    Charlie studied in a famous college for four years. He studied hard and did well in all his subjects. He hoped to become a good teacher. This year he left the college and began to work in a middle school. He likes his students and is strict with them. He does his best to make his classes lively and interesting.

    One day he carefully explained a chemical reaction to the students of Grade 2 in the chemistry lab.

    “Be careful, everyone,” he said loudly. “Before I make the experiment, there're twenty five atoms of carbon (碳原子), but after I finish it, there're twenty four atoms of carbon left!”

He stopped to watch the classroom and hoped his students would go on explaining it. But the young men looked at each other and nobody answered him. He had to ask,

    “What happens? What makes the atom lost?”

    The classroom was very quiet and none of the students looked at their teacher.

    “Who can tell us where it has gone?”

    Suddenly a soft voice came from the back row, “We did not see anybody leave the lab!”

    In 1971, UN scholar Paolo Lugari started an eco-social experiment in Gaviotas, Colombia. Located in one of the most extreme climates, Gaviotas was described as a sustainable, self-sufficient village in an area that Lugari called 'just a big, wet desert'.

    'They always put social experiments in the easiest places,' Lugari said.'We wanted the hardest place. We figured if we could do it here, we could do it anywhere.'

    'Lugari just thought that someday the world would become so crowded that humans would have to learn to live in the planet's least desirable areas,' wrote Alan Weisman, author of Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World.

    Today, Gaviotas is an eco-village with about 200 people. They farm organically. They use wind and solar power. Since 2004, Gaviotas has been 100% fossil fuel independent. The residents also enjoy free housing, schooling, and community meals. Shockingly, there are no weapons, no police, no jail and no mayor. But though these elements would make any social experiment a success, perhaps the most remarkable accomplishment is the planting of 1.5 million pine trees and palm trees. The various results of this new tree growth have been incredible. The shade of the trees has inspired the return of many rainforest species that were once native to the region. Additionally, the residents of Gaviotas enjoy a sustainable source of income from the resin(松香) harvested from the trees.

    The United Nations named Gaviotas a model of sustainable development. The Colombia novelist and Noble Prize winner Grabriel Marquez called Lugari the 'inventor of the world'.

    A new study by a team of researchers has found that 'nature's capacity to store carbon is steadily falling as the world's farmers expand croplands at the cost of the native ecosystem such as forests'.

    Considering this disturbing fact—and as the world population increases towards an estimated 9 billion by the year 2050 and global warming continues to increase the planet's surface temperature—Gaviotas stands as one shining example of how things could be different.

    One of India's top engineering schools has restricted Internet access in its boarding houses, saying addiction to surfing, gaming and blogging was affecting students' performance, making them lonely and even suicidal.

    Authorities at the best Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Mumbai said students had stopped socializing and many were late for morning classes or slept through them. "Now, a student doesn't even know who lives two doors away from him because he is so busy on the Internet," said Prakash Gopalan, dean of Student Affairs. "The old dormitory culture of companionship and socializing among students is gone. This is not healthy in our opinion."

    IIT-Mumbai, with about 5,000 students, is one of the seven IITs across India which are considered to be among the finest engineering schools in the world. They are also a talent pool for global technology giants. But their hard courses, tough competition and lonely campus lifestyle have taken an effect on students. Depressive and dysfunctional lifestyles are known to be common among IIT students, and at least nine have committed suicide in the past five years. Students have unlimited free Internet access in their boarding houses to help them in their studies, but many also use it to surf, chat, download movies and music, blog and for gaming.

    "Starting Monday, Internet access will be banned between 11 p.m. and 12:30 p.m. at IIT-Mumbai's 13 boarding buildings to encourage students to sleep early and to try and force them out of their shells." Gopalan said. But the move has not gone down well with students who say they hate their lives being regulated. "Now they will say we need to listen to a lullaby (摇篮曲) to go to sleep." said Rajiv, an electronics student.

    The words “protect animals” appear everywhere in books and on screens because some animals are in danger of dying out. But sometimes the reality can be a little different from what people read or watch.

    Florida, US, has held its first bear hunt since 1994. The local government gave people nearly 4,000 permits to kill black bears. And more than 200 were killed on Oct 24.

    Animal protection groups protested this decision. But local officials explained that the black bear population had grown to 3,500 and become a menace to local people. In the past two years, bears have hurt at least four people in Florida.

    This brings an old question back into the spotlight – which is more important, protecting animals or protecting people's interests?

    This question is asked in other countries too. In Switzerland, a wolf was sentenced to death by the Swiss government months ago. This is because the wolf killed 38 sheep and local people lost a lot of money. Days ago in China, three old men were arrested for killing a serow(鬣羚), a protected species. But they insisted they didn't know about this and killed the animal because it ruined their crops.

    However, these stories don't always mean that animal protection stops due to human interests, especially involving economic development. A man named Zhou Weisen set up a wild animal base in Guilin, Guangxi. He saved over 170 tigers and 300 bears. But his base also offered jobs to local people.

    “There may never be a standard answer to the question of whether we should give more attention to the environment or human development,” said Robert May, a British biologist at Oxford University. “But we shouldn't push either one to the side, as the future is hanging in the balance.