Proudly reading my words, I glanced around the room, only to find my classmates bearing big smiles on their faces and tears in their eyes. Confused, I glanced toward my stone­faced teacher. Having no choice, I slowly raised the report I had read carefully, hoping to hide myself. “What could be causing everyone to act this way？”

    Quickly, I flashed back to the day Miss Lancelot gave me the task. This was the first real task I received in my new school. It seemed simple: go on the Internet and find information about a man named George Washington. Since my idea of history came from an ancient teacher in my home country, I had never heard of that name before. As I searched the name of this fellow, it became evident that there were two people bearing the same name who looked completely different! One invented hundreds of uses for peanuts, while the other led some sort of army across America. I stared at the screen, wondering which one my teacher meant. I called my grandfather for a golden piece of advice: flip (掷) a coin. Heads—the commander, and tails—the peanuts guy. Ah! Tails，my report would be about the great man who invented peanut butter, George Washington Carver.

    Weeks later, standing before this unfriendly class, I was totally lost. Oh well, I lowered the paper and sat down at my desk, burning to find out what I had done wrong. As a classmate began his report, it all became clear，“My report is on George Washington, the man who started the American Revolution.” The whole world became quiet! How could I know that she meant that George Washington?

    Obviously, my grade was awful. Heartbroken but fearless, I decided to turn this around. I talked to Miss Lancelot, but she insisted: No re­dos; no new grade. I felt that the punishment was not fair, and I believed I deserved a second chance. Consequently, I threw myself heartily into my work for the rest of the school year. Ten months later, that chance unfolded as I found myself sitting in the headmaster's office with my grandfather, now having an entirely different conversation. I smiled and flashed back to the embarrassing moment at the beginning of the year as the headmaster informed me of my opinion to skip the sixth grade. Justice is sweet!

                                                                     The Diet Zone: A Dangerous Place

    Diet Coke, diet Pepsi, diet pills, no-fat diet, vegetable diet… We are surrounded by the word “diet” everywhere we look and listen. We have so easily been attracted by the promise and potential of diet products that we have stopped thinking about what diet products are doing to us. We are paying for products that harm us psychologically and physically.

    Diet products significantly weaken us psychologically. On one level, we are not allowing our brain to admit that our weight problems lie not in actually losing the weight, but in controlling the consumption of fatty, high-calorie, unhealthy foods. Diet products allow us to jump over the thinking stage and go straight for the scale(秤)instead. All we have to do is to swallow or recognize the word “diet” in food labels.

    On another level, diet products have greater psychological effects. Every time we have a zero-calorie drink, we are telling ourselves without our awareness that we don't have to work to get results. Diet products make people believe that gain comes without pain, and that life can be without resistance and struggle.

    The danger of diet products lies not only in the psychological effects they have on us, but also in the physical harm that they cause. Diet foods can indirectly harm our bodies because consuming them instead of healthy foods means we are preventing our bodies from having basic nutrients. Diet foods and diet pills contain zero calorie only because the diet industry has created chemicals to produce these wonder products. Diet products may not be nutritional, and the chemicals that go into diet products are potentially dangerous.

    Now that we are aware of the effects that diet products have on us, it is time to seriously think about buying them. Losing weight lies in the power of minds, not in the power of chemicals. Once we realize this, we will be much better able to resist diet products, and therefore prevent the psychological and physical harm that comes from using them.

    David Beckham was born in 1975 in London, at a place called Leytonstone. When he was a young boy, his greatest passion was in football. He played it whenever he had the chance. Sometimes he would go and watch a game with his friends. When David Beckham was 12 years old, he won the Bobby Charlton Soccer Skills award. This was an important step forward for this young boy, and it led him to go for a visit to a football training camp in Spain. As a boy he played for schools of Essex and also for his county team.

    In 1991, he became a trainee with Manchester United. This meant that he could practice football as much as he wanted to and play for the highly successful Manchester United Youth Cup team and Under-21 team. In April, 1995 he played his first football league game against Leeds Untied. During 1995 and 1996, David became a regular member of the team and Manchester United won in both football seasons, with David scoring many goals（进球）.

    His goals made him a household name. In the first game of the 1996-1997 season, he scored a surprising goal from beyond the halfway line and became famous overnight. He continued to score astonishing goals, especially from free-kicks. The speed of one of his shots was timed at 157 km/h. He also had the ability to make the ball go from left to right, or right to left, whenever he chose. Goalkeepers were never sure where the ball was going, and it regularly ended up in the goal.

    Many doors close for those who have ever been in prison for a crime. It can be difficult for former prisoners to reenter society. A number of training programs are aimed at reopening doors for these men and women.

    "Together We Bake" teaches cooking and marketing skills to women who have spent time in prison so they can start new lives. It is a 10-week program which teaches women how to bake and sell cookies. Two friends, Tricia Sabatini and Stephanie Wright, created the program.

    "I have a background in social work and she is an amazing baker," Ms. Wright explains. "We discovered that for this population of women, returning from prison into the community, there aren't a lot of resources for them. So we thought we could combine our passions (激情) and develop this job as a training program. "Stephanie Wright says they started the program earlier this year." We had two classes so far that have graduated. This is our third class. We have eight women currently in this class. We've 16 women graduated in the first two classes."

    Terry Garred is one of the graduates. She says the program helped her turn her life around. Next she hopes to complete her high school studies. She is also working for "Together We Bake" to help other women follow the path she took.

    The program includes classes in which the women talk about their experiences and learn communication and job skills. Thirty-six-year-old Jamie White had spent three years in jail, which made her a little puzzled about her future life back into society. But she found those meeting were very helpful. She learned how to open up, and was just trying to better herself. She gained new skills. She sells baked goods at local markets every weekend now.

    Raccoons are smaller relatives of bears. They are native to North America, but they can also be found in Asia and Europe. Raccoons live in wooded areas close to water, but they can be often found near urban areas. There are about 7 different species of raccoons. Pygmy raccoon is the only endangered species.

    Raccoons usually reach 40 to 70cm in length and weigh between 5­26kg. Raccoons that live in colder climates are larger and heavier. They have grayish fur, black masks around eyes and long tails covered with black and brown bands. Because of their tails, they are also called "ringtail".

    Raccoons are omnivores. They like to eat insects, eggs, small mammals, fruit, berries, garbage, and so on. Raccoon's hands look like human's. They each have five fingers and are used to collect food, open shells, door or trash cans. Raccoons often place food in water before they start to eat it. They have highly sensitive sense of touch and water increases their sensitivity even more. By touching the food, they get better insight about things they will eat.

    They are easily adaptable (适应的) to various environments. They can live in hollow (中空的) trees equally happily like they can in useless cars. Raccoons live on their own and hunt at night. They don't hibernate (冬眠), but they spend the coldest days of winters in their holes.

    Mating (交配) season takes place from January to mid March. Two months later, female will give birth to 3­4 babies. Their tails don't have bands, and the mask around eyes is still missing. Mother is very protective and she will teach them how to survive and what to eat as they become­ready to leave the hole. Raccoons usually can live only 1.8 to 3.1 years in the wild, but they can live up to 20 years at a zoo.

    Raccoons can pass rabies, a kind of disease, to home­raised animals and people, which is very dangerous. What's more, their waste often has roundworms.