The Big Wheel

This is the story called "The Big Wheel". My American friend send to me. She has short hair and very beautiful blue eyes. She is a great mum and very kind person. She loves chinese very much coz she used to live with his family in hk. My English is very bad... she knows it. Then she said "Oh! my sweetie ... my chinese is very bad too" she always sends me some storys... she never thought to force me to improve my english ... she just want me to feel english can be interesting... and now i show you a story that she sent for me...

The Big Wheel

In September 1960, I woke up one morning with six hungry babies and just 75 cents in my pocket. Their father was gone. The boys ranged from three months to seven years; their sister was two. Their Dad had never been much more than a presence they feared.

Whenever they heard his tires crunch on the gravel driveway they would scramble to hide under their beds.

He did manage to leave $15 a week to buy groceries. Now that he had decided to leave, there would be no more beatings, but no food either.

If there was a welfare system in effect in southern Indiana at that time, I certainly knew nothing about it.

I scrubbed the kids until they looked brand new and then put on my

best homemade dress, loaded them into the rusty old 51 Chevy and drove off to find a job.

The seven of us went to every factory, store and restaurant in our small town. No luck.

The kids stayed crammed into the car and tried to be quiet while I tried to convince whomever would listen that I was willing to learn or do anything. I had to have a job.

Still no luck. The last place we went to, just a few miles out of town, was an old Root Beer Barrel drive-in that had been converted to a truck stop. It was called the Big Wheel.

An old lady named Granny owned the place and she peeked out of the window from time to time at all those kids. She needed someone on the graveyard shift, 11 at night until seven in the morning. She paid 65 cents an hour, and I could start that night.

I raced home and called the teenager down the street that baby-sat for people. I bargained with her to come and sleep on my sofa for a dollar a night. She could arrive with her pajamas on and the kids would already be asleep. This seemed like a good arrangement to her, so we made a deal.
That night when the little ones and I knelt to say our prayers, we all thanked God for finding Mommy a job. And so I started at the Big Wheel.

When I got home in the mornings I woke the baby-sitter up and sent her home with one dollar of my tip money-- fully half of what I averaged every night.

As the weeks went by, heating bills added a strain to my meager wage.The tires on the old Chevy had the consistency of penny balloons and began to leak. I had to fill them with air on the way to work and again every morning before I could go home.

One bleak fall morning, I dragged myself to the car to go home and found four tires in the back seat. New tires! There was no note, no nothing, just those beautiful brand new tires. Had angels taken up residence in Indiana? I wondered.

I made a deal with the local service station. In exchange for his mounting the new tires, I would clean up his office. I remember it took me a lot longer to scrub his floor than it did for him to do the tires.

I was now working six nights instead of five and it still wasn't enough. Christmas was coming and I knew there would be no money for toys for the kids.

I found a can of red paint and started repairing and painting some old toys. Then hid them in the basement so there would be something for Santa to deliver on Christmas morning. Clothes were a worry too. I was sewing patches on top of patches on the boys pants and soon they would be too far gone to repair.

On Christmas Eve the usual customers were drinking ! coffee in the Big
Wheel. These were the truckers, Les, Frank, and Jim, and a state trooper named Joe.

A few musicians were hanging around after a gig at the Legion and were dropping nickels in the pinball machine.

The regulars all just sat around and talked through the wee hours of the morning and then left to get home before th e sun came up.

When it was time for me to go home at seven o'clock on Christmas morning, to my amazement, my old battered Chevy was filled full to the top with boxes of all shapes and sizes.

I quickly opened the driver's side door, crawled inside and kneeled in the front facing the back seat.
Reaching back, I pulled off the lid of the top box. Inside was whole case of little blue jeans, sizes 2-10!

I looked inside another box: It was full of shirts to go with the jeans.

Then I peeked inside some of the other boxes. There was candy and nuts and bananas and bags of groceries. There was an enormous ham for baking, and canned vegetables and potatoes. There was pudding and Jell-O and cookies, pie filling and flo ur. There was a hole bag of laundry supplies and cleaning items.

