Big Brothers Big Sisters is based on the simplicity and power of friendship．It is a program which provides friendship and fun by matching vulnerable young people (ages 7-17) with a volunteer adult who can be both a role model and a supportive friend.

    Volunteer tutors come from all walks of life—married, single, with or without children. Big Brothers and Big Sisters are not replacement parents or social workers. They are tutors: someone to trust, to have fun with, to talk and go to when needed.

    A Big Sister and Little Sister will generally spend between one and four hours together three or four times each month for at least twelve months. They enjoy simple activities such as a picnic at a park, cooking, playing sport or going to a football match. These activities improve the friendship and help the young person develop positive self-respect, confidence and life direction.

    Big Brothers Big Sisters organizations exist throughout the world. It is the largest and most well-known provider of tutor services internationally and has been operating for 25 years.

    Emily and Sarah have been matched since 2008. Emily is a 10-year-old girl who has experienced some difficulties being accepted by her schoolmates at school. “ I was pretty sure there was something wrong with me.”

    Emily's mum came across Big Brothers Big Sisters and thought it would be of benefit to Emily by “providing different feedback (反馈) about herself other than just relying on schoolmates to measure her self-worth.

    Sarah wanted to get involved in a volunteer program. “I googled it and found out how to be a part of it. I thought it would be fun for me to get involved in making time to do something because sometimes it is all work and no play.”

    Big Brothers Big Sisters has been of great benefit and enjoyment to both Emily and Sarah. They love and look forward to their time together and the partnership has certainly helped Emily be more comfortable in being the wonderful, happy and unique girl she is!

    Have you ever wondered why people drive on a different side of the road? It might seem bizarre that U. K. drivers stay on the left, but they're not the only ones. Around 35 percent of the world population do the same, including people in Ireland, Japan, and some Caribbean islands.

    Originally, almost everybody traveled on the left side of the road. However their way of transport was quite different from today: Think about four legs instead of four wheels. For Medieval swordsmen on horseback, it made sense to keep to the left to have their right arms closer to their enemies. Getting on or off was also easier from the left side of the horse, and safer done by the side of the road than in the center.

    So why did people stop traveling on the left? Things changed in the late 1700s when large wagons (货车) pulled by several pairs of horses were used to transport farm products in France and the United States. The wagon driver sat behind the left horse, with his right arm free to use his whip to keep the horses moving. Since he was sitting on the left position, he wanted other wagons to pass on his left, so he kept to the right side of the road.

    The British Government refused to give up their left-hand driving ways, and in 1773 introduced the General Highways Act, which encouraged driving on the left. This was later made law thanks to The Highway Act of 1835.

    When Henry Ford showed his Model T in 1908, the driver's seat was on the left, meaning that cars would have to drive on the right hand side of the road to allow front and back passengers to exit the car onto the roadside. However, British drivers remain on the left, and this is highly unlikely to change.

    Graph can be a very useful tool for conveying information especially numbers， percentages, and other data . A graph gives the reader a picture to interpret. That can be a lot more pages and pages and pages explaining the data .

    Graphs can seem frightening, but reading a graph is a lot like reading a story. The graph has a title ,a main idea ,and supporting details.You can use your active reading skills to analyze and understand graphs just like any other text .

    Most graphs have a few basic parts: a caption or introduction paragraph, a title , a legend or key, and labeled axes. An active reader looks at each part of the graph before trying to interpret the data. Captions will usually tell you where the data came from (for example, a scientific study of 400 African elephants from 1980 to 2005). Captions usually summarize the author's main point as well. The title is very important. It tells you the main idea of the graph by stating what kind of information is being shown. A legend, also called a key ,is a guide to the symbols and colors used in the graph. Many graphs, including bar graphs and line graphs, have two axes that form a corner, Usually these axes are the left side and the bottom of the graph .Each axis will always have a label. The label tells you what each axis measures.

Bar Graphs

    A bar graph has two axes and uses bars to show amounts. In Graph 1 ,we see that the x-axis shows grades that students earned, and the y-axis shows bow many students earned each grade .You can see that 6 students earned an A because the bar for A stretches up to 6 on the vertical measurement. There is a lot of information we can get from a simple graph like this(See Graph 1).

Line Graphs

    A line graph looks similar to a bar graph ,but instead of Bars, it plots points and connects them with a line .It has the same parts as a bar graph – two labeled axes –and can be read the same way .To read a line graph, it's important to focus on the points of intersection rather than the line segments between the points, This type of graph is most commonly used to show how something changes over time.

    Here is a graph that charts how far a bird flies during the first Five days of its spring migration (See Graph 2).

    The unit of measurement for the x-axis is days. The unit of measurement for the y-axis is kilometers. Thus we can see that ,on the first day, the pipit flew 20 kilometers. The line segment goes up between Day 1 and Day 2,which means that the bird flew farther on Day 2.If the line segment angled dawn, as between Day 4 and Day 5,it would mean that the bird flew fewer  kilometers than the day before. This line graph is a quick, visual way to tell the reader about the bird's migration.

    Pie Graphs

    A typical pie graph looks like a circular pie. The circle is divided into sections, and each section represents a fraction of the data. The graph is commonly used to show percentages; the whole pie represents l00 percent, so each piece is a fraction of the whole.

