Dear Ms. Cross, We are excited to announce the opening of the newest Sunshine Stationery Store in Raleigh, North Carolina! As you know, the Sunshine Stationery Store has long been the industry standard for quality creative paper products of all kinds, and we couldn't have picked a better location for our next branch than the warm and inviting city of Raleigh. We are thrilled to welcome you to the Grand Opening of the Raleigh store on March 15, 2018. The opening celebration will be from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. ― a full 12 hours of fun! We would love to show you all the Raleigh store has to offer and hope to see you there on the 15th! Sincerely, Donna Deacon

One day I caught a taxi to work. When I got into the back seat, I saw a brand new cell phone sitting right next to me. I asked the driver, Where did you drop the last person off? and showed him the phone. He pointed at a girl walking up the street. We drove up to her and I rolled down the window yelling out to her. She was very thankful and by the look on her face I could tell how grateful she was. Her smile made me smile and feel really good inside. After she got the phone back, I heard someone walking past her say, Today's your lucky day!

Serene tried to do a pirouette in front of her mother but fell to the floor. Serene's mother helped her off the floor. She told her that she had to keep trying if she wanted to succeed. However, Serene was almost in tears. She had been practicing very hard the past week but she did not seem to improve. Serene's mother said that she herself had tried many times before succeeding at Serene's age. She had fallen so often that she sprained her ankle and had to rest for three months before she was allowed to dance again. Serene was surprised. Her mother was a famous ballerina and to Serene, her mother had never fallen or made a mistake in any of her performances. Listening to her mother made her realize that she had to put in more effort than what she had been doing so far.

Many people think of what might happen in the future based on past failures and get trapped by them. For example, if you have failed in a certain area before, when faced with the same situation, you anticipate what might happen in the future, and thus fear traps you in yesterday. Do not base your decision on what yesterday was. Your future is not your past and you have a better future. You must decide to forget and let go of your past. Your past experiences are the thief of today's dreams only when you allow them to control you.

Storyteller Syd Lieberman suggests that it is the story in history that provides the nail to hang facts on. Students remember historical facts when they are tied to a story. According to a report, a high school in Boulder, Colorado, is currently experimenting with a study of presentation of historical material. Storytellers present material in dramatic context to the students, and group discussion follows. Students are encouraged to read further. In contrast, another group of students is involved in traditional research/report techniques. The study indicates that the material presented by the storytellers has much more interest and personal impact than that gained via the traditional method.

Experts advise people to take the stairs instead of the elevator or walk or bike to work. These are good strategies: climbing stairs provides a good workout, and people who walk or ride a bicycle for transportation most often meet their needs for physical activity. Many people, however, face barriers in their environment that prevent such choices. Few people would choose to walk or bike on roadways that lack safe sidewalks or marked bicycle lanes, where vehicles speed by, or where the air is polluted. Few would choose to walk up stairs in inconvenient and unsafe stairwells in modern buildings. In contrast, people living in neighborhoods with safe biking and walking lanes, public parks, and freely available exercise facilities use them often — their surroundings encourage physical activity.

How can we teach our children to memorize a broad range of information? Let me prove to you that all people are potential geniuses, with brains designed to store, control, and remember large amounts of information through memorization by repetition. Imagine the grocery store where you shop the most. If I asked you to tell me where the eggs are, would you be able to do so? Of course you could. The average grocery store carries over 10,000 items, yet you can quickly tell me where to find most of them. Why? The store is organized by category, and you have shopped in the store repeatedly. In other words, you've seen those organized items over and over again, and the arrangement by category makes it easy for you to memorize the store's layout. You can categorize 10,000 items from just one store.

The above graph shows how UK adults accessed the news in 2013 and in 2014. In both years, TV was the most popular way to access the news. Using websites or apps was the fourth most popular way in 2013, but rose to the second most popular way in 2014. On the other hand, listening to the radio was the third most popular way in 2013, but fell to the fourth most popular way in 2014. The percentage of UK adults using magazines in 2014 was lower than that in 2013. The percentage of UK adults using newspapers in 2014 remained the same as that in 2013.

《2018 Eco-Adventure Camp》 Explore the woods in Tennessee! All middle school and high school students are welcome! • Dates: March 23 -25 (3 days and 2 nights) • Fee: $150 per person (All meals are included.) • Activities: Nature Class, Hiking and Climbing, and Treasure Hunt • Every participant will receive a camp backpack. • Registration starts from March 12 and ends on March 16 on our website. For more information, please visit us at www.ecoadventure.com.

《T-shirt Design Contest》 We are looking for T-shirt designs for the Radio Music Festival. The Radio Music Festival team will select the top five designs. The one grand prize winner will be chosen by online voting. Details: • Deadline for submission: May 15, 2018 • Three entries are allowed per participant. • Designs will be printed on white T-shirts. • An entry can include up to three colors. • You can use the Radio Music Festival logo, but you're not allowed to change its colors in any way. The winners will receive two T-shirts with their design printed on them. For more information, please visit our website at www.rmfestival.org.

