Thirteen-year-old American Jessica Goldstone wants to be a fashion designer when she finishes school. She thinks her designs would be more exciting than clothes bought from stores. But until this month, Jessica has never touched a sewing machine(缝纫机).

    After her first class, Jessica and six other girls aged 9 to 13 said that sewing was fun, cool and challenging.

    These students at Fabrics' Sew Fun class show that the sewing machine is becoming popular again.

    “There have been a lot of teens getting excited about sewing,” said a sewing company worker Donna Smith. “Some of them come from the Project Runway TV show,” she said. This TV show is an exciting weekly contest to make a great fashion designer. Every week one contestant (参赛者) fails the test and has to leave the contest.

    The number of people who joined sewing class summer camps grew by 10 percent this year. That's good news for companies that make sewing machines and publish sewing magazines. The Singer Sewing Company sold nearly 3 million sewing machines in the United States last year. This is about twice as many as in 1999.

    Sewing machines have been around for more than 150 years, but they have changed a lot since your grandmother was a girl.

    Spencer Carmel started sewing lessons after getting a sewing machine for her 11^th birthday. She has sewn a lot by hand, but she wants to make more difficult things. Spencer's class recently made hats.

    Another member of the class, Kelsey Oen, 9 years old, needed time to get used to her machine, but soon she could use it well. By the end of the class, Kelsey was happy and wearing her new hat.

    In America, parents tend to encourage their children to develop their potential (潜能) to the fullest extent. Fathers and mothers frequently teach their children both ambition and the confidence necessary to work toward their goals. American parents are always active in concentrating on what their kids can do, not what they can't. As a result, millions of American boys and girls grow up hoping to become actors and athletes, diplomats and doctors. Many of them even want to become president.

    American parents often encourage their children to become involved in extra activities of all types at school, such as student government, sports and music. They believe that only through taking part in these activities can their children become mature young adults.

As we all know, school work is important. But parents should realize that the social skills their children learn from natural conversations with each other are as important as schoolwork and the skills they will need in the future work. What's more important in their work is that their children should have a sound knowledge of physics or the ability to communicate effectively.

As a rule, Chinese parents don't educate their children about the same kind of ambition and confidence as Americans do, nor do they encourage the same level of participation in extra activities. Children are typically advised to study hard and pass exams. They have to spend a lot of time in doing much schoolwork every day. It is a great waste of time to do so.

Now more and more Chinese parents have recognized that they should pay attention to developing the potential of their children. I hope that leaders in Chinese educational circles should take some measures to develop the potential of their children. I am very confident about it.

    Alexander John Jordan was born in Madison, Wisconsin in 1914. After graduating from high school, he attended the University of Wisconsin. After about one year of college, Alex dropped out.

    Alex then went from job to job. He drove a taxi and worked for Royavac. He also worked for his father's construction company, where Alex got his basic knowledge of construction.

    In the 1940s, Alex discovered Deer Shelter Rock and began having small picnics on the top of the rock. He then started bringing his tent and camping out. One night, his tent got blown away and from that day, Alex decided he wanted to build something more stable. That was the beginning of his dreams. Alex started off by renting the rock and a bit of land around it from a local farmer. He first built a small studio with a fireplace. Then Alex, with his parents' help, bought 240 acres of land, so he could build as he pleased. What took shape on and around Deer Shelter Rock was truly a wonderful achievement. More wonderful still is the fact that he built much of the original house by himself, carrying the materials up the 75-foot-high rock.

    As curiosity grew surrounding his project, more and more people came to visit the House on the Rock. Alex decided to charge people 50 cents to visit, thinking that would drive them away; however, people gladly paid the fee. In 1960, Alex decided to open the House on the Rock to the public. This increased the interest and the crowds grew. All of the money taken in over the years was put directly back into the House. Alex was devoted to the House on the Rock. It was his life and dream.

