I'm a Chinese boy. My name is Zhao Ming. I am in No. 34 Middle School. I am in Class 1.My English teacher is Mr. Wang. My Chinese teacher is Miss Wu. They（他们） are good teachers. I love them. I have a good friend. His name is Tom. He is an English boy. I love him, too.

There are four people in the twins' family. They are the twins, their father and their mother.

The twins' names are Lucy and Lily. They are fourteen. They are in the same class in the NO.1 Middle School. They are very good students. They not only work very hard but also sing very well. They want to join the music club. Lucy wants to play the piano. Lily can play the guitar.

      Their father, Mr. King, is a teacher. He teaches English in a school near his home. Their mother, Mrs. King, is a teacher, too. She teaches Chinese. Mr. and Mrs. King are in different schools. But they have the same hobby — play the guitar.

    A group of swans flew down to a beach where a crow(乌鸦) was jumping around. The crow watched them with disdain(鄙视).

    "You have no flying skills at all!" he said to the swans. "All you can do is to move your wings. Can you turn over in the air? No, that's beyond you. Let's have a flying competition. I'll show you what real flying is! "

One of the swans, a strong young male, took up the challenge. The crow flew up and began to show his skills. He flew in circles, performed other flying tricks, and then came down and looked proudly at the swan.

    Now it was the swan's turn. He flew up, and began flying over the sea. The crow flew after him, making all kinds of comments(评价) about his flying. They flew on and on till they couldn't see the land and there was nothing but water on all sides. The crow was making fewer and fewer comments. He was now so exhausted that he found it hard to stay in the air, and had to struggle to keep himself from falling into the water.

    The swan pretended(假装) not to notice, and said, "Why do you keep touching the water, brother? Is that another trick? "

    "No," said the crow. He knew he had lost the competition. "I'm in trouble because of my pride! If you don't help me, I'll lose my life…"

The swan took pity on him, and took him on his shoulders and flew back to the beach.

Blue Lightning

    Sally loved cars more than anything else. This spring she thought of building a go-kart to enter for the Go-Go Race. So she asked her dad for help.

    "Well," he said. "How about this: you do some research first and then come back to me with a design."

    A week later, Sally brought her notes and drawings to Dad. She named her go-kart "Blue Lightning". Dad looked over her work, thinking. "Well, that's interesting," he said. "Have a try. Just build Blue Lightning as you've designed."

    Over three weekends of hard work, Sally turned her design into a real, working go-kart and painted it light blue. Dad asked her to take it for a test drive. Sally agreed.

    After she did that, Sally drove back to Dad. "Well," she said. "Now I know why you wanted me to have a test drive."

    "Oh, do you?" he said. "Please share."

    "When I drove fast, there was a lot of pushback," she said. "I think it's because of the lightning bolt (闪电) shape."

    "Very good!" Dad said.

    "So, why didn't you tell me about that problem in the first place?" Sally asked.

    Dad laughed. "Where's the fun in that? If you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day. But if you teach a man to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime."

    Sally said, "I see. Anyway, designing is half the fun!"

    Dad smiled. "Good. Sometimes, learning happens during the process. We learn how to do something right by doing it a few times first and making mistakes along the way."

    That encouraged Sally and she worked even harder. When she showed Dad her new go-kart, he nodded with pride.

    Finally came the race. Sally wasn't worried about whether she would win—in her mind, she had already won, by building something better than ever before.

I looked into the mirror and checked if I was dressed up properly, YES! My hair was clean and my tie was straight. So I confidently(自信地) went to the stage(舞台), imagining how proud my parents would be of their son! That evening, I was the pianist playing in the school concert for the first time. When the concert was over, I couldn't wait to share my joy with my family. However, only my mother was there. She explained, "Son, your dad is called out to work."

I was a little unhappy, though not very surprised. Because it was not the first time that my father was absent. As a manager in a big telecommunications(电信) company, my father was very busy with his work all year around. In fact, I didn't have much time with him. Every time when I complained about it, my father always said, "Everyone has his responsibility, and I have mine."

Later, I had a chance to visit father's company. He pointed to a big iron(铁) tower and said, "Son, that is a base station. Do you know that 25 percent of the calls in our country are through the network(网络) we built?" "Wow! But it's hard work. You know, China started late in many ways. We have to work hard and sometimes even give up time with family."

Now, more and more people are amazed at the Chinese miracle(奇迹). If any foreign friend asks me who makes the Chinese miracle, I want to tell that behind the miracle there are always a lot of people like my father. 

There is a photo on Becky's desk. It is a picture of her family. There are four people in it. The man is her father. He is 36 years old. He can speak Chinese. There is a woman behind Becky. She is Becky's mother. She is 35 years old. She can't speak Chinese，but she can speak English. They are doctors. They work in the same hospital. There is a girl in the picture，too. She is Becky's sister. Her name is Betty. Becky and Betty are in the same school，but they aren't in the same grade. They look like their father. They are American. It's a big family.