Having friends may well keep you healthier and help you deal with stress better. Some studies show that people with close friends have a greater ability to fight disease than people who are alone.

    Place friendship in the first place. Find the time to be with friends even if it means letting the lawn go unmoved or the dishes unwashed for a while. When you can't get together, use the phone to keep in touch.

    Open up to close friends. Keeping a deep friendship requires a level of “heartfelt” intimacy (亲密). Don't be afraid to express your inner fears and disappointments. Listen to your friends when they have problems, but offer advice only when it's wanted. Help raise friends' self-esteem when they are sad about a job loss, or other such events.

    Have different friends for different activities, such as going to the movies, singing in a choir, and joining in a bowling league.

    Don't wait for a friend to ask for helps. When a friend has the flu, offer to go to the store or drive his or her children to their after-school activities.

    Never take a friendship for granted. Like a good marriage, friendship needs care and patience. Become a joiner. Find a group that matches your interests.

    Talk to strangers. Conversations started in museums, laundry rooms, or bookstores can lead to firm friendship.

    Enroll in an adult-education course. A classroom is an ideal place to meet others with similar interests.

    Walk down the drinks section at the supermarket.Look in the drink cooler in your local convenience store.A new drink is taking up more and more space on the shelves，and that drink is water.Bottled water sales in the US rose to 1.7 billion gallons in 2010 for plastic bottles alone，compared to total sales of only 700 million gallons in 1990. Whereas bottled water was once associated only with the rich and the privileged (特权阶层)，it is now regularly drunk by people at all income levels despite the fact that the price of bottled water can be between 240 and 10,000 times higher per gallon than tap water.What accounts for this surprising increase in demand?

    Traditionally，people have drunk bottled water for health reasons.The practice of “taking the waters” originated with the Romans，who believed that a person developed a healthy mind by building a healthy body.Across Europe，drinking or bathing in mineral water has been associated with the power to cure various diseases.Health spas at Evian in France and Pellegrino in Italy began bottling water so that their consumers could continue their treatments at home.The consumers in the 21st century are also concerned about health.However，in America，where the habit of drinking bottled water is relatively new，the concern is often more related to the purity or sterilization (消毒) of the water than to its mineral contents.Americans are often worried about the effects of the chemical pollution and other contaminants on the water supply.Many Americans view bottled water as a safe alternative to tap water.

    Further reasons for drinking bottled water are its usefulness as an aid to digestion，as a complement to a good meal in a restaurant，and for taste.City tap water is often treated with chlorine (氯) to guard against harmful micro­organisms.Chlorine，as well as metals from pipes and tanks used to distribute and store tap water，can leave behind an unpleasant taste.

    Even before my father left us, my mother had to go back to work to support our family. Once I came out of the kitchen, complaining, “Mom, I can't peel potatoes. I have only one hand.” Mom never looked up from sewing. “You get yourself into that kitchen and peel those potatoes,” she told me. “And don't ever use that as an excuse for anything again!”

    In the second grade, our teacher lined up my class on the playground and had each of us race across the monkey bars, swinging(荡秋千) from one high steel rod to the next. When it was my turn, I shook my head. Some kids behind me laughed, and I went home crying.

    That night I told Mom about it. She hugged me, and I saw her “we'll see about that” look. The next afternoon, she took me back to school. At the deserted playground, Mom looked carefully at the bars.

    “Now, pull up with your right arm,” she advised. She stood by as I struggled to lift myself with my right hand until I could hold the bar with my other elbow(肘). Day after day we practiced, and she praised me for every rung(横档) I reached. I'll never forget the next time, crossing the rungs, I looked down at the kids who were standing with their mouths open.

    One night, after a dance at my new junior high, I lay in bed sobbing. I could hear Mom come into my room. “Mom,” I said, weeping, “none of the boys would dance with me.”

    For a long time, I didn't hear anything. Then she said, “Oh, honey, someday you'll be beating those boys off with a bat.” Her voice was faint. I peeked out from my covers to see tears running down her cheeks. Then I knew how much she suffered on my behalf. She just never let me see her tears.

The most anticipated films of 2018

    Thanks to movies like Wolf Warrior 2, Never Say Die, Youth, The Fate of the Furious an Dangal, the 2017 box office gross (票房收入) has reached new heights. Meanwhile, audience have been fed up with Hollywood's long dependence on sequel (续集) films. A lack of origin stories has been criticized for a while.

