The Diet Zone: A Dangerous Place

    Diet Coke ,diet Pepsi, diet pills, no-fat diet, vegetable diet…We are surrounded by the word “diet” everywhere we look and listen. We have so easily been attracted by the promise and potential of diet products that we have stopped thinking about what diet products are doing to us. We are paying for products that harm us psychologically and physically.

    Diet products significantly weaken us psychologically. On one level, we are not allowing our brain to admit that our weight problems lie not in actually losing the weight, but in controlling the consumption of fatty, high-calorie, unhealthy foods. Diet products allow us to jump over the thinking stage and go straight for the scale instead. All we have to do is to swallow or recognize the word “diet” in food labels.

    On another level, diet products have greater psychological effects. Every time we have a zero-calorie drink,we are telling ourselves without our awareness that we don't have to work to get results. Diet products make people believe that gain comes without pain, and that life can be without resistance and struggle.

    The danger of diet products lees not only in the psychological effects they have on us, but also in the physical harm that they cause. Diet foods can indirectly harm our bodies because consuming them instead of healthy foods means we are preventing our bodies from having basic nutrients. Diet foods and diet pills contain zero calorie only because the diet industry has created chemicals to produce these wonder products. Diet products my not be nutritional,and the chemicals that go into diet products are potentially dangerous.

    Now that we are aware of the effects that diet products have on us, it is time to seriously think about buying them. Losing weight lies in the power of minds, not in the power of chemicals. Once we realize this, we will be much better able to resist diet products, and therefore prevent the psychological harm that comes from using them.

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TaIL Spin

    Two dolphins race around in a big pool in the Ocean Park. The smaller dolphin Grace, shown off a few of her tricks, turning around and waving hello to the crowd. The most amazing thing about her, however, is that she's even swimming at all. She doesn't have a tail.

Grace lost her tail as a baby when she got caught up in a fish trap. When the dolphin arrived at the Ocean Park in December 2005, she was fighting for her life. “Is she going to make it?” Her trainer, Abbey Stone, feared the worst. Grace did make it — but her tail didn't. She ended up losing her flukes and the lower part of her peduncle.

Over the past six years, she has learned to swim without her tail. Dolphins swim by moving their flukes and peduncle up and down. Grace taught herself to move another way—like a fish! She pushed herself forward through the water by moving her peduncles from side to side.

    The movement put harmful pressure on Grace's backbone. So a company offered to create a man-made tail for her. The tail had to be strong enough to stay on Grace as she swam but soft enough that it wouldn't hurt her.

    The first time Grace wore the artificial tail. She soon shook it off and let it sink in the bottom of the pool. Now, she is still learning to use the tail. Some days she wears it for an hour at a time, others not at all. “The tail isn't

necessary for her to feel comfortable,” says Stone, “but it helps to keep that range of motion(动作) and build muscles(肌肉).”

    Now, the dolphin is about to get an even happier ending. This month, Grace will star in Dolphin Tale, a film that focus on her rescue and recovery. Her progress has inspired more than just a new movie. Many people travel from near and far to meet her. Seeing Grace swim with her man-made tail gives people so much courage.

    I was at my parent's dinner table. Before me was a worn journal of thin and discolored pages. It was my grandfather's journal and now belonged to my father. My grandfather had passed away in the months leading up to my birth. I never got to visit the places he had frequently and people who had been a part of his life's journey.

    I was now about to enter his world, through the words he had left behind. Within minutes, I was attracted by the power of the written words. In the magical script before me, I was transported to another age when food was an everyday art, planned, prepared and enjoyed in the company of others, and a time when people had the heart to pause，their own lives to embrace (拥抱）each other's struggles. All this was conveyed to me in the beauty of the words that flowed together to connect with the writer's mind and understand the world they lived in.

    That kind of writing seems to be lost on us today. We have gotten used to writing in bite-sized pieces for a public looking for entertainment, and hungry for information. No wonder, there are nearly 200 million bloggers on the Internet and a new blog is created somewhere in the world every half a second. Instead of adding to our collective wisdom, most of these writings reflect the superficiality (肤浅)and impatience of our day and age.

