How to Make Friends

    Friendship is a very important human relationship and everyone needs good friends. Good friendship has many benefits. If offers companionship, improves self-worth and promotes good health. There are times in our lives such as when we have recently moved into a new town, or changed our jobs or schools. Such changes often leaves us without a friend.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}. But for many of us the process is difficult and requires courage. Below are some helpful suggestions on how to make and keep friends.

1）Associate with others.

    The first step to making friends is associating with other people. You can go to public places to meet new people. Besides, you will need to make yourself known by becoming an active member of such places.

2）Start a conversation.

    Starting a conversation is the second most important step in making new friends.{#blank#}2{#/blank#} You can always start the conversation. Being able to make small talk is a very useful skill in relating with other people.

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    Choosing friends with common interests is important in building friendship as these interests would always bring you and your friend together. Hanging out will always be a pleasant experience.

4）Let it grow.

    It is a good thing to stay in touch. However, try not to press your new friend with calls, messages or visits as this would likely wear him or her out and finally you may lose your friend.{#blank#}4{#/blank#}. The best friendships are the ones that grow naturally.

5）Enjoy your friendship.

    The best way to enjoy your friendship is to allow your friends to be themselves.{#blank#}5{#/blank#} Try not to change them from who they are to what you want them to be.  Become the kind of friend you will want your friend to be to you.

A. Be cheerful.

B. So you will need to give your friend time to react to you.

C. Making new friends comes easy for some people.

D. For a friendship to develop you need to stay in touch.

E. Do not wait to be spoken to.

F. Try not to find fault with your friends.

G. Do things together.

    Do you often feel lonely? What do you do when you feel that way? Hide yourself away and spend your time reading, watching TV or walking around?

    You might think that feeling lonely is just like feeling happy, sad or scared — that it's just one of your various moods. That is true. However, if you let yourself be lonely for too long without dealing with it, you could be making a serious mistake.

    Doctors have known for some time that feeling lonely is bad for the mind. It can lead to mental health problems such as depression, stress and reduce confidence. "Being lonely means not feeling connected or cared for, but it's not about being mentally alone," Lisa Jaremka, scientist from Ohio State University, US, told Live Science in January. And there's growing evidence that not having friends is connected with physical illness as well.

    In 2006, for example, scientists studied 2,800 women who had cancer. They found that those who had few friends or family were five times more likely to die of their disease than women with many social contacts. Also, even healthy people had a better chance of falling ill if they felt left out by others, according to the BBC.

    The results have scientists thinking that loneliness might hurt the immune system（免疫系统）, which protects the body from diseases.

    Hoping to prove this theory, Jaremka and her research team put volunteers（志愿者） through a stress test. During the test, volunteers were asked to make an unprepared speech in front of a group of stony-faced people. The researchers found that volunteers who said they were lonely in their daily lives felt more stress during the test. And their blood samples showed that all the stress had managed to cause harmful changes to their immune system.

     "Loneliness has been thought of in many ways as a chronic stressor（慢性增压器） — a socially painful situation that can last for quite a long time," explained Jaremka, who led the study.

    The number of people suffering from loneliness is increasing all over the world. However, solving the problem is easier said than done. It won't work to just "tell anyone to go out and find someone to love you", said Jaremka. "We need to create support networks."

    The year is 2094. It has been announced that a comet (彗星) is heading towards the Earth. Most of it will miss our planet, but two pieces will probably hit the southern half of the Earth.

    On 17 July, a piece four kilometers wide enters the Earth's atmosphere with a massive explosion. About half of the piece is destroyed, but the remaining part hits the South Atlantic at 200 times the speed of sound. The sea boils and a huge hole is made in the sea bed.  Huge waves are created and spread outwards from the hole. The wall of water, a kilometer high, rushes towards southern Africa at 800 kilometers an hour. Cities on the African coast are totally destroyed and millions of people are drowned.

    Before the waves reach South America, the second piece of the comet lands in Argentina. Earthquakes and volcanoes are set off in the Andes Mountains. The shock waves move north into California and all around the Pacific Ocean. The cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco and Tokyo are completely destroyed by earthquakes. Millions of people in the southern half of the earth are already dead, but the north won't escape for long. Because of the explosions, the sun is hidden by clouds of dust, temperatures around the world fall to almost zero. Crops are ruined. The sun won't be seen again for many years. Wars break out as countries fight for food. A year later, no more than 10 million people remain alive.

    Could it really happen? In fact, it has already happened more than once in the history of the Earth. The dinosaurs were on the Earth for over 160 million years. Then 65 million years ago they suddenly disappeared. Many scientists believe that the Earth was hit by a piece of object in space. The dinosaurs couldn't live through the cold climate that followed and they died out. Will we meet the same end?