And there were five toy trucks and one beautiful little doll.

As I drove back through empty streets as the sun slowly rose on the most amazing Christmas Day of my life, I was sobbing with gratitude.

And I will never forget the joy on the faces of my little ones that precious morning.
Yes, there were angels in Indiana that long-ago December. And they all hung out at the Big Wheel truck stop....

THE POWER OF PRAYER. I believe that God only gives three answers to prayer:

1. "Yes!"
2. "Not yet."
3. "I have something better in mind."

God still sits on the throne, the devil is a liar.

You maybe going through a tough time right now but God is getting ready to bless you in a way that you cannot imagine.

Dyslexia

Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Records; Cher, the singer; Whoopi Goldberg and Tom Cruise, both Hollywood actors all have some thing in common. Yes, they are extremely famous, successful and rich but that's not all. They all have a learning disability or problem called 'dyslexia'. They have all talked about their life experiences and how they deal with 'dyslexia' to try and help the many children and adults around the world who suffer from the same problem.
A definition of 'dyslexia' is 'a reading disorder in which people jumble letters'. That means people with 'dyslexia' read the word 'dog' when the word is really 'god' or they confuse the words 'say' and 'may'. Dyslexics have difficulty reading, spelling and writing and sometimes even problems with maths, memory and organizational skills.Scientists have no idea why people suffer from this learning disability but they do think it has something to do with the way the brain develops and the connections in the brain.
In most developed countries about 5 percent of schoolchildren have learningdisabilities and 80 percent of this figure has some kind of 'dyslexia'. Many of these kids are called 'dumb' or 'stupid' at school but actually they are probably as smart as the other kids. Their only problem is that they cannot learn with traditional teaching methods because of the 'dyslexia'. Dyslexics cannot be 'cured', reading and writing causes them some difficulty all their life but if they have special teaching and tutoring they can learn to manage their problem.

Kuala Lumpur

One of the youngest Southeast Asian capital cities is Kuala Lumpur or KL, the nickname residents and tourists give it now. After Singapore it's one of the most economically successful cities and has about 1.8 million inhabitants.The city was founded in 1857 and the first people to settle there were Chinese merchants. Later on, in the early years of the twentieth century British investors, Malay farmers and Indians moved in, searching for work and opportunities. All of these groups influenced the look and feel of Kuala Lumpur. Even today, it's a jigsaw of different periods and styles but many say this is part of the charm of the city.KL can be described as a friendly and safe place with lots of attractions and sights to keep tourists busy, temples, gardens and mosques can be found all over the city. Most of the city centre is easy to cover on foot and then the real spirit of the city can be experienced. The street life is one of the most interesting things to experience. There are over 80 open markets in the capital selling everything from fish to watches. On every street corner is a 'hawker stall', a place cooking and selling inexpensive food in the open air and stalls selling soy milk, fresh fruit and special juices.One reason why KL is known throughout the world is the 'Petronas Towers'. This is undoubtedly one of the most spectacular buildings in the city as it's over 490 metres high, modern and different. It's made up of twin towers joined by a bridge more than 40 floors up and the design is said to symbolize harmony and strength.KL balances traditional and modern and has a cultural and ethnic mix, it is always changing and you never know if what you see today will be there tomorrow.

