My grandfather Jack is 96 years old，and he has had an interesting life. He has travelled a lot in his life in the Far East. He visited the Taj Mahal in India and the Pyramids in Egypt. He hunted（狩猎） lions in Africa, and rode a camel in the Sahara Desert. He says the most beautiful place he has travelled to is Kathmandu in Nepal.

    Jack has married twice. His first wife died when she was 32. He met his second wife Maria while he was cycling round France. They have been married for 50 years, and they have lived happily in a small village since they got married.

Jack says that he has never been ill in his life. The secret of good health, according to my grandfather, is exercise. He goes swimming every morning. He has done this since he was a boy. He also has a glass of wine every night! Perhaps that is his secret!

    When our son Bradley was ten, the new bicycle he had received earlier that year was stolen. Owning a bicycle was a big deal to our children when they were little. They spent hours and hours, day after day, on their bicycles, riding up and down the footpath, and at the front of the house. We also rode together as a family a lot. Bicycling was a great way to get the kids out of the house and into the fresh air without spending any money.

    Bradley had discovered that his bicycle had been stolen from our backyard in Campbell town, South Australia, when he and his sister went outside for a morning ride. He couldn't believe that someone would do this.

    He got a large piece of cardboard, painted a sign begging for the bicycle to be returned, and tied the sign to the letterbox. The following morning, when I went out to collect the mail, I found a white envelope with the magical words," Buy yourself a new bicycle". There was a $100 banknote inside.

    We were very touched that someone had the heart to do this. We've never been able to thank the person but we suspect（猜想）that it may have been one of our wonderful neighbors. Bradley painted a big"             !" on the sign and we left it outside for a couple of weeks afterwards, hoping the kind stranger would drive down our street.

    A delighted Bradley was able to buy a new bicycle. As the years went on, the bicycles became bigger and more expensive but remained just as important for those family bicycle rides. Now Bradley is 25. Sometimes I miss the days when receiving a bicycle was the best thing in the world to them.

    All these years later we are still thankful for the stranger's kindness. We were a young family with three little children and it meant a lot to us. We still talk about it and, even now, wonder who the kind stranger was.

    Mr. Black decided to know more about the different jobs of his students' parents. But some of students were laughing as he talked with Mary. Betty shouted, "Mary's father is a garbageman!"Then everybody in the class laughed out loud. Mary felt her face tum red.

    "Be quiet! Stop laughing!"Mr. Black said," It is difficult but useful to be a garbageman. We should all be thankful to Mary's father."

    Mary's father came to walk her home from school as usual, but she didn't run up to him the way she always did. When they got back home, Mary went to her room and cried for a long time. Her father came into her room, "What happened? Why are you so sad?"

    Mary told her father what happened and looked at him sadly. He didn't seem angry or hurt, "Well." He said," They are right. Being a garbageman is a dirty job. Tomorrow's Saturday. Come to work with me, Mary."

    Mary wrinkled her nose because of the bad smell. "Don't worry. In five minutes you won't smell a thing." said her father.

    Everybody there was working hard, and they seemed to have a good time. Mary's father handed her a pair of gloves and told her to get the little plastic bags and throw them into the truck.

    It was fun, but also hard work. At last, no more garbage was left and Mary felt very proud and happy.

    "Garbage makes us uncomfortable and unhealthy but when we clear it away, everything is nice and clean. You can make yourself happy only by making others happy."

    Mary gave her dirty, smelly garbageman daddy a big kiss because she regarded him as an unselfish man. Now whenever someone asks Mary what her daddy does, she says, "He is a garbageman! Everyone makes garbage, but my daddy takes it away!"

    Wei Huixiao is a very beautiful woman. She was an officer on Chinese aircraft carrier(航母) Liaoning. Soon her great story became popular among people.

    Wei was born in 1977 in Guangxi, China. She always wanted to do something more meaningful, After graduating(毕业) from Nanjing University, she worked for four years. Then she went to Sun Yat—sen University to go on studying for her PHD(博士学位) in 2007. During her study in this university, she wrote a letter to recommend herself for working on Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning.

    "This aircraft carrier is the biggest stage for every Chinese officer. My dream is to spend my days fighting the wind and waves," she wrote in her letter.

    Many people didn't understand what Wei Huixiao wanted. She could get a better job because she was so great. Some even told her that she was crazy. However, she knew exactly what she wanted to do.

    In the end, Wei Huixiao's dream came true and she became the first woman officer with a PHD on Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning.

    When I was a child, I was a tomboy(假小子). I had a cowboy hat and cowboy boots. My brothers were two and four years older than I. We often played games together.

    Once, my brothers and I fell in love with playing a game called "stealing horses". Then my parents decided to buy my brothers guns. These were not "real" guns. Because I was a girl, I didn't get a gun. They shot and shot at everything with their new guns. I tried to "fight" them with my bow and arrows (弓和箭). But I was still in the poor position without a gun.

    One day while I was hiding behind a wall, looking out toward the fields, I felt a terrible blow to my right eye. I looked up just in time to see my brother lower his gun. Both brothers rushed to my side. My eye felt great pain and I covered it with my hand. "If you tell that to Mummy," they said, "We will get a whipping(鞭打) from Daddy. You don't want that to happen, do you?" I did not. "Here is a piece of wire(电线)," said the older brother, picking it up from the floor, "Say you stepped on one end of it and the other flew up and hit you." "Yes," I said. To be honest, I didn't want them to be punished. So I did as my brothers told me to do.

    A week after the "accident" my parents took me to see a doctor. Finally I knew my brothers were worried about my eye, so they told our parents what had happened and asked them to take me to see a doctor.