Visiting Mineral City!

    Mineral City is an interesting place to visit. It is a beautiful little town with many old buildings.

    Take a walk through the center of the town on Main Street. Look first at the Mineral City Hotel. It is on the corner of Main Street and Glenn Avenue. It is about 150 years old and people will stay there. There is an interesting old building across the street from the hotel. This was a post office. Now it is a store for books and videos. There are many places to eat on Main Street. You can get lunch or dinner in one of these places. There is a park between Main Street and Oak Street. You can sit on a bench（长凳）in the park. It is nice and quiet, and you can enjoy the trees and flowers.

    You can also take a walk down Glenn Avenue. Look at the old buildings and interesting little stores on this street.

    In November 1979, pupils in England were able to watch a new TV program called Monkey. Most of them were hearing this story for the first time. However, this story is not new to Chinese children. The Monkey King or Sun Wu Kong is the main character in the traditional Chinese book Journey to the West.

    The Monkey King is not just any normal monkey. In fact, he sometimes does not even look like a monkey! This is because he can make 72 changes to his shape and size, turning himself into different animals and objects. But unless he can hide his tail, he cannot turn himself into a man （汉译英）.To fight bad people, the Monkey King uses a magic sticks. Sometimes he can make the stick so small that he can keep it in his ear. at other times, he is able to make it big and long.

    The Monkey King has excited the children of China for many years. And as soon as the TV program came out more than 30 years ago, western children became interested in reading this story because the clever Monkey King keeps fighting to help the weak and never gives up.

    Nobody knows how many different languages there are in the world. The most widely used language is English. It's used by business people, airline pilots all over the world. It's also the first language of sports and science. So it's very important for us to learn English.

    English is most widely spoken in the world, while Chinese has the largest number of speakers. There are not only over one billion people living in China, but also many Chinese people living outside China. You can find large or small groups of Chinese people living in almost every country in the world.

    There are some other important languages in the world, too. Chinese is of course very important, especially in Asia. Arabic is widely spoken in many parts of Asia and Africa. Russian is spoken both in Europe and Asia. French is widely understood, not only in Europe, but also in parts of Canada, Africa and Asia. Spanish has a growing number of speakers all over the world, especially in Central and South Africa.

    What language do people speak in the United Nations? There are so many different languages in the world, but they decide to use only six of them. They are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish. Everything spoken or written in one language is translated into the other five.

    Mark Twain tells a boy's story in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Huck is a poor child without a mother and a home. His father drinks too much alcohol and always beats him.

    Huck's situation frees him from the restriction of society. He explores in the woods and goes fishing. He stays out all night and does not go to school. He also smokes. Huck runs away from home. He meets Jim, a black man who has escaped(逃脱)slavery(奴隶制).They travel together on a raft(木筏)made of wood down the Mississippi River. Mark Twain started writing" Huckleberry Finn" as a children's story. But it soon became serious. The story tells about the social evil of slavery, which is seen through the eyes of an innocent child. Huck's ideas about people are formed by the white society in which he lives. So, at first, he does not question slavery. Huck knows that important people believe slavery is natural and this is the law of God. So he thinks it is his duty to tell Jim's owner where to find him.

    Later, Huck comes to understand that Jim is a good man. He finds he cannot carry out his plan to inform Jim's owner of his whereabouts(下落). Instead, he decides to help Jim escape. He decides to do this, even if God punishes him.

    I was small for my age. I was shy and sometimes it was hard for me to make friends with others. However, learning came fairly (相当地) easy for me. I was the best in most of my classes, but PE class was my nightmare (噩梦) and made me feel that I was not as good as the others. Miss Forsythe was our PE teacher. She was young and energetic. Everyone liked her. She said that we all had to come to her classes. No one could hide from Miss Forsythe!

    One day she told me that she wanted me to play a game with another girl in a PE show. I was rather worried that I wouldn't do a good job as she explained her idea, but she was excited. With her encouragement, I had no choice but to agree.

    It was a "boy meets girl" game. I played the boy and my classmate, Margaret Ann. played the girl. We were dressed in evening clothes and danced around the floor. According to Miss Forsythe. I had to pick up Margaret Ann when we finished the dance. Since I was not strong enough to pick the tallest girl up, it was she who picked me up. I suddenly felt ten feet tall! It was a huge success and everybody applauded (鼓掌) for our excellent performance. What a wonderful ending! Afterwards. I smiled confidently. Miss Forsythe's understanding and willingness to create a place for me in her show (which certainly did not need me) gave me some much needed confidence. She was and always will be my favorite teacher.