Long ago, a farmer, hard-working, had a wonderful olive orchard(橄榄园). Unluckily, his three sons cared less about his olive orchard. They couldn't wait to be wealthy in a short time.

    When the farmer was old, and felt that his time had come to die, he called the three sons to him and said, "My sons, there is a pot of gold hidden in the olive orchard. Dig for it, if you wish it."

    The sons tried to get him to tell them in what part of the orchard the gold was hidden, but he would tell them nothing more.

    After the farmer was dead, the sons went to work to find the pot of gold. Since they did not know where it was, they agreed to begin in a line at one end of the orchard, and to dig until one of them should find the money.

    They dug until they had turned up the soil from one end of the orchard to the other, round the tree-roots and between them. But no pot of gold was to be found. The three sons were disappointed to have all their work for nothing.

    The next olive season, the olive trees in the orchard bore more fruit than they had ever given. When it was sold, it gave the sons a whole pot of gold.

    And when they saw how much money had come from the orchard, they suddenly understood what the wise father had meant when he said, "There is gold hidden in the orchard. Dig for it, if you wish it."

    Once a king got two nice falcons(猎鹰)from his son. He had never seen such beautiful falcons before. He loved them so much and he ordered the best falconer to train them to fly.

    After several months, the king came to see how the training was going on. He found that one falcon had already been able to fly high in the sky, while the other was staying on the branch(树枝) of a tree quietly, just keeping still.

    The king called all his falcons together and ordered them to try every way they could to make the other falcon fly. But none of them succeeded. One day, while the king was taking a walk in the forest, an idea came to his mind. Maybe someone who knew the natural environment well could solve this problem. He sent for a farmer who lived in the forest into his palace to train it at once.

    The next morning, the king saw the other falcon flying above in the sky freely. “It is unbelievable !” shouted the king. How could you make it happen?”

    The farmer replied, “It's very easy. I just cut off the branch where the falcon rested.”

    It is always the same to human beings. We all have “two flying wings” in our hearts as well, but we often seem not to notice them and stay where we just for safety and comfort. We won't realize we can fly so high and freely until the “branch” we are resting on breaks.

    Ann is my classmate. She comes from New York, and she lives in Shanghai with her parents now. Every morning, she goes to KFC to have breakfast. Sometimes she buys a hamburger for me. She can't speak Chinese well. In the evening, her father often helps her with it. He's a teacher in our school. He can speak Chinese very well.

    Ann thinks the school life(生活)in China is very interesting. Ann likes reading Chinese books because she wants to know more about China. She tries(努力)to talk with her Chinese friends in Chinese. She hopes to speak Chinese well. She is very happy to live in China. She loves people here.

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    Jim, with his father, goes to see his grandfather. In the train Jim often puts his head out of the window. His father says, "Jim! Don't put your head out of the window!" But Jim goes on putting his head out of the window.

    So his father takes Jim's cap quietly (悄悄地), hides (藏) it behind his back and says, "You see your cap is gone." Jim is afraid.

    His father says, "Well, whistle (吹口哨) once. Maybe your cap will come back." Jim whistles. His father puts quickly the cap on Jim's head.

    Oh! It is wonderful. Jim laughs. He quickly takes his father's cap and throws (扔) it out of the window. "Now it is your turn to whistle, Dad!" He says happily.

    About 10 years ago, I started a job as a trainer. In one of my first classes, the head trainer told us a story.

    He began by drawing a man standing in the middle of a circle. To make it more interesting, he drew things like a house, a car, and a few friends inside the circle.

    He asked the question," Can anyone tell me what this is？"In a long silence, one guy decided to speak out," The world?" The trainer said, "That's close. Actually, this is your Comfort Area. Inside your circle, you feel very comfortable. You have all the things that are important to your home, your family, your friends and your job. People feel that inside this circle they are safe from any danger."

    " Can anyone tell me what happens when you step out of this circle？"A strong silence came over the room. At last, the same guy started," You are afraid." Another guy said," You make mistakes." The silence continued and the trainer smiled and said," When you make mistakes, what can the result be?" The first guy shouted," You learn something."

    "Quite right, you are learning." The trainer turned to the board and drew an arrow（箭头）pointing from the man to the outside of the circle.  He continued to say," When you leave your Comfort Area you put yourself out there, in front of the world to be in situations that you are not comfortable with. The end result is that you have learned something that you did not know and you slowly become a better person." He turned again to the board and drew a bigger circle around the first one, and added a few new things like more friends, a bigger house, etc.

    The moral of the story is that if you stay inside your Comfort Area, you will never be able to expand your horizons（开阔视野）and learn. When you step out of your Comfort Area you will finally make your circle bigger and your mind grow stronger, and all in all a better person."

    I caught a very bad cold last weekend and had to stay at home for a whole week. The nurse in the hospital took my temperature, I had a fever. The doctor told me to take both some Chinese and some west medicine. He suggested that I should stay in bed and have a good rest.

    When he asked me what probably caused（引起）the cold, I told him the whole story.

    Last weekend, I was studying for an exam. Father said to me, "You look stressed out, son. You really need to relax. Let's go fishing in the countryside!"

    "Harrah!" I shouted.

    The next morning, we got up very early. Mother told us that it was going to rain and she suggested that we should take our raincoat with us but we were too excited to remember that. We took a train and arrived at a lake in the countryside. A few hours later, it began to rain! Soon, it began to rain cats and dogs. We had to go back home.

    When we arrived home, we were wet through. Mom asked, "Did you catch any fish?"

    "No, we didn't. But we caught cold!" Dad answered.