US President Barack Obama visited the Badaling section of the Great Wall in Beijing on Nov. 18th, 2009. The Great Wall was the second sightseeing program for Obama during his visit to China.

    Built originally as the biggest defense work in ancient China, the Great Wall today has become one of the must-see places for visiting foreign leaders to the country in the past sixty years.

    “ I'm inspired by the majesty(雄伟壮观) of the Great Wall and grateful for the warmth of the Chinese people,” Obama said after his half-hour tour.

    “It's magical,” Obama said when walking along the Great Wall, “it reminds you of the sweep of history and our time here on earth is not that long. We better make the best of it.”

    “I brought back the admiration(钦佩) for the Chinese civilization(文明), I bring here the greetings of American people.” Obama said when climbing a watchtower to enjoy a distant view at the Badaling section of the Great Wall.

    Obama is the fifth US president to visit the Great Wall. Richard Nixon visited the Great Wall in 1972, Ronald Reagan in 1984 and Bill Clinton in 1998, In 2002, former US President George W. Bush and his wife Laura toured the same sections Obama did.

    Everybody hates it, but everybody does it. A recent report said that 40%of Americans hate tipping. In America alone, tipping is a $ 16 billion-a-year industry. Consumers acting politely ought not to pay more than they have to for a given service. Tips should not exist. So why do they? The common opinion in the past was that tips both rewarded the efforts of good service and reduced uncomfortable feelings of inequality. And also, tipping makes for closer relations. It went without saying that the better the service, the bigger the tip.

    But according to a new research from Cornell University, tips no longer serve any useful function. The paper analyzes numbers they got from 2,547 groups dining at 20 different restaurants. The connection between larger tips and better service was very weak. Only a tiny part of the size of the tip had anything to do with the quality of service.

    Tipping is better explained, by culture than by the money people spend. In America, the custom came into being a long time ago. It is regarded as part of the accepted cost of a service. In New York restaurants, failing to tip at least 15% could well mean dissatisfaction from the customers. Hairdressers can expect to get l5%-20%, and the man who delivers your fast food $ 2. In Europe, tipping is less common. In many restaurants the amount of tip is decided by a standard service charge. In many Asian countries, tipping has never really caught on at all. Only a few have really taken to tipping. According to Michael Lynn, the Cornell papers' author, countries in which people are more social or outgoing tend to tip more. Tipping may reduce anxiety about being served by strangers. And Mr. Lynn says, “In America, where people are expressive and eager to mix up with others, tipping is about social approval. If you tip badly, people think less of you. Tipping well is a chance to show off.”

    When other nine-year-old kids were playing games, she was working at a petrol station. When other teens were studying or going out, she fought to find a place to sleep on the street. But she beat these terrible setbacks（挫折） to win a highly competitive scholarship and gain entry （录入）into Harvard University. And her amazing story has inspired a movie, “Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story”.

    Liz Murray, a 22-year-old American girl, has been writing a real-life story of willpower and determination. Liz grew up with two drug-addicted parents. There was never enough food or warm clothes in the house. Liz was the only member of the family who had a job. Her mother had AIDS and died when Liz was just l5 years old. The effect of that loss became a turning point in her life. Connecting the environment in which she had grown up with how her mother had died. She decided to do something about it.

    Liz went back to school. She threw herself into her studies, never telling her teachers that she was homeless. At night, she lived on the streets. “What drove me to live on had something to do with understanding, and by understanding that there was a whole other way of being. I had only experienced a small part of the society,” she wrote in her book Breaking Night.

    She admitted that she used envy （妒忌）to drive herself on. She used the benefits that come easily to others, such as a safe living environment, to encourage herself that “next to nothing could hold me down”. She finished high school in just two years and won a full scholarship to study at Harvard University. But Liz decided to leave her top university a couple of months earlier this year in order to take care of her father, who has also developed AIDS. “I love my parents so much. They are drug addicts. But I never forget that they love me all the time. ”

    Liz wants moviegoers（常看电影的人） to come away with the idea that changing your life is “as simple as making a decision”.

