Thirteen-year-old Sean Nichols plays basketball, rides horses, and competes in Taekwondo. That surprises some people because Sean uses a wheelchair.
"If someone has a physical disability, they can still do things that other kids can," Sean explains. "They either have to do it in a different way, or it's just a bit harder." He's been sharing that message with kids and adults in his community since he was three.
When Sean was a baby, his family learned that he has a spinal (脊柱) condition that makes walking difficult. As he started school each year, he and his mom would talk with his class to help the kids understand why Sean uses a wheelchair. He now talks with kids in younger grades and answers their questions himself.
He also speaks at a nearby university each year and works with people who are studying physical therapy (治疗). He helps them understand what it's like to live with a disability and learn how to treat kids with challenges like his. "It's great helping people who are going to help other kids down the line," Sean says.
Sean finds lots of ways to increase disability awareness, including through events at school and in Scouts. He and his coaches demonstrate wheelchair basketball, then observers get to try out a chair. They see how much arm strength it takes. "It's funny to see all the people say, 'Oh, this is going to be easy',"
Sean says. "Then after, they take back what they said!" If kids want to race, Sean will race them. At times he goes backward—and still wins!
Sean hopes to change how people with disabilities are seen. "My goal is, if a person later sees someone with a disability, they see a person," he says, "like themselves. "
When a dog barks and nothing is there, why is it barking? Only the dogs know for sure!
Recentresearchshows that the domesticating of dogs began between 20,000-40,000 years ago. At that period of time, dogs have learned how to understand large vocabularies, complex sentences, and up to 1,000 words if trained properly. Like us, dogs use verbal and nonverbal cues to communicate. For dogs, barking is a completely normal behavior—it's one of the most effective ways dogs know how to communicate with their owners.
Dogs rarely bark for no reason. Experts in animal behavior say that a dog's bark is often trying to tell you or another creature something. Just what they're trying to communicate can be quite a puzzle, but some common messages are: "Come on, let's play!" "Is that the kid's school bus I hear?" or even "The mail carrier is here!"—and then when the carrier leaves, "I have protected our home once again. You're welcome." They use barking to communicate a variety of feelings, so in order to fully understand what a dog is communicating, pet parents need to contextualize a dog's verbal cues within their nonverbal cues.
There are many more reasons why dogs bark aside from these common barking situations that you'll likely encounter. The key to understanding your dog's barking is to look at their body language and then for the reasons causing the bark. If your dog's barking is a problem, a vet or dog trainer may be able to help you teach your dog the "rules" that your family wants it to follow. Otherwise, just as you may not understand your dog's barking, your dog may not understand your barking—in people talk.
Not long ago, my wife and I tried a new diet －not to lose weight but to answer a question about climate change. Scientists have reported that the world is heating up even faster than they predicted just a few years ago. The consequences, they say, could be severe if we don't keep reducing emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and other greenhouse gases that are trapping heat in our atmosphere. But what can we do about it as individuals? And will our efforts really make any difference?
We decided to try an experiment: For one month we would track our personal emissions of CO₂ to see how much we could cut back. The average U. S. household produces about 80 kilos of CO₂, a day by doing commonplace things like turning on air conditioning or driving cars. This is more than twice the European average and almost five times the global average. But how much should we try to reduce?
I checked with Tim Flannery, author of The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth. In his book, he challenged readers to make deep cuts in personal emissions to keep the world from reaching critical tipping points, such as the melting of the ice sheets in
Greenland or West Antarctica. "To stay below that limitation, we need to reduce CO₂ emissions by 80 percent," Tim Flannery said. "That sounds like a lot," my wife said. "Can we really do that?"
It seemed unlikely to me, too. How close could we come to a lifestyle the planet could handle? Finally, we agreed to aim for 80 percent less than the U. S. average: a daily diet of about 13 kilograms of CO₂. Our first challenge was to find ways to convert our daily activities into kilos of CO₂ so that we could change our habits if necessary.
To get a rough idea of our current carbon footprint, I put numbers from recent bills into several calculators on websites. The results that came out were not very flattering. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) website figured our annual CO₂ emissions at 24,618 kilos, 30 percent higher than the average U. S. family with two people. Clearly, we had further to go than I thought.
Tips For Setting Balanced Career Goals In A New Year
The New Year is always a time of new beginnings, a time for a change, and a time to set goals. , and make some important career changes. Here are some tips for setting career goals in a new year.
Take some time to consider your career in the year that just ended. If you dislike your job, try to figure out why. Is it due to the work itself, or something about the workplace, such as a poor relationship with your manager? If you like what you do, and it's outside factors that you find limiting, it might make sense to make your goal to find a new position. Spend some time assessing what you like and dislike about your current situation.
