Last Friday night I went to a great party. It was a birthday party for my English teacher Mrs Brown. Students in my class all went to celebrate(庆祝) her 40^th birthday. We began to prepare for(为……做准备) the party two weeks before that, but Mrs. Brown didn't know anything about it.

    We all met at a restaurant at a quarter to seven. There were about 30 people. Mrs. Brown's son took her to the restaurant and they arrived at seven o'clock. Just before seven, we all stayed in one room of the restaurant and it was dark in the room.

    When they got to the restaurant, Mrs. Brown's son asked her to go into the room first. Then we all shouted, "Surprise!"

    Mrs. Brown was really surprised. She jumped when she heard us. Then we sang "Happy Birthday to You" and she knew what was happening(发生). We all had a great dinner and then a delicious birthday cake.

    For her birthday, Mrs. Brown got a beautiful quilt. We all printed(印) our photos on it. So it was a very special quilt.

    Mrs. Brown enjoyed the party, and we enjoyed it, too.

Information Card

    This is an English boy. His name is Harry. He is twelve. He is in Class 2, Grade 7, No. 18 Junior High School. Qiqi is a Chinese girl and she is eleven. She is in the same class with(和...一起） Harry. She is Harry's good friend. Miss Song is an English teacher. Mr. Lei is a Chinese teacher. They are good teachers. Their（他们的） classes are very interesting. The boys and the girls love them and they love the boys and girls, too.

    Walking through the winter park, I noticed the trees stand cold and bare. The winter has shaken their yellow leaves to the ground. As I keep walking, a noise in the background is becoming louder and clearer. Now, 100 meters ahead, a group of Chinese women gathered at the side of a path. In the cold breeze of winter, they're moving their arms and legs to a rhythm(节奏).They are, of course, the dancing aunties. It seems that if you go to any public place around China, you're likely to see these dancing aunties. When I first came to China, it was one of the things that surprised me. That's because in Britain, dancing in public is not a cultural habit. You won't see any age group swinging their arms and trapping their feet in a park. Usually, they just take a walk for exercise. Now and again the dancing aunties have hit the headlines. Some people find them annoying. But others respect their rights to dance in public. With most of them middle-aged, they finally have some free time to do whatever they like. There is no more work, and their kids have left. Personally, I like seeing these women enjoying themselves. They remind us of the importance of exercise as we get older. Besides, most of them have raised the whole family. Now it is time for them to have fun and enjoy some peace.

    Remember when you were a little child trying to learn to walk？

    First, you had to learn how to balance (平衡) yourself and stand. You fell down, and then got back up. You laughed sometimes and cried at other times. After much practice, you finally learned how to balance yourself. You got much pleasure from this new feeling of power—you'd stand everywhere you could. It was a happy time—you did it!

    Now the next step—walking. You'd seen others do it. It didn't look that hard—just move your legs while you were standing. Wrong—more difficult than you ever imagined. But after you tried again and again and again, you understood how to walk.

    If people found you walking, they cheered, "Oh, look at what the kid is doing." This encouraged you! But look back on those days when you were the little child—how many times did you try when no one was watching, or when no one was cheering？ You couldn't wait for someone to encourage you to take the next steps. You learned how to encourage yourself.

    So, keep trying and encouraging yourself as you learned to walk if you want to succeed in doing something.

    This is a photo of my family. There are six people in my family.

Those are my parents. My mother's name is Alice. My father is Jackie Brown.

    These are my grandparents. My grandmother's name is Maria and my grandfather's name is Frank.

    Look at that boy. He is my brother, Mike. What's the girl's name? Oh, her name is Linda. Ha! Ha! It's me.