Chopsticks

Chopsticks were developed about 5,000 years ago in China and are an important part of Asian culture. People would retrieve their food from the large pots that hung over the fire using sticks or branches broken from trees. Later, as the population grew and resources became scarce, people would cut food into smaller pieces to save fuel because the smaller portions cooked faster. This eliminated the need for knives at the dinner table, and chopsticks became the utensil of choice. It is also thought that Confucius, a vegetarian, advised people not to use knives at the table because knives would remind them of the slaughterhouse. He said, “The honorable and upright man keeps well away from both the slaughterhouse and the kitchen. And he allows no knives on his table.” Confucius’ dislike for the presence of knives at the kitchen table, coupled with the popularity of his teachings no doubt contributed to the expanding use of chopsticks among the population. Chinese chopsticks are called kuai-zi, which literally means “quick little fellows”, and are usually 9 to 10 inches long and rectangular with a blunt end.
By 500 A.D., chopsticks had spread from China to other countries such as Korea, Vietnam and Japan. In Japan, chopsticks were originally considered precious and were used exclusively for religious ceremonies. The earliest chopsticks used for eating looked like tweezers; they were made from one piece of bamboo that was joined at the top. By the 10th century they became two separate pieces. Japanese chopsticks differ in design from Chinese chopsticks as they are slightly shorter than their Chinese counterparts (7 to 8 inches long), are typically rounded and taper to a point. The Japanese were the first to lacquer wooden chopsticks, making them slippery but usable and they were also the first to create disposable wooden chopsticks. Chopsticks quickly gained popularity throughout Japanese society and their use became as widespread as in the rest of Asia.
Chopsticks come in many different forms. Bamboo tends to be the most popular material to make them from. There is lots of it in Asia, it is easy to split and it is especially resistant to heat. They could also be made of various types of wood as well as plastic, porcelain, animal bone, ivory, metal, coral, agate and jade. The wealthy Chinese used to have chopsticks made of silver, as it was believed they would turn black upon contact with poisoned food. This has since been disproved.
Although chopsticks are used in China, Vietnam, Korea and Japan elsewhere in Asia, in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Central Asia, most people have traditionally eaten with their hands.

Car boot sale=Flea market

Sunday mornings are not what they used to be. Now, all over the UK, people don't stay in bed like before, they get up and go out to a special kind of sale called a 'car boot sale'. They have to arrive early to get the best choices of goods and by lunchtime everyone has bought what they want or bought nothing and is on the way home.

A 'car boot sale' is usually held on a field or in a big open space and has many market stalls selling second hand goods. People take their used items from home that they don't want and sell them at car boot sales. Everything is sold cheaply, of course, and there is a wide range and a lot of choice. For a few pounds, one can buy clothes, teapots, cd's, musical instruments, ornaments and even some electrical equipment.People, who go to car boot sales, go there for different reasons; some to save money, some to look for items to add to their collections and some hoping to find a valuable antique.

Sometimes people sell goods from their homes without realizing they are antiques and customers with a good eye for old things can get something valuable for a very cheap price.Car boot sales are becoming more and more popular with the sellers, customers and people just there to look but not buy. It is an interesting morning out and a good way to recycle unwanted household goods!

Danish Prince to divorce wife

Prince Joachim, Queen Margrethe's second son, will seek a divorce from his Hong Kong-born wife, Princess Alexandra, a spokesman for Denmark's royal family said Thursday.

Queen Margrethe and her husband Prince Henrik "deeply regretted" the couple's decision, but added they would give their full support to their son and daughter-in-law, according to a statement read by the royal family lord chamberlain, Ove Ullerup.
Ullerup said Joachim and Alexandra would continue their official duties during the divorce. If the divorce is completed, then it is the queen's decision whether to let Alexandra keep her royal title.

"The princess has no plans to leave the country," Ullerup said.
The announcement marks the first time since 1846 that a member of Denmark's royal family, Europe's oldest ruling monarchy, has gotten a divorce. The monarchy was founded by the Viking Gorm the Old, who died in 958.

Steffen Heiberg, a historian specializing in royal history, said the last divorce in the Danish royal house was in 1846 when King Frederik VII divorced Princess Caroline Charlotte Mariane of Mecklemburg-Strelitz, Germany.

He said the divorce is a "private matter" and would be handled like any other divorce in the Scandinavian country of 5.4 million.

"Both of them have a duty to take care of their children and will continue to share parenting responsibilities," Niels Eilschou Holm, the palace's legal expert, told reporters at a press conference.

