Born on August 9,1963,New Jersey,Whitney Houston almost seemed bound to become a singer.Her mother Cissy Houston was the choir（唱诗班）minister at New Hope Baptist Church,and it was there that a young Whitney got her start.

    When she was 19,Whitney Houston was discovered in a nightclub by the famous Clive Davis of Arista Records. In 1983,Houston made her debut（首演）on national television.In 1985,she released her debut album Whitney Houston and almost immediately became a sensation.Over the next year,her hit singles Saving All My Love for You and How Will I Know helped the album reach the top of the charts,where it staved for fourteen weeks in a row. Houston won a Grammy in 1986 for Saving All My Love for You.

    By 1992,Whitney Houston was on top of the world,but her life was about to get very complicated very quickly. That year she married the R&B singer Bobby Brown.At first the marriage was passionate and loving,but things turned sour as the decade progressed and both Brown and Houston battled drug abuse.

    In spite of these growing personal troubles,Whitney Houston continued to progress in her career,crossing over successfully into acting in 1992 by starring in The Bodyguard.Her single from the movie,I will Always Love You, proved to be Houston's biggest hit ever,spending a record-breaking fourteen weeks on top of the US charts.

    In the late 1990s and early 2000s,Whitney Houston's increasingly rocky marriage,struggles with drug and health problems threatened her career.Over the next few years,Houston attempted to break her drug habit and divorced Bobby Brown in 2007.

    After almost a decade of struggling with her personal life,Houston seemed to be pulling herself together.She released a new album,I Look to You,in 2009.The recording received a warm welcome from music fans.

    In early 2012,Houston worked on a new musical film Sparkle with Jordin Spark.Unfortunately,Houston didn't live long enough to see it.

    Whitney Houston died on February 11,2012,in Los Angeles.With her passing,the music world has lost one of its most outstanding stars.

    “Can't hold a candle to” is a popular expression. When there wasn't electricity, someone would have a servant light his way by holding a candle. The expression meant that the person who cannot hold a candle to you is not fit even to be your servant. Now, it means such a person cannot compare or compete.

    Another expression is “hold your tongue.” It means to be still and not talk. “Hold your tongue” is not something you would tell a friend. But a parent or teacher might use the expression to quiet a noisy child.

    “Hold out” is an expression one hears often in sports reports and labor news. It means to refuse to play or work. Professional football and baseball players ''hold out” if their team refuses to pay them what they think they are worth.

    The expression “hold up” has several different meanings. One is a robbery. A man with a gun may say, “This is a hold-up. Give me your money.” Another meaning is to delay. A driver who was held up by heavy traffic might be late for work. Another meaning is for a story to be considered true after an investigation. A story can hold up if it is proved true.

    “Hold on” is another expression, which means waiting or stopping. As you leave for school, your brother may say, “Hold on, you forgot your book.” It is used to ask a telephone caller to wait and not hang up his telephone.

    Our final expression is “hold the line”. That means to keep a problem or situation from getting worse—to hold steady. For example, the president may say he will “hold the line on taxes”. He means there will be no increase in taxes.

    Mary Krupa became friends with the grey squirrels during her first week at Penn State,after spotting them running around and idly（漫不经地）wondering what they would look like with tiny hats on their heads.Today, everyone at the university knows her as the "Squirrel Girl".

    Mary started bringing them food,and gradually they began to trust her.She managed to put a hat on a squirrel and take a picture.Thinking that her colleagues could do with something to lift up their spirits,she started posting similar Photos on Facebook.The response Was greatly positive,and before long Mary and her squirrels became an Internet sensation.

    Growing up in a neighborhood outside State College,Mary was always fond of birds and animals around her home,but she didn't interact with people very much.She was later diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome,but the squirrels changed that.The squirrels are actually a good way to break the ice,because I'll be sitting here patting a squirrel and other people will come over and well just start like feeding the squirrels together and chatting about them,"she said."I am a lot more outgoing.

    And in case you're wondering how Mary is able to get the squirrels to do what she wants for her photos,it has a lot to do with food.For example,whenever she wants them to hold or play with something,she puts peanut butter on the prop（道具）,and they'll grab it.But getting to that part took a while.In the beginning,she would throw peanuts up the trees on campus and invite the squirrels to come down and get them,but they hesitated to approach her.She had the patience to earn their trust,though.

