Think of life as a game in which you are playing with five balls in the air. You name them work, family, health, friends and spirit and you keep all of them in the air. You will soon understand thatwork is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will jump back.

But the other four balls, family, health, friends and spirit are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be broken. They will never be the same. You must understand that and try to have the balance in your life. But how?

Don’t look down on your worth by comparing yourself with others. It is because we are different and each of us is special.

Don’t let other people set goals for you. Only you know what is best for yourself.

Don’t give up when you still have something to give. Nothing is really over until the moment you stop trying.

Don’t be afraid of difficulties. We learn how to be brave by taking chances.

Don’t shut love out of your life by saying it’s impossible. The quickest way to receive love is to give it; the fastest way to lose love is to hold it too tightly; the best way to keep love is to give it wings.

Don’t run through life so fast that you forget not only where you’ve been, but also where you are going.

Don’t be afraid to learn. Knowledge is a treasure, you can always carry easily.

Don’t use time or words carelessly. You can’t get them back. Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift; that’s why we call it “the present”. Life is not a competition, but a trip, step by step.

  Everyone gets angry. Many things may make you angry. Maybe your teacher gave you too much homework. Or maybe a friend borrowed your favorite book and then lost it. You may get angry when something doesn’t go your way. Maybe you get mad at yourself when your team loses an important game. Or maybe you become a road rager (路怒族) when a driver suddenly cuts in front of you. That makes yo angry! You need to know what to do with your anger. Here are some things you can do do when you feel angry:

Talk to a friend you can trust.

Count to 10.

Take some exercise.

Draw a picture of your anger.

Run around the outside of the house five times as fast as you can.

Sing along with music.

Never getting angry is impossible. But when you are angry, you can do something and it can make things better or worse. Don’t let anger be the boss of you. Take charge of it!

In order to tell you what I believe, I must bring up something from my personal history. 

The turning point of my life was my decision to give up my business job and study music. My parents, although sharing my love of music, didn’t think it was a good choice that I took up music as a job. Considering my family background, this was understandable. My grandfather had taught music for nearly forty years at Spring Hill College in Mobile, and though he was much loved by his students, he didn’t earn(挣钱)enough to provide for his large family. As a result of this example in the family, my parents strongly asked me to go to the college instead of a conservatory(音乐学院)of music although I loved my violin and spent most of my spare time practicing.

Before my graduation from Columbia, the family ran into some money problems and I felt it was my duty to leave college and take a job. That was why I took a business job, which I always think of as the wasted years. I went into it for money, for being able to help the family. Money is all I go out of it. It was not enough. I felt that life was passing me by.

My wish was to save enough to quit(退出)and then go to Europe to study music. I continued to make money, and finally, bit by bit, I earned enough to make myself able to go abroad. The family got out of the trouble and _______________. I felt like a free man and sailed for Europe. I stayed for four years, worked harder than I had ever dreamed of working and enjoyed every minute of it.

“Enjoyed” is too soft a word. I walked on air. I really lived. When I broke away from business, it was against the advice of all my friends and family, but if I had stayed in business, I do not believed I would have made a success of living.

Waste can be seen everywhere in the school. Some students ask for more food than they can eat and others often forget to turn off the lights when they leave the classroom. They say they can afford these things. But I don’t agree with them.

Waste can bring a lot of problems. Although China is rich in some resources(资源), we are short of(缺乏) others, for example, fresh water(淡水). It is reported that we will have no coal(煤) or oil to use in 100 years. So if we go on wasting our resources, what can we use in the future and where can we move? Think about it. I think we should say no to the

students who waste things every day. Everybody should stop wasting as soon as possible.

In our everyday life, we can do many things to prevent waste from happening, for example, turn off the water taps(水龙头) when we finish washing, turn off the lights when we leave the classroom, try not to order more food than we need, and so on. Little by little, everything will be changed. Waste can be stopped one day, if we do our best.

