Maybe you've heard about the saying, “A bird with a broken wing will never fly as high. I'm sure that T. J. Ware was made to feel this way almost every day in school.

    By high school, T. J. was the most famous troublemaker in his town. He got into lots of fights. He failed almost every exam but was passed on each year to a higher grade level. Teachers didn't want to have him again the following year.

    When I showed up to lead the first training for a leadership retreat, a program designed to have students become more involved in their communities, the community leaders told me about T. J. Ware, the boy with the longest arrest record in the history of town. Somehow, I knew that I wasn't the first to hear about T. J.'s darker side as the first words of introduction.

    At the start of the retreat, T. J, didn't readily join the discussion groups and didn't seem to have much to say. But when his group started a discussion about positive and negative things that had happened at school that year, he joined in and had clear thoughts on those situations, and the other students in his group welcomed his comments. Suddenly, T. J. felt like a part of the group, anti soon he was treated like a leader. He was saying things that made a lot of sense, and everyone was listening. By the end of the retreat he had joined the Homeless Project team. He knew something about poverty, hunger and hopelessness. The other students on the team were impressed (打动) with his ideas and love for the homeless. They elected T. J. vice-chairman of the team.

    Two weeks later, the Homeless Project team organized a communitywide service project—a giant food drive. Seventy students led by T. J. collected a school record: 2,854 cans of food in just two hours, enough to take care of poor families in the area for 75 days. The local newspaper covered the event with a full-page article the next day. T. J.'s picture was up there for doing something great.

    T. J. reminds us that a bird with a broken wing only needs mending. But once it has healed, it can fly higher than the rest.

Craziest Food Festivals sounds like a joke topic, but once you start looking into it, you'll realize they're everywhere—the crazier, the better.

    ⒈Bibimbap Festival

    In the South Korean town of Jeonjuloves, their “mixed rice” dish is a hearty serve of rice topped with raw beef, a rainbow of vegetables, a raw egg and gochujang sauce (韩国的辣椒酱) so much. They take four days out of October to celebrate it.

    Like any festival there's music, entertainment and magic, but making it that little bit different is the bibimbap that's whipped (搅拌) up in a big bowl by dozens of chefs and served to over 400 people.

    ⒉Waikiki Spam Jam (怀基基午餐肉节)

    Who knew this canned meat had so much love? Well, it turns out that a can of Spam is the go-to item in Hawaii, along with a grass skirt and garland (花环). The people of Hawaii love Spam so much that they even spend a day in May serving out the best Spam, a type of cheap canned meat made mainly from pork.

    ⒊Bessieres Easter Egg Festival

    At Easter time, for those in the French town of Bessieres it's all about an egg far less sweet.

    Here they celebrate the holiday by getting dozens of chefs to make one large omelette (煎蛋卷) - 15,000 eggs strong - for the townsfolk (市民).

    ⒋Potato Days Festival

    This festival actually takes place in Barnesville, Minnesota(明尼苏达州), the US. Over the last Friday and Saturday in August the town celebrates its potato-growing skills by hosting potato picking and peeling contests, as well as a Miss Tater Tot pageant (盛典) for five-and six-year-old girls.

    "Mum, what does it mean when someone tells you that they have a skeleton（骨骼）in the closet（衣橱）?" Jessica asked. "A skeleton in the closet?" her mother paused thoughtfully, "Well, it's something that you would rather not have anyone else know about. For example, if in the past, someone in Dad's family had been arrested for stealing a horse. It would be a skeleton in his family's closet'. He really wouldn't want any neighbor to know about it."

    "Why pick on my family?" Jessica's father said with anger. "Your family history isn't so good, you know. Wasn't your great-great-grandfather a prisoner who was transported to Australia for his crimes?" "Yes, but people these days say that you are not a real Australian unless your ancestors arrived as prisoners." Gosh, sorry I asked. I think I understand now," Jessica cut in before things grew worse.

