My mom only had one eye. I hated her... she was such an embarrassment. My mom ran a small shop at a flea market. She collected little weeds and such to sell... anything for the money we needed she was such an embarrassment. There was this one day during elementary school.

I remember that it was field day, and my mom came. I was so embarrassed. How could she do this to me? I threw her a hateful look and ran out. The next day at school... "Your mom only has one eye?!" and they taunted me.

I wished that my mom would just disappear from this world so I said to my mom. "Why don't you just die?" My mom did not respond. I guess I felt a little bad, but at the same time, it felt good to think that I had said what I'd wanted to say all this time. Maybe it was because my mom hadn't punished me, but I didn't think that I had hurt her feelings very badly.

    That night... I woke up, and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. My mom was crying there, so quietly, as if she was afraid that she might wake me. I hated my mother who was crying out of her one eye. So I told myself that I would grow up and become successful, because I hated my one-eyed mom and our desperate poverty.

Then I studied really hard. I left my mother and came to Seoul and studied, and got accepted in the Seoul University with all the confidence I had. Then, I got married. I bought a house of my own. Then I had kids, too. Now I'm living happily as a successful man. I like it here because it's a place that doesn't remind me of my mom.

This happiness was getting bigger and bigger, when someone unexpected came to see me "What?! Who's this?!" It was my mother... Still wither one eye. It felt as if the whole sky was falling apart on me. My little girl ran away, scared of my mom's eye.

And I asked her, "Who are you? I don't know you!!" as if I tried to make that real. I screamed at her "How dare you come to my house and scare my daughter! Get out of here now!!" And to this, my mother quietly answered, "oh, I'm so sorry. I may have gotten the wrong address," and she disappeared. Thank goodness... she doesn't recognize me. I was quite relieved. I told myself that I wasn't going to care, or think about this for the rest of my life.

    Then a wave of relief came upon me... one day, a letter regarding a school reunion came to my house. I lied to my wife saying that I was going on a business trip. After the reunion, I went down to the old shack, that I used to call a house, just out of curiosity there, I found my mother fallen on the cold ground. She had a piece of paper in her hand. It was a letter to me.

She wrote:

My son, I think my life has been long enough now. For you... I'm sorry that I only have one eye, and I was an embarrassment for you. You see, when you were very little, you got into an accident, and lost your eye. As a mother, I couldn't stand watching you having to grow up with only one eye… so I gave you mine... I was so proud of my son that was seeing a whole new world for me, in my place, with that eye. I was never upset at you for anything you did. The couple times that you were angry with me I thought to myself, ‘it's because he loves me.' I miss you so much. I love you. You mean the world to me. So I gave you mine. With all my love to you! Your mom.

My World Shattered. I hated the person who only lived for me. I cried for My Mother, I didn't know of any way that will make up for my worst deeds...

    When you get in your car, you reach for it. When you're at work, you take a break to have a moment alone with it. When you get into a lift, you play with it.

    Cigarettes? Cup of coffee? No, it's the third most addictive（使人上瘾的） thing in modern life, the cell phone. And experts say it is becoming more difficult for many people to curb their wishes to hug it more tightly than most of their personal relationships.

    With its shiny surface, its smooth and satisfying touch, the cell phone connects us to the world even as it disconnects us from people three feet away. It affects us in ways its inventors in the late 1940s never imagined.

    Dr. Chris Knippers, an expert at the Betty Ford Center in Southern California, reports that the overuse of cell phones has become a social problem not much different from other harmful addictions: a barrier to one-on-one personal contact, and an escape from reality.

    Sounds extreme, but we've all witnessed the evidence: the person at a restaurant who talks on the phone through an entire meal, ignoring his kids around the table; the woman who talks on the phone in the car, ignoring her husband; the teen who texts messages all the way home from school, avoiding contact with kids all around him. Is it just rude, or is it a kind of unhealthiness? And pardon me, but how is this improving the quality of life?

    Jim Williams, an industrial sociologist based in Massachusetts, he points to a study by Duke University researchers that found one-quarter of Americans say they have no one to discuss their most important personal business with. Despite the growing use of phones, e-mail and instant messaging, in other words, Williams says studies show that we don't have as many friends as our parents. “Just as more information has led to less wisdom, more acquaintances(熟人) through the Internet and cell phones have produced fewer friends,” he says.

    If the cell phone has truly had these effects, it's because it has become very widespread. In 1987, there were only 1 million cell phones in use. Today, almost 300 million Americans carry them. The number of cell phones is far more than that of wired phones in the United States.

    From July to October every year, about a quarter of the world's blue whales feed in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. But the whales currently face a major threat in their favorite feeding area. Ships carrying cargo （货物）sail in the same area at the same time. All too often, the whales' paths and the ships' travel lines overlap (重叠), and a ship will hit a whale.

