In the mid-1950s, I was a somewhat bored early-adolescent male student who believed that ________________________ One day, this approach threw me into embarrassment

    In Mrs. Totten's eighth-grade math class at Central Avenue School in Anderson, Indiana, we were learning to add and subtract decimals (小数).

    Our teacher typically assigned daily homework, which would be recited in class the following day. On most days, our grades were based on our oral answer to homework questions.

    Mrs. Totten usually walked up and down the rows of desks requesting answers from student after student in the order the questions had appeared on our homework sheets. She would start either at the front or the back of the classroom and work toward the other end.

    Since I was seated near the middle of about 35 students, it was easy to figure out which questions I might have to answer. This particular time, I had completed my usual two or three problems according to my calculations.

    What I failed to expect was that several students were absent, which threw off my estimate. As Mrs. Totten made her way from the beginning of the class，I desperately tried to determine which math problem I would get. I tried to work it out before she got to me, but I had brain freeze and couldn't function.

When Mrs. Totten reached my desk，she asked what answer I'd got for problem No. 14. “I…I didn't get anything,” I answered，and my face felt warm.

    “Correct,” she said.

    It turned out that the correct answer was zero.

What did I learn that day? First, always do all your homework. Second, in real life it isn't always what you say but how you say it that matters. Third，I would never make it as a mathematician.

    If I could choose one school day that taught me the most, it would be that one.

    The behaviour of a building's users may be at least as important as its design when it comes to energy use, according to new research from the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC). The UK promises to reduce its carbon emissions (排放）by 80 percent by 2050, part of which will be achieved by all new homes being zero-carbon by 2016. But this report shows that sustainable building design on its own — though extremely important- is not enough to achieve such reductions: the behaviour of the people using the building has to change too.

    The study suggests that the ways that people use and live in their homes have been largely ignored by existing efforts to improve energy efficiency (效率)，whichinstead focus on architectural and technological developments.

     ‘Technology is going to assist but it is not going to do everything,'explains Katy Janda, a UKERC senior researcher，‘consumption patterns of building users can defeat the most careful design. 'In other words，old habits die hard, even in the best-designed eco-home.

    Another part of the problem is information. Households and bill-payers don't have the knowledge they need to change their energy-use habits. Without specific information，it's hard to estimate the costs and benefits of making different choices. Feedback (反馈） facilities, like smart meters and energy monitors，could help bridge this information gap by helping people see how changing their behaviour directly affects their energy use; some studies have shown that households can achieve up to 15 percent energy savings using smart meters.

    Social science research has added a further dimension (方面），suggesting that individuals'behaviour in the home can be personal and cannot be predicted 一 whether people throw open their windows rather than turn down the thermostat (恒温器) , for example. Janda argues that education is the key. She calls for a focused programme to teach people about buildings and their own behaviour in them.

    Laughter Yoga(瑜伽) is one form of yoga. Madan Kataria, a doctor in Mumbai, India invented it. He believed that people had forgotten how to really laugh. Through his research he made an interesting discovery. The human mind does not know the difference between forced laughter and real laughter. Forced laughter can also lead to a feeling of happiness.

    And then Kataria had the idea for a group of people who would laugh together. He gathered a few of his friends together. They met in a public park in Mumbai. That small group grew and grew! And this is how people began to do Laughter Yoga. People doing Laughter Yoga usually meet together in a Laughter Club. Kataria's friends formed the first Laughter Club in 1995.

    Today, there're over 5,000 Laughter Clubs in 53 countries. But what exactly do people do in a Laughter Club? People in Laughter Yoga meetings usually do a series of exercises. The exercises include body movement, correct breathing, and of course, laughter! At the beginning of the meeting, people may have to force themselves to laugh. But by the end, everyone is usually laughing in a real way! Each meeting is a little different. But there are common exercises groups may do.

