There are many kinds of heroes. Even animals can be heroes. This month’s newsletter tells about three amazing animals. Each one is a hero!

Thumper was a dog that lived with a family which had a three-year-old son named Benjamin. One day Benjamin wandered into a large field. The grass in the field was taller than he was, so he could not find his way out. Hundreds of people began to search for Benjamin. When they found him, they saw Thumper stayed with Benjamin and kept him warm. So Benjamin had stayed safe and calm.

The Altsmans had a pet pig named Lulu. One summer the couple went camping and took Lulu with them. The husband went fishing one morning. The wife didn’t feel well, so she and Lulu stayed in the camper. Suddenly Mrs. Altsman fell to the floor. Lulu pushed the camper door open and climbed out to locate help. When a car came by, she lay down in front of it. When the driver got out, Lulu led him back to the camper. The man called for help and Mrs. Altsman was taken to hospital.

Sugar was a beautiful cat. Three years ago she wandered onto the Woods’ farm in California and Mrs. Woods began feeding her. Mrs. Woods noticed something wrong with the cat’s left leg, but this didn’t make Sugar any less special. Mrs. Woods loved Sugar. Later the couple moved to a new farm in Oklahoma. They gave Sugar to a neighbor who would take good care of her, because they knew she wouldn’t like riding in cars for days. However, Sugar walked across deserts and mountains and traveled more than 1,500 miles to the Woods’ new farm! Mr. and Mrs. Woods could hardly believe their eyes. No one knows how Sugar found her way to Oklahoma.

When I started playing soccer as a kid, I just fell in love with it. I wanted to be a soccer player when I grew up. But when I was nine, I started losing my eyesight. At first, I told myself, “If I just work harder than everyone else, I can still compete.” However, my perseverance (坚持) wasn’t going to be realistic. And because I kept pushing, my mental health started to worsen. I developed an eating disorder and depression (抑郁症).

When I hit rock bottom in high school, I started to understand that I couldn’t just keep going down that path of trying to achieve something that wasn’t possible.

My older brother got me started on the right path after I hit rock bottom. He encouraged me to try swimming. The freedom of being in the water had a calming effect on me: It gave me a place where I could feel confident again. I was able to move from the dream of playing soccer to sports that I could do, like swimming, track and field, and cross-country. Naturally, that combination led to triathlon (铁人三项运动).

In my senior year, I signed up for my first triathlon. By that point, while I still had some eyesight, I was legally blind. My parents biked and ran the course with me the night before, which helped me learn and remember key landmarks.

That first race was great. Most importantly, that race opened a new door in sports and in life for me. When I went to Michigan State for college, I started the triathlon team there. That gave me another network of support, and surrounded me with people to train with and work with.

None of that would have happened if I had continued to play soccer. Sometimes you have to change the path you thought you’d be on, but you can still persevere on that new path.

We all know it is important for students to get a good night’s sleep every night. They aren’t able to do their best unless they sleep well. Most experts agree that the proper number of hours is eight, and this has been accepted as common sense for as long as I can remember. However, I was young once and I know that most of you get much less sleep than that-and sometimes this affects your schoolwork.

I read an article in a teachers’ magazine recently. They did a study of 848 students in a senior school. Worryingly, the results suggested that teenagers are facing a new problem. They may go to bed and get up at proper times but a growing number wake up in the middle of the night, not to use the bathroom or have a snack but because of FOMO-the fear of missing out!

According to the article, schoolchildren suffer because of an increasing trend to wake up during the night to check social media. Afraid of missing a message or chance to take part in a discussion, teens wake up at all times of the night to go online and join up with social groups. All this happens when they should be sound asleep.

The report gives some worrying numbers. 23% of 12-to 15-year-olds wake up nearly every night to use social media. Another 15% wake up at night once a week for the same reason. As a result, one in three students are constantly exhausted and unable to do well at school.

So, I’d like to ask you to be responsible when it comes to social media. Be brave and turn off your phones and computers at night. The world won’t end and your social media will be waiting to greet you in the morning. I give you my word that you won’t have missed anything important.