To the Student Council, We are the members of the 11th grade band. Currently, since we have no practice room of our own, we have to practice twice a week in the multipurpose room. For the past two weeks, band practice has been canceled because other groups needed to use the room. Since the band tournament is only one month away, we are asking to be the only group to use the multipurpose room after school for this entire month. Principal Cooper has said that the entire student council must vote on our proposal. We hope that you will understand our situation and vote in our favor. Sincerely, The 11th Grade Band

Joni went horseback riding with her older sisters. She had a hard time keeping up with them because her pony was half the size of their horses. Her sisters, on their big horses, thought it was exciting to cross the river at the deepest part. They never seemed to notice that Joni's little pony sank a bit deeper. It had rained earlier that week and the river was brown and swollen. As her pony walked into the middle of the river, Joni turned pale, staring at the swirling waters rushing around the legs of her pony. Her heart started to race and her mouth became dry.

Think back to when you were a kid. How did you play? How did using your imagination make you feel? Being imaginative gives us feelings of happiness and adds excitement to our lives. It's time to get back to those emotions. If you can return to the joyful feelings that you had through play, you'll find that you feel happier about yourself. You can use your imagination to write books or invent something. There is no end to how creative you can be when you move into your imagination. It will also keep you focused on completing the tasks at hand because imagination makes everyday tasks more interesting.

Curiosity is the essence of life. Animals including humans cannot live without knowing what is useful to them and what is needed for their survival: where to find food, how to avoid predators, where to find mates, etc. However, the human species differs from other animals because we thirst for knowledge that reaches far beyond our personal needs. We look around us and we wonder. We wonder about our surroundings and about what we observe both near and far and we want to understand it all. Indeed, we fear the unknown. This sense of wonder and desire for understanding not only makes us human, but is also one of the foundation stones of civilization.

Advertising experts have learned that the commercials that we remember will hook us into a story. Think about some of the most memorable and effective advertisements of all time, whether in the form of a printed page or 30-second spot on television. They involved an impressive storyline. Apple Computer's classic Think Different campaign is widely considered the best ad of all time because it so dramatically told a powerful story. Coca Cola's Mean Joe Green commercial is another example of a story, in which a little boy meets his hero. The goal in all these scenarios is to move people, emotionally and personally, creating a close association with the product that is positive and familiar.

Anne Mangen at the University of Oslo studied the performance of readers of a computer screen compared to readers of paper. Her investigation indicated that reading on a computer screen involves various strategies from browsing to simple word detection. Those different strategies together lead to poorer reading comprehension in contrast to reading the same texts on paper. Moreover, there is an additional feature of the screen: hypertext. Above all, a hypertext connection is not one that you have made yourself, and it will not necessarily have a place in your own unique conceptual framework. Therefore, it may not help you understand and digest what you're reading at your own appropriate pace, and it may even distract you.

The above graph shows who Australian girls and boys aged eleven consulted if they had problems. Mothers were the most consulted source if girls and boys had problems. For boys, fathers were the second most consulted source, followed by friends. The percentage of girls who consulted teachers was 20 percentage points lower than that of girls who consulted fathers. The percentage of boys who consulted teachers was higher than that of girls who consulted teachers by 4 percentage points. More girls went to their friends than to their brothers or sisters if they had problems.

Teak is among the most prized of the tropical hardwoods. It is native to India, Thailand, and Vietnam. It is a leaf-losing species that requires an annual dry season, so it is not found in the true rainforests. The wood of teak is particularly attractive, having a golden or reddish brown color. Teak is strong, making it a valued wood in shipbuilding and for high-quality furniture. One problem with harvesting teak is that the wood is very dense, so that when it is first felled and has not been dried it sinks in water. It cannot be moved out of forests by floating down rivers unless the wood has been dried first.

《Off the Chain Bike Bus Tour》 Off the Chain Bike Bus Tour, the eco-friendly way to see Sycamore City, is here. Experience a pedal-powered adventure with up to 11 of your friends! Time: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Place of Departure: Sycamore City Hall Fee: A bike bus for an hour is $100, and additional time is charged at $10 per 10 minutes after the first hour. Special Feature: You can sing and dance to your favorite tunes and play interactive games, while enjoying all of what Sycamore City has to offer. For further information, please visit our website at www.syctownbikebus.com.

《Zookeeper Experience at Dudley Zoo》 During Zookeeper Experience, you will learn what it takes to work in an animal care career, participating in the following activities: • Preparing animal diets • Helping to weigh and care for animals • Taking part in animal training WHO: Animal lovers aged 9-18 TIME: 9:30 a.m.-11:30 a.m. - We schedule one Zookeeper Experience per day. COST: $50 - Zoo admission is included. WHAT TO BRING: A water bottle and your camera - Photo opportunities are provided. Please visit our website at www.dudleyzoo.com to make a reservation.