For several months, Danish media have carried reports and rumors that the couple had been leading separate lives.

Joachim, 35, and Alexandra Manley, 40, got married on November 18, 1995, at Frederiksborg Castle in Hilleroed, Denmark. The couple have two sons, Prince Nikolai, 5, and Prince Felix, 2.
After the wedding, the enormously popular princess captured Danes’ hearts and admiration by giving a speech in fluent Danish.

Alexandra spends considerable time in the public eye, serving as the patron of 21 groups, including the Danish Association for the Blind, a marine life museum, a girls’ choir and a shelter for homeless and abused women with children. She is also the president of UNICEF Denmark.
While Alexandra carried out official duties, Joachim was dubbed "the party prince" because he spent more time attending soccer games, racing vintage cars and rock concerts.
The couple met in January 1994 in Hong Kong, where the prince was working for a Danish shipping company.

After marrying into Europe's oldest ruling monarchy, Alexandra gave up her professional life as a mutual fund manager and dropped her British citizenship for a Danish passport.
She is known as an elegant dresser and speaks German and French. She studied economics in Hong Kong, London and Vienna.

Joachim is the younger brother to the heir to Denmark's throne, Crown Prince Frederik, who in May married Australian-born Crown Princess Mary.

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Prince Joachim of Denmark and his Hong Kong-born wife Princess Alexandra Manley are to divorce, the royal couple said on Thursday.

Alexandra, 40, and Joachim, 35, were married on November 18, 1995 in a high-profile wedding at the Fredericksburg Castle in Hillerod, Denmark.

The couple have two sons, Prince Nikolai, 5, and Prince Felix, 2.
Recently members of the media had speculated that Joachim and Alexandra had developed a more distant relationship, increasingly diving royal duties between each other.
In a press release issued Thursday, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said: "I note that Prince Joachim and Princess Alexandra have agreed upon the terms of separation, including parental custody and all economic affairs.''

He said that the Danish government was in favour of supporting Alexandra for her future work in the country. Alexandra, who claims to be a descendant of England's William the Conqueror, was born in Hong Kong on June 30, 1964 and christened at the Cathedral of St John the Baptist.
When she married Joachim she converted to the Evangelical Lutheran faith.

After graduating from the Island School, Alexandra studied economics in Hong Kong, London, and Vienna. She then began a career at the investment firm GT Management.
When she met Joachim in 1994, she was a mutual-funds executive living in Discovery Bay.
The prince was then working for Danish shipping line Maersk.

Joachim is the younger brother of Crown Prince Felix, the heir to Denmark's thrown, who married Australian-born Crown Princess Mary in May.

The royal family is reportedly "deeply saddened'' by news of the divorce, but Queen Margrethe and Prince Henrik support the decision. This marks the first divorce in 200 years for the Danish monarchy, which was founded by the Viking King Gorm the Old in 958.

In a statement, the couple said they would continue with their state and official duties.
"After many long and difficult considerations, we have mutually decided to seek separation with intent to divorce. We have agreed upon the terms of separation, and we will share joint custody of our children,'' the statement said.

"Each of us wishes to carry out our official duties as fully as possible, as well as continue our co-operation with the organisations with which we are involved.''

