Some people like to collect stamps. Others prefer posters or coins. But Pinky Bhutia is different. She collects children. In her mountain village, in Sikkim, she is known as the wonderful young woman who adopts(领养) all the children she can.

    Pinky was 14 when she adopted her first child, a Nepali baby girl, whose patents passed away. Pinky's parents did not mind. Pinky left school and started working full time because she had a baby to feed. Today , she has twelve adopted children, and two sons from her marriage.

    Pinky is about 30 years old and she comes from a common family. If you passed her on the street, you wouldn't give her a second look. She lives in a brown mud-washed(泥刷的) house. There is a vegetable garden outside. Red hens with noisy chicks run all over the garden looking for food.

    If you ask her why she provides a home for so many kids, she smiles shyly. But her eyes are serious. "I know what it is to be poor and hungry." As a child, her only dream was to eat a full meal, and her favorite amusement was watching people with shoes and imagining what it felt like. By adopting poor and homeless children she is making sure that they never feel that hopeless.

    Pinky feels very proud when she sees her children happy and bright, her oldest baby, Aarita Rai, is now 20 years old, Then, there is 19-year-old Nimbe who came to Pinky because her mother was unable to look after her. She started to work in a government office two years ago. Ten-year-old Bhim and 14-year-old Kumar came to Pinky five years ago, after their father's death. They started living on a patch of land given by Pinky and grew vegetables for sale.

    "I like children. It's not one more mouth to feed but one more soul saved," Pinky says.

    Alice Lee is a high school student studying at a private school. She is doing some voluntary work at an after-school program to help students from poor families.

    On the first day of her work, she noticed that many kids were lining up for free sandwiches and fruits. She was surprised. One of the organizers explains that many of these students don't get enough to eat at home. So a school lunch or an after-meal might be the most food they would get all the day. She has also been told that some hungry kids can receive free lunches, but others are only allowed reduced-price meals, and those students' families have to pay for the part of their food.

    Lee was shocked, she decided to offer help to those who are suffering from hunger, "I want other kids to understand that if you see a problem, you don't have to wait to be an adult to fix it," says Lee. She and a group of friends are using their programme skill to create a new app called Food of Thought, which will allow parents, students, and even kind-hearted strangers to donate money to lunch accounts for students in a nearby school.

    Some children are flying kites near the river. They are very high and Peter can see them in the classroom. His mother's friend Mrs White came to see his mother this morning and brought a kite to him. She gave it to him after lunch. It looks like a bird. He wanted to fly it but his mother didn't let him do so.

    "It's time to go to school," said his mother, "or you will be late. You can fly it after school."

    The boy was sad, but he said goodbye to Mrs White and went to school. Now he's in the classroom but he's looking out of the window. He doesn't listen to Miss Black. She writes something on the blackboard and then turns to the class and finds this.

    "Name nine things with milk in them, Peter," she says.

    The boy doesn't hear her and still sits there. A boy behind him taps his back and he knows it. He stands up and Miss Black asks him the question again. He thinks for a while and then says, \ madam. Tea, coffee, cake and... er.. six cows."

    "Everything happens for the best," my mother said whenever I faced disappointment. "If you can carry on, one day something good will happen."

    After graduating from college in 1932, I decided to try for a job in radio, then work my way up to sports announcer (播音员). I took the bus to Chicago and knocked on the door of every station, but I was refused every time.

    In one studio, a nice lady told me that big stations didn't want to accept inexperienced person." Go to the countryside and find a small station that'll give you a chance," she said.

    I returned home, Dixon in Illinois. While there were no radio-announcing jobs in Dixon, my father said Smith Ward had opened a store and wanted a local sportsman to manage its sports department. Since I had played high school football in Dixon, I applied. The job sounded just right for me. But I still failed in the interview.

    At that moment, mom's words came to my mind: "Everything happens for the best." Dad offered me the car to look for a job. I tried WOC Radio in Davenport in Iowa. The program director, named Peter MacArthur, told me they had already hired an announcer.

    As I left his office, I felt frustrated. I asked aloud," How can a man become a sport announcer if he can't get a job in a radio station?"

    I was waiting for the lift when I heard MacArthur calling, "What did you say about sports? Do you know anything about football?"" Then he made me stand before a microphone and asked me to broadcast an imaginary (想象的) game. As a result, I did a wonderful job and was told to broadcast Saturday's game!

    On my way home, I thought of my mother's words again:" Everything happens for the best. If you carry on, one day something good will happen."

    Chopsticks were invented in China. There are many stories about who may have invented them. One of them is about Dayu.

    Dayu was an ancient Chinese leader who helped his people fight floods. He was always busy and often ate in the wild. He used a pot to boil (煮沸)water and cook animal meat. Most of the time, he was in a hurry and didn't want to wait to eat. But the meat was too hot to pick up with his hands. In those days, people ate only with their hands.

    So Dayu picked up some twigs (树枝)to help him hold the meat. The twigs later became the chopsticks we know today.

    But of course, this is just one story. The earliest chopsticks we have found so far are more than 3,000 years old, dating back to the Shang Dynasty (朝代).The six bronze chopsticks were found in the Ruins of Yin (殷墟)in Anyang, Henan.

    At first, chopsticks were just used as cooking tools. It was only after some time that people started to use chopsticks to eat.