Thirteen can be a challenging age. Not only did I have to adapt to my changing body, I also had to deal with my parents' bitter divorce, a new family and the upsetting move from my country home to a crowed town.

    When we moved, my beloved companion (伙伴), a small brown horse, had to be sold. I was heartbroken and terribly lonely. I couldn't eat or sleep and cried all the time. Finally, realizing how much I missed my horse, my father bought me another horse, Cowboy.

Cowboy was without doubt the ugliest horse in the world. But I didn't care. I love him beyond all reasons.

    I joined a riding club. When Cowboy and I entered the events where the horse was judged by the appearance, we were quickly “shown the gate”. I knew nothing could turn Cowboy into a beauty. My only chance to compete would be in the timed speed events. I chose the jumping race.

    For the whole next month we practiced running and jumping for hours in the hot sun and then I would walk Cowboy home, totally exhausted.

    All of our hard work didn't make me feel confident by the time the show came. One girl named Becky rode a big brown horse in the race events. She always won the blue ribbons (丝带). I sat at the gate and sweated all out while I watched Becky and her horse charge through the court and finish in first place.

    My turn finally came. At the signal, we dashed (猛冲) towards the first fence, jumped over it without trouble and raced on to the next one. Cowboy then flew over the second, third and fourth fences like a bird and I turned him towards the finish line.

    No cheers filled the air. The end of our run was met with surprised silence. Cowboy and I had beaten Becky and her fancy horse by two seconds.

    I gained much more than a blue ribbon that day. At thirteen, I realized that no matter what the chances would be, I'd always be a winner if I wanted something badly enough and worked for it. I can be the owner of my fate.

    Researchers at the University of Kansas say that people can accurately judge 90 percent of a stranger's personality simply by looking at the person's shoes. “Shoes convey useful information about their wearers”, the authors wrote in the new study published in the Journal of Research in Personality．

    Lead researcher Omri Gillath said the judgments were based on the style, cost, color and condition of someone's shoes. In the study, 63 University of Kansas researchers looked at pictures showing 208 different pairs of shoes worn by the study's participants. Volunteers in the study were photographed in their most commonly worn shoes, and then filled out a personality questionnaire.

    Some of the results were expected: People with higher incomes most commonly wore expensive shoes, and flashier shoes were typically worn by outgoing people. However，some of the more specific results are strange enough. For example, “practical and functional ''shoes were generally worn by more “pleasant" people, while ankle boots were more linked with “aggressive” personalities. The strangest of all may be that those who wore “uncomfortable looking” shoes tend to have “calm” personalities. And if you have several pairs of new shoes or take extreme care of them, you may suffer from “attachment anxiety", spending lots of time worrying about what other people think of your appearance. There was even a political calculation in the mix with more liberal (主张变革的) types wearing “shabbier and less expensive” shoes.

    The researchers noted that some people will choose shoe styles to mask their actual personalities, but researchers noted that volunteers were also likely to be unaware that their footwear choices were showing the deep side of their personalities.

    Leonardo da Vinci, one of the greatest thinkers in the world, began his career as an artist. Very little is known about Leonardo's early life. He was born in 1452 in the town of Vinci. As a boy, Leonardo showed a great interest in drawing, sculpting and observing nature.

    However, because Leonardo was born to parents who were not married to each other, he was barred from some studies and professions. He trained as an artist after moving to Florence with his father in the 1460s. It was an exciting time to be in Florence, one of the cultural capitals of Europe. Leonardo trained with one of the city's very successful artists, Andrea del Verrocchio. He was a painter, sculptor and gold worker. Verrocchio told his students that they needed to understand the body's bones and muscles when drawing people.

    Leonardo took the teacher's advice very seriously. He spent several periods of his life studying the human body by taking apart and examining dead bodies. While training as an artist, Leonardo also learned about and improved on relatively new painting methods at the time. One was the use of perspective(透视) to show depth. A method called “sfumato” helped to create a cloudy effect to suggest distance. “Chiaroscuro” is a method using light and shade as a painterly effect.

    Leonardo's first known portrait now hangs in the National Gallery in Washington, D. C. He made this painting of a young woman named Ginevra de' Benci around 1474. The woman has a pale face with dark hair. In the distance, Leonardo painted the Italian countryside.

    He soon received attention for his extraordinary artistic skills. Around 1475 he was asked to draw an angel in Verrocchio's painting “Baptism of Christ.” One story says that when Verrocchio saw Leonardo's addition to the painting, he was so amazed by his student's skill that he said he would never paint again.

    A ten-year-old from Howell, Michigan is being praised as a hero thanks to his persistence (坚持) that led to saving the life of an elderly neighbor. The event happened late in an evening when Danny DiPietro was being driven home from hockey practice by his mom.

    That's when the young boy noticed an open garage (车库) and a figure that he believed was a dog outside an apartment building near his house. Given the freezing cold weather, the young boy got a feeling that something was not right. But instead of dismissing it like most kids his age would have, he insisted that his mother, Dawn, find out what was going on. Dawn tried to make Danny believe that no one would leave a dog out in such cold weather, but he refused to take no for an answer.

    Dawn finally gave in and decided to drive to the area with the family dog and see if there was any truth to Danny's hunch (直觉). Sure enough, as she got closer to the apartment building she noticed a garage that was wide open and someone waving madly for help. Upon getting there, she realized that it was not a dog the young boy had seen, but Kathleen St. Onge. The 80-year-old had fallen down on some ice in her garage and had been lying there for two hours, unable to get up.

    Dawn rushed home to get her husband to help and called 911. The two then returned with some blankets to cover Ms. St. Onge, while they waited for the ambulance (救护车) to arrive. Though still in hospital, the elderly woman is recovering well and forever grateful to Danny, for following up on his hunch!

    Everyone needs friends. We all like to feel close to someone. It is nice to have a friend to talk, laugh and do things with. Surely, there are times when we need to be alone. We don't always want people around. But we would feel lonely if we never had a friend.

    No two people are the same. Sometimes friends don't get along well, which doesn't mean that they no longer like each other. Most of the time they will go on being friends. Sometimes friends move away, then we feel very sad. We miss them much, but we can call them and write to them. Maybe we would never see them again, and we can make new friends. It is surprising to find out how much we like new people when we get to know them. Families sometimes name their children after a close friend. Many places are named after men and women, if they are friendly to people in a town. Some libraries are named this way. So are some schools. We think of these people when we go to these places.

    There's more good news for people, if they have friends. These people live longer than those people if those don't have friends. Why? It could be that they are happier. Being happy helps you stay well. Or it could be just knowing that someone cares, if someone cares about you, you take better care of yourself.