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     If you could have one superpower, what would it be?

     Dreaming about whether you would want to read minds, see through walls, or have superhuman strength may sound silly, but it actually gets to the heart of what really matters in your life.

     Every day in our work, we are inspired by the people we meet doing extraordinary things to improve the world.

     They have a different kind of superpower that all of us possess: the power to make a difference in the lives of others.

We're not saying that everyone needs to contribute their lives to the poor. Your lives are busy enough doing homework, playing sports, making friends, seeking after your dreams. But we do think that you can live a more powerful life when you devote some of your time and energy to something much larger than yourself. Find an issue you are interested in and learn more. Volunteer or, if you can, contribute a little money to a cause. Whatever you do, don't be a bystander. Get involved. You may have the opportunity to make your biggest difference when you're older. But why not start now?

     Our own experience working together on health, development, and energy the last twenty years has been one of the most rewarding parts of our lives. It has changed who we are and continues to fuel our optimism about how much the lives of the poorest people will improve in the years ahead.

    This is a European Company which produces elevators all over the world. These two positions are based in their R&D center.

    Please send your resume and cover letter to edison.shi@adecco.com

    Volunteering abroad is a great way to help others, improve your skills and become a more confident, independent person. If you are interested in volunteering abroad, here are some places to go.

    Australia

    If you seek a life on the beach, in a great climate with friendly people, Australia might be your best bet. With thousands of volunteers already signing up to leave for Australia during the holidays, it will be a very popular option.

    Brazil

    This vast country has some great opportunities on offer and is especially popular this year. A lot of volunteer work is available in Brazil centers on conservation and ecological projects. With the world's largest rainforest in Brazil, of which huge part is in danger, there are lots of different jobs you can do.

    Kenya

    Kenya is the destination for those seeking an African experience. Generally volunteers in Kenya work in orphanages(孤儿院)or with local children living in slums(贫民窟). There is a great demand for volunteers in Africa because many people live in poverty, so if you truly feel like making a difference to a community, Kenya should be at the top of your list.

    Costa Rica

    Golden sandy beaches, clear coastlines and beautiful cities are what Costa Rica is all about. Because of its small size, you can see a lot of the country in just a short time. You can really make the most of your time as a volunteer. A lot of work is needed with wildlife and ecological work, so if you want to look after turtles on the beach, Costa Rica could be just the place for you

    According to Guglielmo Cavallo and Roger Chartier, reading aloud was a common practice in the ancient world, the Middle Ages, and as late as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Readers were “listeners attentive to a reading voice,” and “the text addressed to the ear as much as to the eye.” The significance of reading aloud continued well into the nineteenth century.

    Using Charles Dickens's nineteenth century as a point of departure, it would be useful to look at the familial and social uses of reading aloud and reflect on the functional change of the practice. Dickens habitually read his work to a domestic audience or friends. In his later years he also read to a broader public crowd Chapters of reading aloud also abound in Dickens's own literary works. More importantly, he took into consideration the Victorian practice when composing his prose, so much so that his writing is meant to be heard, not only read on the page.

    Performing a literary text orally in a Victorian family is well documented. Apart from promoting a pleasant family relationship, reading aloud was also a means of protecting young people from the danger of solitary (孤独的) reading. Reading aloud was a tool for parental guidance. By means of reading aloud, parents could also introduce literature to their children, and as such the practice combined leisure and more serious purposes such as religious cultivation in the youths. Within the family, it was commonplace for the father to read aloud Dickens read to his children: one of his surviving and often-reprinted photographs features him posing on a chair, reading to his two daughters.

    Reading aloud in the nineteenth century was as much a class phenomenon as a family affair, which points to a widespread belief that Victorian readership primarily meant a middle-class readership, Those who fell outside this group tended to be overlooked by Victorian publishers。Despite this, Dickens, with his publishers Chapman and Hall, managed to distribute literary reading materials to people from different social classes by reducing the price of novels. This was also made possible with the technological and mechanical advances in printing and the spread of railway networks at the time.

