Some people like to collect stamps. Others prefer posters or coins. But Pinky Bhutia is different. She collects children. In her mountain village, in Sikkim, she is known as the wonderful young woman who adopts(领养) all the children she can.

    Pinky was 14 when she adopted her first child, a Nepali baby girl, whose patents passed away. Pinky's parents did not mind. Pinky left school and started working full time because she had a baby to feed. Today , she has twelve adopted children, and two sons from her marriage.

    Pinky is about 30 years old and she comes from a common family. If you passed her on the street, you wouldn't give her a second look. She lives in a brown mud-washed(泥刷的) house. There is a vegetable garden outside. Red hens with noisy chicks run all over the garden looking for food.

    If you ask her why she provides a home for so many kids, she smiles shyly. But her eyes are serious. "I know what it is to be poor and hungry." As a child, her only dream was to eat a full meal, and her favorite amusement was watching people with shoes and imagining what it felt like. By adopting poor and homeless children she is making sure that they never feel that hopeless.

    Pinky feels very proud when she sees her children happy and bright, her oldest baby, Aarita Rai, is now 20 years old, Then, there is 19-year-old Nimbe who came to Pinky because her mother was unable to look after her. She started to work in a government office two years ago. Ten-year-old Bhim and 14-year-old Kumar came to Pinky five years ago, after their father's death. They started living on a patch of land given by Pinky and grew vegetables for sale.

    "I like children. It's not one more mouth to feed but one more soul saved," Pinky says.

    I am 13. It's my first time to go to New York. I go there with my friend Emma. We get to New York at about 10pm, and we want to do some sightseeing(观光). So we go to the Empire State Building. But the 86^th floor(层) is cold. A long time later, we go to the hotel(酒店).

    On the second day, we go shopping in the morning, visit the Statue of Liberty at noon, and go shopping again in the afternoon.

    It is rainy on the third day, but we get up early in the morning. We have some bread and go to Rockefeller Center. We see the whole city there. I feel like I am on top(顶部) of the world. In the evening, we walk around Times Square, watch all the people and the street performers(街头艺人). At 11pm, Emma and I go back to the hotel. We go back home the next day. New York is really a good place.

    Once upon a time, two young men were spending some time in the country. One day, while taking a walk together, they crossed a large field.

    "Look out!" one of the young men shouted, because a bull(公牛)suddenly appeared(出现)and began to chase(追赶)them. They were very frightened. They ran as fast as they could, but the bull kept chasing them.

    Finally, one of the men climbed up a tree. The other one jumped into a hole, but soon he came out of it. Immediately the bull chased him back into the hole.

    "Stay there!" his friend shouted, but soon the man came out again, and again the bull chased him right back. This went on five or six more times.

    At last, the man in the tree got angry and shouted to his friend in the hole, "You fool! Stay in that hole for a while; otherwise, this bull will keep us here all day! "

    "I want to, "the man shouted back, "but there's a bear in it!"

    One cold winter morning, an old woman had to go to see her doctor. When she walked into the doctor's office, she told him that her right leg hurt and sometimes she could not walk. She asked him what was wrong. She told him that she had never had such a feeling before.

    The doctor checked the old woman carefully, then he said, "You're in good health for a woman of your age. I think the trouble in your right leg is just a matter of old age catching up with you. We get all kinds of illness as we get older. The trouble will almost certainly end in spring. "

    "I don't think so, doctor!" she said. "My left leg is well, and it's the same age as my right one."

    As we know, elephants are very cute animals, and many people like them very much. But do you hear of an elephant that can draw?

    Shanti is an elephant and she is good at drawing very much. Somebody has actually paid 2,000 dollars for a painting done by her.

    Shanti has painted 12 paintings so far but now she refuses to paint more. The director of the Prague gallery came up with entirely(完全地) improbably reason why she stops drawing.

    The director said, "She starred as an elephant named Bimbo in a movie. She is a very famous artist in it. Now she is in some sort of depression(抑郁). We will just have to wait for her next wave of creativity."

    Shanti does a good thing. Shanti's paintings bring money which helps elephants in Sri Lanka.