    This year,Mary is graduating with a degree in English and wildlife sciences.She wants to be a science writer and educate people on how to preserve the environment.As for her furry friends,Mary plans to stay in the area and visit them as often as she can.

    Gesture is the use of such movements to express thought, emotion, etc. A gesture can be many things. Slamming a book shut shows anger and frustration. Opening a door lor someone shows kindness. Gestures go much beyond small actions.

    My friend once told me a story in high school. One day he met a girl who was on the girls' basketball team. He said hello, gave her a hard handshake and wished her good luck as she had a game later. He came to find out he saved that girl's life. She had planned on committing suicide and by shaking her hand and saying good luck, he made her realize someone really cared about her. I'm not saying all actions are going to change someone else's life that much, but it may make their day better.

    Gestures can be negative too. In my senior year of high school, a guy on my football team was late and was walking down the field to practice. Everyone on the team knows our coach hates it when people are late and walk on the field. He was walking in as if he owned the place and had no care of what his teammates were thinking. His body language had never been good. The other players on the team had never liked him because of his body language.

    Gestures can often say more than a person wants. One day I was mad at my parents for some pointless reason. All day I stayed downstairs. When one of them walked by, I would just stare at the TV or my phone and hope they wouldn't try to start a conversation. When they tried to talk to me, I would give one-word answers. Sitting on the couch and watching TV by myself all day was not my intent but that was what my gestures told my parents.

    One simple gesture can change a person's thoughts, day or maybe even save their lives. If everyone made a nice gesture to someone else every day, our school, town, and world would become a better place. One single act of random kindness at a time or a kind gesture can change the world.

Life is difficult.

    What do you think about life? Maybe most people say that life is difficult. But life is no longer difficult once we truly understand and accept it. Most people do not fully see this truth. Instead, they complain about their problems and difficulties as if life should be easy. It seems to them that their difficulties represent a special kind of suffering especially forced upon them or their families, their class, or even their nation.

    What makes life difficult is that the process of facing and solving problems is a painful one. Problems, depending on their nature, cause us sadness or loneliness or regret or anger or fear. These are uncomfortable feelings, often as painful as any kind of physical pain. And since life causes an endless series of problems, life is always difficult and is full of pain as well as joy.

    Yet, it is in this whole process of solving problems that life has its meaning.

    Problems are the serious test that tells success from failure. When we desire to encourage the growth of the human spirit, we encourage the human ability to solve problems, just as in school we set problems for our children to solve. It is through the pain of meeting and working out problems that we learn. As Benjamin Franklin said, “Those things that hurt instruct.” It is for this reason that wise people learn not to fear but to welcome the pain of problems.

Learning, Fast and Deep

    Over the past five years researchers in artificial intelligence have become the rock stars of the technology world. A branch of AI known as deep learning, which uses neural(神经的) networks to scan through large volumes of data looking for patterns, has proven so useful that skilled practitioners can command high six-figure salaries to build software for Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google.

    The standard route into these jobs has been a PhD in computer science from one of America's top universities. Earning one takes years and requires a personality suited to academia, which is rare among more normal folk.

    That is changing.

    Last month fast.ai, a non-profit education organization based in San Francisco, kicked off the third year of its course in deep learning. Since its foundation it has attracted more than 100, 000 students around the globe from India to Nigeria. The course and others like it, come with a simple idea: there is no need to spend years obtaining a PhD in order to practise deep learning. Creating software that learns can be taught as a craft, not as a high intellectual pursuit to be undertaken only in an ivory tower. Fast. ai's course can be completed in just seven weeks.

    To make it accessible to anyone who wants to learn how to build AI software is the aim of Jeremy Howard, who founded fast.ai with Rachel Thomas, a mathematician. He says school mathematics is sufficient. "No. Greek. Letters," Mr. Howard intones, pounding the table with his fist for punctuation.

    Some experts worry that this will serve only to create a flood of unreliable AI systems which will be useless at best and dangerous at worst. In the earliest days of the Internet, only a select few nerds, namely computer holies with specific skills, could build applications. Not many people used them. Then the invention of the World Wide Web led to an explosion of web pages, both good and bad. But it was only by opening up to all that the Internet gave birth to online shopping, instant global communications and search. If Mr. Howard and others have their way, making the development of AI software easier will bring forth a new crop of fruit of a different kind.