SurvivingHurricane Sandy(飓风桑迪)

Natalie Doan, 14, hasalways felt lucky to live in Rockaway, New York. Living just a few blocks fromthe beach, Natalie can see the ocean and hear the wave from her house. “It'sthe ocean that makes Rockaway so special,” she says.

On October 29, 2012,that ocean turned fierce. That night, Hurricane Sandy attacked the East Coast,and Rockaway was hit especially hard. Fortunately, Natalie's family escaped toBrooklyn shortly before the city's bridge closed.

When they returned to Rockaway the next day, they found their neighborhood in ruins. Many of Natalie's friends had lost their homes and were living far away. All around her, peoplewere suffering, especially the elderly. Natalie's school was so damaged that she had to temporarily attend a school in Brooklyn.

      In the following few days, the men and women helping Rock away recover inspired Natalie. Volunteers came with carloads of donated clothing and toys. Neighbors devoted their spare time to helping othersrebuild. Teenagers climbed dozens of flights of stairs to deliver water and food to elderly people trapped in powerless high-rise buildings.

“ My mom tells me that I can't control what happens to me,” Natalie says. “butI can always choose how I deal with it.”

Natalie's choice was to help.

      She created a website page matching survivors in need with donors who wanted to help. Natalie posted introduction about a boy named Patrick, who lost his baseball card collecting when his house burned down. Within days, Patrick's collection was replaced.

      In the coming months,her website page helped lots of kids: Christopher, who received a new basketball; Charlie, who got a new keyboard. Natalie also worked with other organizations to bring much-need supplies to Rock away. Herefforts made her a famous person. Last April, she was invited to the WhiteHouse and honored as a Hurricane Sandy Champion of Change.

Today, the scars(创痕)of destruction are still seen in Rockaway, but hope is in the air. The streets are clear, and many homes have been rebuilt. “I can'timagine living anywhere but Rockaway,” Natalie declares. “My neighborhood willbe back, even stronger than before.”

    You can tell a lot about people by looking at their hair – not just whether they brush, spray or blow-dry. Scientists have found a way to use hair to figure out where a person is from and where that person has been. The finding could help solve crimes, among other useful applications.

    Water is central to the new technique. The liquid makes up more than half an adult human's body weight. Our bodies break water down into hydrogen(氢) and oxygen. Atoms of these two elements end up in our tissues, fingernails, and hair.

    But not all water is the same. Hydrogen and oxygen atoms can vary in how much they weigh. In the case of hydrogen, for example, there are three types according to their weights. Each type is called a hydrogen isotope（同位素）. And depending on where you live, tap water contains different isotopes.

    Can hair record this information? That's what James R. Ehleringer, an environmental chemist at the University of Utah, wondered. To find it out, he and his colleagues collected hair from hair stylists in 65 cities across the United States. Even though people drink a lot of bottled water these days, the researchers have found that people's hair has the same isotopes as found in local tap water. That's probably because people usually cook their food with the local water.

    Authorities can now use the information to analyze hair samples from criminals or crime victims and narrow their search for clues. For example, one hair sample used in Ehleringer's study came from a man who had moved from San Francisco to Salt Lake City. As his hair grew, it reflected his change in location.

    Recently, professor of philosophy (哲学)in the United States has written a book called Money and the Meaning of Life. He has discovered that how we deal with money in our daily life has more meaning than we usually think. One of the exercises he asked his students to do is to keep a record of every penny they spend for a week. From the way they spend their money, they can see what they really value in life.

    He says our relations with others often become dearly defined (清晰的）when money enters the picture. You might have wonderful relationship with somebody and you think that you are very good friends. But you will know him only when you ask him to lend some money. If he does, it brings something to the relationship that seems stronger than ever before or it can suddenly weaken the relationship if he doesn't. This person may say that he has a certain feeling, but if it is not carried out in the money world, there is something less real about it.

    Since money is so important to us, we consider those who possess a lot of it to be very important. The author interviewed some millionaires in researching his book.

    Question: What is the most surprising thing you have discovered about being rich, because you are a self-made man?

    Answer: The most surprising thing is how people give me so much respect. I am nothing. I don't know much. All I am is rich.

    People just have an idea of making more and more money, but what is it for? How much do I need for any given purposes in my life? In his book, the professor uncovered an important need in modem society: to bring back the idea that money is an instrument rather than the end. Money plays an important role in the material world, but expecting money to give happiness may be missing the meaning of life.

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    A 60-year-old homeless woman named Smokie has been sleeping outside in the dirt a few doors down from a man named Elvis Summers.

    Most mornings, she stops by Elvis's Los Angeles apartment and asks if he has any recyclable materials for her. Through these conversations, they struck up a friendship.

    One morning, Elvis saw a news article about man in Oakland who has been making tiny houses out of deserted materials. He was inspired to put off paying a few bills so he could buy the wood and hardware to make Smokie a brand new shelter. It took him five days to build it, and now, for the first time in ten years, Smokie has a place to hang the sign “Home Sweet Home”.

    “I had nowhere to really build it, so I just built it in the street outside of my apartment,” Elvis told Good News Network. “The local LAPD police have been super cool, and have told me they support it—as long as we move it to a different spot every 72 hours.”

    He made this pretty time-lapse(延时的) video showing how he did it. The materials, including two locks on the front door and strong wheels for moving it around, cost him about $500.

    “I've met so many homeless people, good people,” Elvis said in an email, “Since I built Smokie's , I've had several people asking me to make them a tiny home and it's turned into much more than just the one house I wanted to build.”

Although he runs an online retail store that sells EDM clothes, he has decided to launch an ambitious project to fund more shelters. He plants to get lighter and cheaper materials—without sacrificing the strength of the house—for the next round. Rick Sassen, a branch manager, kindly donated the roof shingles and cedar supporting Smokie's house, final items Elvis couldn't afford on his own. Sassen has promised to work out a deal on future building materials for the same cause.

    To err is human. To blame the other guy is even more human. Common sense is not all that common. Why tell the truth when you can come up with a good excuse?

    These three popular misquotes (戏谑的引语) are meant to be jokes, and yet they tell us a lot about human nature. To err, or to make mistakes, is indeed a part of being human, but it seems that most people don't want to accept the responsibility for the problem. Perhaps it is the natural thing to do. The original quote about human nature went like this: "To err is human, to forgive, divine (神圣的)." This saying mirrors a deal people should be forgiving of others' mistakes. Instead, we tend to do the opposite-find someone else to pass the blame on to.

    However, taking responsibility for something that went wrong is a making of great maturity.

    Common sense is what we call clear thought. Having common sense means having a good general plan that will make things work well, and it also means staying with the plan. Common sense tells you that you take an umbrella out into a rainstorm, but you leave the umbrella home when you hear a weather forecast for sunshine. Common sense does not seem to be common for large organizations, because there are so many things going on that one person cannot be in charge of everything. People say that in a large company," the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing."

    And what is wrong with a society that thinks that making up a good excuse is like creating a work of art? One of the common problems with making excuses is that people, especially young people, get the idea that it's okay not to be totally honest all the time. There is a corollary (直接推论) to that: if good excuse is "good" even if it isn't honest, then where is the place of the truth?