For ten weeks, in a great house on the island of St Thomas , Dr John C. Lilly tried to teach a six-year-old dolphin to speak English Margaret Howe, an experiment (试验) helper, would live day and night with Peter, a dolphin. And they would eat, bathe, sleep and play together from Sunday to Friday, with only Saturdays off for Margaret. She lived her life in swimming clothes — with a coat on colder evenings — and cut her hair short so that she could get on with Peter more easily.

      After a few days, Peter was becoming more and more interested in winning her attentions. He threw a ball against her shower towel to get her to play. As time went by, he only wanted to play ball with her and not on his own.

      The problem was that, just at the time Peter and Margaret began to get on well just as two best friends, the experiment ended and the lab was closed. After a few weeks, Margaret received the sad news that Peter had killed himself by refusing to breathe, and sinking to the bottom of his pool.

Dolphins may not speak English — but, just like humans, they know all about broken hearts.

    One afternoon I visited an art museum while waiting for my husband to finish a business meeting. I was looking forward to a quiet view of the art works.

    A young couple viewing the paintings ahead of me chatted nonstop (不停) between themselves. I watched them a moment and found the wife was doing all the talk. I admired (赞赏) the husband for putting up with her continuous (持续的) talk. Distracted (分心) by their noise, I moved on.

    I met with them many times as I moved through the different rooms of art. Each time I heard her continuous talk, I moved away quickly.

    I was standing at the counter (柜台) of the museum gift shop when the couple came near to the exit. Before they left, the man reached into his pocket and pulled out a white thing. He extended (展开) it into a long stick and then tapped (敲打) his way into the coatroom to get his wife's jacket.

    “He's a brave man.” The salesman at the counter said, “Most of us would give up (放弃) if we were blind (瞎的) at such a young age. But he said his life wouldn't change during his recovery (恢复). So, as before, he and his wife come in when there's a new art show.”

    “But how does he enjoy the art?” I asked, “He can't see.”

    “Can't see? You're wrong. He sees a lot. More than you or I do.” The clerk said, “His wife describes each painting so he can see it in his head.”

    I learned something from the couple that day. I saw a young wife describing paintings to a person without sight (视力) and a husband who would not allow blindness to change his life. And I saw the love shared by two people as I watched this couple walk away hand in hand.

Grace was shy. And it was really hard for her to talk to others. So she was so surprised when Ashley and she became friends later. Ashley was not the same as her. Grace didn't understand why only she couldn't get on well with others.

Ashley was the girl that Grace thought she wanted to be. Grace began doing whatever Ashley liked doing. For example, she stopped reading but started watching the TV programs Ashley liked.

One day, she heard Ashley and her friends talking about her.

"She follows you and she doesn't have her own mind," a girl said.

Then Ashley explained, "I know, I wish she would be herself."

Grace felt so lonely. Then she thought of her mother's advice: "Everyone has his or her own personality (个性). Just be yourself." Grace stopped copying Ashley. Instead, she decided to be herself.

The relations between Grace and her friends are still as close as before. And it is important for us to be ourselves.

These days, if you want to travel from New York to Beijing, the flight will take about 16 hours. You also have to wait at the airport, and sometimes you have to transfer onto a different airplane. If you add up all of the time, the trip will take at last 20 hours. But in the future, the trip from New York to Beijing might only take two hours.

Right now, a company is developing (开发) something called ET3—"evacuated tube (真空管) transport technology". Here's how it works. A tube goes all the way from New York to Beijing. The tube is only a few meters wide. Capsules (舱) move through the tube. Six people can sit in one capsule.

For international travel, the capsules can travel at about 6,500 kilometers per hour. Why can they travel so fast? Because there isn't any air in the ET3 tubes, the capsules can move at such a high speed. Also, the capsules are quite light. Each only weighs 183 kilograms. There are other advantages (优点) of ET3. Because it use electricity, it's quite clean. Also, it's a lot quieter than air planes and cars. Last, ET3 tube and capsules don't need much building materials.

Of course, there are still some problems about ET3. The biggest problem is that right now it would cost a lot to build ET3. To lower the cost, we will need much better technology.

However, it's still exciting to think of how ET3 will change the travel in the future. Who knows? Maybe someday you can have lunch in New York and dinner in Beijing.

I love traveling. I've been to many cities in China and Sanya is my favorite. Last Spring Festival, instead of visiting {#blank#}1{#/blank#} and friends, we decided to pay a visit to Sanya.

 We left for Sanya as soon as our holiday began. We really enjoyed ourselves there. We played on the beach and {#blank#}2{#/blank#} fireworks.

 Then we went to Nanshan Temple. A large {#blank#}3{#/blank#}of people visited it every day. According to the local(当地的) {#blank#}4{#/blank#}people should eat rice cakes during the Spring Festival, so we went to a local restaurant. Its rice cakes {#blank#}5{#/blank#}good and tasted delicious. We didn't return until our holiday was about to be over.

 Want some advice? Keep in mind that the best time to visit Sanya is from December to January in the dry season when the weather isn't too hot.