Life is comprised emotion and sense. When we were babies we reached the pinnacle(顶峰) of emotion. At that time we asked for everything that we wanted, cried as we were uncomfortable, laughed as we were happy and released our emotions day and night. When we grow up we find that if we want to live in a cozier environment we must be sensible enough to deal with our emotions and relationships. Our world is based on sense and beautified by emotion.

    Sense is the base of life; it builds up the structure of life, and helps us see the real world. And emotion is the invaluable element of life. It adds colorful paint to our life. Lacking sense we may lose the guiding light and lacking emotion we may lose the value of life.

    We admire Da Vinci's Mona Lisa, we are attracted by Michelangelo's The Creation of Man, and we are carried away by Monet's Lotus. Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet may bring us tears, Victor Hugo's poems can make a maid's love revive, and Jane Austin's stories arouse our dream of holding a party of ladies and gentlemen as an England beauty in the countryside. All of them are people who deserve our respect and showed us sentimental emotion: love, hatred, betrayal, loyalty and so on. They made their works full of emotion, shocked our nerves, and evoked our passions. Somebody may have found their destiny in these works, and surely they influence people time after time. But in fact, though these people or their works have the power to control our mental world, we don't choose them to be our President or Prime Minister. We cannot deny the fact that our world is based on sense and ration. Mark Twain once said that the passion of friendship is so sweet, steady and royal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime if neither of the two friends asks the other to lend money.

    Emotion is our nature and sense gives us an eye to live in reality. Only sense makes Jack a dull boy; emotional moments give us vigor and enthusiasm to live and color our life.

My First Marathon（马拉松）

    A month before my first marathon, one of my ankles was injured and this meant not running for two weeks, leaving me only two weeks to train. Yet, I was determined to go ahead.

    I remember back to my 7th year in school. In my first P.E. class, the teacher required us to run laps and then hit a softball. I didn't do either well. He later informed me that I was ＂not athletic＂.

    The idea that I was ＂not athletic＂ stuck with me for years. When I started running in my 30s, I realized running was a battle against myself, not about competition or whether or not I was athletic. It was all about the battle against my own body and mind. A test of wills!

    The night before my marathon, I dreamed that I couldn't even find the finish line. I woke up sweating and nervous, but ready to prove something to myself.

    Shortly after crossing the start line, my shoe laces(鞋带) became untied. So I stopped to readjust. Not the start I wanted!

    At mile 3, I passed a sign: ＂GO FOR IT, RUNNERS!＂

    By mile 17, I became out of breath and the once injured ankle hurt badly. Despite the pain, I stayed the course walking a bit and then running again.

    By mile 21, I was starving!

    As I approached mile 23, I could see my wife waving a sign. She is my biggest fan. She never minded the alarm clock sounding at 4 a.m. or questioned my expenses on running.

    I was one of the final runners to finish. But I finished! And I got a medal. In fact, I got the same medal as the one that the guy who came in first place had.gkstk

    Determined to be myself, move forward, free of shame and worldly labels(世俗标签), I can now call myself a ＂marathon winner＂.

    Reading can be a social activity. Think of the people who belong to book groups. They choose books to read and then meet to discuss them. Now, the website BookCrossing.com turns the page on the traditional idea of a book group.

    Members go on the site and register the books they own and would like to share. BookCrossing provides an ID number to stick inside the book. Then the person leaves it in a public place, hoping that the book will have an adventure, traveling far and wide with each new reader who finds it.

    Bruce Pederson, the managing director of BookCrossing, says "The two things that change your life are the people you meet and books you read. BookCrossing combines both."

    Members leave books on park benches and buses, in train stations and coffee shops. Whoever finds their book will go to the site and record where they found it.

People who find a book can also leave a journal entry describing what they thought of it. E-mails are then sent to the BookCrossers to keep them updated about where their books have been found. Bruce Pederson says the idea is for people not to be selfish by keeping a book to gather dust on a shelf at home.

    BookCrossing is part of a trend among people who want to get back the "real" and not the virtual(虚拟). The site now has more than one million members in more than one hundred thirty-five countries.

