Ringing a Bell

    The teacher looked up from her yellow notebook and cleared her throat. "We're going to be 1the Salvation Army by ringing the bell. Each of you will ring it for four hours," she announced. As the words left her lips, complaints could be heard around the room. Four hours of ringing a 2bell in winter! Four hours that I could be studying for the SATs. Was this supposed to be a joke? I joined the crowd around the table and signed up for the first day of break­to get it over with.

    A few weeks later, I was standing next to Walmart. There was another guy holding a jar across from me. Great, I was going to be 3 here ringing a bell with another guy who was trying to get donations 4some church organization. To top it off, it was 4℃.

    5, I put on the red apron bearing the symbol of the Salvation Army. Ring! Ring! A group of older women came up with their walking sticks to drop in some change. A man came by and dropped some coins in. I 6 my phone. Just 10 minutes had passed.

    A cold wind blew against my 7face. I started to regret 8 my mom's advice about wearing a scarf. I looked up, wishing that time would pass more quickly. A few birds swept around the electrical poles…Another ring of the bell brought me back to reality.

    From the full parking lot stepped a tall man. 9he limped (跛行)toward me, I saw his unbalanced shoulders and awkward figure. His hair was messy and his jeans and shirt were dirty. When his hand reached toward the bucket, I caught a disgusting smell of oil and smoke. I couldn't help but say, "Thank you, sir. Have a nice day." He turned to smile, a smile that sharply contrasted his soiled clothing. The money he donated was not a lot, but it was 10 a lot to him.

    I was 11 by his generosity. This act of charity, though not much, was worth so much more than 12 given by those who are better off. I continued to ring my bell happily, 13 at everyone who entered the store. Occasionally, I handed out some homemade cookies that had been given to me earlier. Truly, 14 is contagious (有感染力的).

    In the beginning, I thought that this assignment would be a huge burden. Actually, I was being really 15. We should think about others and learn more about what's going on in the world around us. Finally, I encourage everyone to take four hours to ring a bell for the Salvation Army.

5 books I loved in 2018

By Bill Gates

    A great read is the perfect gift and I think everyone could use a few more books in their lives. My book list covers various topics, including an autobiography on learning throughout a life, a deep search on autonomous weapons (武器), a thriller about the fall of a once­promising company and a guide about meditation (冥想)­there's something for everyone.

    The Head space Guide to Meditation and Mindfulness, by Andy Puddicombe. The book starts with Puddicombe's personal journey from a university student to a Buddhist monk and then becomes an entertaining explainer on how to meditate. If you're thinking about trying mindfulness, this is the perfect introduction.

    Army of None, by Paul Scharre. It's an extremely complicated topic, but Scharre offers clear explanations and presents both the advantages and disadvantages of machine­driven warfare. His fluency with the subject should come as no surprise: he's an ex­soldier who helped draw up the U.S. government's policy on autonomous weapons.

    Bad Blood, by John Carreyrou. Carreyrou gives you the definitive insider's look at the rise and fall of a company. I found myself unable to put it down once I started. This book has everything: magazine cover stories, ruined family relationships, and the failure of a company once valued at nearly $10 billion.

    21 Lessons for the 21st Century, by Yuval Noah Harari. I'm a big fan of everything Harari has written, and his latest is no exception. If 2018 has left you stressed out by the state of the world, 21 Lessons offers a helpful framework for processing the news and thinking about the challenges we face.

    Educated, by Tara West over. Tara never went to school or visited a doctor until she left home at 17. I loved this life story of a young woman whose thirst for learning was so strong that she ended up getting a P.h.D. from Cambridge University.

When I grow up

    In kindergarten, my class was asked to draw pictures, showing what we wanted to be when we grew up. Our drawings were expected to display our dream occupations. I remember pictures of ballerinas dancing, firefighters putting out a blaze, and astronauts leaping across the moon.

    My picture showed a figure with brown hair holding a box of orange juice beside a counter. Underneath was my handwriting: "When I grow up, I want to work at Market Basket because it would be fun to swipe (刷) orange juice across the scanner." Out of everything, my five­year­old self wished to work at the local grocery store.

    When we are young, questions of what we want to be when we grow up are common. Yet we are not expected to respond with an answer that is likely to come true. However, when we become teens, we are asked the very same questions twice as often. The difference is, now we are supposed to answer with confidence.

    Teens are expected to know exactly what we want to be and how we are going to achieve that goal. However, not all of us can be so sure. Even though I am in high school, I cannot answer with certainty. But I don't consider that a bad thing. How am I supposed to know what I will want to spend my time doing at age 40?

    When I think about the future, I definitely don't see myself working at Market Basket, but in reality, if that was what would make me happy, I would do it. So, the next time someone asks me what I want to be when I grow up, I will simply say "happy".

    Happiness is a destination for everyone. We may want to walk different paths in life, but we all want to be happy wherever we end up. Choose your path, but don't worry too much about choosing wisely. Make a mistake or two and try new things. But always remember, if you're not happy, you're not at the end of your journey yet.

    A new study suggests some language learning can take place during sleep. Researchers from Switzerland's University of Bern say they discovered people were able to learn new language words during deep levels of sleep.

    Much of the earlier research found that memories made when awake were strengthened during sleep. This supported the idea that information learned while awake is replayed and deeply embedded in the sleeping brain.

