When I was young, I liked to play jokes on people I knew, especially on my parents and friends. One day my mother was cooking and I was playing with my younger brother Tony. Suddenly I ran to my mother and said, "Tony fell from the open window!" She was very worried and ran out of the kitchen. Then I said, "Don't worry, I'm just joking." My mother shouted at me, "If you do it again, I'll hit you."

      Another day I went swimming with my friends in the sea. I wanted to play a joke on them. In the beginning I swam fast and I called out “Help!”. All my friends came to help me. However, they found that I was joking. But half an hour later I wasn't joking. I was so fast, soon I got tired and couldn't swim on in water. I tried my best to call my friends for help, but this time nobody came to help me.

      In the end they found I was telling the truth. They came and saved my life. They took me to the hospital. This is the best lesson in my life. From then on I haven't joked on anyone.

    A man sat at an underground station in Washington, D.C., and started to play the violin. It was a cold day in January. He played six Bach（巴赫）pieces for about 45 minutes. It was rush hour and thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

    Three minutes went by and the first person, a middle-aged man, noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed down and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule.

    After a minute, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a young woman threw the money in the box and continued to walk. Then another few minutes went by and someone stood against the wall to listen to him, but the young man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

    During the musician's performance, only six people stopped and stayed for a while, twenty gave him money but continued to walk. When he finished playing, no one applauded（鼓掌）. No one knew the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world.

    This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing in the underground station was organized by The Washington Post（《华盛顿邮报》）as part of a social experiment. One of the conclusions from this experiment could be: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music, how many other things are we missing?

B

    There is an elephant and a monkey. They're friends. But one day they want to know who is stronger. One of them says, "Who can get apples over there, who is stronger?"

    There is a river over there. The monkey says, "I can't swim." The elephant says, "I can swim. Please sit on my back." They go across the river. The apple trees are very tall. The elephant can't reach the apples. The monkey climbs up the tree and gets many apples.

    Now they know they should help each other.

    Mike teaches a very basic programming (编程) course to a group of students. They are all very interested in computers.

    One day, Mike told his students to write a short program on their computers. After writing it, they only needed to type "R", "U" and "N" and press "enter" to see the program run.

    Soon, a student sitting in the back of the classroom put up her hand. She said, "I did what you said, but it didn't work." Mike knew that students sometimes make mistakes when typing. So he suggested that the student retype (重新输入) "R", "U" and "N".

    A few seconds later, the student's hand went up again. "It still doesn't work," she said. This time. Mike went to her to see what the problem was. To his surprise, he found that instead of typing "RUN", the student had typed "ARE YOU IN"!

    Kelly's favourite subject is PE But she had a hard time in PE classes. She was not good at jumping very far, she had trouble throwing a ball, and she couldn't run really fast. Sometimes, some kids laughed at her .So why does Kelly love PE class?

    The reason is that her teacher Mr Burns always tells her to do her best. Though she only ran for a few minutes, Mr Burns said, "Good job! Next time you will be able to go a little longer."Mr Burns even put a small box on the floor, so Kelly would be able to practise jumping over it.

    That night when Kelly finished dinner, she put three boxes and began practising jumping over them. She made it! Kelly thought to herself, "Tomorrow I will be able to jump over those boxes in the PE class."

    There was a relay race(接力赛)on Tuesday. Kelly was afraid that she would not be able to go very far. When Kelly ran, she heard the kids shouting, "Go Kelly! You can do it!" That was all she needed to hear. Kelly ran fast. She finished first! The kids cheered for her. Kelly felt so good. "Thank you, Mr Burns, "said Kelly." Kelly, you ran in the race, not me." "Yes, but you always said I could do it."

One weekend, my husband suggested we cook together. I had spoken to my mother earlier that day on the phone. I had told her about our life. She yawned(打哈欠) and we said 1 to one another. 

I didn't know then that just 16 hours later, my mother would die. 

My mother was my best friend. After she died, I felt 2 . She was the only person I wanted to 3 . The only person who could help me was the one who was missing. 

My mother gave me many things, 4 she had never taught me how to cook. She liked to eat more than cook. She loved to eat fish pie and 5 it to us for dinner. Almost every week, she would 6 a prepared fish pie. Then she would bring it home and make her own white sauce. 

My mother 7 taught me how to make a white sauce, and I never wanted to ask her. Since she was gone, I would have to teach 8 .

So this became my focus. For the first few weeks, I survived (生存) on cheap food. But one night, a fish pie mix 9 my eye at the store. 

When I got home, I 10 myself in front of our electric stove. Armed with a 11 , I tried to teach myself to make a white sauce. 

Halfway through the recipe, I couldn't believe it- I had made a white sauce on my own! Then I remembered: I had always 12 fish pie. 

Admiring my sauce, I wondered13 I wanted to make a dish I had hated for 25 years. Why was it suddenly so important?

I poured the sauce over the fish. Then I ate the pie. I realized that the act of 14 calmed me down. 

It helped me find15 .