    After dinner, the house was very quite. Jessica's parents were still quite angry with each other. Her mother was ironing clothes and every now and then she glared at her husband, who hid behind his newspaper pretending to read. When she finished, she gathered the freshly pressed clothes in her arms and walked to Jessica's closet. Just as she opened the door and reached in to hang a skirt, a bony arm stuck out from the dark depths and a bundle of white bones fell to the floor, Jessica's mother sank into a faint（晕倒）, walking only when Jessica put a cold, wet cloth on her forehead. She looked up to see the worried faces of her husband and daughter.

    "What happened? Where am I?" she asked. "You just destroyed the school's skeleton, Mum," explained Jessica, "I brought it home to help me with my health project. I meant to tell you, but it seemed that as soon as I mentioned skeletons and closets, it caused a problem between you and Dad." Jessica looked in amazement as her parents began to laugh madly. "They are both crazy," she thought.

    To make sure that you enjoy your visit to the Hamper Hot Springs(泉) and that you are safe during your visit, please take time to read the following:

    Do not place your head under the hot water, because it may be bad for your health.

    Do not run around because the floors may be slippery.

    Do not leave your children alone.

    Do not leave your things about. Just ask one of our workers look after your things.

    Do not eat or drink anything in the area because we want to keep here clean. There is a place for you to eat and have soft drinks when you want to have a rest.

    Do not bring into the area anything made of glass, because it maybe easily broken when you fall.

    Do not bring any hard drinks into the area.

    Do not smoke in the area.

    Do not stay in the sunlight for too long.

    We hope that you will enjoy your visit here.

    Happy, angry, amazed—these are some of the emotions we like to express these days when we're sending a message on our smart phones! That's why many of us now add little pictures to our texts to brighten up someone's mobile screen but we're also using them as a quick way of telling someone how we're feeling. Yes, emojis (表情符号) have become a popular tool for communication.

    The emoji was first invented in Japan in the late 1990s and the word "emoji" comes from the Japanese words for "picture" and "character". The number of different images has greatly increased since then and now we have a picture for nearly every mood or situation.

    Why are emojis widely used today? Professor Vyv Evans says, "Increasingly, what we're finding is that digital communication is replacing face-to-face talk in some ways. One of the reasons why emojis are so interesting is that they really do enable us to express our emotional selves much more effectively."

    Another advantage of emojis is that they are an international language—they don't use words but tell a message with pictures so they can be easily understood whatever your native language is.

    But as linguist (语言学家) Neil Cohn says, "To many, emojis are an exciting evolution (进化) of the way we communicate; but to others, they are linguistic Armageddon." It does show by using emojis, there is a lot more to our communication than words alone, but does this also mean that the traditional writing will die out one day?

    An online supermarket company—Ocado in the UK, has recently displayed a robotic hand that can pick fruits and vegetables!

    When an embryo (胚胎) is in the womb, the very first sense it develops is touch. The sense of touch is also the one that lasts the longest—as we get older and our vision and hearing begins to weaken, touch still remains. Humans use their touch to protect themselves, to create emotional relationships with other people, and to experience pleasure. Can you imagine life without it?

    The sense of touch comes from a network of nerve endings and special touch receptors on the surface of the skin. While there are different kinds of touch receptors (感受器), they help us judge pressure, texture and vibrations (震动). They are located in our fingertips, palms, soles of our feet, face, lips and tongue.

    When we touch something, the mechano-receptors perceive the touch and through a network of nerves, send signals to the brain. This informs the brain about the location of the touch, the amount of force used, and the speed at which it was used.

    Several different techniques have been tried in the past to create such a robotic hand—using three fingers. But this latest design by SoMa copies the human hand. The gripper (夹具) is made up of flexible materials which grasp onto the thing based on its size and shape. Then air pressure is used to control the movement of the robotic fingers to pick objects safely and without causing damage.

    The next step would be for the robot to judge how ripe the fruits and vegetables are, and apply pressure accordingly. Members of the research team are currently working on adding computerized vision to the robots, so that they can see what they are gripping.

    Does all this mean robots can replace people? According to Ocado, it helps improve productivity by removing some of the repetitive tasks done by humans.