    Drive through any suburb in the U.S. Today, and it's hard to miss the recycling bins that have become companions to America's trash cans. Recycling has become common, as people recognize the need to care for the environment. Yet most people's recycling consciousness extends only as far as paper, bottles, and cans. People seldom find themselves facing the growing problem of e-waste.

    E-waste rapidly increases as the techno- fashionable frequently upgrade to the most advanced devices, and the majority of them end up in landfills (垃圾填埋地). Some people who track such waste say that users throw away nearly 2 million tons of TVs, VCRs, computers, cell phones, and other electronics every year. Unless we can find a safe replacement, this e-waste may get into the ground and poison the water with dangerous toxins (毒素), such as lead, mercury, and arsenic. Burning the waste also dangerously contaminates the air.

     However, e-waste often contains reusable silver, gold, and other electrical materials. Recycling these materials reduces environmental problems by reducing both landfill waste and the need to look for such metals, which can destroy ecosystems.

    A growing number of states have adopted laws to ban dumping e-waste. Still, less than a quarter of this waste will reach lawful recycling programs. Some companies advertising safe disposal in fact merely ship the waste to some developing countries, where it still ends up in landfills. These organizations prevent progress by unsafely disposing of waste in an out- of- sight, out- of- mind location.

    However, the small but growing number of cities and corporations that do handle e- waste responsibly represents progress toward making the world a cleaner, better place for us all.

    My family and I never talked about school as the ticket to a future. I was in the classrooms, but I wasn't there to learn to write, read or even speak. When it was my turn to read, I wanted to hide. I was 13 years old, but I already hated being who I was.

    I had an English teacher, Mr. Creech, who knew I couldn't read. In one of my first lessons the teacher said that anyone who had a reading age below six had to stand up. I felt so embarrassed. But at the same time, it made me realize that I needed to change the situation. I was determined it wouldn't happen again. Later that day, Mr. Creech encouraged me and promised he would try his best to help me learn to read. From then on, I never gave up practicing reading.

    Now I was 41 years old. One day, I planned to fly back to Texas to visit my friends and family. On my way from the airport, I saw Mr. Creech buying himself a drink. I rushed over and reached into my pocket to pay for him.” Do I know you?” he asked.” Yes, sir, you do know me,” I answered excitedly.” My name is Anthony Hamilton. You taught me English.” The look on his face told me that he remembered the boy he'd once encouraged.

    "I'm so glad I had a chance to see you," I said. "And Mr. Creech, I have great news to share." I told him I had learned to read. But that wasn't all. I had become a published author and an active speaker." The next time you get another Anthony Hamilton in your classroom, please encourage him to read as well." I added.

    The experts say what once worried me has a name: dyslexia(诵读困难症). But I can tell you it was a lack of desire for education.

    I didn't know how to say no, and was afraid to tell people what I wanted. Instead, I got myself tangled (纠结的) in a web of obligations, anxiety, and white lies.

    The worst thing was that I didn't even realize what I was doing. I thought I knew how to say "no"—but couldn't remember the last time I had. Like a lot of people, I just wanted to be accepted, appreciated, loved—and that the only way to get those things was to put everyone else's needs before my own.

    I never seemed to have time for things I really wanted to do. I'd like to learn Spanish, write more fiction, and travel. These aren't huge, unrealistic goals. And yet, my people-pleasing ways dramatically cut into my free time to pursue these desires.

    But recently, I decided I'd had enough. As an experiment, I began standing up for myself, even at the risk of alienating (使疏远) myself from everyone and having my entire life come crashing down around me. Several days ago, a good friend asked me to go for coffee at 5 p.m. I was planning to hit the gym and then binge—watch Mad Men for the millionth time. I said, "Sorry, I've got things I want to do tonight." She said, "That's fine. Maybe another time." It was all so painfully simple that I wanted to cry.

    Saying "no" is so much easier. If someone asks me to do something I have zero interest in, I'm polite but honest. "I'm sorry, I don't think that's really for me." The words slip out my mouth faster than some other lame excuses.

    Learning how to say "no" has added several extra hours to my days, days to my weeks, and what feels like months to my years. I no longer have to back-burner my plans to help friends with their job search, or set aside a weekend to read a book draft by someone I barely know. Saying "no" has set me free.