In the fall of 1985, I was a bright-eyed girl heading off to Howard University to study law, aiming at a legal career and dreaming of sitting on a Supreme Court bench somewhere. Twenty-one years later I am still a bright-eyed dreamer and one with quite a different tale to tell.

    My grandma, an amazing woman, graduated from college at the age of 65. She was the first in our family to reach that goal. But one year after I started college, she developed cancer. I made the choice to withdraw from college to care for her. It meant that school and my personal dream would have to wait.

    Then I got married with another dream: building my family with a combination of adopt and biological children. In 1999, we adopted our first son. To lay eyes on him was fantastic and very emotional. A year later came our second adopted boy. Then followed son No.3. In 2003, I gave birth to another boy.

    You can imagine how busy I became, raising four boys under the age of 8. Our home was a complete zoo--a joyous zoo. Not surprisingly, I never did make it back to college full-time. But I never gave up on the dream either. I had only one choice: to find a way. That meant taking as few as one class each semester.

    The hardest part was feeling guilty about the time I spent away from the boys. They often wanted me to stay home with them. There certainly were times I wanted to quit, but I knew I should set an example for them to follow through the rest of their lives.

    In 2007, I graduated from the University of North Carolina. It took me over 21 years to get my college degree!

    I am not special, just single-minded. It always struck me that when you're looking at a big challenge from the outside it looks huge, but when you're in the midst of it, it just seems normal. Everything you want won't arrive in your life on one day. It's a process. Remember: little steps add up to big dreams.

    Teenagers like watching TV, but their weight problem is becoming more and more serious. Sports shoes that work out whether their owner has done enough exercise to assure time in front of the television have been designed in the UK.

    The shoes named Square Eves contain an electronic pressure sensor and a tiny computer chip to record how many steps the weather has taken in a day. A wireless transmitter (发射器) passes the information to a receiver connected to a television, and this decides how much evening viewing time the wearer deserves, based on the day's efforts.

    The design was inspired by a desire to fight against the rapidly ballooning waistlines among British teenagers, says Gillian Swan, who developed Square Eyes as a final year design project at Brunel University in London, UK. We looked at current issues and childhood overweight really stood out,” she says. "And I wanted to deal with that with my design.”

    Once a child has used up their daily allowance gained through exercise, the television automatically switches off. And further time in front of the TV can only be earned through more steps.

    Swan calculated how exercise should translate to television time using the recommended daily amounts of both. Health experts suggest that a child take 12,000 steps each day and watch no more than two hours of television. So, every 100 steps recorded by the Square Eyes shoes equals precisely one minute of TV time.

    Existing pedometer (计步器) normally clip onto a belt or slip into a pocket and keep count of steps by measuring sudden movement. Swan says these can be easily tricked into recording steps through shaking. But her shoe has been built to be harder for lazy teenagers to cheat. “It is possible, but it would be a lot of effort,” she says. “That was one of my main design considerations.”

    Orlando, the “Theme Park Capital of the world,” has enough to keep your family entertained for weeks. Four Best gives you a description of what each of these parks has to offer.

    Aquatica Orlando

    Aquatica Orlando brings the best of an aquarium(水族馆), zoo, water park and amusement park together into one experience. With 38 slides, 84,000 acres of white sand beach, you can easily spend the entire day enjoying the Florida sun with your family. Don't miss the Dolphin Plunge, a clear tube water slide that takes you through the dolphin habitat.

    LEGOLAND Florida

    LEGOLAND Florida, the largest LEGOLAND park in the world, features 50 rides, shows and attractions spread out over the Lego-strewn 150-acres. If you're traveling with younger kids, LEGOLAND makes a great choice since it's designed for kids between the ages of 3 and 12. Besides, Buddy is our walk-around character mascot(吉祥物)of the park. He's tall, yellow, friendly, and loves taking pictures with LEGOLAND Florida guests.

    Discovery Cove

    With guest access restricted to 1,300 per day, Discovery Cove feels more like a resort than a theme park. Without crowds to worry about, you'll get to enjoy up-close animal meetings with dolphins, sting rays, tropical fish and exotic birds. It's all-inclusive too, so you won't have to worry about food, towels or equipment.

    Disney's Animal Kingdom

    At the Animal Kingdom, Disney changes the concept of a zoological park to something completely new. Here you can take a ride through the wilds of Africa, complete with real animals, raft down the Amazon or ride a runaway train through Mount Everest. The park is home to about 1,500 animals representing 250 species.

