Two students started quarreling at school. One student shouted dirty words at the other, and a fight began. What can be done to stop fights like this at school? In some schools, the disputants sit down with peer mediators(同龄调解者). Peer mediators are students with special training in this kind of problems.

    Peer mediators help the disputants to talk in a friendly way. Here are some of the ways they use:

1) Put what you think clearly but don't say anything to hurt the other. Begin with “I feel…” instead of “You always…”

2) Listen carefully to what the other person is saying. Don't stop the other person's words.

3) Keep looking at the other person's eyes when he or she talks.

4) Try to see the other person's side of the problem.

5) Never put anyone down. Saying things like “You are foolish” makes the talk difficult. 6) Try to find a result that makes both people happy.

    Peer mediators never decide the result or the winner. They don't decide who is right and who is wrong. Instead, they help the two students to find their own “win-win” result.

    If a woman has an extra piece of cake, don't blame it on greed, blame it on her brain.

    Scientists have found that women's brains react to food very differently—and much more strongly—than men's. Academics found that decades of dieting pressure on women and advertising have programmed certain parts of the female brain to react strongly when faced with any kind of food. Men, on the other hand, are not usually as obsessive (着迷的) about what they eat.

    Dr. Rudolf Uher and his colleagues at the Institute of Psychiatry in King's College London used brain scanning technology, known as functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI), to look at the brains of eighteen men and women.

The volunteers were given images of food to look at, as well as food to taste. Their brain reactions were observed by the scientists.

    They found that the female brains reacted much more strongly than those of males.

    The same reaction did not happen when they were shown non-food images. The team believe this means women think more about food than men tend to do.

    Dr. Uher said, “This could be related to biological differences between men and women. But the more likely explanation is that women have a more complicated reaction to food because of social pressure.

    Professor Carey Cooper, psychology and health professor at Lancaster University, said, “For centuries women have had a providing role — preparing and cooking food for their families. And it is part of that rule to make sure the food is safe. They will therefore be much more sensitive to food than men are, and I would not be surprised if that was now built into their DNA. If the female brain reacts to food because it historically has developed neural (神经的) pathways to do this, then food will be the way they express their stress. Food actually, is a comfort for women.”

    But other experts have said that more research must be done before the results can be proved. American scientist Angelo del Parigi of the John B. Pierce Laboratory in New Haven, Connecticut, said, “Looking at an FMRI alone cannot make sure whether the stronger reaction in women is due to innate (天生的) differences or a learned process.

    It's a warm summer afternoon. You're cooking up the catch of the day over a campfire. Suddenly, a few raindrops fall on your arms, and before you know it, the sky is opened up. Then you hear what sounds like thunder in the distance. What should you do? Your tent is close by and would offer shelter from the pouring rain. There's a campsite picnic shelter a few minutes down the path. And then you remember that your car is parked down the road. What's your safest choice to make sure you and your families are safe?

    It's a common question for many hikers(徒步者) and campers, especially when they are camping during summer months. Heading to your car is almost always the safest choice. Your tent and a picnic shelter will keep you dry, but they offer little or no protection against lightening. Your car, on the other hand, will keep you dry and protect you from lightening strikes. Protecting yourself against possible lightening strikes is very important; lightening kills an average of 62 people in the US each year. If you keep all of the windows and doors closed in your car, you'll be able to return to your campsite safely.

    Of course, if you're backpacking(背包旅行), not car camping, and you're deep in the woods, your car won't be a good choice. So, what should you do if your car is far away and there's no other safe shelter nearby? First, you'll have to make sure that tree limbs or other objects don't fall on you or your campsite. Then you'll have to get in a safe position to avoid lightening, or flash flood conditions. What else should you do?

