How to Enjoy Life As a Teen

    The "best years of your life"? Maybe not, but you can learn to make the most of your high school days.

    Learn to appreciate small things. Whether it's having a computer, having friends, having a good supply of food, a bed to sleep on, family that loves you, having a decent education or simply being born in this world, value it. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Be happy, and life will reward you. Remember that these are the last few years you will be able to enjoy yourself without having to worry about the responsibility of an adult, but make sure you prepare yourself for when you do become one. When you actually become an adult, you'll learn to love that responsibility and you probably never want to go back.

    Choose your friends wisely. Unlike what many articles state, you don't have to be popular and have a gazillion friends to be happy. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Try to have friends that like you who you are, not just because you are wearing a certain brand of shoes or something like that. These are people who shop at the same store as you; not someone who will sympathize with you when your dog dies.

    Keep your grades up. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} This also sets you up to get into a college you want to go to, which in turn prepares you for a career you will enjoy, improving your quality of life in the future. You'll get cheap car insurance as well if you have at least a B or A average.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Participating in clubs, activities, and sports increases your chances of meeting new friends. While you only need 4 or 5 close friends, that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to meet new people. Participating gives you something to do instead of sitting bored at home and wallowing in self-pity.

    Work at a job you can enjoy. Working is a great way co gain experience and to meet other people. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} This will look great on your resume. If you can't find work, especially in this hard economic time, volunteer or make your own job.

A. Be sociable.

B. Remember the point of life is for you to enjoy it.

C. Find a hobby that is meaningful or practical.

D. In fact, many of the "friends" you have when you are popular are not true friends.

E. When you do get out of college, interviewing companies will look at your previous work experience.

F. Even though you want to enjoy your teen life as best as possible, don't idle away your time in school.

G. There is nothing more satisfying than seeing your hard work pay off in the form of A's and B's (but mainly A's).

    In order to achieve big things in your life, you must be willing to think big.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}When you've busy working toward bringing your goals to life, you also feel happier in your journey. Follow these steps to make your goals a reality.

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Where do you see yourself in a year, five years or ten? Do you see yourself with a family, children, a good job and a college degree in ten years? Try to think as far ahead as you can. Pay attention to every detail, and let your dreams come to life in your mind, showing you what matters most to you.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#} Write down everything you imagine.{#blank#}4{#/blank#} write down the most important achievements that you want to center on and the details about each. What matters most to you? Once you have a list of goals in mind, work out a plan. How will you achieve these goals? Divide your goals into achievable steps.

    Start achieving goals today. Put your plans into action today. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Move forward every day, even if you are only taking a small step at a time.

    When you can picture what your desired life is like, you can better decide the goals you need to set and achieve. All it takes are small steps toward your desired future, and you can achieve the life you want.

A. Center on what you want to achieve.

B. Close your eyes and imagine your future.

C. Take a small step toward the future each day.

D. You should dream big and try to make your goals happen.

E. It's okay to change your dream sand goals based on your needs.

F. Use as much detail as you can when writing down what you remember.

G. Think about where you want to be in the future and how you want to get there.

    All Poetry, the largest poetry writing group, would improve poets' works, create a fan base, and read the best poetry of our generation. It is the home base for poets. Many poets are willing to show their works and over 500,000 poets get feedback（反馈）and improve their poetry. Both beginners and experts are welcomed. All Poetry helps poets learn what they need to improve.

    Writing groups

    All Poetry is designed as a big writing group. Every poem gets several .encouraging comments. We also have private comments for friends.

    Award-winning poets

    The best poems are featured, and many poets have won national contests. Experts encourage amateurs（业余爱好者）to improve their poems.

    Various contests

    All contests are totally free and some are with cash prizes. Dozens of free contests are started every day. Let fair judging inspire you.

    Poets are Saying

     “All Poetry has helped me improve my work so much! I'm now so much more confident about my use of concrete images, and other poetic devices. My own poetry is well received and appreciated and that makes me very happy.”

    Sarah Versa

    “As a member, I've made some good friends at All Poetry. I really appreciate the exchange of constructive comments and general contact with some excellent writers of poetry.”

    Anthony Christopher

    The evidence for harmony may not be obvious in some families. But it seems that four out of five young people now get on with their parents, which is the opposite of the popularly held image of unhappy teenagers locked in their room after endless family quarrels.