Mae C. Jemison was named the first black woman astronaut in 1987. On September 12, 1992, she boarded the space shuttle Endeavor as a science mission specialist on the historic eight-day flight. Jemison left the National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA) in 1993. She was a professor of Environmental Studies at Dartmouth College from 1995 to 2002. Jemison was born in Decatur, Alabama, and moved to Chicago with her family when she was three years old. She graduated from Stanford University in 1977 with a degree in chemical engineering and Afro-American studies. Jemison received her medical degree from Cornell Medical School in 1981.

The first underwater photographs were taken by an Englishman named William Thompson. In 1856, he waterproofed a simple box camera, attached it to a pole, and lowered it beneath the waves off the coast of southern England. During the 10minute exposure, the camera slowly flooded with seawater, but the picture survived. Underwater photography was born. Near the surface, where the water is clear and there is enough light, it is quite possible for an amateur photographer to take great shots with an inexpensive underwater camera. At greater depths — it is dark and cold there — photography is the principal way of exploring a mysterious deep-sea world, 95 percent of which has never been seen before.

Honesty is a fundamental part of every strong relationship. Use it to your advantage by being open with what you feel and giving a truthful opinion when asked. This approach can help you escape uncomfortable social situations and make friends with honest people. Follow this simple policy in life — never lie. When you develop a reputation for always telling the truth, you will enjoy strong relationships based on trust. It will also be more difficult to manipulate you. People who lie get into trouble when someone threatens to uncover their lie. By living true to yourself, you'll avoid a lot of headaches. Your relationships will also be free from the poison of lies and secrets. Don't be afraid to be honest with your friends, no matter how painful the truth is. In the long term, lies with good intentions hurt people much more than telling the truth.

Since a great deal of day-to-day academic work is boring and repetitive, you need to be well motivated to keep doing it. A mathematician sharpens her pencils, works on a proof, tries a few approaches, gets nowhere, and finishes for the day. A writer sits down at his desk, produces a few hundred words, decides they are no good, throws them in the bin, and hopes for better inspiration tomorrow. To produce something worthwhile — if it ever happens — may require years of such fruitless labor. The Nobel Prizewinning biologist Peter Medawar said that about four-fifths of his time in science was wasted, adding sadly that nearly all scientific research leads nowhere. What kept all of these people going when things were going badly was their passion for their subject. Without such passion, they would have achieved nothing.

Within a store, the wall marks the back of the store, but not the end of the marketing. Merchandisers often use the back wall as a magnet, because it means that people have to walk through the whole store. This is a good thing because distance traveled relates more directly to sales per entering customer than any other measurable consumer variable. Sometimes, the wall's attraction is simply appealing to the senses, a wall decoration that catches the eye or a sound that catches the ear. Sometimes the attraction is specific goods. In supermarkets, the dairy is often at the back, because people frequently come just for milk. At video rental shops, it's the new releases.

The good news is, where you end up ten years from now is up to you. You are free to choose what you want to make of your life. It's called free will and it's your basic right. What's more, you can turn it on instantly! At any moment, you can choose to start showing more respect for yourself or stop hanging out with friends who bring you down. After all, you choose to be happy or miserable. The reality is that although you are free to choose, you can't choose the consequences of your choices. It's a package deal. As the old saying goes, If you pick up one end of the stick, you pick up the other. Choice and consequence go together like mashed potatoes and gravy.

Just think for a moment of all the people upon whom your participation in your class depends. Clearly, the class requires a teacher to teach it and students to take it. However, it also depends on many other people and organizations. Someone had to decide when the class would be held and in what room, communicate that information to you, and enroll you in that class. Someone also had to write a textbook, and with the assistance of many other people — printers, editors, salespeople, and bookstore employees — it has arrived in your hands. Thus, a class that seems to involve just you, your fellow students, and your teacher is in fact the product of the efforts of hundreds of people.

Suppose that you are busy working on a project one day and you have no time to buy lunch. All of a sudden your best friend shows up with your favorite sandwich. He tells you that he knows you are busy and he wants to help you out by buying you the sandwich. In this case, you are very likely to appreciate your friend's help. However, if a stranger shows up with the same sandwich and offers it to you, you won't appreciate it. Instead, you would be confused. You would likely think Who are you, and how do you know what kind of sandwich I like to eat? The key difference between these two cases is the level of trust. You trust your best friend so much that you won't worry about him knowing you too well, but you certainly would not give the same level of trust to a stranger.

