One of the most important things in the world is friendship. In order to have friends, you have to be a friend. You have to be with them in both good and bad times. In return, they will be there for you. But how can you be a good friend?

    Listen. Listen when they are talking. Keep eye contact. Don't say anything unless they ask you a question. Sometimes you're not required to have anything to say; they just need someone to talk to about their feelings.

    Help them. If your friends are ever in need of something, be there to help them. You should try to put them first, but make sure you don't become their slave (奴隶). Try to take an extra pencil or pen with you to classes as they may forget to take one. Have a few extra dollars in your pocket in case they forget something they need.

    Be there for them. Try to make something for your friends to help make them feel better in hard times. Making cards and baking things are among the nicest things you can do for a friend when they are in hard times. Marilyn Monroe once said, "I'm selfish, impatient (急躁的) and a little insecure. I make mistakes, and I am out of control and at times hard to deal with. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you surely don't deserve (值得) me at my best. " Always remember this! If you don't want to deal with your friends when they're depressed, then you don't deserve to be with them during those parties where you have a good time!

    Try to make plans with your friends. Go shopping, go for an ice cream, have a party, go to a movie and so on. Make time to know each other even better by doing something you both enjoy. These are the things you'll remember once you're all long graduated when looking back on your life!

Walk For Charity

Dear Friend,

    Please join us for our annual Walk For Charity.Starting in Weldown,you and your friends can choose a delightful 10,20 or 30 kilometers' route.

    The money raised will provide support to help people all over the world.Start collecting your sponsors now and then simply come along on the day.Please read the instructions below carefully,especially if you require transport to and from Weldown.

    See you on Sunday 15 April.

    V Jessop: Walk coordinator

    PS.Well done to last year's walkers for helping to raise a grand total of ￡21,000.The money has already been used to build a children's playground.

    START TIME:

    30 km: 8-10 am      20 km: 8-10:30 am      10 km: 8-11:30 am

    The organizers reserve the right to refuse late-comers.

    CLOTHING should be suitable for the weather.If rain is forecast,bring some protection and be prepared for all possibilities.It is better to wear shoes that have been worn in,rather than ones that are new.

    ROUTE MAPS will be available from the registration point.The route will be sign-posted and arranged.Where the route runs along the road,walkers should keep to one side in single file,facing oncoming traffic at all times.If you need help along the route,please inform one of the staff.

    Free car parking is available in car parks and on streets in Weldown.

    BUSES:

    For the 10 and 20 kilometers' routes,a bus will be waiting at Fenton to take walkers back to Weldown.The bus will leave every half hour starting at midday.The service is free and there is no need to book.

    In February, 2015, a South Korean woman was sleeping on the floor when her robot vacuum ate her hair, forcing her to call for emergency help. It surely isn't what Stephen Hawking warned us that intelligent devices “mean the end of the human race”. But it does highlight one of the unexpected dangers of inviting robots into our home.

    There are many examples of intelligent technology going bad, but more often than not, they involve cheating rather than physical danger. Meanwhile, increasing evidence suggests that we, especially children, tend to tell our deepest, darkest secrets to human robots. So how do we protect ourselves from giving-away code?

    Once you've invited a robot into your home, you need to manage your expectations. Movies and marketing may have told us to expect deep interaction with robots friends but we've still got a long way to go before they are as socially aware as described. Given the gulf between expectation and reality, it's important to avoid being tricked.

    The message is clear: as robots became increasingly connected to the internet, and able to respond to natural language, you need to especially cautious about figuring out who or what you are talking about.

    We also need to think about how information is being stored and shared when it comes to robots that can record our every move. Some recording devices may have been designed for entertainment but can easily be adapted for more dangerous purposes. Take Nixie, the wearable camera that can fly off your wrist at a moment's notice and take shots around you in the air. It doesn't take much imagination to see how such technology could be taken advantage of.

    If the technology around us is able to record and process speech, images and movement, or listen secretly to us, what will happen to that information? Where will it be stored? Who will have access?

    So, what is the safest way to welcome robots into our homes, public spaces, and social lives? We should be cautiously optimistic that intelligent machines could become enriching companions, while acknowledging that we need to determine strict boundaries for robots. There should be someone to turn to should your robot commit a crime, steal your card... or try to eat your hair.

