Years ago, I lived in a building in a large city. The building next door was only a few feet away from mine. There was a woman who lived there, whom I had never met, yet I could see her sit by her window each afternoon, sewing(针线活) or reading.
     After several months had gone by, I began to notice that her window was dirty. Everything was unclear through the dirty window. I would say to myself, "I wonder why that woman doesn't wash her window. It really looks terrible.”
     One bright morning I decided to clean my flat, including washing the window inside. Late in the afternoon when I finished the cleaning, I sat down by the window with a cup of coffee for a rest. What a surprise! Across the way, the woman sitting by her window was seen clearly. Her window was clean! Then it dawned on me. I had been criticizing(批评) her dirty window, but all the time I was watching hers through(通过) my own dirty window.
     That was quite an important lesson for me. How often had I looked at and criticized others through the dirty window of my heart, through my own mistakes?
     Since then, whenever I wanted to judge (评判) someone, I asked myself first, "Am I looking at him through my own dirty window?”
Then I try to clean the window of my own world so that I may see the world about me more clearly.

    Last summer, I went to Yunnan on vacation with my family. We1four days there.

    Our first stop was Lugu Lake. I wondered why there was so beautiful a lake in the world. I enjoyed 2 there. We went boating and took quite a few photos. Then we went up to a hill. On the top of the 3 we got to see something beautiful. I felt like I was in a painting. I thought I would 4 forget the beautiful scenery (风景) there.

    The next morning we went to Lijiang by bus. It was a long 5 from Lugu Lake to Lijiang. In the afternoon we 6 After a short break (休息), we went to walk around the town and bought Some gifts. Then we decided to try the famous (著名的) Guoqiao Rice Noodles for dinner. They were very 7 and delicious. After dinner we took a walk and enjoyed the old streets and buildings 8 the moon. The summer evening was cool.

    Our 9 stop was the "spring city" Kunming. We visited Dianchi, watched the birds and went to the flower market. We had a really wonderful day.

    The four-day trip came to a(n) 10 soon. We had to go home. Everything in Yunnan was great. It is a very beautiful and interesting place. I'm sure you'll never regret (懊悔) going on a trip there.

Have you ever read stories of Sherlock Holmes—a famous detective? Here is one of his cases.

Stapleton, Charles' younger brother, found that he would inherit (继承) the Baskerville lands if Charles and his nephew(侄子) —Henry both died.

    Charles who had a weak heart believed super natural stories. After knowing this, Stapleton had the idea of buying a huge hound, and of using the phosphorus(磷) to make it shine like the hound in one story.

    Then Stapleton asked his friend Laura to write a letter to bring Charles to the moor gate on that sad night. The hound, which was shining with phosphorus, chased Charles down the Yew Alley. Charles' fear was so great that his weak heart stopped, and he died but the animal did not touch the dead body. There was no sign of murder. It was difficult for Holmes to find the murderer.

    Two weeks later, Stapleton learned that Henry had reached England. He took his wife and the hound with him. He wore a false beard and followed Henry in London. He wanted to use the same way to murder Henry there. He needed something to give the hound Henry's smell, so he paid a woman at Henry's hotel to steal one of his shoes. The first one was a new one, which was no use for the hound, so it was put back. And then another older shoe was stolen. Before he was ready to murder Henry, he wasn't sure if his wife would keep his secret, so he did not tell her the truth. He locked her up in their hotel. She knew that he must have some evil plans. She sent Henry a letter which was made of words cut from a newspaper.

    After receiving the letter, Henry realized he was in great danger and it must have something to do with his uncle Charles' death. So he asked Holmes for help.

    ① My little sister is spoilt(宠坏的). She has Dad wrapped around her finger. If I had done or said some of the things that she does when I was her age, I would have been in big trouble. Not her- she's Daddy's girl. She's three.

    ②An example: Dad asked her to get his glasses from the kitchen. My sister said, “You've got legs. You get them.” When he asked again, she said, "Benny's got legs. He can get them. "Mum and Dad thought she was funny. I just thought she was rude.

    ③One night she woke Dad and said she dreamed that "Benny was fighting a witch (巫婆)."Mum and Dad let her sleep in their bed the rest of the night. I never slept in their bed- not that I would have wanted to. She is so spoilt.

    ④One time at the beach after she'd been playing in the surf with Mum, my sister shouted that an "octopus's tentacles" had bitten (咬) her. Dad laughed his head off. It wasn't that funny. She was certainly imagining. I knew that's what she thought as I'd done a project on animals for school.

    ⑤She likes to do homework when I do mine. She sits next to me and pretends to write pages of homework. It's just letters such as the letters in her name that she repeats for row after row. Mum says she's just trying to be like me but it drives me crazy when I'm trying to fix my attention on my work.

    ⑥She took her favorite book, Animalia, to Kindy(幼儿园) this morning. When dad and I collected her from Kindy this afternoon, a boy had taken her book out of her locker and was being really careless with the pages. I could tell she didn't like him having her book. I took the book off the boy and told him to treat books nicely. My sister looked very happy.

    ⑦Later my Dad told me that my sister admires me. I guess that's pretty cool.