    According to a new study, these ship strikes have become a serious threat to the overall population of the world's blue whales. Only about 10,000 of the creatures still exist worldwide. Blue whales are the largest known animals ever to live on Earth. Even so, if hit by a container ship, a blue whale will likely die from its injuries.

    In 2007 alone, large ships killed five blue whales in the waters off San Francisco and Los Angeles, California. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says that because there are so few whales already, losing three to five from the California whale population every year is a significant loss. "The estimated population of blue whales in this part of the Pacific is 2,500", says Sean Hastings, a NOAA analyst. "So every whale counts toward this species moving off the endangered-species list."

    Now, marine scientists must figure out how to protect the whales from the giant container ships. One very simple program is already under way in the Santa Barbara Channel, a waterway that separates mainland California from the nearby Channel Islands.

    The Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary has asked large container ships passing through the area to voluntarily slow down. Sailing slower will allow the ships crew （船员）more time to change course before hitting a whale.

    Several of the world's largest shipping lines are set to participate in the new program. For every ship that passes through the Santa Barbara Channel at or below the reduced speed of 12 knots （海里/小时）, the company that owns the ship will be paid $2,500.

    Several years ago, Masaru Ibuka, chairman of Sony, was at a company planning a meeting. Suddenly he had a brilliant idea. He stopped the meeting and asked everyone present what would happen if Sony removed the recording function and speaker and sold headphones with a tape player instead. Almost everyone thought he was crazy. Still, Ibuka kept thinking about his idea and worked at improving it. The result, of course, turned out to be the wildly successful Sony Walkman.

    Good ideas often start with a seemingly silly question. Bill Bowerman was making breakfast one day. As he stood there making waffles (华夫饼干)for his son, he wondered what would happen if he poured rubber into his waffle iron. Later, he tried it and the result looked something like the bottom of most sports shoes we see today. Still, when he took this idea to several existing shoe companies, he was laughed at. In fact, every single company turned him down. Though rather discouraged, Bowerman insisted and went on to form his own company, making NIKE athletic shoes.

    Sometimes good ideas grow out of frustration .When Fred Smith was a student at Yale University, he had some paperwork that he needed to have delivered across the country the next day. Smith was amazed to find out that overnight delivery was impossible. He sat for a long while, lost in thought. Why couldn't there be a reliable overnight mail delivery service? He decided to design one. Smith did just that and turned his design into a class project.  His business professor gave him only a C for his efforts. However, Smith was not through. He improved the idea in that class project and finally turned it into one of the first and most successful overnight mail service in the world — FedEx.

    We know that each of these ideas led to a very successful product or service that has changed the way many of us live. The best questions are usually open-ended and are often silly, Children aren't afraid to ask such questions, but adults frequently are. Think how different the world might be if people never asked "silly" questions!

    Over the years, cheerleading has taken two primary forms: game-time cheerleading and competitive cheerleading. Game-time cheerleaders' main goal is to entertain the crowd and lead them with team cheers, which should not be considered a sport. However, competitive cheerleading is more than a form of entertainment. It is really a competitive sport.

    Competitive cheerleading includes lots of physical activity. The majority of the teams require a certain level of tumbling (翻腾) ability. It's a very common thing for gymnasts, so it's easy for them to go into competitive cheerleading. Usually these cheerleaders integrate lots of their gymnastics experience including their jumps, tumbling, and overall energy. They also perform lifts and throws. This is where the "fliers" are thrown in the air, held by "bases" in different positions that require strength and working with other teammates.

    Competitive cheerleading is also an activity that is governed by rules under which a winner can be declared. It is awarded points for technique, creativity and sharpness. Usually the more difficult the action is, the better the score is. That's why cheerleaders are trying to experience great difficulty in their performance.

    Besides, there is also a strict rule of time. The whole performance has to be completed in less than three minutes and fifteen seconds, during which the cheerleaders are required to stay within a certain area. Any performance beyond the limit of time is invalid.

    Another reason for the fact that competitive cheerleading is one of the hardest sports is that it has more reported injuries. According to some research, competitive cheerleading is the number one cause of serious sports injuries to women. Emergency room visits for it are five times the number than for any other sport, partially because cheerleaders don't use protective equipment. Smiling cheerleaders are thrown into the air and move down into the arms of the teammates, which may easily cause injuries. Generally, these injuries affect all areas of the body, including wrists, shoulders, ankles, head, and neck.

    There can be no doubt that competitive cheerleading is a sport with professional skills. Hopefully, it will appear in the Olympics since cheerleaders are just as athletic and physically fit as those involved in the more accepted sports. It should be noted that it is a team sport and even the smallest mistake made by one teammate can bring the score of the entire team down. So without working together to achieve the goal, first place is out of reach.