Mary was fond of traveling. She always enjoyed seeing foreign lands and people. However, after experiencing the thrill of cultures other than her own for a while, she would eventually want to return to her native land. The museums, the architecture, the food, the music, and the culture of faraway places fascinated her. But she never forgot that she felt the happiest and most comfortable with her family and friends in the old house where she was born.

   A nightingale was siting on a tall oak tree, singing as they always do. A hawk saw her, and as he had nothing to eat, swooped down and snatched her up. She tried to escape from the jaws of death by begging him to let her go. She was too small, she said, to make a meal for a hawk; if he was hungry, he had better chase a bigger bird. But the hawk's answer was: "I should be crazy if I let slip the food I have in my claws to go after which is not yet in sight."

  Last month I ordered an exercise bicycle on the Internet. It came in a big box, and I had to put it together. I wanted to try out my new exercise bicycle as soon as possible, so I hastily started to assemble it without first reading the instructions. After I finished assembling the bicycle, it didn't I started to assemble the exercise bicycle all over again. Now it works smoothly and properly. Due to my haste and carelessness, I wasted too much time.

  Attitudes about food that we form as children are not easily changed. In some families, food is love. Not all families are like this, but some children grow up with this attitude. Some families think of food as something precious and not to be wasted. The attitudes children pick up about food are hard to change as adults. If a child learns ad attitude, it is hard to break this later. Children are very impressionable, and they can't really think for themselves when they are small.