Once when I was facing a decision that involved high risk, I went to a friend. He looked at me for a moment, and then wrote a sentence containing the best advice I’ve ever had: Be bold and brave — and mighty (强大的) forces will come to your aid.
Those words made me see clearly that when I had fallen short in the past, it was seldom because I had tried and failed. It was usually because I had let fear of failure stop me from trying at all. On the other hand, whenever I had plunged into deep water, forced by courage or circumstance, I had always been able to swim until I got my feet on the ground again.
Boldness means a decision to bite off more than you can eat. And there is nothing mysterious about the mighty forces. They are potential powers we possess: energy, skill, sound judgment, creative ideas — even physical strength greater than most of us realize.
Admittedly, those mighty forces are spiritual ones. But they are more important than physical ones. A college classmate of mine, Tim, was an excellent football player, even though he weighed much less than the average player. "In one game I suddenly found myself confronting a huge player, who had nothing but me between him and our goal line," said Tim. "I was so frightened that I closed my eyes and desperately threw myself at that guy like a bullet — and stopped him cold."
Boldness — a willingness to extend yourself to the extreme—is not one that can be acquired overnight. But it can be taught to children and developed in adults. Confidence builds up. Surely, there will be setbacks (挫折) and disappointments in life; boldness in itself is no guarantee of success. But the person who tries to do something and fails is a lot better off than the person who tries to do nothing and succeeds.
So, always try to live a little bit beyond your abilities—and you’ll find your abilities are greater than you ever dreamed.
Basketball Statistician Help Wanted
The Athletic Department is looking for students to help assist staff during the Fall 2016, Winter 2016-17 and Spring 2017 semesters. Students in this position will be keeping live statistics during basketball games. Students must meet all of the following requirements:
● Good computer skills
● Available evenings and weekends
● Knowing basketball rules and statistics
Students interested in working for the Athletic Department should contact the Athletic Coordinator at their respective(各自的) campuses.
● TP/SS Athletic Coordinator, Michael Simone,240-567-1308
● Rockville Athletic Coordinator, Jorge Zuniga,240-567-7589
● Springfield Athletic coordinator, Gary Miller,240-567-2273
● Germantown Athletic Coordinator, GavriChavan, 240-567-6915
Everyone knows that fish is good for health. (1) ______ But it seems that many people don’t cook fish at home. Americans eat only about fifteen pounds of fish per person per year, but we eat twice as much fish in restaurants as at home. Buying, storing, and cooking fish isn’t difficult. (2) ______ This text is about how to buy and cook fish in an easy way.
(3) ______ Fresh fish should smell sweet: you should feel that you’re standing at the ocean’s edge. Any fishy or strong smell means the fish isn’t fresh. (4) ______ When you have bought a fish and arrive home, you’d better store the fish in the refrigerator if you don’t cook it immediately, but fresh fish should be stored in your fridge for only a day or two. Frozen fish isn’t as tasty as the fresh one.
There are many common methods used to cook fish.(5) ______ First, clean it and season it with your choice of spices (调料). Put the whole fish on a plate and steam it in a steam pot for 8 to 10 minutes if it weighs about one pound. (A larger one will take more time.) Then, it’s ready to serve.
A. Do not buy it.
B. The easiest is to steam it.
C. This is how you can do it.
D. It just requires a little knowledge.
E. The fish will go bad within hours.
F. When buying fish, you should first smell it.
G. The fats in fish are thought to help prevent heart disease.
An Extension of the Human Brain
Other people can help us compensate for our mental and emotional deficiencies (欠缺),much as a wooden leg can compensate for a physical deficiency. To be exact, other people can extend our intelligence and help us understand and adjust our emotions. When another person helps us in such ways, he or she is participating in what I’ve called a “social prosthetic (义肢的)system.” Such systems do not need to operate face-to-face, and it’s clear to me that the Internet is expanding the range of my own social prosthetic systems. It’s already a big bank of many minds. Even in its current state, the Internet has extended my memory and judgment.
Regarding memory: Once I look up something on the Internet, I don’t need to keep all the details for future use—I know where to find that information again and can quickly and easily do so. More generally, the Internet functions as if it were my memory. This function of the Internet is particularly striking when I’m writing; I’m no longer comfortable writing if I’m not connected to the Internet. It’s become natural to check facts as I write, taking a minute or two to dip into PubMed, Wikipedia, or other websites.
Regarding judgment: The Internet has made me smarter in matters small and large. For example, when I’m writing a textbook, it has become second nature to check a dozen definitions of a key term, which helps me dig into the core and understand its meaning. But more than that, I now regularly compare my views with those of many others. If I have a “ new idea,” I now quickly look to see whether somebody else has already thought of it, or something similar—and I then compare what I think with what others have thought. This certainly makes my own views clearer. Moreover, I can find out whether my reactions to an event are reasonable enough by reading about those of others on the Internet.
These effects of the Internet have become even more striking since I’ve begun using a smartphone. I now regularly pull out my phone to check a fact, watch a video, read weibo. Such activities fill the spaces that used to be dead time (such as waiting for somebody to arrive for a lunch meeting).
But that’s the upside (好处).The downside is that in those dead periods I often would let my thoughts flow and sometimes would have an unexpected insight or idea. Those opportunities are now fewer and farther between.
