My friend's grandfather came to America from a farm in Thailand. After arriving in New York, he went into a cafeteria(自助餐厅) in Manhattan to get something to eat. He sat down at an empty table and waited for someone to take his order. Of course nobody did. Finally, a woman with a big plate full of food came up to him. She sat down opposite him and told him how a cafeteria worked.

    “Start out at that end,” she said, “Just go along the line and choose what you want. At the other end they'll tell you how much you have to pay.”

    “I soon learned that's how everything works in America,” the grandfather told my friend later, “Life's a cafeteria here. You can get anything you want as long as you want to pay the price. You can even get success, but you'll never get it if you wait for someone to bring it to you. You have to get up and get it yourself.”

    Finally, a cell phone

    That's… a phone

    With rates as low as $3.75 per week ！

    “Well, I finally did it. I finally decided to enter the digital age and get a cell phone. My kids have been annoying me and the last straw was when my car broke down, and I was stuck by the highway for an hour before someone stopped to help. But when I went to the cell phone store, I almost changed my mind. The phones all have cameras, computers and a "global-positioning" something or other that's supposed to spot me from space. Goodness, all I want to do is to be able to talk to my grandkids ！ The people at the store weren't much help. They couldn't understand why someone wouldn't want a phone the size of a postage stamp. And the rate plans! They were confusing, and expensive… and the'contract (合同）lasted for two years! I'd almost given up until a friend told me about her new Jitterbug phone. Now,I have the convenience and safety of being about to stay in touch with a phone I can actually use. ”

    Affordable plans that I can understand一and no contract to sign (签订）！ Unlike other cell phones，Jitterbug has plans that make sense. Why should I pay for minutes I m never going to use? And if I do talk more than I plan，I won 't find myself with no minutes like my friend who has a prepaid phone. Best of all, there is no contract to sign_so I m not locked in for years at a time. The US-based customer service is second to none. And the phone gets service anywhere in the country.

    Call now and receive a FREE gift when you order. Try Jitterbug for 30 days and if you don't love it, just return it! Why wait, the Jitterbug comes ready to -use right out of the box. If you aren't as happy with it as I am, you can return it and get your money back. Call now, the Jitterbug product experts are ready to answer your questions.

    Call 1-888-809-8794 or visit www. jitlerbugdirect. com.

    Just like rice and noodles are different from bread, snacks in China are a world apart from those in the UK and the US. For one thing, I never imagined that sunflower seeds (瓜子) would be so popular here. I spotted people having them while waiting for tables outside restaurants, before dinner and, of course, while watching TV. I also saw that a plate of sunflower seeds is always on offer during the Spring Festival holidays.

    I had seldom tried sunflower seeds when I came to China. In the UK, though, young people love their snacks. In fact, young people in Britain eat more snacks than people of the same age in other European countries. A recent survey has discovered that 64 percent of under 20-year-olds snack between meals, according to an article on the British Council website. In comparison (对比), 58.7 percent of young people snack in Germany, 53 percent in France, and only 40.7 percent in Spain.

    British snacks are generally unhealthy. Our favorites are probably potato chips, which we call crisps, and chocolate bars. From a very young age, we always looked forward to our crisps and chocolate bars after school, perhaps even included with sandwiches and fruit in our school lunches that our parents made for us.

    Snacks are also popular in the US. One of the things that I found the most extraordinary when I first visited the US was the number of snacks in their supermarkets; I was surprised to find huge aisles (过道) just for snacks that were bigger than some stores I'd been to in the UK. Snack tastes in the US are much the same as those in the UK, except there's much more choice – every kind of fatty, sugary food is available (可获得的) to everyone all the time.

    All in all, it's probably best for your health if you like sunflower seeds rather than potato chips and chocolate. But eating these delicious treats at times couldn't possibly be wrong, could it?

    Family fights are never pleasant. Whether you are dealing with a loud sister or a stubborn mom or dad, the situation can be bad. At least that's what we have learned to expect.

    What if it could be different? What if family fights and conflicts could be turned into opportunities to become closer? What if problems could be solved with everyone walking away feeling more deeply cared for and loved?

    Family fighting is, on one level, about power. Someone is telling someone else what to do. In a short moment, emotions can be brought out and the fight is on. You can go down that old road or you can try something different.