    An important new study into teenage attitudes surprisingly shows that their family life is more harmonious than it has ever been in the past." We were surprised by just how positive today's young people seen to be about their families," said one member of the research team. "They're expected to be rebellious(叛逆的) and selfish but actually they have other things on their minds; they want a car and material goods, and they worry about whether school is serving them well. There's more negotiation and discussion between parents and children, and children expect to take part in the family decision-making process. They don't want to rock the boat."

    So it seems that this generation of parents is much more likely than parents of 30 years ago to treat their children as friends. "My parents are happy to discuss things with me and willing to listen to me," says 17-years-old Daniel Lazall. "I always tell them when I'm going out clubbing. As long as they know what I'm doing, they're fine with it." Susan Crome, who is now 21, agrees." Looking back on the last 10 years, there was a lot of what you could call negotiation. For example, as long as I'd done all my homework, I could go out on a Saturday night. But I think my grandparents were a lot stricter with my parents than that."

    Maybe this positive view of family life should not be unexpected. It is possible that the idea of teenagers' rebellion is not rooted in real facts. A researcher comments, "Our surprise that teenagers say they get along well with their parents comes because of a brief period in our social history when teenagers were regarded as different beings. But that idea of rebelling and breaking away from their parents really only happened during that one time in the 1960s when everyone rebelled. The normal situation throughout history has been a smooth change from helping out with the family business to taking it over."

    This may be sad to hear, but the number of Britain's famous red telephone boxes has been falling for decades. The phone box is well-known to foreign fans of Britain and visitors to the country. There are still many left to enjoy, however.

    There is deep feeling for the bright red boxes with the Queen's coat of arms (盾形徽章). The places that still have the red box are mostly small and in the countryside. In these places, the phone box may be a symbol of community, as well as a landmark (地标).

    But there are still several cities, including London, that still have original red phone boxes in place.

    For tourists, they probably make the perfect place for a selfie (自拍照). Visit London any day in the summer and you'll see people with their smartphones taking photos with the red box behind them. People who receive the photo will have no trouble guessing where the selfie was taken.

    Ever since mobile phones became more widespread, there has been less and less point in public phones. But although the red boxes are no longer popular places to make a call from, new uses are being found for them all the time. The famous design created by Giles Gilbert Scott back in 1924 lives on, but in ways the British architect (建筑师) would never have imagined.

    Some of the new ways the phone boxes are being used are quite unusual. For example, some have been changed into tiny coffee shops. Others are hat stores. In one distant area of the country, a red box that had not been used for a long time has been turned into a small lending library.

    Even back in their heyday in the last century, phone boxes were put to other uses. Some people even used them as toilets in an emergency.

But for many, they were a safe place to hide if you were caught up in the rain. Britain's weather is unpredictable: sun one moment, heavy rain the next. So if you are planning to visit the UK and want the perfect British selfie, standing inside a red telephone box in a rainstorm may be your best bet.

    Three important changes that will affect people's everyday life in the future.

    The cashless society

    Cash and bank notes will disappear almost completely. They will be replaced by smart cards with microchip (微芯片) "loaded" with some money. When we pay for goods, we will put our smart cards into a payment terminal (终端) and money will be transferred (转) from our cards to the retailer's (零售商的) card. When all the money is used up, we will be able to "reload" it by inserting it into a telephone, dialing our bank account and putting money to the card from the account. If we want to transfer money from our cards to a bank account, we will use the same method. Smart cards will be able to hold several different currencies at the same time. So if we go abroad, we will be able to use our smart cards in the same way.

    Interactive telephones

    Human telephones will be replaced by talking computers. These computers will recognize speech, ask us what information we need, find the information and change it to speech. If we want to book a flight or pay a bill by phone, we will ask a talking computer to do it. Of course, this won't happen until all the technology is in place, but when it is we will soon get used to using computers in this way.

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    Traffic congestion (拥挤) in cities will be reduced because drivers will use electronic maps to find the quickest way to their destinations and avoid traffic jams. Because people have to pay to drive in cities, they will stop using their cars and use public transport instead. Speed control systems will be built into cars. These systems will control the speed of the car according to the traffic and weather conditions and prevent accidents.