One summer an elderly gentleman moved to a house in a peaceful street near a school. Then the school year began. Every day, three boys walked down the street banging on every trash can they passed on their way. The man approached them and said, “I love what you’re doing, I did the same when I was your age. I’ll give each of you a dollar a day if you keep doing this.” The kids were thrilled and continued to bang the trash cans on the street every day. After a few days, when the man met the boys again, he said, “I’ve had some unexpected expenses, so now I can only pay you 50 cents a day.” The noisemakers weren’t happy, but they accepted his offer. A few days later, the old man told them he had to lower their wages again. “Only 25 cents?” the boys exclaimed. “No way. We quit!” And from that day on, the man could enjoy peace and quiet around his house again.

Interviewer: Jayne, people are reading fewer and fewer books, so how does your library keep its doors open?

Woman: When I noticed a significant drop in the number of users, I felt at a loss. I could either reduce our opening hours or close the library altogether. However, I knew that many library users would be shocked and upset if I had to give up. The only alternative was to create an online library offering digital versions of the books. And, believe me, our regular users took to it! The comments they left on social media were a real morale booster for me. Also, I soon started getting more and more online loan requests. Now, my library also offers a platform where ideas and views about books and art are exchanged.

Tekst 3.
When I was in high school, my parents decided I should finally learn to cook for myself. When they were going out one evening, my dad said “There’s a pizza in the fridge”. All I had to do was to follow the instructions, which were: pop it in the oven and set the timer. What could go wrong? However strange it may sound, while I was taking the pizza out of the oven, I didn’t pay enough attention and it slipped out of my hands. It ended up falling face-down onto the flame in the oven and caught fire. I immediately threw some water onto it to put the fire out, so nothing terrible happened, but that incident discouraged me from cooking for years.
A decade later, I’m still living in New York, a city where the need to cook is basically non-existent as at the push of a button you can have pizza, sushi or any other type of food delivered to your doorstep. Still, my strong aversion to cooking became downright embarrassing as time went by. Plus, eating out with a bunch of friends every single night was not doing my finances any favours. So, I tried to use apps which give demos of how to make easy meals, but it didn’t work out for me. I felt I had to be taught how to cook by someone personally. That’s why one of my New Year’s resolutions was to enrol in a cooking course. I hoped it would strengthen my determination, and it did. Right at the beginning of January I did some research into cooking courses available in my neighbourhood and signed up for one. I’ve been attending the classes for two months now and I have discovered that I really enjoy making bread and cakes. The precision required for that is something much more relaxing than the improvisation that goes into other kinds of cooking. I only regret that I now have to pay to learn how to cook although I could have learnt it for free from my dad, if only I’d wanted to. So, am I the next Master Chef? No. But I still hope I will be able to make a simple meal for my friends one day.