I arrived at my mother's home for our Saturday family dinner. The smells of food flew over from the kitchen. My mother was pulling out quilt after quilt from the boxes, proudly showing me their beauties. I knew they were all made herself. She was preparing for a quilt show on TV. When we began to fold and put them back into the boxes, I noticed something at the bottom of one box. I pulled it out.

    "What's this?" I asked.

    "Oh?" Mom said, "That's Mama's quilt."

    I spread the quilt. It looked as if a group of school children had made the pieces together. "Grandmother made this?" I asked in surprise. My grandmother was a master at making quilts. This certainly didn't look like any of the quilts she had made.

    "Yes, right before she died. I brought it home with me last year and made some changes," Mom said, "I'm still working on it. See, this is what I've done so far."

    I looked at it more closely. She had made a line straight. At the center of the quilt, she had stitched a piece of cloth with these words: "My mother made many quilts. She didn't get all lines straight. But I think this is beautiful. I want to see it finished. Her last quilt."

    "Oh, this is so nice, Mom." I said. I was sure now that by completing my grandmother's quilt, my mother was honoring her own mother. I realized that I held in my hands a family treasure. It started with the loving hands of one woman, and continued with the loving hands of another.

    As a student, I was most afraid to answer questions in class, and I found that the students around were just like me. At the beginning of each class, when the teacher asked a question, I always lowered my head because I was afraid the teacher saw me.

One day, in a foreign language class, Mr. Black gave us a lesson. He wanted us to be active in class, so he asked us some questions, but no one answered. "Let me tell you a story first," he said.

"When I came to the United States to study, the university often invited famous people to make speeches. Before the beginning of every speech, I found an interesting thing. The students around me always took a cardboard folded(折叠的) in half, wrote their names in bold(黑体) with the most eye-catching(引人注目的) color, and then placed the cardboard on the seat. So when the speaker needed the answers from the students, he could see it and call a listener's name directly."

"I couldn't understand that. My classmate told me the speakers were all top people, who meant chances. When your answer was to his surprise, it meant he might give you more chances. In fact, I really saw a few students got great chances because of that."

    After listening to the story, I understood that the chance will not find you itself. You must show yourself all the time so that you can find a chance on the card.

    Betty and I are best friends. Our birthdays are on the same day, so every year we have a birthday party together. But this year, we had a costume party instead.

    While we were writing the invitations, my mum came in and asked, "Why not invite John?" John had been in our class for only a few months, but he had already got better grades in math than anyone else in class. I wrinkled(皱起) my nose," Mum, he wears the same pants to school every day. How could he even afford a costume?" Mum said nothing. The next day, Mum gave me an envelope(信封) with a shopping card in it. "I thought it would be nice for you to give this to John," Mum said. But how? We didn't want to make John embarrassed. We discussed it for a long time. Finally, Betty and I had a good idea.

    On the day of our party, kids arrived, dressed differently. John arrived, in an old sheet(床单), but still in the same brown pants as usual. We danced, ate snacks and played games in groups. Before eating the birthday cake, Betty said in a loud voice," Now it's time for the great prize game. It's the following riddle..."It was a math game. None of us was surprised when John came up with the right answer first and walked off with the envelope.

    Everything went on well as we planned. John wore a new pair of pants and a new shirt the next week. He felt happy. So did we.

    When we help others, we need to find a proper way, or we may hurt them in another way.

    I have many teachers now and I love them all, but I think I love my English teacher, Sophia, best.

    Sophia is from the UK. But she loves Chongqing very much. She thinks Chongqing is great. She loves Chongqing food. Do you know what she likes for breakfast? Bread and milk? No, she doesn't. She only has noodles (面条). Hot pot (火锅) is her favorite and she always eats it on Saturday and Sunday. Sophia has a daughter and a son. Her daughter's name is May. Her son's name is Jack. They are ten years old. They go to the same school. They like hot pot, too. They are all in Chongqing now.

    We have English from Monday to Friday. So Sophia is very busy. But she is always nice and happy. All my classmates like her and her classes very much. She often plays English games and sings English songs with us. When we have questions, we like to ask her for help.

    Now I think I can do well in English because I have the best English teacher, Sophia.