    Since the literacy level of this section of the population was still low before school attendance was made compulsory in 1870 by the Education Act, a considerable number of people from lower classes would listen to recitals of texts. Dickens's readers, who were from such social backgrounds, might have heard Dickens in this manner. Several biographers of Dickens also draw attention to the fact that it was typical for his texts to be read aloud in Victorian England, and thus illiteracy was not an obstacle for reading Dickens. Reading was no longer a chiefly closeted form of entertainment practiced by the middle class at home.

    A working-class home was in many ways not convenient for reading: there were too many distractions, the lighting was bad, and the home was also often half a workhouse. As a result, the Victorians from the non-middle classes tended to find relaxation outside the home such as in parks and squares, which were ideal places for the public to go while away their limited leisure time. Reading aloud, in particular public reading, to some extent blurred the distinctions between classes. The Victorian middle class defined its identity through differences with other classes. Dickens's popularity among readers from the non-middle classes contributed to the creation of a new class of readers who read through listening.

    Different readers of Dickens were not reading solitarily and “jealously,” to use Walter Benjamin's term. Instead, they often enjoyed a more communal experience, an experience that is generally lacking in today's world. Modem audiobooks can be considered a contemporary version of the practice. However, while the twentieth- and twentieth-first-century trend for individuals to listen to audiobooks keeps some eharacteristics of traditional reading aloud-such as “listeners attentive to a reading voice” and the ear being the focus—it is a far more solitary activity.

    Music is magic! Music speaks louder than words and it is a "language" that the whole world can understand. A piece of music can produce a response in the heart and mind. Like feeling an electrical current or receiving a personal radio signal, music has a spiritual effect on a person. Different kinds of music influence people in different ways.

    I have listened to music all my life. When I was twelve years old, the Beatles came to America and my whole world opened up. Maybe young people today cannot understand the influence of the Beatles when they exploded across America. Their influence changed the way we dressed, looked, acted and spoke, even our culture. The Beatles arrived in America from the UK just three months after the assassination(暗杀) of President John Kennedy, which had put America into a great depression. And the freshness and lively spirit of the Beatles was exactly what the country needed to refresh itself.

    Music links the heart of the hearer with that of the composer. This means that it mixes the spirit of the composer with your spirit when you listen to it. And the music can take your spirit out of your body and transport you into another world. Music has a great way of touching people. Music can make you laugh, cry or shout. It's also a great source of inspiration.

    Try this one day and notice what happens: make yourself a cup of tea, sit on your sofa and play one of your favorite songs. Close your eyes, and soon you'll find yourself creating vivid mental images matching the music that you are listening to.

A clever technologist took steamboat inventions and turned them into the first commercial steamboat service.

Although Robert Fulton did not invent the steamboat, as is commonly believed, he played an important role in making steamboat travel a reality. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1765. As a young man, he set out to make his name as a portrait painter. His career took him to Europe and into the orbit of people with the power to support him politically and financially.

Fulton entered London society after he painted Benjamin Franklin's portrait. While abroad, Fulton left the arts for a career in shipbuilding. He was interested in the recently-invented steam engine, and thought it could be used to power ships. Fulton's vision was not original; many others had entered the field, and the unfortunate inventor John Fitch had built a working steamship already. But like Henry Ford, Fulton's talent lay not in the invention but in the product's application in the marketplace.

Fulton didn't focus entirely on the steamboat. In 1804, he tested the first submarine successfully, which he had built for the British Royal Navy. His invention would make him a celebrity upon his return to the United States two years later. Fulton's partner Robert Livingston obtained an exclusive license for steamboat services on New York's Hudson River. It was time for Fulton to deliver.

To build an efficient, reliable steamboat, Fulton used a special English steam engine. The ship's bottom was flat and its stern was square. The steamboat Clermont made its debut (首次亮相) on August 17, 1807, steaming up the river from New York to Albany, and it soon entered commercial services. The hilly terrain of New York made water transport faster than land transport, and Fulton's boat — formerly known as the "North River Steamboat" — was a hit. Within five years, Fulton would be running services on six major rivers plus the Chesapeake Bay, and bring in great profits.