A woman's home is her castle. She cleans, cooks, decorates, repairs, works, plays and relaxes within the walls of her home. Sometimes women choose to stay at home to raise their children instead of working outside of the home. So you think she must be bored. I was one of those women.

    After finally getting pregnant, and giving birth, I found my home to be the best place. During the nine months I carried my daughter, my body had been broken and back. Being able to relax was just what my weak body needed. Besides, nursing was a rest because I home certainly cured my broken body.

     other families grow one child after the next was a horrible dream, when I didn't think I would ever be able to have my own child. But after having Alyssa, my own cute little baby girl, I was e to let my heart recover from the wounds. I watched and I valued every small change of her body and personality. Nothing was more exciting than time spent with my child. I loved to stay at home.

    Mentally I remained challenged with new opportunities every day. I learned to be perfect and organized. Everything worked like a clock. By 9:00 in the morning, the house was clean--beds made, bathrooms cleaned, house cleaned, and windows cleaned. I enjoyed finishing them quickly so that I could devote most of the day to my daughter. Between nursing, short breaks and staring at her, I thought of ways to improve my home and myself. Even with all the housework, every day was filled with so much fun!

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    Big Brothers Big Sisters is based on the simplicity and power of friendship．It is a program which provides friendship and fun by matching vulnerable young people (ages 7-17) with a volunteer adult who can be both a role model and a supportive friend.

    Volunteer tutors come from all walks of life—married, single, with or without children. Big Brothers and Big Sisters are not replacement parents or social workers. They are tutors: someone to trust, to have fun with, to talk and go to when needed.

    A Big Sister and Little Sister will generally spend between one and four hours together three or four times each month for at least twelve months. They enjoy simple activities such as a picnic at a park, cooking, playing sport or going to a football match. These activities improve the friendship and help the young person develop positive self-respect, confidence and life direction.

    Big Brothers Big Sisters organizations exist throughout the world. It is the largest and most well-known provider of tutor services internationally and has been operating for 25 years.

    Emily and Sarah have been matched since 2008. Emily is a 10-year-old girl who has experienced some difficulties being accepted by her schoolmates at school. “ I was pretty sure there was something wrong with me.”

    Emily's mum came across Big Brothers Big Sisters and thought it would be of benefit to Emily by “providing different feedback (反馈) about herself other than just relying on schoolmates to measure her self-worth.

    Sarah wanted to get involved in a volunteer program. “I googled it and found out how to be a part of it. I thought it would be fun for me to get involved in making time to do something because sometimes it is all work and no play.”

    Big Brothers Big Sisters has been of great benefit and enjoyment to both Emily and Sarah. They love and look forward to their time together and the partnership has certainly helped Emily be more comfortable in being the wonderful, happy and unique girl she is!

The idea of being able to walk on water has long interested humans greatly. Sadly, biological facts prevent us ever accomplishing such a thing without artificial aid—we simply weigh too much, and all our mass pushes down through our relatively small feet, resulting in a lot of pressure that makes us sink.

    However, several types of animals can walk on water. One of the most interesting is the common basilisk Basilicus basilicus, a lizard (蜥蜴)native to Central and South America. It can run across water for a distance of several meters, avoiding getting wet by rapidly hitting the water's surface with its feet. The lizard will take as many as 20 steps per second to keep moving forward. For humans to do this, we，d need huge feet that we could bring up to our ears in order to create adequate w hitting.

    But fortunately there is an alternative : cornflour. By adding enough of this common thickening agent to water (and it does take a lot), you can create a “non-Newtonian” liquid that doesn't behave like normal water. Now, if the surface of the water is hit hard enough, particles(粒子）in the water group together for a moment to make the surface hard. Move quickly enough and put enough force into each step, and you really can walk across the surface of an adequately thick Liquid of cornflour.

    Fun though all this may sound, it's still rather messy and better read about in theory than carried out in practice. If you must do it, then keep the water wings handy in case you start to sink--and take a shower afterward!

