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    Jack Johnson is one of the most popular singer-songwriters in the world.

Jack was born on May 18,1975 in Hawaii. Being the son of a famous surfer,Jack naturally has an interest in surfing. Most of his life lessons were learned in the water. At the age of 17,Jack entered the finals of the Pineline Masters—the world's most famous surfing competition. Everyone thought Jack would become a professional surfer like his father. Unluckily, one month later,he had a deadly accident while surfing and was seriously hurt.

    Life is like a revolving door. When it closes ,it also opens. Jack started to practice playing the guitar and write songs when he was staying in hospital. At first,his father thought Jack only did it for fun,but soon he was surprised at the great progress his son had made.

When studying in the university, Jack didn't stop practicing his guitar skills. He played the guitar for school parties. He wrote songs and sang them for his teachers and friends. They liked his songs. His first music album Brush fire Fairytales came out in 2001. It was a great success. His second album，On and On ， was much like his first. They were filled with sweet，easy-going songs

that everybody liked listening to. Later Jack had lots of concerts in and out of America. He became popular all over the world.

    Jack had five albums by 2010 and more than 15 million copies of them were sold. His music doesn't fit into any of the popular music styles like pop, rock, R&B or hip-hop. It is more like folk music, played with a guitar and beautiful voice. When listening to his songs, you feel like lying on the beach enjoying the warm sunshine.

    Jack is a talent, though he himself says he is only a surfer who loves music. In his songs we can find his secret of success: Whatever happens in our lives, we have to accept it and do the best we can.

  It's Really a Miracle (奇迹)

    Mr. Clarke works in New York and he brought his family to China last summer. They visited many places of interest and had a good time here. Before they left for New York, the Clarkes climbed the Great Wall. It was the greatest project over two thousand years ago. They took a lot of photos there and then they had a picnic under a big tree. Suddenly it began to rain and they hurried to the car. And when they returned to the hotel, they couldn't find the bag in which their expensive camera was. They were all sorry for it. They could buy another camera but had no time to go to the Great Wall again. They could not miss the plane!

That evening they didn't have supper. Mr. Clarke hoped to make them happy, so he said, “Well, let me tell you a story. An old man lived in a sixty-story building. One day he fell down from it when he was cleaning the window. But he didn't hurt himself.”

  “It was a miracle!” called out his children, “Why?”

  “Because he lived on the first floor!”

    They all began to laugh while two policemen with a bag came in. They said a Chinese boy found it under a big tree and he asked them to find out who lost it.

  “It's really a miracle!” the Clarkes said happily.

    Christina is an American girl. She is a good student. Every morning she gets up at 6:00. She has her breakfast at home. Then she wears her uniform and goes to school. She studies hard every day. She eats in the dining room when she is in school. After school, she does her homework first, then she cleans the room and helps her mother with the dinner. Before she goes to bed, she usually reads some books. Then at 10:00 p. m. she goes to bed. She thinks she is happy every day. What do you think of her?

    A cow, a tree and some flowers… Mia Buckley, 12, drew this doodle（涂鸦）to show Ireland in her eyes. She is the winner of the Irish Doodle 4 Google competition. It is a national competition and students can make a Google homepage logo（ 徽 标 ）every year. At last, she beat other 74 competitors to get her picture's place on the Google Ireland homepage.

    Because she won, Buckley got a scholarship for 5,000 euros (35,885 yuan) and a computer.

    She studies at Summer cove National School, Ireland. And her school also got 10,000 euros.

    This year's competition theme（主题）was "Ireland Is…". Buckley's work is called "Ireland is a land so green". She used pictures of farm life, flowers, sports and music to show Irish life. The pictures had got the highest number of votes （Doodle team then chose the winner投票）in each of the five class groups. And the Google

    Ronan Harries, head of Google in Ireland, likes her work. "Mia's doodle caught our eyes. She really showed Ireland's rural heritage（乡村景观遗产）, as well as our love of music and sports," he told The Irish Examiner, an everyday newspaper in Ireland. "And she did a good job showing the Google logo with bright colors and a clear theme." Ronan Harris also thanked all the students who took part in the competition.

    Mia's doodle will go live in Ireland on the Google homepage on Easter Monday, March 28.

    Twenty-two-year-old Timothy Doner from New York City has been able to speak 23 different languages, including some rare African ones.

    Timothy began his foreign language education at the age of 13. Attracted by in Israeli(以色列) musical band. Timothy listened to their album every morning. A month Later, he kept about 20 of their songs in his mind, though he didn't know what the Hebrew(希伯来语) words mean. But once he learned the translation. it was like he had a dictionary in his head.

    Then Timothy moved on to Arabic (阿拉伯语) which he studied every morning by reading newspapers with a dictionary and by talking to street vendors (小贩). After that he learned Persian, then Russian, then Mandarin... and about twenty others and developed a crazy low for languages.

    Now, Timothy is still teaching himself new languages. With the help of language books and word-learning Apps on his iPhone. He can master a language in a few weeks or months.

    What has Timothy got from learning so many languages? "By learning languages, you are learning a lot more. You are learning about culture, everything from cooking to TV，poetry and whatever it may be. That helps you better understand the language,” he said.