Big City Bus Driver
When I was 20, I went to stay with a friend for two weeks in Vancouver. My friend worked during the day, so I decided to go 1 on my own. I knew where I was and where I wanted to go, the Vancouver Aquarium (温哥华水族馆). It sounded 2.
But soon I was completed 3 I boarded a bus, figuring it must do a circle, right? I rode a good half hour before becoming impatient and then got 4 I walked quite a while, up and down various blocks, but had no idea where I was.
I've lived in a tiny town all my life, rarely leaving it. Being a “small town girl”, I admit I'm fairly 5about city life. People at home always told me city people were cold and unconcerned about others, so I was afraid to 6to anyone.
I got on another bus, and then another again. Finally, after hours, I decided to get on ONE bus, and stay on 7 I recognized something. I rode over half an hour. Nothing ever seemed 8 When I became the only passenger on the bus, I began to get 9 I had no cellphone, and didn't even10 my friend's office telephone number.
As I was about to give up and leave the bus, the driver asked11 I wanted to go. I told him the aquarium, and he laughed, saying his bus wouldn't go anywhere near. I12 back in my seat, really afraid and upset. He asked where I was from, and I told him what had happened and now I just wanted to go back to my friend's place.
13, the driver pulled the bus over and called me to the front. He gave me detailed 14 as to which buses to take, and how to understand the bus system. He 15 printed the bus tickets I needed from his machine.
I was shocked. He spent a good twenty minutes 16 me, telling me everything I needed to know, before giving me the tickets. I thanked him repeatedly, and asked him how much I 17 for the tickets. “Nothing. Just get yourself to your friend's home.”
Thanks to his 18 I was able to make my way back to my friend's house. I don't know what I would have done if that driver had not taken the 19 to help me. What people had told me was not true. City people 20 just like the driver. I never did learn his name, but I'll always remember him.
Cuyahoga Valley National Park Volunteer Program
Building a Community of Park Stewards
Position Title: Wildlife Volunteer – Butterfly Monitors (2 positions)
Dates: Mid May to September, 2018
Hours: 8 ~ 16 hours / week
Location: Cuyahoga Valley National Park
Duties: Park staff will train volunteers in butterfly identification and data recording for one week before volunteers work in team of two to help track butterfly monitoring areas. Butterfly monitoring areas are 1 ~ 2 miles in length and are walked one time per week. There are a total of three butterfly monitoring areas within the park. Butterflies are identified by using binoculars （望远镜） or by netting and releasing. Data is recorded on data sheets.
Skills Required: Applicants must have self motivation and desire to work with others. Volunteers will work during days when temperature is 70 degrees or more, between 10:30 am and 5 pm. Ability to walk a long distance in hot and humid conditions is needed. Skills with basic butterfly identification are not a must but helpful.
Requirements: Applicants must complete a National Park Service Agreement and have their backgrounds looked into. U. S. citizenship is required. Applicants must be current Kent State University students.
How to Apply: Please request an application from Mike Johnson at gkovach@kent.edu and send it back to Mike Johnson at gkovach@kent.edu, with the above position title as the subject, by February 15, 2018. If offered an interview, please come to Cuyahoga Valley National Park with your personal resume introducing your education and your previous work experience.
For further information, please call Jamie Walters at (330) 657-2142 or email jwalters@forcvnp.org.
“I wish we hadn't come on this trip!” Jeff's voice echoed across the narrow canyon （峡谷）. His father stopped, breathing heavily. “This is hard on you, but you've got to come through with courage!” He gently placed his hand on the boy's shoulder. “Now, I don't know if I can make it without stopping every so often. You're young, but you're strong and fast. Do you remember the way back from here to the road, if you had to go alone?”
Jeff flashed back to the painful scene of Mark, his seventeen-year-old brother at their campsite. He was bitten by a snake yesterday. This morning he couldn't move, and the pain got worse. He needed medical attention right away. They had left their phone in the car, and it must have been out of power by then. Leaving Mark at the campsite and seeking help was their only choice.
“Jeff, could you do it?”
Jeff looked to the end of the canyon, several miles away. He nodded and a plan began to take hold in his mind. “What is the name of that little town we stopped, Dad?” There must be a hospital there.
“Flint. We parked at the side of the road a few miles out of Flint.”
Jeff nodded. Then they continued climbing. Stone by stone, they made their way up the canyon. Gradually, Jeff's father grew smaller and smaller in the distance. Jeff waved to him and then climbed toward the road. Two hours later, he finally reached the road and struggled toward the town, almost exhausted.
“Can't stop.” He thought. “Mark's in big trouble. Keep going.” Suddenly, he saw a truck heading toward him. “Hey, mister!” He shouted, waving both arms. He began to jog toward the truck, and then broke into a full-speed run.
His chest was burning with every breath when the truck driver stopped by him. Jeff explained breathlessly. The driver reached for his cellphone as soon as he heard about Mark. “Better get the helicopter in there,” he said immediately. But Jeff wasn't sure about that because everything got unclear and then went black and quiet.
Hours later, Jeff opened his eyes to find his father on a chair nearby. “You're a hero, son,” his father said with a smile. “You had the helicopter sent into the canyon after Mark. I can't tell you how happy I was when I saw it overhead. They got him to the hospital. He's going to be fine soon. I'm so proud of you!”