    Stress is a word we hear a lot these days. People have stressful jobs; they feel stressed while studying for exams; even family life can be stressful. Stress can cause headaches and lack of sleep arid research has shown that it is one of the main causes of heart disease. None of us can completely avoid stress. Everyone experiences it.

    In ancient times, stress served a different purpose. It kept us alive. When a caveman was walking along and was suddenly faced with a lion, the stress he experienced would make him run away faster than he could usually run. Stress is the state our bodies experience when we need to react to difficult or dangerous situations. While stress saved us back then, and it is still very helpful in difficult situations, we need a break from stress every now and again.

    Luckily, there are ways to relax and deal with stress and it seems that music might be our number one cure. A recent worldwide study showed that listening to music is what most people do to relax and reduce stress. The study was based on interviews with 1,000 people in 30 countries and 56% said that listening to music was the best way to relax. Watching TV, at 53%, was the next most popular way of reducing stress followed by taking a shower or bath at 49%. It is not really surprising that listening to music is such a popular way of relaxing. It is cheap and widely available on radio, TV and the Internet.

    Of course, musical tastes differ from person to person. Sam might love listening to loud heavy metal music to relax after a hard day's work, but his neighbour - a fan of Mozart - might find hearing his music extremely stressful. “Sam needs an iPod”, you- might be thinking and you are probably right. Mobile music players can provide music privately whenever and wherever it is needed; we could even call them the stress fighters of the 21st century. So the next time you fed stressed, take a deep breath, put on your earphones and ... relax.

Adopt-a-Highway

    Hello. I'm Jan from Mrs. Lake's class. My class wants to work together to help the public. We think we have found a great way to do this. Last month we did a class project on the highways near our town. We learned about the Adopt-a-Highway Program. This program brings people together to pick up litter along the roads. We think it would be a great idea for all students in our school to join the program and adopt a highway.

    Adopting a highway is not like adopting a pet. When a highway is adopted, only part of the highway is cared for by a group of people. The group agrees to work every week to keep its part of the highway clean. Each group gets its own sign that has the name of the group printed on it. The sign is put up at the side of the road. This sign lets drivers know who is keeping that area of the road clean.

    The Adopt-a-Highway Program is a great way for people to help their environment look nicer. Also, the government does not have to send out as many road workers. This saves money. Finally, people may try harder to keep roads clean if they see people, especially teenagers like us, cleaning them up.

    We will need helpers to care for our adopted highway. If you want to feel great and keep our roads clean, please come with your parents to the meeting next week. We will meet in Mrs. Lake's room on Wednesday at 6:00 P.M. At the meeting, we will talk about which roads are the dirtiest as a result of people's unkind acts. Then we'll try to pick an area to adopt and clean up.

    I look forward to seeing you at the meeting. Remember to keep our roads clean!

    This happened when I was ten.

    My girl cousin had decided to be a boy for Halloween, so my aunt called my mom to borrow some of my clothes. The next morning, they came to our house early before school. My cousin told me that she was going to be a boy for Halloween and wear some of my clothes. I told her that I didn't care. Then, with a big grin(咧嘴笑) on her face, she told me that I was going to be a girl. I told her she was crazy but she said that she had overheard my mom's plan and that her mom had brought some of her clothes for me.

    So I went to the living room to see our moms. Then I knew she wasn't lying. There was a wig(假发）on the table and my mom and aunt were both smiling at me. I shook my head and told them “NO WAY!” before they even said a word. My aunt said that it would be really cute. Then Mom told me not to be a stick-in-the-mud. She said that it would be fun and she wanted to see what I'd look like as a little girl. I told them I absolutely would not do it!

    I was still refusing twenty minutes later… when my aunt was putting make-up on me. I was wearing a pink party dress, the blond wig with pigtails(辫子) and earrings. My cousin wore one of my sweatshirts, my jeans and a baseball cap. We were sent to school like that, where I spent a sad day. The kids thought it funny that we were dressed that way and made stupid comments about us. They also played jokes on us and I've never been so uncomfortable.

    I still don't like Halloween to this day!