That cold January night,I was growing sick of my life in San Francisco.There I was,walking home at one in the morning after a tiring practice at the theatre.With the opening night only a week away,I was still learning my lines.I was having trouble dealing with my part-time job at the bank and my acting at night at the same time.As I walked,I thought seriously about giving up both acting and San Francisco.City life had become too much for me.

    As I walked down empty streets under tall buildings,I felt very small and cold.I began running,both to keep warm and to keep away from any possible robbers.Very few people were still out except a few sad-looking homeless people under blankets.

    About a block from my apartment,I heard a sound behind me.I turned quickly,half expecting to see someone with a knife or a gun.The street was empty.All I saw was a shining streetlight.Still,the noise had made me nervous,so I started to run faster.Not until I reached my apartment building and unlocked the door did I realize what the noise had been.It had been my wallet falling to the sidewalk.

    Suddenly I wasn't cold or tired anymore.I ran out of the door and back to where I'd heard the noise.Although I searched the sidewalk anxiously for fifteen minutes,my wallet was nowhere to be found.

    Just as I was about to give up the search,I heard the garbage truck pull up to the sidewalk next to me.When a voice called from the inside,"Alisa Camacho"I thought I was dreaming.How could this man know my name?The door opened,and out jumped a small red-haired man with an amused look in his eye."Is this what you're looking for" he asked,holding up a small square shape.

    It was nearly 3 a.m. by the time I got into bed.I wouldn't get much sleep that night,but I had gotten my wallet back.I also had gotten back some enjoyment of city life.I realized that the city couldn't be a bad place as long as people were willing to help each other.

    Grown­ups are often surprised by how well they remember something they learned as children but have never practiced ever since. A man who has not had a chance to go swimming for years can still swim as well as ever when he gets back in the water. He can get on a bicycle after many years and still ride away. He can play catch and hit a ball as well as his son. A mother who has not thought about the words for years can teach her daughter the poem that begins “Twinkle, twinkle, little star” or remember the story of Cinderella or Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

    One explanation is the law of overlearning, which can be stated as follows: Once we have learned something, additional learning trials(尝试)increase the length of time we will remember it.

    In childhood we usually continue to practice such skills as swimming, bicycle riding, and playing baseball long after we have learned them. We continue to listen to and remind ourselves of words such as “Twinkle, twinkle, little star” and childhood tales such as Cinderella and Goldilocks. We not only learn but overlearn.

    The multiplication tables(乘法口诀表)are an exception to the general rule that we forget rather quickly the things that we learn in school, because they are another of the things we overlearn in childhood.

    The law of overlearning explains why cramming(突击学习)for an examination, though it may result in a passing grade, is not a satisfactory way to learn a college course. By cramming, a student may learn the subject well enough to get by on the examination, but he is likely soon to forget almost everything he learned. A little overlearning, on the other hand, is really necessary for one's future development.

    There have always been a lot of commonly believed but false ideas about being fat and doing exercise. Some people believe that they can't help putting on weight as they get older, while others hold that if they stop exercising, their muscles will turn into fat. Here are some more myths:

I'll never lose weight — I come from a fat family

    Wrong! While we can't change the body type we are born with, we can't blame our genes for making us fat. There's plenty of evidence that fatness runs in families, and the main reason is that they share the same habits of eating too much and exercise too little.

    I am fat because I burn calories slowly

    Wrong! Fatness is not caused by a slow metabolism（新陈代谢）. If fact, although fat people consume more energy that slim people, they also fail to realize how much they eat! Keeping a diary can help you work out your daily food intake more accurately.

    Exercise is boring

    Wrong! Anything will become boring if you do it repetitively. The key is to develop a balanced and varied program that's fun as well as progressive. If you enjoy a Sunday walk, take a different route. If you do Yoga, try a tai chi class. If you like swimming, set yourself a distance or time challenge.

