选修7 Unit 1 Living well-Reading MARTYS STORY Hi, my name is Marry Fielding and I guess you could say that I am one in a million. In other words, there are not many people like me. You see, I have a muscle disease which makes me very weak, so I cant run or climb stairs as quickly as other people. In addition, sometimes I am very clumsy and drop things or bump into furniture. Unfortunately, the doctors dont know how to make me better, but I am very outgoing and have learned to adapt to my disability. My motto is: live One day at a time. Until I was ten years old I was the same as everyone else. I used to climb trees, swim and play football. In fact, I used to dream about playing professional football and possibly representing my country in the World Cup. Then I started to get weaker and weaker, until I could only enjoy football from a bench at the stadium. In the end I went into hospital for medical tests. I stayed there for nearly three months. I think I had at least a billion tests, including one in which they cut out a piece of muscle from my leg and looked at it under a microscope. Even after all that, no one could give my disease a name and it is difficult to know what the future holds. One problem is that I dont look any different from other people. So sometimes some children in my primary school would laugh, when I got out of breath after running a short way or had to stop and rest halfway up the stairs. Sometimes, too, I was too weak to go to school so my education suffered. Every time I returned after an absence, I felt stupid because I was behind the others. My life is a lot easier at high school because my fellow students have accepted me. The few who cannot see the real person inside my body do not make me annoyed, and I just ignore them. All in all I have a good life. I am happy to have found many things I can do, like writing and computer programming. My ambition is to work for a firm that develops computer software when I grow up. Last year invented a computer football game and a big company has decided to buy it from me. I have a very busy life with no time to sit around feeling sorry for myself. As well as going to the movies and football matches with my friends, I spend a lot of time with my pets. I have two rabbits, a parrot, a tank full of fish and a tortoise. To look after my pets properly takes a lot of time but I find it worthwhile. I also have to do a lot of work, especially if I have been away for a while. In many ways my disability has helped me grow stronger psychologically and become more independent. I have to work hard to live a normal life but it has been worth it. If I had a chance to say one thing to healthy children, it would be this: having a disability does not mean your life is not satisfying. So dont feel sorry for the disabled or make fun of them, and dont ignore them either. Just accept them for who they are, and give them encouragement to live as rich and full a life as you do. Thank you for reading my story.A LETTER TO AN ARCHITECT Look at the pictures. Discuss the problems that people with walking difficulties might have in a cinema. Ms L Sanders Alice Major Chief architect 64 Cambridge Street Cinema Designs Bankstown 44 Hill Street Bankstown 24 September, 200_Dear Ms Sanders, I read in the newspaper today that you are to be the architect for the new Bankstown cinema.I hope you will not mind me writing to ask if you have thought about the needs of disabled customers. In particular I wonder if you have considered the following things: 1 Adequate access for wheelchairs. It would be handy to have lifts to all parts of the cinema. The buttons in the lifts should be easy for a person in a wheelchair to reach, and the doors be wide enough to enter. In some cinemas, the lifts are at the back of the cinema in cold, unattractive places. As disabled people have to use the lifts, this makes them feel they are not as important as other customers. 2 Earphones for people who have trouble hearing. It would help to fit sets of earphones to all seats, not just to some of them. This would allow hearing-impaired customers to enjoy the company of their hearing friends rather than having to sit in a special area. 3 Raised seating. People who are short cannot always see the screen. So Id like to suggest that the seats at the back be placed higher than those at the front so that everyone can see the screen easily. Perhaps there could be a space at the end of each row for people in wheelchairs to sit next to their friends. 4 Toilets. For disabled customers it would be more convenient to place the toilets near the entrance to the cinema. It can be difficult if the only disabled toilet is i