Many of us still tend to think that emotions can affect reasonable thought，and sometimes land us in trouble. But in recent years psychologists have taken quite a different view. Keith Oatley，Professor of Psychology at Glasgow University，is involved in the research which shows the fundamental importance of emotions.

    He believes we are very ambivalent about them：we think of our emotions as being unreasonable，but we also consider them as essential to being human. For example，Mr. Spock，a character in the television series Star Trek，is super­intelligent and he has no emotions at all. However，he is never made captain of the spaceship. Maybe，this is because Mr Spock is not the kind of person you can share your feelings with—a person who shows his emotions.

    As Professor Oatley points out，our emotions have very important functions，for example，fear. If we cross the road and a car approaches，we usually stop moving or step back. We stop what we are doing，check what we have done and pay very careful attention to the environment. The emotion of fear makes us take this small series of actions which,on average, help protect our safety.

    On the other hand，if things are going well and small problems come up，we find we can solve them with the resources we have to hand. As a consequence, we tend to feel happy and usually continue doing the job.

    Anger is an emotion that tends to occur when someone is preventing us from doing something. Then this small “kit” of reactions enables us to prepare ourselves to be quite aggressive to that person，or to try harder，and so on.

    Professor Oatley believes emotions generally occur at these important moments in actions. With fear and anger our emotions make us decide to start doing something else, while with happiness they “suggest” we continue what we are already doing.

    The first week of my summer campaign has been quite an experience! I'm learning the ups and downs of guiding this new journey,and I'm soon finding my footing in the wonderful world of support raising.

    Some may ask: Why do you choose a job where support raising is necessary? Why not just find a ministry that will support you without having to do any extra work?

    I had a wonderful support meeting this week where I was able to have some very good conversations with the lady I was sharing with.It blessed my soul to see her eyes light up with the same passion（热情）I felt in my heart about the ministry I was sharing with her.I kept thinking in my head "I've shared my passions with her,and she gets it."At the end of our meeting she decided to become a donor,but she gave me something extra that I haven't received from anyone else.She gave me a handmade wooden cross,small enough to carry with me.

    As soon as she handed it to me,I knew it was a gift sent from God,through an act of friendship.It's a symbol of a partnership that is developing through this journey,a symbol of how God can send us messages and a symbol of new friendships to come throughout the summer and my time in the middle east.Finally,it's a symbol of the example of what it looks like to build relationships with people who will join you in sharing with the world.It's something I'll treasure through the rest of my summer campaign,through my service in the middle east,and the rest of my life.

    “Has anyone seen Charge?” I asked, only half expecting a reply. The kids were running around the house, each doing their own thing, and my husband was watching the football game. Since she had only been out of sight for a few hours, I wasn't overly concerned. I thought she must be under one of the kids' beds, hiding from all the mess that was normal for a Sunday afternoon in our home.

    ①

    Charge was not good-looking, to put it kindly. It wasn't her fault; she was simply gifted with the worst appearance traits（特征）in her background.

    My husband had found Charge wandering along the freeway one day on his way home from work. She looked as though she hadn't eaten in weeks, so he stopped and fed her with bits of his leftover lunch. Not knowing what to do, he brought her home with the hope of finding her owners or at least a loving family that would take her. However, once she was in the house, the kids were determined not to let her go. After a day or two of begging, we unwillingly gave in and told them we could keep her.

    After observing her actions for days, I found she was extremely distrustful and afraid of everyone. In time, though, she came to love the kids and slept on their beds every night. I wondered if what she had experienced had conditioned her to be protective of those who were hurting. Every time the kids cried, Charge would run to them and gently offer her comforting paw（爪子）. Unlike our cat, who had recently given birth to five kittens, Charge would have been a great mother.

    ②

    When I was finally able to get everyone's attention at the dinner table, I asked again if anyone had seen Charge. After a unanimous（异口同声的）“No”, I decided to take a look around the neighborhood.

    ③

    “Charge!” I cried, because there she was in the closet! She looked up at me from inside the little cats' box as if to say,“ Shhh, I just got them to sleep!”

    We usually kept the closet door open a bit so our mamma cat could go in and feed her kittens, but she always left as soon as she finished nursing. Obviously, Charge knew they needed more mamma time and was more than willing to help out.

    ④

    The kids smiled upon seeing the dog with the kittens. My husband shook his head and said, “Only you, Charge. Only you!”

    Charge continued to mother the kittens until they were placed in their new homes. Charge may not have been an attractive dog, but she truly had her inner beauty.

    A day in the life of 18­year­old David Lanster is full of typical teenage stuff: school, baseball practice and homework. And then he starts cooking. "Some nights I'm up until 1: 00 a. m. making pies, or even later if we're cooking beef," said the student at Ransom Everglades High School in Florida, US.

