GIY stands for “grow it yourself” and is about a new fashion for growing your own food. There are a lot of reasons why growing your own food is a good idea. GIY helps reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions (排放物). Food in supermarkets travels a long way and that produces a lot of CO2. If you grow as many vegetables as you can at home, you can help save the earth.

Vegetables you grow are also good for your health because they have more nutrients than supermarket vegetables and they don’t have chemicals.

How much money can you save? First of all, seeds are a lot cheaper than vegetables, and secondly, you can save more by planting the most expensive and the most productive (多产的) vegetables. You can give your vegetables to friends and neighbors. It can make you very popular.

Don’t worry if you don’t have much space. To GIY, you don’t even need a garden. You can use pots on your balconies (阳台). And don’t worry if your space doesn’t get much sun. You can plant vegetables that don’t need a lot of sun to grow.

Grow your own vegetables now. You will have both a healthier body and a healthier social life.

People often say, “Children can’t do math problems, it’s because parents can’t do their children’s homework. ” Here’s an example to show what I mean.

The other day my daughter brought home her math homework. “I have to subtract (减) 179 from 202,” she said.

“It’s quite easy,” I said. “You put the 202 over the 179. ”

“But we need a 10 here. Where is the 10?”

“I don’t know where the 10 is. Let’s just subtract 179 from 202. Nine from two is three. You carry one and add it to seven. Eight from zero is two. The answer is 23. ”

“We can’t do it that way. We have to use the 10. ”

“Well, I’m going to call your teacher to see how she subtracts 179 from 202. ”

Over the telephone, I said that I was having a bit of trouble with the homework she had given to my daughter. The teacher said, “In the right-hand column (栏) we have units of one. The two in that column counts for two ones. The zero in the center counts for zero tens. The two in the left-hand column counts for hundreds. Are you clear?” But I didn’t think I was clear.

I hung up and found my way to the medicine box. My head was now hurting. I started putting pills of medicine into my mouth. “How many did you take?” my wife asked. “I took one and then I took another…I know one and one was two, but don’t ask me what it is now. ”