    Six months ago,Jack came to china to study.He has heard that Yanghou is famous for its gardens. And he plans to visit some gardens in July, so he has collected information about them online as follows:

    The Slender West Lake named National AAAAA Tourist Area in 2010, includes the Great Rainbow Bridge, the White Pagoda, Five-pavilion Bridge, the Twenty-four Bridge, the Small Golden Hill and so on. The best time to tour the Slender West Lake is in March. During the visit to the park, the boat travels on the water and visitors travel in the picture.

    Ticket: Mar. - May. ¥ 150; Other months ¥90

    Time: 8:30 - 17:00

    Bus: No. 4, 5, 6, 17, 61 buses

    Tel: 0514-87357803; 0514-87370091

    Website: http://www.shouxihu.com

    Ge Garden, one of the four lop famous Chinese gardens, got its name from bamboo. The bamboo in the garden forms the green scenery. The centre of the garden is well known for man-like hills. Four seasons can be experienced here at a time.

    Ticket: Mar. - May. ¥ 10; Other months ¥30

    Time: Mar. - May. 7:15 - 18:00; Other months 7:15 - 17:30

    Bus: No. 8, 30, 61 buses

    Tel: 0514-87935285

    Website: http://www.gy-garden.net

    He garden, the most famous garden in the late Qing Dynasty, is known for its long double-way corridor(走廊), which is regarded as the earliest footbridge.

    Ticket: Mar. - May. ¥ 40; Other months ¥30

    Time: 7:30 - 17:15

    Bus: No. 19, 61 buses

    Te: 0514-87900345; 0514-87222353

    Website: http://www.he-garden.net

    Scientists are studying different foods, and they will see which foods protect us from cancer (癌症), and which cause it. It is known that a healthy diet (饮食) will help keep a healthy body weight, which can also decrease the risk (风险) of many types of cancer.

    Fruit and vegetables

    Fruit and vegetables are an important part of a healthy diet. They can decrease the risk of some cancer types like mouth and throat cancer. They are a good source of many important nutrients such as vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, and are an excellent source of fiber.

    Our advice

    Try to get plenty of fruit and vegetables in your diet. Eating fruit and vegetables with a variety of colors will help you get many kinds of vitamins and minerals as the chemicals that give these foods their colors are good for you.

    Meat

    Eating lots of red and processed meat can increase (增加) your risk of stomach cancer. Red meat includes all fresh and frozen beef, pork and lamb. Processed meat includes ham, bacon and sausage. White meat, such as chicken, is unlikely to increase your risk of cancer.

    Our advice

    Eat smaller and fewer parts of red and processed meat. Try using beans or peas instead of meat in your diet. When you cook meat, use low-temperature methods.

    Fat

    Fat is a necessary part of our diet but high-fat diet can increase our risk of cancer, heart disease and other diseases. Meat is higher in saturated fat (饱和脂肪) and eating too much saturated fat may increase your risk of breast cancer.

    Our advice

    Try not to eat too much fatty foods. In particular, try to cut down on saturated fat contained in fatty meat, biscuits, and butter. Try to avoid frying foods in lots of oil.

    Can you imagine a world without music? Studies show that public schools across the country are cutting back on music classes to save money. Even worse, some schools have never had music classes to begin with. But without them, students' academic (学术的) growth and spiritual health could suffer. In fact, music classes are necessary for all students in schools.

    Recent studies Brown University have shown that students who received music education classes were better in math and reading skills than those without music classes. Another study by The College Board found that students taking music and art classes got higher points. Students' academic success seems to depend on their taking part in music education.

    Music programs in public schools also help to add to a student's sense of pride and self-confidence. Teens today have too many learning tasks. Besides, they have family problems, self-confidence problems, relations hip troubles, and choices about smoke and alcohol (酒精). All of these can stop academic success, but music education can help. A study by The Texas Commission on Drug and Alcohol Abuse found that students who took part in school music programs were less likely to turn to smoke. Music programs encourage students to work together to produce an excellent performance.

    Music crosses language, class and culture. Music allows students from different countries to connect. For example, at a school talent show, a new Japanese student played a piano duet (二重奏) with an American classmate. Two students from different cultures worked as a team with self-confidence and common purpose through music.

    The gift of music is priceless. We need to be sure to have necessary music classes for all students. The world is losing its music, and putting music into schools is the first step to get it back.