An Extension of the Human Brain | |
A prosthetic nature |
●The (1) ______ can help make up for our mental and emotional deficiencies as a wooden leg can compensate for a bodily deficiency. |
Wonderful aspects: memory and judgment |
●On the Internet, we could quickly and easily locate the details, and check facts, without (3) ______ them in mind. |
●The Internet makes us smarter over (4) ______ kinds of things. It provides a dozen definitions of a key term for us to find the (5) ______ of the matter. ●The Internet enables us to exchange ideas with many others to (6) ______ our claims, and to (7) ______ our actions. | |
The (8) ______ sides of smartphones | ●Smartphones make it easier and more (9) ______ to check reality, watch video clips, read weibo. |
●Smartphones (10) ______ the possibility for new and insightful minds, and steal away our dead time |
The manager put forward a suggestion ______ we should have an assistant. There is too much work to do.
A Welcome Gift
Dario and his mother loved their new apartment. The living room was large enough for their piano. That night, the two of them (1) ______ side by side at the piano. They played jazz music to celebrate their new home. The loud (2) ______ filled the room and made them feel very happy.
The next morning,(3) ______ , their happiness disappeared. Someone had left a (4) ______ under their door during the night. One of their neighbor had written to complain(抱怨) about the sound of the piano. Dario’s mother asked the building superintendent(管理员) if he knew anything about it. But he said that they were all (5) ______ people and he couldn’t imagine any of them had done that. Later that morning, Dario suggested that they write a letter to their (6) ______ and apologize for their playing.
“Maybe we could go and (7) ______ everyone in person.” his mother said.
“What if we invited them to come here for a (8) ______ instead? Dario asked.
They both loved the (9) ______. Over the next few days, they sent out invitations and prepared desserts (10) ______ their guests. They decorated the apartment with streamers(彩带) and party lights.
Finally, the day of the party (11) ______. Some guests brought presents. Others brought flowers. Some even brought desserts to (12) ______. One woman, Mrs. Gilbert, (13) ______ Dario’s mother with a book of piano music by Chopin.
“I heard you playing the other night,” she said. “The sounds woke me out of bed. I (14) ______ that you might play like this every night. So I wrote a short note. I hope you don’t think I disliked the playing.”
Dario’s mother smiled at Mrs. Gilbert. “I think maybe we (15) ______ you an apology.” she said. “I didn’t (16) ______ how late it was when we were playing. Maybe we should play some quieter music at night.
“You play, you play!” Mrs. Gilbert said. “I like what you play! Just not so loud at night.” She pointed to the book she had given them. “These songs are not such (17) ______ music.”
“These songs are beautiful music.” Dario’s mother said. “We will be (18) ______ to play them in the evening.”
“And we won’t play so loud or late!” Dario said. He was already looking forward to (19) ______ the new music. More than that, however, he was happy to see the big smile on his mother’s face. It gave him a feeling of (20) ______ and made him feel that they were home at last.
Chimps(黑猩猩) will cooperate in certain ways, like gathering in war parties to protect their territory. But beyond the minimum requirements as social beings, they have little instinct (本能) to help one another. Chimps in the wild seek food for themselves. Even chimp mothers regularly decline to share food with their children. Who are able from a young age to gather their own food.
In the laboratory, chimps don’t naturally share food either. If a chimp is put in a cage where he can pull in one plate of food for himself or, with no great effort, a plate that also provides food for a neighbor to the next cage, he will pull at random ---he just doesn’t care whether his neighbor gets fed or not. Chimps are truly selfish.
Human children, on the other hand, are extremely corporative. From the earliest ages, they desire to help others, to share information and to participate in achieving common goals. The psychologist Michael Tomasello has studied this cooperativeness in a series of expensive with very young children. He finds that if babies aged 18 months see an unrelated adult with hands full trying to open a door, almost all will immediately try to help.
There are several reasons to believe that the urges to help, inform and share are not taught .but naturally possessed in young children. One is that these instincts appear at a very young age before most parents have started to train children to behave socially. Another is that the helping behaviors are not improved if the children are rewarded. A third reason is that social intelligence develops in children before their general cognitive(认知的)skills,at least when compared with chimps..In tests conducted by Tomtasell, the children did no better than the chimps on the physical world tests, but were considerably better at understanding the social world
The core of what children’s mind have and chimps’ don’t is what Tomasello calls shared intentionality. Part of this ability is that they can infer what others know or are thinking. But beyond that, even very young children want to be part of a shared purpose. They actively seek to be part of a “we”, a group that intends to work toward a shared goal.
I’m a 34-year-old man, married, lived in a nice house, and have a successful career as an educational consultant. But my life was not always so great. I had a learning disability from an early age. I went to a special school where I got plenty of extra help. Still, I suffered the rest of my school days in public schools.
My life improved remarkably when I discovered art. The art world gave me a chance to express myself without words. I went to a workshop and gradually got good at making things with clay(黏土). Here I learned my first important lesson: disabled as I was in language. I could still be smart and well express myself with clay. And my confidence came along.
I got my next lesson from rock climbing. It was a fun thing but I was scared from the start. I soon noticed it wasn’t a talent thing; it was practice. So I did it more. After about five years of climbing, I found myself in Yosemite Valley on a big wall. I learned that if you fall in love with something and do it all the time, you will get better at it.
Later I decided to apply my previous experience to learning how to read and write. Every day I practiced reading and writing, which I used to avoid as much as possible. After two hard years, I was literate.
Having gone through the long process with art, rock climbing, and reading and writing, now I’ve got to a point in my life where I know I am smart enough to dive into an area that is totally unknown, hard, but interesting.