    I left university with a good degree in English Literature, but no sense of what I wanted to do. Over the next six years, __________ just trying to earn an income. I tried journalism, but I didn't think I was any good, then finance, which I hated. Finally, I got a job as a rights assistant at a famous publisher. I loved working with books, although the job that I did was dull.

    I had enough savings to take a year off work, and I decided to try to satisfy a deep-down wish to write a novel. Attending a Novel Writing MA course gave me the structure I needed to write my first 55,000 words.

    It takes confidence to make a new start — there's a dark period in-between where you're neither one thing nor the other. You're out for dinner and people ask what you do, and you're too ashamed to say, "Well, I'm writing a novel, but I'm not quite sure if I'm going to get there." My confidence dived. Believing my novel could not be published.

    I put it aside.

    Then I met an agent(代理商)who said I should send my novel out to agents. So, I did and, to my surprise, got some wonderful feedback. I felt a little hope that I might actually become a published writer and, after signing with an agent, I finished the second half of the novel.

The next problem was finding a publisher. After two-and-a-half years of no income, just waiting and wondering, a publisher offered me a book deal — that publisher turned out to be the one I once worked for.

    It feels like an unbelievable stroke of luck — of fate, really. When you set out to do something different, there's no end in sight, so to find myself in a position where I now have my own name on a contract of the publisher — to be a published writer — is unbelievably rewarding.

    There was an earthquake this morning. I was working in front of my computer when it hit the city. The quake started with a sudden loud noise. I thought that something heavy in a neighbor's house probably had fallen. However, the walls and the floor began to shake. I finally realized it was an earthquake.

    My son Zac, a sixteen­year­old boy, was sleeping with his door locked. Being sixteen, he can sleep through any kind of noise. "Zac!" I shouted. "Are you OK?" But nobody replied. I was a little worried. I couldn't imagine that someone was able to get such a deep sleep. The house was dancing. There were waves in the swimming pool. I was afraid the house would come down. "Zac!" I yelled, knocking on his door with an open palm (手掌). "Zac! Wake up! It's an earthquake! We need to get out!"

    My son finally emerged in his underpants. We looked around the room. I knew that we should hide under a table to stop things from falling on us and stay away from glass. Unfortunately, none of our furniture was designed for hiding under. "Should we go into the garden?" Zac asked. "No, trees could fall on us!" I said. Actually, Zac had done earthquake drills (训练) at school. He must have been told to hide under a desk and cover his head. But we had nothing to cover our heads in the house.

    Luckily, before we took any action, the windows stopped moving and the pool calmed down. Everything went back to normal soon. But both my son and I knew what we should do, because we knew if there had been a really big earthquake this morning, we couldn't have escaped from it.

Plastic sludge (污泥) and garbage is a disaster for the world's oceans. A film crew traveled the globe to document the rubbish. And Julie Andersen of the Plastic Oceans Foundation says what we see is just the tip of the problem. "Half of the waste actually sinks to the bottom, and that remains on the surface actually breaks down. "

The filmmakers found rubbish in ocean gyres, the circulating currents that trap large concentrations of pollution in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans, home of what some have plastic. "What we found was a plastic smog that spread throughout all the water. And in some parts of the oceans, scientists have found more plastic than plant. "

The pieces of the plastic garbage infect the food chain, sometimes visibly，and more so at the microscopic level, where the plastic particles interact with other pollutants. "There are heavy metals, medicines, industrial waste in the sea, while they acts like magnets (磁铁). These poisonous substances absorb on the plastic, and then when seafood absorbs the plastics, those poisonous substances enter the fatty tissues. " To be consumed by other sea life and by people at last.

China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam are the worst plastic polluters. The United States, although a leader in recycling, is one of the world's 20 since it produces and consumes so much plastic. There are efforts around the world to address the problem, including at this newly opened recycling center in Lebanon (黎巴嫩). But Andersen says there is more that people can do. "Cut back on single­use plastics, straws, plastic cups, plastic water bottles, plastic bags and find alternatives like reusable materials. " She says healthy oceans are essential to our survival.