When I was young, my parents worshipped medical doctors as if they were exceptional beings possessing godlike qualities. But I never dreamed of pursuing a career in medicine until I entered the hospital for a rare disease. I became a medical curiosity, attracting some of the area's top specialists to look in on me and review my case. As a patient, and a teenager eager to return to college, I asked each doctor who examined me, What caused my disease? How will you make me better? The typical response was nonverbal. They shook their heads and walked out of my room. I remember thinking to myself, Well, I could do that. When it became clear to me that no doctor could answer my basic questions, I walked out of the hospital against medical advice. Returning to college, I pursued medicine with a great passion.

Do you know one of the best remedies for coping with family tension? Two words: I'm sorry. It's amazing how hard some people find them to say. They think it implies weakness or defeat. Nothing of the kind. In fact, it is exactly the opposite. Another good way of relieving tension is a row! The sea is ever so much calmer after a storm. A row has another advantage. When tempers are raised, unspoken truths usually come out. They may hurt a bit, especially at the time. Yet, at the end, you know each other a bit better. Lastly, most of the tensions and quarrels between children are natural. Even when they seem to be constant, wise parents don't worry too much.

Jake's own flying dream began at a village festival. He was four years old. His uncle, a tall silent pilot, had bought him a red party balloon from a charity stall, and tied it to the top button of Jake's shirt. The balloon seemed to have a mind of its own. It was filled with helium, a gas four times lighter than air, though Jake did not understand this at the time. It pulled mysteriously at his button. Maybe you will fly, Jake's uncle remarked. He led his nephew up a grassy bank so they could look over the whole festival. Below Jake stretched the little tents and the stalls. Above him bobbed the big red balloon, shiny and beautiful. It kept pulling him towards the sky, and he began to feel unsteady on his feet. Then his uncle let go of his hand, and Jake's dream began.

You can actually become your own cheerleader by talking to yourself positively and then acting as if you were already the person that you wanted to be. Act as though you were trying out for the role of a positive, cheerful, happy, and likable person. Walk, talk, and act as if you were already that person. Treat everyone you meet as though you had just won an award for being the very best person in your industry or as though you had just won the lottery. You will be amazed at how much better you feel about yourself after just a few minutes of pretending.

Imagine this scene. There are six people in an elevator with an actor hired by researchers. The actor drops a bunch of coins and pencils. They fall to the floor with a clatter. And then, as the elevator goes down floor by floor, not one person moves a muscle to help. The people in the elevator have to notice the actor picking up the coins and pencils on the floor. Some people may feel uncomfortable and might silently wonder whether to get involved. But each person is surrounded by five others who are doing nothing. If the people knew they were being tested, everyone would instantly come to the aid of the stranger. But in the context of everyday life, where people are not thinking deliberately about how others are influencing them, going along with the group just feels like the natural thing to do.

Patients should be aware that there can be differing views among specialists about who should be treated for various conditions. For example, expert committees in Europe and the United States set different guidelines about when to treat high blood pressure. The group of American experts believed that for mild elevation of blood pressure the benefits exceeded the risks from treatment. They wrote guidelines suggesting that patients with mild blood pressure elevation take medicine. But in Europe, an expert committee with access to the same scientific data set different guidelines that don't advise treatment for mild elevation of blood pressure. In Europe, people with the same symptoms would not be encouraged to take medicine. Different groups of experts can disagree significantly about what is best practice.

If you ask someone to name three sports, most likely he or she will be able to answer with ease. After all, nearly everyone has an idea about what types of activities are regarded as sports and which are not. Most of us think we know what sports are. However, the line drawn between examples of sports, leisure, and play is not always clear. In fact, devising a definition that establishes clear and clean parameters around what types of activities should be included and excluded is relatively difficult to do. Activities that are regarded as play today may gain the status of sport in the future. For example, many people once played badminton in their backyards but this activity was hardly considered a sport. Since 1992, however, badminton has been an Olympic sport!

For some people, there is an irony to success. Many people who achieve great success don't always feel it. For example, some who achieve fame talk about the loneliness that often goes with it. That's because success and achievement are not the same thing, yet too often we mistake one for the other. Achievement is something you reach or attain, like a goal. It is something tangible, clearly defined and measurable. It comes when you pursue and obtain what you want. Success, in contrast, is a feeling or a state of being. She feels successful. She is successful, we say, using the verb to be to suggest this state of being.