    For the past year, Lanster and Kelly Moran, his classmate, have been hosting fancy dinner parties at Lanster's parents' home. Their meals have 17 courses and are all made by themselves. Their guests used to give them gifts to thank them until the pair decided to do something nice for charity. "We got some really great Miami Heat tickets, a nice watch, and many kitchen gadgets (小器具)," Lanster said. "But we wanted to make this something positive for people other than us."

    Lanster and Moran focus on Common Threads, a charity that aims to teach kids in poor communities to cook and make healthy eating choices. The young cooks ask their guests to give however much they want as payment for their meals. It all goes to Common Threads because Lanster's parents cover their food costs. After their last 12­person event, Lanster and Moran gave $1,600 to the charity.

    Now, they're taking their show out of the kitchen and on the road. They have started to organize private dinner parties with a similar model: the host pays for the ingredients, and the guests make a donation to a charity of their choice.

    Without formal training, Lanster said he had been interested in cooking since he helped his mom in the kitchen when he was very young. He learned how to cook by reading cookbooks and watching TV programs. Outside the kitchen, the two are busy preparing their college applications. Neither of them is sure what they will do in the future, but they've promised their parents that they will leave professional cooking alone until they finish school.

Volunteer Day

    What better way is there to enjoy your own hobbies while helping others at the same time? Come to Volunteer Day and choose which activity you'd like to join for the day. See below for a schedule of events on Volunteer Day.

    Volunteer Day schedule:

    7:30a.m.: Meet at the Community (社区) Center for juice and bagels.

    8:00—8:30 a.m.: Choose which activity you'd like to help with for the day.

    8:30 a.m.: Board the bus to your activity site.

    9:00 a.m.—3:30 p.m.: Work as a volunteer.

    3:30 p.m.: Board the bus that will take you back to the Community Center.

    See below for a list of volunteer opportunities for Volunteer Day so you can begin thinking about which activity you might want to join.

    A list of volunteer activities:

    Paint houses: Do you enjoy making art? If so, this volunteer opportunity might be just right for you! Happy Homes is a local organization that provides home repairs for needy people in the form of painting. For elderly or physically disabled people who cannot do repairs to their homes, Happy Homes provides volunteer painters to repaint old homes; outside or in. Happy Homes also provides painters to create beautiful wall paintings inside schools or community centers.

    Plant flowers: Do you enjoy being outside in nature? City Parks Association has many great opportunities for people who love to be outdoors. Help plant flowers and bushes in city parks; help lay paths at Cave Springs Park, or help pick up rubbish around the river banks. These activities are very active, so remember to be prepared with plenty of drinking water!

    Read to children: Do you enjoy working with young children? Do you like books? Love and Learning is an organization that provides volunteers to help children with learning disabilities. Read books out loud to groups of children four to six years old, or read one-on-one with struggling readers seven to eight years old.

    Play with animals: Do you love animals? Lovely Friends is an organization that visits local animal shelters and provides volunteers to spend time with the animals while their cages are being cleaned. Play with puppies, snuggle with cats, or hand-feed rabbits.

    It's no surprise to hear the honking of horns in New York. Whoever tries every day to get more than a few minutes of sleep in the morning in the city will tell you that he could do nothing about it! No one can deny honking of horns is just one of his most widely enjoyed pastimes.

    But Andy, a Japanese website developer has had enough of it. Once, the 27-year-old man approached the open window to wait for the driver to finish honking, delivered a polite "excuse me" and then yelled "Ho-o-o-o-onk!", which means fierce anger in Japan. Then he threw three eggs from the window of his apartment on to a passing car honking loudly below when his patience was worn out. Instead of apologizing to him, the driver threatened to kill him angrily. So, nobly, Andy turned to non-violence. He started writing anti-honking haiku verses, a form of Japanese poetry, and submitted them to local newspapers:

    Oh. forget Enron;

    The problem around here is; All the damn honking (Enron: a major American company that recently caused a scandal because of corrupt(腐败) mismanagement)

    "Then this kind of chain reaction started happening," Andy says. "All these other haiku started appearing unexpectedly" Andy's community is now covered in anti - honking poetry, written by all walks of life.

    Patience slowly fades;

    Residents store up their eggs; That day is coming soon.

    It's understandable that Andy has set up a website — www.honku.org — and now people from across the country send him news of their own anti - honking activities. It seems that poetry can change the world after all. Then, just recently, anti-anti- honking haiku started to appear, launched by locals who thought Andy should stop worrying about honking and start worrying about starving children, or war in the Middle East instead. Andy has an answer for that. "Stop me if this is too ridiculous," he says, "but they talk about the violence in the Middle East like it's a force of nature, like it's beyond our control. But actually it's kind of like the honking - the violence is man -made. If we can figure out how to stop honking on the streets, I think we could learn some things that we could use on a large scale."