    MacArthur's love for sailing dates back to when she was just four years of age, when she first got the opportunity to have a try. "I'll never forget that feeling as a kid of setting foot on a boat for the first time," MacArthur said. "It's kind of struck me that this boat had everything we needed to take us anywhere in the world. And as a child, that opened up everything," she explained how it felt like the "greatest sense of freedom".

    This experience lighted a passion within MacArthur. She knew then that she wanted to sail around the world. She had no idea how to achieve it — growing up in the countryside, it wasn't the most obvious career path — but she knew that was what she wanted to do at some stage. So, she acquired knowledge and saved up for years to seek a career in sailing. She would have potato and beans every day for eight years so that she could save up to buy the right equipment. By reaching certain financial goals and asking technical questions about sailing, MacArthur felt as though she was getting closer to her ambitions.

    "When you know where you're going, you can actually get there — even if it seems impossible. The impossible could be possible and aiming high is not necessarily such a crazy thing to do." And it seems that MacArthur's drive to become a sailor went beyond her expectations. At the age of 24, she started to receive media attention after participating in the Vendee Globe, a single-handed non-stop yacht (游艇) race that goes around the world. She came in second place. Some three to four years later, MacArthur chose to sail for 71 days and 14 hours, covering more than 26,000 miles during the course of her journey. This led to MacArthur scoring a new world record in 2005, as the fastest person to sail around the globe single-handedly. While this record has since been surpassed, MacArthur is still considered as Britain's most successful off shore racer.

    Painkillers (止痛药) are turning out to be a real pain: according to a new study in the British Medical Journal. Taking them for just a week can increase your risk of heart attack by 50%. The research suggested that the risk related to the use of certain drugs was greatest with higher doses (服用量) and during the first month of use. The potential risk may increase by 75% for medicines like ibuprofen (布洛芬) and naproxen, and more than 100% for rofecoxib.

    It all sounds bad but, your risk is very low, — say, one in a million — a 100% increase means you still only have a two in a million chance. Of course, all painkilling medication that works can have side effects — nothing is safe and effective. Paracetamol (扑热息痛) has very few unless taken too much, in which case it can cause serious liver danger, but it isn't very effective. Drugs like opiates are strong painkillers but easy to be addicted and often have other bad effects. Maybe you find that you are in a dilemma now. But don't despair; you can refer to a pain clinic for some professional guidance. For ongoing pain, music and exercise may be the best choices to help you reduce the feeling of it.

    Scientist at Harvard have recently done a quite horrible study on mice. They made the mice experience extremes of hot and cold, applied pressure to their back legs and injected the capsaicin (辣椒素) into their feet. And then they timed how long it took them to respond to the pain. Lack of sleep increased the discomfort, while stimulants (兴奋剂) such as caffeine made them less responsive to pain. This has been widely reported that a good night's sleep and a cup of coffee in the morning may help reduce pain.

    But anyway  don't throw the pills away because the study also shows taking small doses of drugs, such as for short periods of time can be effective and safe as long as your heart is in good condition.

Two women going on a journey to green their city is the best way to describe the founders of Utility, Portland's low-waste and reuse company. It started in January 2019 and opened its first retail shop in April. Its founders, Rebecca Rottman and Nadine Appenbrink, are deeply committed to sustainability and supporters of zero waste.

They started Utility as a second job for both and as a personal journey, looking for clean products that didn't come in plastic. Their goal is to reduce the amount of single-use plastics by allowing people to bring their own reusable containers when they buy environmental friendly home and personal care items.

Every week the women teamed up with local stores to sell their goods and to refill products for returning customers. Now they are operating only online for pickup or local delivery in the Portland area. It is really easy, the company said. Just shop online and choose a container. Then select pickup or delivery. The products include all-natural dish bar soap and a wide variety of plastic-free kitchen tools.

While not completely zero waste, Utility is striving to get extremely close. Appenbrink said, "We are all on a journey. And we want to be as approachable as possible. Utility is to raise awareness about this lifestyle." They are focused on careful growth because Utility will never ship products because of the carbon footprint involved in shipping.

There are zero waste stores in other communities, like Clean Kilo in Birmingham UK, but they are real brick and mortar (实体的) buildings. Utility's concept is so simple that it can be followed almost anywhere. Zero waste markets are the way to the circular economy that is needed to stop plastic waste, reduce our carbon footprint and have a sustainable future.