    A pie graph might include a legend，or it might use icons or labels within each slice. This pie graph shows on month's expense, (See Graph 3 ).

    Food $ 25

    Movies $ 12

    Clothing $ 36

    Savings $ 20

    Books $ 7

    Nearly everyone has bad habits. That's because, try as we might, bad habits are hard to break. On the other side, good habits, such as eating more healthfully or exercising regularly, never seem to stick. As a result, most people throw up their hands and surrender.

    But now a new book, Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives by best-selling author Gretchen Rubin, offers some useful solutions.

    Rubin, who became interested in habits during her research on happiness, which resulted in two popular books, The Happiness Project (2009) and Happier at Home (2012), found that our inability to master unwanted behaviors was a major downer (令人沮丧的因素). So, after guiding millions of readers down the path of true contentedness, Rubin turned her investigative skills toward habits.

    Her most important find? Change is possible if we do some soul searching and identify how we respond to expectations. And, just about everybody falls into one of four personality categories: Questioners, Obligers, Rebels and Upholders.

    Rubin believes herself to be a classic Upholder, someone who forms habits relatively easily because she responds well to both other people's deadlines and her own. As to the other types, Questioners will only form a habit if it makes sense to them; Obligers work hard to meet other people's expectations but often let themselves down. And Rebels resent (反感) habits.

    "Think about the habit that you want to form and then think: "What's everything I could do to set myself up for success?" says Rubin. For example, if you want to exercise more and you're an Obliger, call your friend who lives across the street and meet at 6：30 every morning for a walk.

    One common pitfall (陷阱), says Rubin, especially when it comes to changing your diet, is lack of clarity (清楚). "You can't make a habit out of eating more healthfully, "she says. Instead, your habit should be something like: "I'm going to pack a lunch every day and bring it to work instead of eating out."

    As for exercise, Rubin recommends a strategy called pairing—coupling two activities, one that you need or want to do and one that you don't particularly want to do. Rubin, for example, only allows herself to read magazines while on fitness equipment at the gym.

A 50- minute drive northwest of downtown Beijing, pops up a village, {#blank#}1{#/blank#} houses a shadow puppetry troupe(皮影戏剧团) and a theater, Beijing Long Zaitian Shadow Puppetry Theater. 

Shadow puppetry {#blank#}2{#/blank#}( see) as the prequel(前篇) to film and animation in China. In2011, the art landed a spot on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List. 

Besides performances {#blank#}3{#/blank#}( create) by light and shadow, performers must master multiple skills as the plays combine painting, carving, opera {#blank#}4{#/blank#} literature. However, due to low income and a small market, few young people are willing {#blank#}5{#/blank#} ( learn) shadow puppetry. 

This particular troupe, however, stands out from the crowd: Average performer age is only 25. Moreover, of the 300 performers it has trained over the years, many are under 1. 4m in {#blank#}6{#/blank#} ( high). 

In 2006, Wang Xi, inheritor of Beijing Western- School Shadow Puppetry, {#blank#}7{#/blank#}( establish) the troup e in Beijing, and {#blank#}8{#/blank#} first four very short persons joined her two years later. After a four- month training, they picked up basic performance skills and started working in the theater. 

In 2021, the team designed Winter Olympics- themed shadow puppets. The puppets were gifted to foreign athletes during the Games. The troup e also staged {#blank#}9{#/blank#}( variety) plays introducing ice and snow sports through fairy tales. 

" We are lucky to have these people. They have been devoted {#blank#}10{#/blank#} the inheritance of shadow puppetry for over a decade, " Wang Xi said. 

Oklahoma, one of America's Southwest Region, is full of fascinating history. While much can be learned about the state's past by visiting larger urban areas like Oklahoma City, the state capital, and Tulsa, those in the know will include at least a few smaller towns on their travel plans.

Guthrie

Guthrie was Oklahoma's first state capital and a focal point of the Land Run of 1889, an important event that saw thousands of settlers rushing to claim land across the Southwest. Guthrie Historic District is one of the best-preserved collections of Victorian-era architecture in the United States and encompasses over 2,000 buildings, including the Oklahoma Territorial Museum and Carnegie Library, home to fascinating exhibits about Guthrie's early years.

Ardmore

Ardmore became an important hub for the nation's oil boom of the early 20th century. Its downtown retains much of its historic charm and early wealth, including the Santa Fe Depot, built in1915, which now houses the Greater Southwest Historical Museum. The Ardmore Public Library, dating to 1905, is another significant site that has been well-preserved, as is the Colcord Building, constructed in 1894 and one of Oklahoma' s oldest standing structures built with steel (it's now a luxurious 4-star hotel under Hilton's Curio brand). Be sure to also head out into the surrounding Arbuckle Mountains and nearby Lake Murray for a scenic drive.

Pawhuska

Pawhuska is the heart of the Osage Nation and played an important role in Oklahoma's oil boom. The town's fascinating past is enshrined in landmarks like the Osage Nation Museum, established in1938, and the oldest tribally owned museum in America, which describes Osage history, art, and culture vividly; while the 1914 Constantine Theatre is a striking reminder of early 20th-century entertainment that continues to host performances.