Every evening, 15-year-old Rashida returns home from school,changes out of her uniform, and rushes to a neighboring farm to help her motherharvest vegetables. Her father is disabled, so the modest profit the two ofthem earn must cover food, clothing and other necessities for all sevenchildren and their parents. Despite having precious little time to study,Rashida is one of the top students at her junior secondary school. But with somuch responsibility on her small shoulders, she admits that it is sometimeshard for her to imagine a more promising future.

Last year, Rashida was invited to join 155 other girls at CamfedGhana's first Girls' Career Camp, a program designed to inspire girls growingup in the country's Northern Region to dream big, and to support them to pursuethose dreams. “We organized this camp because we wanted to let girls know thateven if they are struggling with poverty, their lives will not be defined bylimitations,” says Dolores Dickson, Camfed Ghana's Executive Director.

    Over the course of five days, the camp led the junior andsecondary school students through a range of experiences and career opportunities that were entirely new to them. Dr. Agnes Apusiga, a lecturer from the University of DevelopmentStudies, ran the workshop on goal-setting and career choices, describing theuniversities and training colleges in Ghana that could help them achieve theirdreams. Participants then visited the University for Development Studies, wherethey toured the medical school and science labs. Another highlight was aworkshop at the computer lab at Tamale Secondary School. Many of the girls hadstudied information technology from a book but had never before seen acomputer.

   “When the girls arrived at camp, they were not ambitious,because they didn't have any idea what the world held for them,” says EugeniaAyagiba, Project Officer with Camfed Ghana. “Many had scarcely traveled beyondtheir own villages.”

“I think the most important thing that happened at the camp isthat we opened a window of hope for a group of girls coming from backgrounds ofpoverty,” says Eugenia. For Rashida, who has been laughed at in the past by herschoolmates because of her father's disability, the experience was important.“She told one of the camp mentors(辅导员) that whenshe is at school, she often feels like a misfit, and she prefers to keep toherself,” says Eugenia. “But at the camp, it was different. She made friendswith girls who have similar struggles. She took part in every single activity,every single game. On the last day, she said to her mentor, ‘The camp haschallenged me to study hard. Now I see that there is light at the end of thetunnel.'

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    With the development of the television and the Internet, many people have changed their hobbies and the way that they enjoy their free time. Because of the television and the Internet, many people spend less time reading, so the aim of this article is to give reasons why people should read just for pleasure. The reasons that I give you are quite simple: to improve your knowledge, to have more fun, to make your imagination（想象）fly, to find new ways to express your ideas, and to have a better understanding of life.

    Firstly, you can improve your knowledge when you read. There are nil kinds of good books to choose from. People who read more usually have a better idea about life than those who do not read so often.

    Secondly, you can have fun and increase your imagination by reading books Children have very good imaginations, so parents need to read lots of stories that feed their imagination. Adults should try to develop their imagination by reading books that make them think amazing things.

    Finally, no matter how old you are, it can help you to have a better understanding of life and express your ideas to others in a simple and correct form.

    So I suggest that you read more. I know that many of us like to play on the Internet when we are free, but we must also not forget to read books. Try to choose good books in the beginning, and then I'm sure that you will never stop reading.

    An 114 kilograms mother, Cacia Griggs, was ashamed into losing weight after crushing her daughter, four-year-old Isabelle's bed while reading her a bedtime story.

    Just one year later she has lost 50 kilograms, dropped to a size 10, and even was employed by her dream company.

    One night, having asked her 29-year-old husband to carry Isabelle up to bed because she couldn't fit through the stair gate, Cacia followed them upstairs and lay down on the edge of the bed with her daughter to read her a story.

    “I heard a loud snap(噼啪声),” she said. “I'd broken the entire side beam of her bed because I was overweight. I was upset.”

    On her first family holiday with Chris and Isabelle in Turkey last year, Cacia had a similar moment when she couldn't fit the plane seatbelt around her.

    Cacia began the Cambridge Weight Plan in June 2011, changing her high-calorie diet into soups, shakes and bars. In August this year, Cacia reached her goal weight and dropped from a size 24 to a size 10.