    It was Sunday, so Dad and I were at the second-hand goods market, looking for tools, appliances(家用电器), and other things that needed cleaning. Some were broken; others, like silver cups, just needed to be cleaned and polished. It was 1974, and the Depression(经济大萧条) was very serious. Dad worked full-time at a factory, but the money wasn't enough. Dad had tried a second job for a while, but he found it was too hard on the family. One day, he had an excellent idea that set me on a lifelong course of making money to support myself. Standing beside a crowded table at the second-hand goods market, I looked over an ancient manual sewing machine. Someone had changed it to run on electric power. It was much older than Mom's machine, but it looked like it had quality and a long life built into it. "Dad!" I called. "This is a beauty!"

    Dad walked over, pulling a cart full of audio equipment, tools, worn-out appliances, and what appeared to be a block of dull kitchen knife." What have you got, Son?" I described what I saw and what I figured I could do to x the beauty up. Dad paid for my discovery, and we headed home.

    Every day after school I worked on the ancient machine, and every night Dad and I sharpened tools and knives, sanded off rust, polished metal, and replaced missing parts from various items. The next Saturday we headed off, as we did every weekend, to that same market, where we sold the treasures we'd purchased the week before—at a tidy profit. My antique beauty brought in more money than anything else, and Dad let me keep every penny.

    Dad's gone now, but I can never thank him enough. Even if we hadn't needed the extra money Dad and I brought in, I wouldn't have traded those weekends for all the picnics or Little League games in St. Louis—not in a million years.

    Feeding a crowd of hundreds doesn't make Kenny Seals-Nutt nervous.

    In fact, he loves being in the kitchen.

    By the time Kenny, 16, reached his third year of high school in Charlotte, US, he had become vice president of his school's cooking club.

    Kenny said he developed his love of cooking by watching his grandmother, who owned a business.

    And at the age of 5, he cooked his first dish. Taking it to school for lunch, he warmed it up in the school's microwave, while the other kids ate their sandwiches.

    "I love to eat, and it started to become more fun to cook than to have food prepared for me," he said.

    Cooking came easy to Kenny, and he enjoyed adding new ingredients (原料) into common dishes. "It started with a passion (热情) and I wanted to know more," he said.

    Last summer, Kenny put his skills to the test by working with his grandmother to cater his uncle's wedding. Kenny added new changes to the traditional (传统的) dishes that his grandma had prepared.

    Chef Frederick Mookie Hicks, owner of a catering business, said Kenny's success comes from his ability (能力) to multitask (多任务) in the kitchen.

    "He's so enthusiastic (热情的) about cooking that he doesn't let anything stop him," Hicks said.

Strategies to Overcome Self-Doubt Once and For All

Being self-confident is not easy and not everyone can do it, but it doesn't need to be that difficult. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

Going through life can be very challenging at times. When we were young, no one told us how hard it will be in the future but here we are {#blank#}2{#/blank#} And it is unpleasing and can kill your confidence levels if not controlled from the beginning.

We will all experience some self-doubt, which is natural. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} It happens to us during normal days or whenever we are going to start a new job, a new task, or a new relationship, anything new in life will make you self-doubt. This sort of feeling puts you into dark days when nothing seems to go right and you might feel like giving up, and that is the time to be strong.

 {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Self-doubt is when you are unsure about one or more aspects of yourself. For example, when starting a new job, you might feel inexperienced or might think that you are not fit enough for the job, and this is a prime example of self-doubt.

 {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Low-level of self-criticism is actually good for you. It motivates you and pushes you to be better in life, to become greater than yesterday. This type of feeling will push you to work harder and faster than before and will also increase your productivity, but it should be a low level of self-criticism. You don't want to punish yourself over things that are beyond your control.

A. We needn't take it seriously.

B. It's impossible for us to deal with it.

C. One of the big problems of adult life is having self-doubt,

D. Self-doubt isn't all that bad, let us tell you why.

E. Let's explore to find ways to remove self-doubt forever.

F. It will take long for us to solve this problem.

G. There are some people mistaking self-doubt for something else.