    As we embrace the new year, let's look to the future, and the most anticipated films in t following year.

Guardians of The Tomb

Country: China and Australia

Release Date: Jan 19, 2018

Director: Kimble Rendall

Stars: Li Bingbing, Kellan Lutz, Wu Zun, Kelsey Grammer

    An innocent discovery of a well-preserved mummified Emperor from 200 BC China unearths a 2000-year-old nightmare — a secret that should have remained buried.

Monster Hunt 2

Country: China

Release Date: Feb 16, 2018

Director: Raman Hui

Stars: Bai Baihe, Jing Boran, Tony Leung Chiu-wai

    Monster Hunt was a huge commercial success, breaking numerous box office records. The film took place in the distant past, when the human race existed alongside the Monster race. Monster Hunt 2 is the sequel of it.

Avengers: Infinity War

Country: United States Release

Date: May 4, 2018

Director: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo

Stars: Robert Downey Jr., Josh Brolin, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Hiddleston, Chris Evans

    The upcoming American superhero film, based on the Marvel Comics superhero team the Avengers, is the sequel to 2012's Marvel's the Avengers and 2015's Avengers.

Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation

Country: United States

Release Date: July 13, 2018

Director: Genndy Tartakovsky

Stars: Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, David Spade

    This 3D animated cartoon movie, the sequel of Hotel Transylvania 2, is a fantasy-comedy for your whole family to enjoy.

    Schools across the world are trying to come up with solutions to keep students active. Some are replacing traditional classroom chairs with exercise balls or standing desks. At Ward Elementary School in Winston, North Carolina students have adopted a new program that requires riding fixed bikes while reading.

    'Read and Ride5 is the creation of school counselor Scott Ertl, who came up with the idea while he was exercising and reading at the gym. Believing it would be a fun way to convince students to become more active, he placed one in the comer of his classroom and encouraged them to use it during independent reading classes.

    It was so popular that Ertl decided to add more bikes and offer the Read and Ride program to the entire school. Today Ward Elementary has a dedicated exercise room filled with bikes that can be used by students while completing their daily reading assignments.

    Besides making reading more fun, the program also helps students exercise at a comfortable pace without the pressure that comes with regular sports-related activities. It is also a perfect way to release energy during days when the weather is not helpful to outdoor activities.

    Most importantly, however, are the program's academic benefits. A year after Read and Ride was introduced at Ward Elementary School, students actively involved in the program demonstrated an astonishing 83% reading proficiency. Those that had not taken advantage of the exercise bikes tested at a much lower, 41%.

    Though the substantial improvement in academic achievement cannot all be attributed to programs like Read and Ride, experts believe they are a significant contributor. That's because studies have shown that physical activity stimulates (刺激) brain cells and helps prepare it for learning. As word of the difference made by this easy to execute exercise program spreads, don't be surprised to find schools across the country adopt “Read and Ride” for their students.

    Throughout history scientists have risked their health and their lives in their search for the truth.

    Sir Isaac Newton, the seventeenth century scientist, was very smart, but that didn't stop him from doing some pretty stupid things. In his laboratory in Cambridge he often did the strangest experiments. Once, while testing how light passes through lenses (晶状体), he put a long needle into his eye, pushed it to the back, and then moved it around just to see what would happen. Luckily, nothing long-lasting did. On another occasion he stared at the sun for as long as he could bear, to discover what effect this would have on his sight. Again he escaped suffering permanent damage, though he had to spend some days in a darkened room before his eyes recovered.

    In the 1750s the Swedish chemist Karl Scheele was the first person to find a way to produce phosphorus (磷). He in fact discovered eight more chemical elements including chlorine (氯), though he didn't get any praise for them. He was a very clever scientist, but his one failing was a curious habit of tasting a little of every substance he worked with. This risky practice finally caught up with him, and in 1786 he was found dead in his laboratory surrounded by a large number of dangerous chemicals, any of which might have been responsible for his death.

    Eugene Shoemaker was a respected geologist. He spent a large part of his life studying craters (火山口) on the moon, and how they were formed, and later did research into the comets of the planet Jupiter. In 1997 he and his wife were in the Australian desert where they went every year to search for places where comets might have hit the earth. While driving in the Tanami desert, normally one of the emptiest places in the world, another vehicle crashed into them and Shoemaker was killed on the spot. Some of his ashes (骨灰) were sent to the moon aboard the Lunar Prospector spacecraft and left there — he is the only person who has had this honor.