    The researchers theorized that, if replay during sleep improves the storage of learned information while awake, the processing and storage of new information should also be possible during sleep.

    They carried out experiments on a group of young German­speaking men and women, which centered on periods of deep sleep called "up­states". They identified these slow­wave peaks as the best moments for sleep­learning.

    The researchers observed individuals in a controlled environment during brief periods of sleep. Brain activity was recorded as pairs of words were played for the study subjects. One word in the pair was a real German word. The other was a made­up foreign word. For later identification purposes, the German words chosen were things clearly larger or smaller than a shoebox.

    Each word pair was played four times, with the order of the words changed each time. The word pairs were played at a rhythm that is similar to actual brain activity during deep sleep. The goal was to create a lasting memory link between the false word and the German word that individuals could identify while awake.

    When the subjects woke, they were presented with the false language words­both by sight and sound. They were then asked to guess whether the false word played during sleep represented an object smaller or larger than a shoebox. Results of the study found that a majority of subjects gave more correct answers about the sleep­learned words than would be expected if they had only guessed at random.

    The researchers said they measured increased signals affecting a part of the brain known as the hippocampus. This brain structure is very important for building relational memory during non­sleep periods. The researchers also said memory was best for word pairs presented during slow­wave peaks during sleep.

    The study suggests that memory formation in sleep appears to be caused by the same brain structures that support vocabulary learning while awake. The researchers say more studies are needed to support their findings. However, the experiments do provide new evidence that memories can be formed and vocabulary learning can take place in both conscious and unconscious states.

    The view you adopt for yourself significantly affects the way you lead your life. It can determine whether you become the person you want to be and whether you achieve the things you value. How does this happen? How can a simple belief have the power to transform your psychology and, as a result, your life?

    Believing that your qualities are carved in stone­the fixed mindset­creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over. Some of us are trained in this mindset from an early age. Even as a child, I was focused on being smart, but the fixed mindset was really stamped in by Mrs. Wilson, my sixth­grade teacher. She believed that people's IQ scores told the whole story of who they were. We were seated around the room in IQ order, and only the highest­IQ students could be trusted to collect homework, or take a note to the principal. She was creating a mindset in which everyone in the class had one consuming goal­look smart, don't look stupid.

    I've seen so many people with this one consuming goal of proving themselves­in the classroom, in their careers, and in their relationships. Every situation calls for a confirmation of their intelligence, personality, or character. Every situation is evaluated: Will I succeed or fail? Will I look smart or stupid? Will I feel like a winner or a loser?

    But doesn't our society value intelligence, personality, and character? Isn't it normal to want these qualities? Yes, but...

    There's another mindset, the growth mindset, which is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can develop through your efforts. Although people may differ in every which way­in their inborn talents, interests, or characters­everyone can change and grow through efforts and experience. Did you know that Darwin and Tolstoy were considered ordinary children? That the photographer Cindy Sherman, who has been on almost every list of the most important artists of the twentieth century, failed her first photography course? That Geraldine Page, one of our greatest actresses, was advised to give it up for lack of talent?

    You can see how the belief that valuable qualities can be developed creates a passion for learning. Why waste time proving how great you are, when you could be getting better? Why hide weaknesses instead of overcoming them? And why seek out the tried and true, instead of experiences that will stretch you? The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even when it's not going well, is the feature of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to achieve success during some of the most challenging times in their lives.

    How do you prove you really are who you say you are? Maybe you have many ways to prove your identity: a birth certificate, a driver's license, a Social Security card, or a passport.

    But imagine that you are one of the one billion people in the world­most of them among the poorest­who have no official identification. No birth certificates. No official ID documents. Nothing. Without a way to prove who you are, you would face huge problems: going to school, seeing a doctor, getting a bank account...

    For the last decade, NandanNilekani has been working to make the world's invisible people visible by giving them access to official identification. One of India's leading technology experts, Nandan joined the government to lead the launch of India's national biometric ID system, which uses fingerprints and other biological characteristics to check the identities of the country's more than 1.3 billion residents. This ID system, known as Aadhaar (Hindi for "foundation"), is the world's largest biometric identification system and has become a valuable government platform for delivering social welfare programs and other government services.

    Now, Aadhaar has enrolled nearly all residents of India. With a trustworthy system to check identities of beneficiaries for everything from pensions to food moneies, the government has been able to save billions of dollars because of reduced cheating and dishonesty.

    Of course, India's ID system has not been without controversy. There were many privacy concerns, including criticism that the Aadhaar system was a mass monitoring tool and that personal data would be misused. Last year, a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of India found that the program did not violate the privacy rights of the country's residents. But in order to prevent misuse of personal data, the court placed tight limits on how the ID system could be used and shared.

    According to the latest data by the World Bank, there are one billion people in the world without an official proof of identity, including 45 percent of the population in sub­Saharan Africa and 17 percent of South Asia's population.

    Thanks to the work Nandan is doing, the world is moving closer to the day when everyone will have access to an official ID. The sooner we can achieve this goal, the sooner the world's poorest residents will not only be able to prove who they are, but also realize their dreams for better lives.

Which one you choose to talk about;

What influences it has on your life;

What you think of it.

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⒉词数不少于50。