    No pain, no gain

    Wrong! Exercise is not meant to hurt. Indeed, pain is your body telling you something's wrong, and continuing to exercise could lead to serious injury. You may experience mild discomfort as you begin to exercise regularly, but this your body adapting to the positive changes in your lifestyle and the aches should disappear relatively quickly. If you don't, rest and seek medical advice.

    Anyone can write a baby poem, and everyone enjoys reading them, young and old. Baby shower(婴儿洗礼) poems can have rhythm and rhyme, but they certainly don't have to. Poems can be either long or short, but short is probably best for your typical baby shower needs. You can add a little humor as well!

    The people who are most often touched by baby shower poems are those who have had children themselves. Sweet poems can remind them of the time when their little ones were still young. No one will appreciate them more than the family members themselves. If you are a creative writer or  have a special talent for putting words together in a special way, then you should try writing your own baby shower poems. This would make a great gift idea as well.

    If you decide to write your own baby poems, even common things can inspire you. Inspiration can be found anywhere. Look to your own memories from the past. What was special about your childhood? What special object have you treasured over the years? What words of wisdom(智慧) of advice could you pass on to the next generation? Look around the house and imagine a baby being there. What do you see, hear, or feel? Let those thoughts be the source of your best baby poems.

    When writing a baby poem, you do not have to write like Shakespeare, you just have to be sincere. Years later when the baby has grown，think of how special they will feel knowing the words were just for them.

    If you are not the creative type — don't worry! There are lots of places online where you can look for poems saying just the things you want to say. Poems have been written on all subjects throughout the ages, and baby poems and baby shower poems are no exception. A quick search online doesn't have to take any time at all.

    Modern festival-goers who worry about ending up with a dead mobile phone battery after days stuck in a muddy field with no electric plug power points may now have a solution—power boots.

    Mobile phone company European Telco Orange has introduced a phone charging prototype(原型)— a set of thermoelectric gumboots or Wellington boots with a “power generating sole” that changes heat from the wearer's feet into electrical power to charge battery-powered hand-helds.

    The boot was designed by Dave Pain, managing director at GotWind, a renewable energy company. Pain said the boot uses the Seebeck effect, in which a circuit made of two dissimilar metals conducts electricity if the two places where they connect are held at different temperatures. “In the sole（鞋底）of the Wellington boot there's a thermocouple and if you apply heat to one side of the thermocouple and cold to the other side it produces an electrical charge,” Pain said. “That electrical charge we then pass through to a battery which you'll find in the heel of the boot for storage of the electrical power for later use to charge your mobile phone.” These thermocouples are connected electrically, forming an array of multiple thermocouples (thermopile). They are then sandwiched between two thin ceramic wafers(薄片). When the heat from the foot is applied on the top side of the ceramic wafer and cold is applied on the opposite side, from the cold of the ground, electricity is made.

    But the prototype boot does have one shortcoming. You have to walk for 12 hours in the boots to make one hour's worth of charge.

    I remember the first time I got on a horse. When I was a little boy aged two, my mom agreed to let me take a short ride and that was it! From then on, I drove my parents crazy begging for a horse.

    When I was four, I had mutism, in which children stop speaking in certain social situations. I went days, weeks, months without a sound at school. At most, I might quietly whisper to a friend. I suffered silently through school until I was ten when a psychologist (心理学家) had an idea. He asked me what I wanted more than anything else in the world. He explained I was going to be given a chance to work for that. And I was permitted to whisper the answer in my mother's ear, "A horse."

    I was to get a pony, but I had to live up to my end of the bargain (讲价). I had a list of weekly tasks I had to finish. I had to answer the phone five times per week, something I had never done before. I had to say one word to my teacher at school and the list went on. For a child with mutism, saying one word to someone can be like climbing Mount Qomolangma. I did everything that was asked of me and the day came. His name was Sequoia, whom I fell in love with immediately. When I was in Sequoia's presence, I forgot all about my problems and felt strong and secure.

    I am a fully participating member of society these days. My horse and I made it through a master's degree. I may have made it otherwise, but I'm not sure. I feel I owe my life to the horse and I try to give it back to him. He has given me the best gift I could ever imagine, my life.