Today I went to Sam's school in the UK. It was really different from my school in China.

    Girls wore grey skirts and white shirts, boys wore grey trousers, and everyone wore the school tie.

    Some of Sam's lessons were a bit strange for me. We were reading Shakespeare in the English lesson, and there were quite some old words like “thou” and “thee” to mean “you”. In history we studied 20th Century China. It was strange hearing a foreign side of history—and hearing English people trying to say all our Chinese names!

    Classes were also a lot more relaxing than in China. Teachers were called “sir” or “miss”, everyone shouted answers and raised their hands in classes. It was more like a debate than a class. A bell rang at the end of each lesson and everyone jumped up to go to the next class.

    At break we bought potato chips and cookies in the dining room. Lunch was later than in China at 1 o'clock. We had big plates of pie with carrots. For dessert there was hot sweet rice called rice pudding.

    It was good that I'd had an excellent lunch, because at Sam's school, Monday afternoons are taken up with sports.

    I played my first game of netball—a bit like basketball, but with some differences. Fortunately(幸运的是), I'd had a quick look in the rule book before I tried to join in the game.

    Look at the light and beautiful snowflakes (雪花) falling. Ever wanted to hold them in your hands? They are always lost when they meet your hands.

    Well, this isn't just a problem for you. It was a problem for Wilson Bentley, too. In the 1870s, Wilson Bentley was just a teenager. His family lived in a small town in northeast America. Winters there were long and hard. Bentley's mother was once a school teacher. She taught him at home. Bentley didn't go to school until he was 14. He was a quiet boy, and loved reading his mother's books. But he was interested in his mother's microscope (显微镜). When the other boys were playing with balls, little Bentley was studying things like drops of water, flowers and snowflakes.     

    Bentley loved watching snowflakes. For the next two years, young Bentley spent many winter days in a cold room watching these ice crystals (晶体) under his microscope. The boy thought they were beautiful enough for him to start to draw pictures of them. But there were so many snowflakes that he couldn't draw them all.

    How could he keep their beauty all the time? Bentley thought of buying a camera.

    The boy and his mother asked his father to buy one. But, his father didn't agree. He thought the whole thing was a bad idea. He thought the only thing a farmer should do was farming.

    But finally Bentley did get a camera. For more than a year he tried to take pictures of snowflakes. On January 15, 1885, during a snowstorm, Bentley took the first ever photo of an ice crystal with his camera. “It was the greatest moment of my life,” Bentley said later.

    For 13 years, Bentley worked quietly and took thousands of photos of ice crystals. Later he became famous as “Snowflake” Bentley.

    Monty was a high school boy from a poor family. One day his teacher asked the students to write a paper about what they wanted to be when they 1 .That night Monty wrote a seven-page paper describing his dream 2 having a horse ranch (马场).

    Two days later he got his paper back. There was an "E" on it. After class，the boy went to the teacher's office and asked, 3did I get an 'E'?" The teacher said, "This dream is too unrealistic (不切实际的), 4 you need lots of money to buy land (土地), pay for horses and many other things. But you have no 5 . There is no way you can ever do it. Write another paper and I will give you another grade."

    That day Monty 6 a lot about it. Then he had a talk with his father. After listening to the boy's 7 his father said, "Dear son, it's your decision. You have to make up your mind about it, as it's important for you."

    After a week Monty handed in the 8 paper. He just wrote one more sentence at the end of it: You can keep the "E" and I will keep my 9 .

    Years later, the teacher went on a school trip with 30 kids to camp on a big horse ranch. One  evening she met the owner (主人) of the horse ranch. She got a big 10 because the owner was Monty the boy who got an "E" for the paper about his dream.

I always tried to do something for the children in some poor villages. On a hot July day, I{#blank#}1{#/blank#} (参加)a group of volunteers and came to a small village in the west of China to  build a library at a primary school.

After a three-hour ride, we{#blank#}2{#/blank#}(到达) the village  at last. The school was poor and we had to choose a{#blank#}3{#/blank#} (明亮的) small room as the library. Our job was to{#blank#}4{#/blank#} (改变……的位置) the books into the room, place them on the{#blank#}5{#/blank#} (架子) and set up small tables and chairs.

I soon found the work wasn't as fun as I had{#blank#}6{#/blank#} (期盼). Later that afternoon, students began to borrow books from the library. One student thanked us again and again because they couldn't{#blank#}7{#/blank#} (买得起) so many books. My{#blank#}8{#/blank#}(心) was filled with Joy. Then we worked on and in the end, we {#blank#}9{#/blank#} (创造) a library.

It only took us one day to build the library, but it will make a{#blank#}10{#/blank#} (差别) to the children's lives.

It was late afternoon. The shade(阴凉处) came around to the front of the house,1 it was not too hot. My brother Tommy and I decided to do some drawing there.

Tommy drew a picture2 shade. He said," It helps me feel cool."I looked at my hot sun picture and planned to try to draw 3 in Tommy's way.

Then I saw our friends Mario and Katie walking to us, They stopped and looked at our pictures, Mario 4 at Tommy's picture and asked," What's this?"

" Shade," Tommy answered. Mario looked at the picture for a few 5 , and then picked up the blue chalk(粉笔). When he finished 6 , he told us," Do you know7 it is? It's cool water!" Tommy and I liked his picture. Then, Katie jumped up and took the white chalk.

" Watch this, Joe," she said to 8 and started to draw," It's snow. Now we can dream we' re in winter."

" Good idea! Then we can make some snowballs and 9 snowman,"I said. We looked at each other and laughed. The pictures seemed 10 the weather cool.