You may see aliens(外星人) in books and movies. They look strange. They are very smart. They travel in spaceships.

   But are there really aliens in space? British scientist Stephen Hawking, 69, thinks so. He says that people should not look for aliens. He thinks they are dangerous. On a new British TV program, Hawking says, “It is quite possible that there are aliens in space.”

   “They might live in big ships... they have used up all the resources(资源) from their home planet(星球),“he says. He thinks such aliens might get resources from the earth and then go away. They may bring ________ to the earth.

Will life in the future be better, worse or the same as now? Futurologists（未来学家）predict that life will probably be very different in 2050.

First of all, it seems that TV will have disappeared by 2050. On TV screen appear holograms（全息图）, We will be able to see, smell and touch the things that we see on television.

Water has become one of our most serious problems. Agriculture is changing and people are growing more fruit and vegetables to export(出口). Some futurologists predict（预测） that water will be the cause of war if we don’t act now.

In transport, cars will run on new fuels and go very fast. A car will have computers to control its speed and there won’t be any accidents.

In the field of technology, robots will have replaced（代替） people in factories. By 2050, we will see robots everywhere. They do not ask for pay rises or go on strike(罢工), and they work 24 hours a day.

Medicine technology will have defeated many diseases by 2050; we will be able to help blind and deaf people see again and hear again. Scientists have discovered how to control genes. If you want all this to come true, you should study science and technology hard.

“Life is speeding up. Everyone is getting unwell.”This may sound like something someone would say today. But in fact, an unknown person wrote it.

   Inventions can change our lives. But have all these things really improved our lives? Imagine this. You're doing your homework on the computer. Your mobile phone rings and the noise from the television is getting louder and louder. Suddenly the computer is turned off and you lose all your work. How do you feel? Inventions have speeded up our lives, but they often leave us feeling tired.

   One family in England went“back in time”to see what life was like without these inventions. The grandparents, with their daughter and grandsons Ben 10 and Tow 7, spent nine weeks in an old house. They had no computers or mobile phones. The grandmother, Linda, said,“The more things you have, the harder life becomes.” And Ben also noticed that his grandmother had changed. She cooked delicious food for them!

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Setting goals is important to people. Setting goals can help them to succeed more easily and more quickly. However, only 1% to 3%of people have clear goals, according to a survey. Why don’t so many people set goals?

For most of the time, people don’t know what they really want. They don’t have a good reason to set goals. Goals can help people get what they want, but they won’t help them to work out what that is! Therefore, people have to be clear about what they really want before setting goals. If someone wants to buy a house, he should find a job first.

Sometimes, people know clearly what they really want, but they don’t set goals. Why? Because they don’t think that setting goals will help them to get the things which they want.

Although some people notice the importance of setting goals and make plans to achieve them, they may not always persevere with their plans. For example, you have decided to do more exercise, but you might forget about it a week later. Sometimes people give up their goals because they are afraid of failure and unknown things. With fear in their minds, they may find it difficult to set goals. You can change your life by changing your mind. If you are trying to achieve your goal, you can check how much progress you have made. Write them down and find out how to do better.

In order to develop(发展) football in schools, the MOE (the Ministry of Education) plans to build 20,000 primary or middle schools with football specially(特色) by 2017.

 The MOE will choose 30 counties(县) as experimental areas(试验区) for school football. The purpose(目的) is to make football more popular in Chinese schools and let students who are good at football get more practice and training.

  The MOE says one tenth of those schools will be senior schools, three tenth junior schools and six tenth primary schools.

  The MOE says schools with football as specialties will get help in teaching, training, competitions, money and so on. The move will make schools have better P.E. courses and better P.E tools，and also make sure that students have at least one hour of sports in schools.

  The bad performance of China’s national football team in recent years is also a reason for the MOE to make this change in schools. Chinese football fans were angry that the national team missed the World Cup for the past 12 years.