    Experts say that the exercises help blood move around the body faster. They also say that Laughter Yoga helps people deal with the bad things in their lives. They say that a person may go into a Laughter Club meeting feeling sad, angry, or worried. But then, people act happy. After a time, forced laughter becomes real laughter. This is one reason why people may enjoy laughter Yoga so much

    Uthman Affan was a very rich man who was known for his generosity. In fact he was so generous that people still tell stories about him today, more than a thousand years later.

    Uthman lived in Medina. It is a very dry part of the world where there isn't a lot of rainfall. One year, the rain didn't come and there was a drought（干旱）. People were running out of food. Things got so bad that the people had to eat leaves from the trees in order to survive.

    You can imagine how happy the people and the merchants（商人）were when they learned that a group of camels（骆驼）were approaching Medina. Each camel carried a lot of food, and the people looked forward to being able to eat good food again. Knowing that the group belonged to Uthman made the people even happier, for they knew he is well-known for generosity. But it was not welcome news for the merchants in Medina, because Uthman was a very sharp businessman. Although he was fair, Uthman drove a very hard bargain.

    Even so, the merchants immediately went to Uthman. They wanted to buy the food on the camels from him so they could sell it for two or even three times its usual price at that time. So they were ready to pay any price Uthman asked. But Uthman turned them down. The merchants raised their offers again and again, but each time Uthman refused. Finally the merchants made their best offer: five times the value of the food. Guess what? Uthman had made a decision to give away all the food to the starving people of Medina.

    “Why do birds sing?” I asked a group of children. “To attract metes(配偶)!” answered a boy. A 4-year-old girl added shyly, “birds sing because they are happy, and they want to make us happy, too.” I think both answers are probably true in a way. If birds sing happily, it shows all is well in the forest: no predators (捕食者) are present, and the birds can feed, sing and do other bird things. The sound of a relaxed robin(知更鸟) singing is easy to understand because it makes us feel this way too—it's a sound that lifts our own hearts when we hear it.

    What happens when a predator comes into their areas? The nearby birds quickly give an alarm call, a short sound that warns, “Danger is coming!” On hearing the sound, the other birds stop singing and fly for cover, the deer lift their heads and stop moving and the rabbits run into the bushes. Suddenly, the forest becomes silent.

    When humans walk through the woods in a hurry or while talking with a friend, we don't see much wildlife. We may think that there aren't many animals living there, but more likely, they know we are coming and hide minutes before our arrival. But if we learn to avoid setting off alarms, we can see many more wild animals without frightening them. To practice, find a place in a park and sit quietly for an hour. Take note as the birds begin to relax and sing again. When I do this, I am always surprised at the wonderful thing animals will do when humans simply stay still long enough.

My First Day of School

    Fear started taking over, I was walking into my first school in America. I had traveled a long distance from India in order to join my parents, who had been for three years, hoping America would help my future. My father decided that I would be better off going to school here, so I enrolled(登记)in the local high school in my new town.

    I was afraid how I would do. On the first day, I went to my second period class after I had missed my first. With anxiety, I reached for the door, opening it slowly. Without paying attention to my classmates, I went straight to the teacher and asked if this was the right class. With a soft voice he answered. "Yes." His voice comforted me a little. He gave me a sheet called Course Requirements, which I would never get in India because we didn't have anything like that. Then he asked me to choose where I would sit. I didn't actually want to pick a seat. In India we had fixed seats, so I never needed to worry about that. I spent the rest of the class taking notes from the image produced by the overhead projector. In Indian schools, we didn't use the technology we had. We had to take notes as the teacher spoke.

    It was noon. I was very confused about when I would have lunch. I went to my next class and the bell rang as I entered. I went through the regular process of asking the teacher if I was in the right class. She said, "It's still fourth period."

    "But the bell just rang," I said.

    Changing from a gentle tone to a harsher(刺耳的)one, she said, "That is the lunch bell, young man."

    I apologized. Without another word I headed for the cafeteria. I felt lucky because we didn't have this in India. Every confusion seemed like a barrier I had to get through to reach my goal. At the end of the day, I was on my way to the bus which we didn't have in India either. I spotted my bus and sat down inside happily. I was thinking, today wasn't so bad.