    In any fight, you have a need to be listened to and understood. People raise their voices and shout at each other because they're not being listened to. It's totally unconscious. You want your mom or dad to listen and understand. But you always seems to forget the person you're fighting with has the same need to be listened to. So if you can put aside your need for a few minutes, the situation will change quickly. Give the other person some time to express his or her feelings, and you will earn your turn to be listened to.

    And while you are listening, you have to listen for the right information. The best way to do this in emotional situations is to forget most of the words because many people can't express what they are feeling with words alone, especially when they are upset.

    But if the situation starts to get out of hand, it would be wise to just calm down and leave the problem until later because many fights happen at the wrong time. The situation will die down quickly, usually in less than 30 seconds. You can either move on to problem solving or reach an agreement to work on it at a better time.

    This way, everyone will feel respected and listened to, even when there is conflict. Emotions will be understood and respected, and it will bring your family closer together.

Being a good parent requires providing a child with the gifts of love, attention, energy, and resources unstintingly over a long period of time. It involves developing a small body, but it also involves growing a child's soul.

Parents are an enormously powerful force in the lives of children. Whether Johnny can read, whether Johnny knows right from wrong, whether Johnny is a happy, well-adjusted kid, or sad and self-destructive, has a whole lot to do with the kind of parenting Johnny has received. If Johnny's mom and dad have been able to come through with lasting, loving attention, the chances are that Johnny is on track to become a productive, compassionate (富有同情心的) person. If they have not, Johnny is in trouble.

Thirty years ago Chicago professor James S. Coleman showed that parental involvement mattered far more in determining school success than any quality of the formal education system. Across a wide range of subject areas, in literature, science and reading, Coleman estimated that the parent was twice as powerful as the school in determining achievement at age fourteen. Psychologist Lawrence Steinberg, who recently completed a six-year study of 20,000 teenagers in nine different communities, confirms the importance of parents. Steinberg shows that one out of three parents is "seriously disengaged" from his or her adolescent's education, and this is the primary reason why so many American students perform below their potential and below students in other rich countries.

A weight of evidence now demonstrates obvious links between absentee parents and a wide range of behavioral and emotional problems in children. A 1997 study of 90,000 teenagers — the Add Health Project undertaken (承担) by the Carolina Population Center and the Teenage Health Program at the University of Minnesota found that youngsters are less likely to get depressed, use drugs or become involved in crime when they spent significant time with their parents. This study found that the mere physical presence of a parent in the home after school, at dinner and at bedtime significantly reduces the incidence of risky behavior among teenagers.

A Rare Spotless Giraffe

A female giraffe was born at Brights Zoo in Tennessee recently—but unlike her mother she was born without any spots an unusual one.

Standing 14 to 19 feet tall, giraffes are the tallest land animals in the world. When mothers give birth, the young giraffes are already 6 feet tall, and other than in especially rare cases, they're born covered in brown spots. Brights Zoo in Limestone, Tennessee, announced that it welcomed the birth of a reticulated giraffe (网纹长颈鹿) without any spots on July 31st.

"Giraffe experts believe she is the only solid-colored reticulated giraffe living anywhere on the planet," the zoo said. The zoo's director, David Bright, said zoo staff had been reaching out to zoo professionals across the country inquiring about how unusual the giraffe could be. Zoo officials said the only record of a reticulated giraffe being born without spots was in Japan in the 1970s.

Mr. Bright said that the new giraffe might not have survived if she had been born in the wild. "Being solid-colored, she may not be able to hide quite well," said Bright. He also thought it was likely that the giraffe would be a "key target for illegal hunters" because she's so unusual.

Pictures of the young giraffe can be seen on the Brights Zoo Facebook page. In a picture, she, without her spots, stood next to her mother, a normal giraffe, in stark contrast. The zoo is asking the public to help name the newborn. People can choose one of four names available on the zoo's Facebook page. The names and their meanings are: Kipekee, meaning unique; Firyali, which means unusual or surprising; Shakiri, meaning she is most beautiful; Jamella, which means optimistic.

Bright said that the zoo looked at thousands of names and their meanings before settling on the four available. "Those four are the four the family really loves," Bright said. "So if she's named one of those four, we're very happy."

According to the Giraffe Conservation Foundation, there are only about 16, 000reticulated giraffes left in the wild — a more than 50% drop from approximately 36,000giraffes 35 years ago. There are about 117, 000giraffes across nine subspecies(亚种).Many of them are endangered or critically endangered.