    “My weight began to drop off,” she said. “In no time at all I was wearing smaller clothes and was over the moon the first time I brought a size 16, I couldn't believe it fitted.”

    Cacia says the best thing about losing the weight is being able to lie with her daughter again on her bed instead of sitting on the floor next to her.

    When traveling in England, here are some things to keep in mind.

    When taking the underground in England, once on the underground train, stand clear of the closing doors. They can give you a pretty hurtful knock if they hit you. When getting on or off the tube train, make sure you mind the gap(缝隙)! This varies from a few inches to a foot at some of the stations.

    The saying that English food is boring and tasteless isn't true, at least not anymore. You'll find a huge variety of international restaurants, especially in London. Make sure you eat some of the old-fashioned traditional foods in pubs, and wash it down with some local beer!

    Come prepared for any sort of weather ——even if the day starts off well, it's likely that the temperature will change. The best thing to do is layer(分层穿套) your clothes so that you can add or reduce as necessary.

    The British are in general very polite people and will expect at least basic politeness from travelers. Pleases and thanks go a long way! At the same time  they like playing jokes on others. Don't be surprised or offended if you're called darling, dear, dearie, flower, love, chick, chuck, me duck, son, ma'am or any other similar pet name by someone you don't know. It's quite normal.

    England is generally quite safe, but you'll need to be more careful in London and the other large cities, especially at night. Choose an underground train that has plenty of people in it and avoid suburban underground stations at night. There are many night buses you can catch, but try not to do this alone. A licensed cab is often the best choice. Try and leave valuable things in your hotel room, as pickpockets(扒手) do operate in some areas. Be careful of bags especially when in some busy areas.

    A new study has found that social media could be affecting the sleep of young adults.

    The study is a project of researchers at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Medicine. They found that young people who often use social media are more likely to suffer from sleep disorders than those who use social media less. The researchers say doctors should ask young adults about their use of social media when treating sleep issues.

    "This is one of the first pieces of evidence that social media use really can influence your sleep." said Jessica C Levenson. She was the lead author of a report on the study.

    The researchers set out to examine the connection between social media use and sleep among young adults. Levenson noted that these young adults are possibly the first "generation to grow up with social media."

    The researchers wanted to find out how often young people used social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Credit and Tumbler. For the study, they gave questionnaires to nearly 1,800 adults, aged 19 to 32. On average, members of the study group used social media sites one hour a day. They also "visited various social media 30 times per week."

    Thirty percent of the study's participants reported having serious problems with sleeping. Those people who used social media a lot were three times more likely to have a sleep disorder. And those who spent the most time on social media were two times as likely to suffer from sleep disturbances.

    Levenson said the number of times a person visits social media is a better predictor of sleep problems than overall time spent on social media. If this is true, she adds, then practices that stop such behaviors may be the most effective.

    With the Chinese language growing in popularity, the UK government plans to invest (投资)10 million pounds to help more kids learn Mandarin(普通话).Do you think it is necessary for the UK pupils to learn Mandarin? Some people share their opinions online.

    Tsd(UK):The learning of any language can be valuable and rewarding, but it is not suitable for everyone. Chinese is a difficult language to learn and the UK has a poor reputation for teaching foreign languages. Why should they learn Chinese when most people in the world speak English?

    Mark(US):I studied French for 2 years in high school and German for 4 years in college. I studied Mandarin informally for about 4 months before moving to China. Now I speak Mandarin every day as my wife doesn't speak English. But it is far from being fluent, learning additional languages is a great thing, which offers a different perspective on the world around us. Nowadays, it's almost necessary to be able to speak more than just your native tongue.

George(UK):No, unless they're taught from a very early stage of childhood. Mandarin is so difficult. If China really is going to dominate the world, it'll have to do so by speaking the world's dominant language—English.

    Sam(UK):I don't think Chinese will become as widely spoken throughout the world as English. It is too difficult to learn as a second language. To learn Chinese you completely have to devote yourself to learning how to write and read it. If you have to learn it besides other subjects you can't be good at it. But Chinese will become more popular, and that is a good thing.