If you start collecting and analyzing data without first clarifying the question you are trying to answer, you're probably doing yourself more harm than good. You'll end up drowning in a flood of information and realize only later that most of that research was a waste of time. To avoid this problem, you should develop a problem-solving design plan before you start collecting information. In the design plan, you clarify the issues you are trying to solve, state your hypotheses, and list what is required to prove those hypotheses. Developing this plan before you start researching will greatly increase your problem-solving productivity. In addition, putting your plan down on paper will not only clarify your thoughts. If you're working in a group, this plan will also help your team focus on what to do and provide the starting point for your group brainstorming.

The philosopher G. A. Cohen provides an example of a camping trip as a metaphor for the ideal society. On a camping trip, he argues, it is unimaginable that someone would say something like, I cooked the dinner and therefore you can't eat it unless you pay me for my superior cooking skills. Rather, one person cooks dinner, another sets up the tent, another purifies the water, and so on, each in accordance with his or her abilities. All these goods are shared and a spirit of community makes all participants happier. A camping trip where each person attempted to gain the maximum rewards from the other campers in exchange for the use of his or her talents would quickly end in disaster and unhappiness. Moreover, the experience would be ruined if people were to behave in such a way. So, we would have a better life in a more equal and cooperative society.

In the classical fairy tale the conflict is often permanently resolved. Without exception, the hero and heroine live happily ever after. By contrast, many present-day stories have a less definitive ending. Often the conflict in those stories is only partly resolved, or a new conflict appears making the audience think further. This is particularly true of thriller and horror genres, where audiences are kept on the edge of their seats throughout. Consider Henrik Ibsen's play, A Doll's House, where, in the end, Nora leaves her family and marriage. Nora disappears out of the front door and we are left with many unanswered questions such as Where did Nora go? and What will happen to her? An open ending is a powerful tool, providing food for thought that forces the audience to think about what might happen next.

In 2006, 81% of surveyed American shoppers said that they considered online customer ratings and reviews important when planning a purchase. Though an online comment — positive or negative — is not as powerful as a direct interpersonal exchange, it can be very important for a business. Many people depend on online recommendations. And young people rely heavily on them and are very likely to be influenced by the Internet when deciding what movie to see or what album to purchase. These individuals often have wide-reaching social networks and communicate regularly with dozens of others — with the potential to reach thousands. It has been reported that young people aged six to 24 influence about 50% of all spending in the US.

Crows are a remarkably clever family of birds. They are capable of solving many more complex problems compared to other birds, such as chickens. After hatching, chickens peck busily for their own food much faster than crows, which rely on the parent bird to bring them food in the nest. However, as adults, chickens have very limited hunting skills whereas crows are much more flexible in hunting for food. Crows also end up with bigger and more complex brains. Their extended period between hatching and flight from the nest enables them to develop intelligence.

Think of the most famous scientists you know — Isaac Newton, Louis Pasteur, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Pierre and Marie Curie, Stephen Hawking, and so on. What do all these people have in common? Well, for one thing, they're all very smart. In some cases they even taught themselves most of what they knew about their particular subject. In fact, Sir Isaac Newton had to invent a new branch of mathematics (calculus) just to solve the problems he was trying to do in physics. There is something else they all had in common that set them apart from the other smart people of their time — their ability to ask questions. Just having a good brain isn't always enough. To be a great scientist, you need to be able to look at a problem that hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people have already looked at and have been unable to solve, and ask the question in a new way. Then you take that question and come up with a new way to answer it. That is what made Newton and the others so famous. They coupled intelligence with a curiosity that said, I want to know the answer to this. After coming up with the right questions, they discovered ways of answering those questions and became famous for their discoveries.

When Patsy McLeod took freshly washed clothes to her former master Ben Wilson's house, her nine-year-old daughter Mary went along. When they arrived at the big house, the McLeods walked to the rear entrance used for blacks. In 1884 there was sharp segregation between the races in Mayesville, South Carolina. While her mother went inside the house, Mary wandered over to a children's playhouse and looked inside. Two white girls about her age sat among a lot of dolls. Hello, Mary! Do you want to come in? one of them called out. Mary happily went into the playhouse. The white child handed a doll to the black girl, saying You can watch the baby while I have tea with my friend. While Mary walked the doll around the room, her eyes fell upon a book; she picked it up in awe. Her parents had a Bible in their cabin, but no one could read it. Unexpectedly the white girl grabbed the book. Put that down! she yelled. You don't know how to read. Feeling shameful, Mary handed the doll back to the white child and rejoined her mother. On the walk back to their farm, she wondered why white people had all kinds of nice things and why, above all, they could read while black people couldn't. She decided to learn to read. At home the little girl asked her father to let her go to school, but he told her calmly, There isn't any school. One day, however, a black woman in city clothes changed that. Emma Wilson came to the McLeod cabin, explaining that she would open a new school in Mayesville for black children. The school will begin after the cotton-picking season, she said. Mary's parents nodded in agreement. Mrs. McLeod also nodded toward her daughter. Young Mary was very excited. I'm gonna read? Miss Wilson? She smiled at Mary.