Engage in Career Research
. Start to read about careers of interest by browsing websites or publications. Identify two new careers to research each week, and keep a diary of your interest in each. For those fields with a genuine appeal, make a list of questions to research so that you can fully evaluate the suitability of that career for you.
Check Out What Your Friends Do
Activate your curiosity about the work lives of friends and people in your social network. Think about the roles of colleagues, suppliers, or clients that might be a good fit for you, and interview them about the nature of their work. , and ask for help brainstorming career options that might be worth considering within their sector.
Be Better
If you are totally in love with what you do, aim higher, and strive to be better. . So read more, keep an open mind, and be ready to learn. The year is young and so are your dreams.
A. Reflect on Your Year
B. Know your limitations
C. Share your skills list with them
D. There are no heights that cannot be reached
E. Spend some time doing research on salaries
F. So naturally, it is expected to set new career goals
G. The more research you do, the easier it will be to set goals
I am a recovering perfectionist and learning to play again saved me. I remember playing a lot when I was younger and being1with a sense of openness, curiosity and joy. 2, my attitude began changing from playfulness to perfectionism. Instead of being present and3the process, I started focusing on performance. The more I did this, the more anxious, critical and4I grew.
I first developed perfectionist when I was5piano lessons in school. I got the idea that I had to6each note again and again to perform each song perfectly. I started hating piano and eventually7. My perfectionism8into other areas of my life, too. In school, I9 myself to get straight A's, and if I earned anything10, I felt like a failure. At this time in my life, I believed that if I worked11enough, I could do everything right and look perfect.
It12me several years to find happiness again. One of the major things that helped me do so was recovering a sense of13. About this time, my friend Amy and I started taking fencing (击剑) lessons together. I was quite bad at it, but it didn't14. I didn't care about performing15 moves. Instead, I cared about being present with16in the process and staying open and curious. I felt free and17, and I realized that I had been18playfulness for many years. Fencing helped me rediscover play and leave perfectionism19. When we practice playfulness, life becomes a (an)20, and there is always something more to learn, explore and enjoy.
Environmental activists in Sri Lanka are fighting a court decision they say puts elephants risk. The ban, on September 16, allows people who have been accused of illegally buying or capturing wild elephants(keep) them in captivity.
Elephants are(high) respected in Sri Lanka culture. About 14,000 elephants lived in the Southern Asian nation 200 years ago, but habitat(lose) and hunting have reduced that number to about 7,500 in the wild. Officials found that by 2015, 38 baby elephants(hunt) from national parks and sold to people as pets. They took the elephants to(safe).
Earlier this year, the Sri Lankan government issued new rules that permit people to keep elephantsworking animals or pets, even if they were illegally taken from the wild. On September 6, based on those rules, a local court ordered the return of 14 of the elephants to their owners. Wildlife activists then challenged the order, (argue) that it goes against environmental laws and would cause more elephants to be taken from the wild. Ten days later, court said it would not change its order. The activists are continuing to fight and they hope for a decisionwill protect these elephants and save others from hunting in the future.
It was the night before Christmas and Rob was lying in bed, thinking about the next day. His family was poor, living entirely on the farm they ran, and most of the excitement of Christmas was in the turkey they had raised themselves and pumpkin pies his mother made. He rolled over to look at his old watch—it was two o'clock. Three hours later, his father would call him to get up, even if it was Christmas.
His father never talked about loving him—he had no time for such things. There was always so much to do on the farm. "Or, maybe, he just doesn't love me," Rob thought. He had a reason to think so. At 5 o'clock every morning, his father would call him to get up and help with the farm work. He had to go to the barn (畜棚) to hold the milking pails (挤奶桶) steadily when his father was milking the cows. He had to help put the tools in place and do the cleaning after the milking. He hated it that he had to do all these things at so early time.
He was not the only one awake at this night. He heard his parents whispering in the next room. "Mary, I hate to call Rob in the mornings. He's growing so fast and he needs his sleep. If you could see how he sleeps when I go in to wake him up! I wish I could manage alone. "
"Well, you can't, Adam." His mother's voice was gentle, "Besides, he isn't a child anymore. It's time he took his turn. "
"Yes," his father said slowly. "But I do hate to wake him."
When he heard these words, something in him spoke: his father loved him! He had never thought of that before, taking for granted the tie of their blood. Now that he knew his father loved him, he had to do something different on this Christmas. He did save and buy them each something every year, but he wished he had a better present for his father instead of the usual tie from the ten-cent store.
注意：
1）所续写短文的词数应为 150 词左右；
2）应使用 5 个以上短文中标有下划线的关键词；
3）续写部分分为两段， 每段的开头语已为你写好；续写完成后， 请用下划线标出你所使用的关键词
语。
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A good idea suddenly struck him.
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It being almost five, he rushed back to his room and jumped into bed, waiting to be woken up.
