One night, the first floor of the house suddenly caught fire. The fire was big, and soon became a sea of fire. On the second floor lived a little girl and her grandmother; the little girl's parents had died, and she lived together with her grandma. In order to rescue the little girl, the grandmother was burned to death, leaving the little girl crying for help loudly.

    How could people enter the house? At the very moment, a man carrying a ladder rushed to the flames and entered the house through the window. When he appeared again in the eyes of the people, the little girl was in his arms. He gave the child to the crowd, and then disappeared into the night.

    This little girl had no family. Two months later a meeting was held to find a person to adopt the girl. A teacher was willing to adopt this child, and said she could give her the best education; a farmer wanted to adopt this child, saying that village life would let the child grow up healthily and happily; a rich man said, “I can give the child everything that others can do.”

    A lot of people who wanted to adopt this child said a lot about the benefits of their adopting the child. But the little girl's face had no expression. At this time, a man, through the crowd, walked straight to the little girl, and opened his arms for the little girl. People were puzzled, and they found that the man had terrible scars on his arms. The little girl let out a cry, “This is the man who saved me!” She suddenly jumped up and buried her face in his arms and sobbed. Naturally the man adopted the girl.

    Suppose you are a visitor in the land of Mongolia, some friends ask you to eat with them. What kind of manners do they want you to have? They want you to give a loud burp after you finish eating. Burping would show that you like your food. In some countries, if you give a big burp, you are told to say “Excuse me, please”.

    In many places people like to eat together. But in some parts of Polynesia it is bad manners to be seen eating at all. People show their good manners by turning their backs on others while they eat.

    What are manners like in an East African town? The people try not to see you. They are being polite. You may see a friend. He may not see you at all. If you are polite, you will sit down beside him. You will wait until he finishes what he is doing. Then he will talk to you. Manners are different all over the world. But it is good to know that all manners begin in the same way. People need ways to show that they want to be friends.

    Canterbury College

    COURSE A

    This course will enable students to experience performing arts and the media at a basic level. It will give them the experience to decide if they wish to develop an interest in this field and to train their potential and adaptability for working in a performance company in either a performing or a technical role.

    COURSE B

    The aim of this course is to provide a series of training in business-related skills and a comprehensive knowledge of business practice. It is for students with a business learning experience who can manage a heavy workload.

    COURSE C

    This course gives a foundation for a career in caring for children, the elderly or people with special needs. Core units are Emergency Treatment, Communication and Information Technology. Practical training is an important part of the course.

    COURSE D

    This course is designed to provide an introduction to the construction industry. Units covered include Heat, Light and Sound, Introduction to the Urban Environment, Communication Processes and Techniques. All students will complete vocational assignments with work experience in the big companies.

    COURSE E

    The qualifications gained and the skills developed on this course will provide a good basis for gaining employment in office work. In addition to word processing, the course also covers spreadsheets, computerized accounting, databases and desktop publishing. All students are given chances to develop their confidence, and advice and information is given on job search skills, presentation techniques and personal appearance.

    COURSE F

    This course is designed to provide a foundation in graphic and visual communication skills. Students complete units in picture composition and photographic processing alongside elements of graphic design, and gain hands-on experience of desktop publishing and presentations.

    The world is too big to take in all at once. To make sense and beauty of it, you have to look at a small part at a time.

    In using a camera, you choose a small part through he view finder. You move the camera, "framing" pictures until you see one that pleases you. Then-click! If you make a good choice, your picture will please others, as well as yourself.

    "Wherever you are," says photographer Ernst Haas, "you are surrounded by pictures. The trick is to recognize them." His photograph of a twist of barbed wire shows what he means.

    Mr. Haas tells us of ways to practice seeing. Make a simple frame of black cardboard. Take it out of the doors and look through it at everyday things, large or small, far away or near.

    At first you may see nothing to interest you. But soon pictures seem to leap (跳) at you through the frame. Oil floating on water makes a picture in rainbow colors. Three people on the steps of an old house form a picture that seems to tell a story.

    Did you notice such things before you used the frame? Perhaps not. But, with practice, you soon do not need its help. You see things as artists do. Everywhere, shapes and colors catch your eye. Your mind takes "snapshots (快照)" of their patterns. Then, if you wish, you can share what you see by taking a photograph or by making a drawing or a painting.

    Sometimes it's fun to "see small". Did you ever notice the design of the seeds in sliced bananas? Have you looked deep inside a lily? Or seen the starburst in the center of a wet ice cube?

    Do you see colors as they really are? When you paint tree trunks, you would make them brown or black. But tree trunks are really gray, purple, yellow-green—almost any color except brown or black!

    Do you notice detail? Doing so can be in many ways. Remembering what you see is often useful, too. Practice can help you.

    A trick for helping you to remember detail is the double take. Look—don't look—then look again.

    Crossing your legs is an extremely common habit; most people don't even notice that they're doing it when they sit down. While you may find it comfortable to sit with one knee crossed over the other, it might be causing health problems that you are not aware of.

    A study published in Blood Pressure Monitoring stated that sitting with your legs crossed can increase your blood pressure. The reason for this is that the blood in your legs has to work against gravity to be pumped back to your heart and that crossing one leg over the other increases resistance(阻力), making it even harder for the blood to circulate. This causes your body to increase your blood pressure to push the blood back to the heart. You won't feel any immediate effects, but repeated, drawn­out increases in blood pressure can cause long­term health problems. So, planning to sit for a long period of time? Don't keep your legs crossed.

    Crossing your legs at the knee can also cause pressure on the major nerve in your leg that passes just below your knee and along the outside of your leg, explains Richard Graves, a medical expert. This pressure can cause numbness and temporary paralysis (麻痹) of some of the muscles in your foot and leg, preventing you from being able to raise your ankle—what we know as that "pins and needles" sensation. While the feeling of discomfort may only last a minute or two, repeatedly crossing your legs until they feel numb can cause permanent nerve damage.

    So next time you sit down, try to get yourself in the habit of sitting with both of your feet on the floor. Not only will it help your posture and stability, but it will also save your health in the long run.

    I recently came in contact with celebrity magazines. My family isn't one to give money for pictures of skinny, drunk celebrities with paragraphs about their relationships and shopping cart times. Thus, I was excited to finally get a chance to read about other people's attractive yet troubled lives.

    Right away I noticed how each magazine seemed to be a copy of the other. They had headlines and pictures that were almost the same. Still, the pictures of perfectly constructed faces with cute designers outfits going on with their daily lives made me read on.

Wait, celebrities taking their dogs for walk? Spending an afternoon at a park? All of these things seemed so ordinary—things my own family and I do together often. I suddenly realized how unextraordinary the people in these magazines were. They are simply normal people who happen to have a cool job and much money. For some reason, pictures of them doing things like buying milk at the store appeal to millions of readers. Then, when these regular people mess up, their mistakes is painted onto hundreds of newspapers and internet sites.

    What if every time we made a mistake, it was made public? Have you ever failed a test? Imagine seeing pictures of you on the front of a newspaper with headlines like, "Regular Schooling Isn't Enough". You'd be embarrassed. Now, I'm not necessarily taking the celebrity's side. I'm more realizing the fact that these people we were crazy about are just ordinary human beings with many photographs following them around. Role models? I'd think not. Personally, I'd rather look up to people in any community who have accomplished a lot instead of an ordinary person walking his dog in Berverly Hills.