    Imagine possessing something that you loved so much. Imagine what it would feel like if you lost it. While that item may be something as simple as a doll, you would still feel very upset, but you could replace it with a new one. Now imagine losing something that you depend on for survival and cannot be replaced. That is what it would be like if we lost the natural environment around us.

    Firstly, I believe the environment should be preserved because it supports human life. One of the largest examples is that we get all of our food and drinks from the environment. If the environment were to be destroyed beyond revival, then the human race would be over in months. Scientists have yet to find another planet with similar conditions to the Earth, and if it's found, we don't have the technology to get to that planet on time.

    Secondly, I believe that the environment serves as an amazing educational tool for students. When I was in second grade, I had an absolute interest in animals. When we had a field trip to the Daggerwing Nature Center, I was very excited. When we got there, I could hardly believe what I was seeing. There was a bridge to get to the main building, and under the bridge was a small swamp (沼泽) with turtles, fish, and my personal favorite, alligators. I was so surprised that I almost ran into the tour guide. We walked into the building and saw various animals in their habitats. I was so inspired by this visit. Six years later, I have taken an animal behavior class for three weeks. Meeting by chance with the environment can inspire people, and if preserved it will continue to inspire people.

    In conclusion, the environment is so valuable because it can't be replaced, keeps us alive, and serves as a great educational tool.

    The goings-on in the consulting room have become more transparent(透明的）recently. Thank goodness. We know more than the lines supplied by the movies in which the therapist knows all and gives wisdom to those who, sitting on a couch, consult with them. Therapists are interested in how the individual, the couple or the family experiences and understands their difficulties. That has to be a starting place. We can be of value if our first port of call is to listen, to gradually feel ourselves into the shoes of the other, to absorb the feelings that are being conveyed and to think and then to say some words.

    The thinking and talking that I do inside the consulting room is at odds with many features of ordinary conversation. Not that it is mysterious, but it isn't concerned with traditional ways of sharing or identifying. The therapist makes patterns and theories, but they are also reflecting on the words that are spoken, how they are delivered and how the words, once spoken, affect the speaker and the therapist themselves.

    Words can give voice to previously unknown feelings and thoughts. That's why it's called the talking cure. But just as words reveal so, too, can they obscure, and this gets us to the listening and feeling part of the therapy. Whatever and however the words are delivered, they will have an impact on me as a therapist. I might feel hopeless, I might feel energized, I might feel pushed away, I might feel demanded of, I might feel pulled to find solutions.

    The influence of the other is what makes any relationship possible or impossible. A therapist is trained to reflect on how those who consult with them affect them. As I try to step into the shoes of the other and then out again, my effort is to hold both those experiences, plus an awareness of my ease or discomfort with what I encounter in the relationship.

    Feelings are the bread and butter of our work in the consulting room. They inform or modify our ideas and they enable us to find an emotional bridge to what can so hurt for the people we are working with. Along with the more commonly thought-about theories and ideas we have about the psyche, they are an essential part of the therapist's toolkit, certainly for me. The talking cure means talking, yes. It also means the therapist is listening, thinking and feeling.

    Memory, they say, is a matter of practice and exercise. If you have the wish and really make a conscious effort, then you can quite easily improve your ability to remember things. But even if you are successful, there are times when your memory seems to play tricks on you.

    Sometimes you remember things that really did not happen. One morning last week, for example, I got up and found that I had left the front door unlocked all night, yet I clearly remember locking it carefully the night before.

    Memory "tricks" work the other way as well. Once in a while, you remember not doing something, and then find out that you did. One day last month, for example, I was sitting in a barber shop waiting for my turn to get a haircut, and suddenly I realized that I had got a haircut two days before at the barber shop across the street from my office.

    We always seem to find something funny and amusing in incidents caused by people's forgetfulness or absent -mindedness. Stories about absent -minded professors have been told for years, and we never get tired of hearing new ones. Unfortunately, however, absent -mindedness is not always funny. There are times when "tricks" of our memory can cause us great trouble.