    This not only robs us of the skill of writing impressive essays, it also prevents us from exploring what is truly important. Writing humbles us in a way that is vital for our character growth, by reminding us about the limits of the self and our appropriate place in the vast flow of life. Writing frees us by helping us explore the unknown so that we truly open up to the magic of the world around us. I saw all of this in the writing s of my grandfather. And I've seen it again and again in the writings of the greatest thinkers of humanity. Their writings reflect deep thought on issues of human importance.

    She almost did not run. Christine Williams admits that now. She could barely put one foot after another following the wake(守灵) for her sister, who had died in an automobile accident. But she did run. With the cheers of friends and strangers reaching her heart, Williams set a C.W. Post record in Boston. Now she will run again, in the national Division II cross-country championships in Evansville, Ind. She wanted to be sure she was doing the right thing by running. She was the middle of three sisters, between Kerry, who is 25, and Jennifer, who was 18.

    Just going through any motions was hard enough, but Christine Williams wanted to know if she should put on her uniform and her shoes and run through the woods on an autumn afternoon, in the awful gaping time between her sister's wake and her funeral. “I kind of got upset beforehand.”Williams admitted. Not a chatterbox under normal conditions, she now holds herself the best way she can, the fewer words the better. She almost walked away from the start line. But her friend Angela Toscano, who had flown up to Boston with her, directly from the wake, was standing near the line and talked her through it. “She said my sister would have wanted me to run.” Christine said. And that was enough to get her started.

    The accident happened just after midnight on Nov, 4. Four young women were driving in an unfamiliar area of Long Island in Eastport, N.Y., when one of them apparently ran a yield sign, and the car was hit by another vehicle. Heather Brownrigg and Jennifer Williams died, and their friends April Brown and Kaci Moran were treated at a hospital and released.

    The crash made the papers. April Brown was charged with drunken driving and driving without a license.

    The wake began on Nov. 6. The next day Christine was to run with the Post cross-country team at the regional meet. Rich Degnan, the Post coach, and Post officials offered a car service and tickets on the last flight to Boston for Christine and Toscano. When they arrived at the hotel, the entire team was waiting up for her.

    Everybody knew about it at the regional meet. Degnan had to arrange for the flexibility of an alternate, just in case Christine could not go. Several times during the race, Christine felt she could not continue. But then she heard her friends and all those other people, those strangers from other colleges, calling her name. She thought about Jennifer. And she ran. She finished fourth in 22 minutes 58 seconds, breaking the Post record for the 6-kilometer distance by 15 seconds. And although the Post team didn't qualify for the nationals, Christine did.

    People often say that there is nothing in the world that can be as great as a mother's love. Some mother expressions mean just that. The phrase "mother lode" comes from mining. It means the place where the largest amount of gold can be found. But now, the term "mother lode" means a rich supply of anything. For example, you might say, "She just graduated from college and struck the mother lode with her new job!"

    When we call something "the mother of all", this means it is the biggest or best of something. Here is an example: "We are going to throw the mother of all parties this weekend. So you have to come!"

    Naturally, the word "mother" can be used to mean to give birth, even to something you cannot touch, such as an idea or wisdom. The saying "necessity is the mother of invention" means that when people really need to do something, they will find a way to do it. And "experience is the mother of wisdom" means that people learn from what happens to them.

    You might think all expressions about mothers are sweet and loving. Not so. A boy who is "tied to his mother's apron strings(围裙带)" is controlled by his mother. We can also call him a "mama's boy". Both of these terms are even more insulting(侮辱人的) if you are talking about a man, not a young boy. It can be a huge mistake for a woman to marry a "mama's boy" who is still "tied to his mother's apron strings".

    A show about mothers would not be complete without talking about the very popular but mysterious "Mother Goose". The short poems and songs that "Mother Goose" wrote are a part of growing up in the United States. Real or not, you could say "Mother Goose" is the mother of all nursery rhyme(童谣) writers.

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