Southeast Asian

One of the youngest Southeast Asian capital cities is Kuala Lumpur or KL, the nickname residents and tourists give it now. After Singapore it's one of the most economically successful cities and has about 1.8 million inhabitants.The city was founded in 1857 and the first people to settle there were Chinese merchants. Later on, in the early years of the twentieth century British investors, Malay farmers and Indians moved in, searching for work and opportunities. All of these groups influenced the look and feel of Kuala Lumpur. Even today, it's a jigsaw of different periods and styles but many say this is part of the charm of the city.KL can be described as a friendly and safe place with lots of attractions and sights to keep tourists busy, temples, gardens and mosques can be found all over the city. Most of the city centre is easy to cover on foot and then the real spirit of the city can be experienced. The street life is one of the most interesting things to experience. There are over 80 open markets in the capital selling everything from fish to watches. On every street corner is a 'hawker stall', a place cooking and selling inexpensive food in the open air and stalls selling soy milk, fresh fruit and special juices.One reason why KL is known throughout the world is the 'Petronas Towers'. This is undoubtedly one of the most spectacular buildings in the city as it's over 490 metres high, modern and different. It's made up of twin towers joined by a bridge more than 40 floors up and the design is said to symbolize harmony and strength.KL balances traditional and modern and has a cultural and ethnic mix, it is always changing and you never know if what you see today will be there tomorrow.

Function of the camera

CAMERA INSTRUCTIONS

Holding your Camera.· Always use both hands when holding your camera to keep it steady.· Be careful not to put your fingers over the lens, flash or the focusing window.· When you hold the camera vertically, keep the flash at the top of the camera.· We suggest that you try out the camera and take one roll of camera film as a test. This will help you get used to your camera before using it for special occasions.· If you move the camera while taking a photograph, the picture will be blurred and unclear. To get sharp, clear pictures, hold the camera firmly and don't move it when you take a picture.

Zooming the Lens.Your camera has a built-in lens. This allows you to get more in the picture or get closer to the subject of your photograph. To use the zoom lens, just turn the zoom lever clockwise to TELE.· Remember to keep your fingers off the zoom lens.· When you switch the camera off, the zoom lens will automatically return to its original position.· Turn the zoom lens off by turning the zoom lever anticlockwise (back to its original position).· Save your battery power! If you are not using the zoom lens, turn it off!

Millionaire

Everyone would like to be a millionaire but can you imagine having over $30 million and only being 20 years old? Britney Spears from Kentwood, a small town in Louisiana, is only 20 years old; she is an international pop superstar with not only $30 million dollars but also a $2 million mansion in LA. At her young age, she can look after her family financially all her life.
This year is a big year for Britney, she is currently on a 31 date tour of the US and every concert is a sell out. That means she plays in front of a crowd of around 18,000 every time. It's a tiring schedule but brings great rewards. When touring, she goes to bed around 1am and then has a lie-in until 1pm or 2pm the next day. Her philosophy is to take care of the body and relax but always make sure you work hard and have fun.
Spears is not satisfied with only touring and selling nearly 40 million records so she decided to branch out into the movie business and try a bit of acting. She made an appearance in "Austin Powers 3" this year and she is filming a teenage comedy that will be released in March 2003. In this movie, she has a starring role. The movie was her own concept and she picked the writer.
For Britney, acting is another way to express herself and she is enthusiastic about it all. If her movies are successful, her bank account is sure to grow by another few million dollars but she has been quoted as saying she does it for the love, not the money.

Privacy- tiny cam

In the world today, there are millions of surveillance cameras, or 'spy cams', watching and monitoring our daily activities. There are some benefits of course, as people who are breaking laws can be watched and caught using cameras and this helps keep our society and public places safe.
These cameras are everywhere and most are openly visible on roads, in airports, businesses, shopping centres and government buildings and even in lifts. Even schools have started using spy cams to watch student activity and behaviour.
The cameras are so commonplace now that we hardly ever even notice them. But the problem lies with the ones that are hidden away from our eyes and are unseen. Technology has helped develop tiny cameras that can be very well hidden and they can 'spy' on shoppers, workers, babysitters and people in hotels and clubs without the people even knowing.
It is these spy cams that people feel are an invasion of privacy. Recently, in the U.S., there have been a number of court cases against babysitters whose actions have been recorded by their employers on hidden cameras.
The numbers of cameras in public and private areas is on the increase and with rising crime rates and the recent terrorist attacks, more and more surveillance cameras are being used to watch us. This means that we all have to be aware that our employers, department stores, police and even some of our friends could be spying on us at any time!