If you do not use your arms or your legs for some time, they become weak. When you start using them again, they slowly become strong again. Everybody knows that. Yet many people do not seem to know that memory works in the same way.

    When someone says that he has a good memory, he really means that he keeps his memory in practice by using it. When someone else says that his memory is poor, he really means that he does not give it enough chance to become strong.

    If a friend says that his arms and legs are weak, we know that it is his own fault. But if he tells us that he has a poor memory, many of us think that his parents are to be blamed(责备), and few of us know that it is just his own fault.

    Have you ever found that some people can't read or write but usually they have better memories? This is because they cannot read or write and they have to remember things; they cannot write them down in a little notebook. They have to remember days, names, songs and stories; so their memory is the whole time being exercised. So if you want to have a good memory, learn from the people: practice remembering.

    It was a Saturday morning, a day I believed would end in victory. For weeks, I had been preparing for the match at the county fairgrounds, sponsored(赞助) by our local riding club. My horse, Tonka, and I could run faster than any kid in the county, and I hoped to bring home a blue ribbon.

    My mother usually drove me to the riding events, but on this day, my father planned to drop us off at the fairgrounds with the horse trailer(马车) .

    Although we never discussed it, my father's struggle with alcoholism had become the silent center of our family life. My mother was paralyzed with fear and indecision. Her salary as a part-time nurse couldn't possibly support four children. No one talked about alcoholism in those days, and it was my family secret.

    We climbed on the trailer and my father pulled out of our driveway and headed toward the fairgrounds, picking up speed once we hit the main road. It wasn't until we felt a big bump that I realized the trailer was out of control. The dream of my riding winner disappeared. Tonka lay on the floor, completely still. No words were possible. I knew he was dead.

    Suddenly a man appeared. "Are you all right?" he asked. "Yes." I answered, although I knew that nothing was all right. "Sit here on the grass," he said. He bent down to look into the trailer. Tonka remained still. He touched Tonka and then turned to face me. "He is going to be OK. He has just been knocked unconscious." He rubbed Tonka's cheeks and gently pulling his ears. Tonka rose to his feet.

    Our father was talking to a police officer. He was upset and in pain and took little notice of me. I looked back; the man was gone.

    I never forgot him. He gave me strength and a sense of hope in a dark and frightening moment.

    Here is an astonishing and significant fact: Mental work alone can't make us tired. It sounds absurd. But a few years ago, scientists tried to find out how long the human brain could labor without reaching a stage of fatigue(疲劳). To the amazement of these scientists, they discovered that blood passing through the brain, when it is active, shows no fatigue at all! If we took a drop of blood from a day laborer, we would find it full of fatigue toxins(毒素)and fatigue products. But if we took blood from the brain of an Albert Einstein, it would show no fatigue toxins at the end of the day.

    So far as the brain is concerned, it can work as well and swiftly at the end of eight or even twelve hours of effort as at the beginning. The brain is totally tireless. So what makes us tired?

    Some scientists declare that most of our fatigue comes from our mental and emotional(情感的)attitudes. One of England's most outstanding scientists, J. A. Hadfield, says, "The greater part of the fatigue from which we suffer is of mental origin. In fact, fatigue of purely physical origin is rare. "Dr. Brill, a famous American scientist, goes even further. He declares, "One hundred percent of the fatigue of a sitting worker in good health is due to emotional problems. "

    What kinds of emotions make sitting workers tired? Joy? Satisfaction? No! A feeling of being bored, anger, anxiety, tenseness, worry, a feeling of not being appreciated—those are the emotions that tire sitting workers. Hard work by itself seldom causes fatigue. We get tired because our emotions produce nervousness in the body.

    I've written this article and you're reading it. So we are members of the same club. We're both literate—we can read and write. And we both probably feel that literacy is essential to our lives. But millions of people all over the world are illiterate. Even in industrialized Western countries, such as the UK and the USA, approximately 20% of the population have "low literacy levels". But what exactly does that mean?

    My parents both left school at 14. They could read and write, but except for a quick look at the daily newspaper, reading and writing didn't play a big part in their lives. There were very few books in the house. My mother was amazed because the woman who lived next door always wrote a list of what she needed before she went to the supermarket. Why couldn't she remember? We laughed about that for weeks. Our family didn't write lists! And when I was only 14 years old my father gave me an important letter that he'd written to the bank and asked me to check it for grammar and spelling mistakes. And there were quite a lot. He never usually wrote letters or postcards or even Christmas cards. So when he had to write he wasn't comfortable or confident. Does that mean that my father had a "low level of literacy"? I don't think so.