Every day in each of my classes I randomly select two students who are given the title of official questioners. These students are assigned the responsibility to ask at least one question during that class. After being the day's official questioner, one of my students, Carrie, visited me in my office. Just to break the ice, I asked in a lighthearted way, Did you feel honored to be named one of the first 'official questioners' of the semester? In a serious tone, she answered that she'd been extremely nervous when I appointed her at the beginning of class. But then, during that class, she felt differently from how she'd felt during other lectures. It was a lecture just like the others, but this time, she said, she was forced to have a higher level of consciousness; she was more aware of the content of the lecture and discussion. She also admitted that as a result she got more out of that class.

Slang is actually quite difficult for linguists to find out about. You will have your local slang that you use in your school or in your town, and there's no way I would ever know about it unless you told me what it was. Indeed, in your area you'll probably have several different kinds of slang. The slang that kids use in primary school is likely to be different from what is used in secondary school. If your town has several schools, there are often differences in the kind of slang heard in each school. And there may even be words that are used differently within a single school. I once worked with a group of students in the final year of senior school, who listened out for the slang used in their school. They found that the slang used by first-year students was very different from their own.

Flipped Learning allows for a variety of learning modes. Educators often physically rearrange their learning spaces to support either group work or independent study. They create flexible spaces in which students choose when and where they learn. Furthermore, educators who flip their classes are flexible in their expectations of student timelines for learning and in their assessments of student learning. In the traditional teacher-centered model, the teacher is the primary source of information. By contrast, the Flipped Learning model shifts instruction to a learner-¬centered approach, where in-¬class time is spent exploring topics in greater depth. As a result, students are actively involved in knowledge construction as they participate in and evaluate their learning in a personally meaningful manner.

Both mammals and birds are noisy creatures. They commonly make their presence felt, and communicate, by sound, but birds are far better at it. Many mammals produce different sounds for different objects, but few can match the range of meaningful sounds that birds may give voice to. Apart from human beings, mammals on the whole are not melodious and there is little evidence that they intend to be. Some mammals bellow, but few sing, apart from human beings and perhaps whales. Yet many birds are famed for their songs and some of the most glorious songsters are the ones we encounter most often.

When I was in eighth grade, we were studying longitude and latitude in geography class. Every day for a week, we had a quiz, and I kept getting longitude and latitude confused. I went home and almost cried because I was so frustrated and embarrassed that I couldn't keep them straight in my mind. I stared and stared at those words until suddenly I figured out what to do. I told myself, when you see that n in longitude it will remind you of the word north. Therefore, it will be easy to remember that longitude lines go from north to south. It worked; I got them all right on the next quiz, and the next, and on the test.

Today's consumers are not just looking for a good product at a fair price. They are looking beyond the product or service to the ethics of the company that supplies it. The shift in focus by consumers is evident in their concerns about the companies they purchase from. For example, there is growing interest in labor practices, environmental policies, and social responsibilities. Also, there is a pressure to get companies to present not just financial results, but also social and environmental results and impact. Companies need to respond to the pressure because customers are voicing their concerns in every way, from boycotting stores to suing companies. Some multinational companies have experienced the anger of ethical consumers in recent years, and have been forced to respond quickly to protect their reputations and their existence as companies. This growing emphasis on ethical consumption is a trend that cannot be ignored. It is not going to go away. There are some important changes in the world indicating that ethical consumers will continue to be a growing force in the next few decades. Companies would do well to understand this trend and make efforts to deal with it.

William Miller stayed up after the family had gone to bed, then read until the morning. Candles were expensive, but there were plenty of pine knots, and all he had to do was gather them from the woods. So William formed the habit of burning pine knots in the fireplace for his nightly reading light. But his father didn't like the habit and tried to stop it. His father felt that his son's late-night reading would cut into his energy for the next day's work. And the farm required every ounce of work he could get from his son. He insisted that William retire for the night when the rest of the family did. And his father thought the growing boy should sleep soundly through the night. William's secret life continued for some time, though. Night after night he read as long as he could, then made his way back upstairs, and slept until it was time to do the morning chores. But one night something happened that he hadn't expected. His father awoke and saw a glow downstairs. Thinking the house was on fire, he came rushing down the stairs to save his home and family from going up in flames. Instead of a house fire, however, he saw his son William lying peacefully before the fireplace reading a book he'd borrowed from a neighbor. His father grabbed a broomstick and chased his son around the room, yelling, Young man, if you don't get to bed right now, I'll kick you out of the house! William went up to bed, at least for this night. He was only trying to get an education that he couldn't get from the teachers in the community.