    Our world natural park is one of the most famous parks in the world. Millions of visitors from different countries visit this park every year. In order to protect it, please do as follows：

    Protect the natural and cultural heritage. Don't damage or deface any buildings, displays and other facilities. Take care of all plants. Put rubbish in the bins provided.

    Take care when you are going up and down steps or stairs and when you are walking nearby the waters.

    Please buy tickets before entering the scenic spot. One ticket is only for one person. Adult：＄60 per ticket. Children over 6 and under 18, half price. People over 60 and children under 6 are free.

    If you are going into the wooded and hilly lands, for your own safety, please go with three people at least and don't take any tinder(易燃物）along with you. The hill is steep so please take care of yourself.

    This scenic spot is the reserve of water source: No fishing, swimming, washing and any behaviors that are harmful to the water source. Meanwhile, please follow the management rules of the scenic spot conscientiously.

    Opening time：From Monday to Friday, 8：00 a. m.～18：00 p.m.；From Saturday to Sunday, 6：00 am.一24：00 p. m.

    Small animals such as rabbits, peacocks, squirrels, frogs must be taken care of: None of them shall be killed.

    If you have any trouble in visiting our world natural park, please call 477-866-7044. Our staff will do our best to help you.

    A while back I caught a news report on something called ―couch surfing‖ and the network of trusting souls who make this phenomenon possible. They offer to put up travelers free of charge and help them on their ways. At first, it sounded unbelievable. I mean, inviting strangers into one's home for one or two nights? Give me a break.

    However, I was intrigued. I decided to investigate. The only way to truly learn about this phenomenon was to dive in. So I planned a trip to Finland, a country I've always wanted to explore. I would couch surf at every stop there.

    If ever any anxiety existed when stepping into the unknown, it disappeared when my first host met me at the train station. Ari looked like my idea of a typical Finn: tall and blue-eyed. Finns were also supposed to be famously reserved (寡言少语的). Ari was anything but. He was a live wire, giving me an enthusiastic welcome and hiking with me to his apartment, where he showed me the sleeper sofa, served me tea, and engaged me in warm conversations. He also handed me a key to come and go as I pleased.

    If this was what couch surfing was all about－trust and friendship－then I had gotten off to a good start. As I boarded my next train to continue my journey, I began to think about this couch-surfing idea. What urged these people to open their homes to strangers? I concluded that there was a desire to lend a hand to like-minded folks who might enrich their own lives.

    Seven cities in 14 days. Seven hosts. Seven new friends. If couch surfing taught me anything, it's this: Most people are good and generous. Where will couch surfing take me next? Who knows? But I can't wait to find out.

    You've probably heard such reports. The number of college students majoring in the humanities (人文学科) is decreasing quickly. The news has caused a flood of high-minded essays criticizing the development as a symbol of American decline.

    The bright side is this: The destruction of the humanities is, finally, coming to an end. No more will literature, as part of an academic curriculum, put out the light of literature. No longer will the reading of, say, "King Lear" or D.H. Lawrence's "Women in Love" result in the annoying stuff of multiple-choice quizzes, exam essays and homework assignments.

    The discouraging fact is that for every college professor who made Shakespeare or Lawrence come alive for the lucky few, there were countless others who made the reading of literary masterpieces seem like two hours in the dentist's chair.

    The remarkably insignificant fact that, a half-century ago, 14% of the undergraduate population majored in the humanities (mostly in literature, but also in art, philosophy, history, classics and religion) as opposed to 7% today has given rise to serious reflections on the nature and purpose of an education in the liberal arts.

    Such reflections always come to the same conclusion: We are told that the lack of a formal education, mostly in literature, leads to numerous harmful personal conditions, such as the inability to think critically, to write clearly, to be curious about other people and places, to engage with great literature after graduation, to recognize truth, beauty and goodness.

    Literature changed my life long before I began to study it in college. Books took me far from myself into experiences that had nothing to do with my life, yet spoke to my life. But once in the college classroom, this precious, alternate life inside me got thrown back into that dimension of my existence that bored me. Homer, Chekhov and Yeats were reduced to right and wrong answers, clear-cut themes and clever interpretations. If there is anything to worry about, it should be the disappearance of what used to be an important part of every high-school education: the literature survey course, where books were not academically taught but thoroughly introduced—an experience unaffected by stupid commentary and useless testing.

    The literary classics are places of quiet, useless stillness in a world that despises (鄙视) any activity that is not profitable or productive. Literature is too sacred to be taught. It needs only to be read.

    Soon, if all goes well and literature at last disappears from the undergraduate curriculum—my fingers are crossed—increasing numbers of people will be able to say that reading the literary masterworks of the past outside the college classroom, simply in the course of living, was, in fact, their college classroom.