Ig Nobel Prize
Having a meal is an easy and delightful process for most people. However, for a woodpecker (啄木鸟), it's not that simple. To get dinner, a woodpecker has to hit its head against a tree numerous times per day. Yet, amazingly, it never suffers any ill effects like brain damage. According to research, it is the woodpecker's thick head bones that protect it from the impact of the blows. For explaining that, Ivan Schwab won an Ig Nobel Prize.
Ig Nobel Prizes are organized by The Annals of Improbable Research, an American magazine that celebrates the funny side of science. Each year, ten winners are awarded prizes in honor of their “achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think”. Most of the award-winning research, like Schwab's, may seem unusual, but it usually grabs people's attention indeed. And no matter how ridiculous the research sounds, people can find it inspiring and amusing.
Brian Wansink's research might interest you. He took home an Ig Nobel Prize for looking into the influence of visual factors on people's appetites. He used specially designed bowls that refilled themselves with soup while people were eating. Since these people had no idea this was happening, they just kept eating from these “bottomless bowls”. They said they didn't feel full because their bowls were not empty yet. People in this experiment ate 73 percent more soup than normal. Owing to these results, Wansink concluded that it's not people's stomachs that decide when they have eaten enough, but their eyes.
Ig Nobel Prizes also give attention to science and technology that is a part of our daily lives. Take the karaoke machine for example. Its inventor Daisuke Inoue was employed at a nightclub, playing the piano for the customers who wanted to sing. He wasn't skillful enough to play all the songs properly. To clear up the problem, he created the karaoke machine. To Inoue's surprise, the machine caused considerable changes in entertainment worldwide. The Ig Nobel Prize was awarded to Inoue not only because his invention was entertaining, but also because it brought about “an entirely new way for people to learn to tolerate each other”.
These research results of Ig Nobel Prizes may not be as great as Edison's light bulb or Newton's laws of motion. However, they do show people's willingness to take action and to try new ways to solve problems. According to Marc Abrahams, a founder of the Ig Nobel Prizes. “If you win one, it means that you have done something.”
It's the holiday season, the time when we connect with family and friends. Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are full of festive pictures, featuring parents' catching and sharing those special family moments, their child's wish list, and maybe even a cute video of their child dancing to “Jingle Bell Rock” while wearing a diaper (尿片) and Santa hat. Swelling with pride, parents can't wait to get approval with a “thumbs up” or better yet a personalized message on their treasured post.
Adults should be able to post what they want online. However, when exposing family moments online, are they sharing too much information? Do parents have the right to share those cute now, but embarrassing later moments about kids? Have children willingly given their agreement to sharing their cute but funny video online?
A recent study found that 75% of parents turn to social media for parenting-related information and social support. There is even a term used to describe the overuse of sharing too much information about kids on social media: “sharenting”. Research also finds that “sharenting” isn't going anywhere anytime soon. What's troublesome is that a typical parent has about 150 Facebook friends and only a third of them are actual friends. So that brings up good questions – Who are we really sharing our information with and why? Who knows when and where that photo could resurface in the future?
While there's no reliable information on how young children feel about things posted online, we do have information about how teens feel. According to a report by the Family Online Safety Institute, 76% of teens are concerned about their privacy. Many teens constantly search for new apps that allow anonymity. When names are required, they use screen names that don't reveal real information. If our teens are doing a better job of protecting themselves online, shouldn't parents take the lead and do the same? Plus, with more and more college admission representatives and potential employers surfing the internet for potential candidates, we'd hate for one of our posts to change an important decision. Think about it … online reputations are now becoming inseparable with real life ones.
Of course, we can secure our privacy settings, only allowing our friends to view pictures, posts and videos, but that doesn't stop others from uploading our pictures. Adults need to be cautious of sharing information online, especially information about children.
So, this holiday season, enjoy family time and share those special memories with family and friends. Before clicking the app to upload photos or videos, stop and think twice.
In all our lives we must make choices. You make choices from the time you get out of bed in the morning until you go to sleep at night. What time to get up? What to wear? What to eat? You also make more significant choices when you graduate from high school. College? Technical training?
No matter the size of the decision, the common thread in all of them is that they involve an opportunity cost. Opportunity cost is your next best alternative – your second choice. For example, it's a Saturday night, and you are trying to decide between going to the movies, hanging out at friend's house or going to the football game.What is your second choice? If it is the football game, then that is your opportunity cost.
Opportunity cost is important. When you make a certain choice, it forces you to think more critically about all of the abandoned choices. By recognizing opportunity cost, you can decide whether your decision is worth it.
As a high school senior, you face several options, including going to college, going to technical school, or going to the work force. If you choose college the opportunity cost is losing what could have been purchased or saved with the money spent on tuition (学费), housing, books, etc. for four years.You would also lose four years' worth of income and experience that you could have earned if you had gone straight to work.
However, it is still the case that college graduates earn more than high school graduates.But, like all decisions, it is one that should be arrived at only after looking at the costs — including the opportunity cost — and considering the follow-up question: is it worth it?
A. Will you go straight to work?
B. What causes opportunity cost?
C. But that's not the end of the costs.
D. Suppose you decide to go to the movies.
E. If you give up college, what do you lose?
F. A perfect example is the decision to go to college.
G. For many students, going on to college is a wise decision.