    There are lots of different definitions of literacy. Some experts define it as having the reading and writing skills that you need to be independent in your everyday life. So, for example, if you can read instructions, write a cheque, fill in a form, —anything that you need to do in everyday life—then you are "functionally literate".

    Other people say that you are illiterate if you think that you are illiterate. In other words, if you feel that you can't read or write as well as you would like to.

    If you live in a society where most people are literate then you will feel ashamed or embarrassed and avoid situations in which you have to read or write. The father of a friend of mine finally admitted to his family that he couldn't read when he was 45 years old. He bought the newspaper every day and pretended to read it—and believe it or not, his family had no idea.

    We often forget that writing is a recent invention. Many years ago, the word "literate" meant being able to communicate well in speaking, in other words what we now call "articulate". Story telling was an important activity in the past and still is today in some societies. Reading was often a cooperative activity—someone would read aloud to a group, often from a religious text such as the Koran or the Bible.

    Only a hundred years ago, in the United States, you were considered to be literate if you could sign your name to a piece of paper. It was an important skill. You were not allowed to vote if you couldn't sign the voting register, so literacy was connected with political rights, and many people were excluded from the democratic process.

    Nowadays we see reading and writing as being connected, but that wasn't so in the past. Many people could read, but not write. Writing was a skilled profession. If you needed something written then you paid an expert to write it for you.

    And of course, rich and important people have always employed people to write things for them. Important company bosses dictated letters to their secretaries or personal assistants. And now with new computer software you can dictate directly to your computer.

    Being illiterate can have a big effect on people's lives. For example, a study in the UK showed that people who write and spell badly are seen as careless, immature and unreliable, and often unintelligent. So it is more difficult for them to find jobs, even when reading and writing are not necessary for the work.

    World-wide statistics show that literacy problems are associated with poverty and a lack of political power. More women than men are illiterate. Illiterate people have worse health, bigger families and are more likely to go to prison. So literacy campaigns must be a good thing. But don't forget that an illiterate person, or someone with a low level of literacy, isn't necessarily stupid or ignorant—and may not be unhappy at all. Knowledge and wisdom isn't only found in writing.

    When I was five or six years old, I remember watching TV and seeing other children suffer in other parts of the world. I would say to myself, "When I grow up, when I can get rich, I will save kids all over the world."

    At 17, I started my career here in America, and by the age of 18, I started my first charity organization. I went on to team up with other organizations in the following years, and met, helped, and even lost some of the most beautiful souls, tern six-year-old Jasmina Anema who passed away in 2010 from leukemia (白血病), whose story inspired thousands to volunteer as donors, to 2012 when grandmother lost her battle with cancer, which is the very reason and the driving force behind the Clara Lionel Foundation( CLF). We're all human. And we all just want a chance: a chance at life, a chance in education, a chance at a future, really. And at CLF, our mission is to impact as many lives as possible, but it starts with just one.

    People make it seem too hard to do charity work. The truth is, you don't have to be rich to help others. You don't need to be famous. You don't even have to be college-educated. But it starts with your neighbor, the person right next to you, the person sitting next to you in class, the kid down the block in your neighborhood. You just do whatever you can to help in any way that you can. And today, I want to challenge each of you to make a commitment to help one person，one organization，one situation that touches your heart. My grandmother always used to say, "If you've got a dollar, there's plenty to share."

Museum of the Future Dubai

When in Dubai, most of us associate this Emirates city with religion, cultural impact, entertainment, and iconic construction. The Museum of the Future Dubai is an exhibition space focusing on future technologies, innovative(创新的) services, and products.

The Museum founded by the Dubai Future Foundation has three main features: green hill building and space. The goal of the Museum is to push technological development, especially in the robotics and artificial intelligence fields.

The museum has held several exhibitions since its opening in 2016. One of the impressive exhibition themes held in 2017 was "Climate Change Re-imagined: Dubai 2050", which adopted a theme set in 2050 exploring how human beings could applaud and accept innovations despite global warming and climate change.

The Museum of the Future was designed by Killa Design architecture studio which aims to show its level of environmental friendliness in real estate. The outside of the building has windows forming an Arabic poem by Dubai's ruler about the Emirate's future. The words written on the Museum frontage(正面) are three quotes from Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates.

The Museum is suitable for the entire family. You will witness the biodiversity of the rainforest, helping you discover new species. Future Heroes is an area only for kids, encouraging young citizens to imagine, design, and build through creativity activities.

Come, prepare for a journey into the future by checking out the Museum of the Future. It is a cross-bridge between the past and the future and a great experience for all ages.