It was a cold snowy morning after the winter vacation. And it was my first day at my new school. I was walking alone slowly and worrying about lots of things. It was early and there weren't many people on the road. Suddenly a girl who was riding a bike on ice fell down. She was trying hard to get up but fell again. Without thinking, I went over and helped her. She said" thank you" with a smile and then rode away. Her words warmed me a lot.

    Finally, I got to school. The teacher led me to the classroom and introduced me to the class. Then he asked me to sit down beside a girl. I felt so nervous that I didn't dare to look at her. Soon the first class, English, started. Their textbooks were different from those in my old school. As I was wondering what to do, an English book appeared in front of me. "Let's share," the girl beside me said. "Hi, I'm Carrie." I looked up. It was the girl I helped this morning. Later on, we became good friends.

    From that I learned: To help others is actually to help ourselves!

    Alan, a boy from India went to study in the UK two years ago. He found a part-time job in a restaurant. Many British students also worked there. Their job was washing the dishes. It was an easy job, but the boss said, "You must wash every dish seven times." At first, Alan was careful. The boss was happy with him. After one month, he found that the boss didn't check very often. He thought there was no difference between five times and seven times. So he just washed five times. He worked very fast. The boss was even happier. One day, a British student asked him why he could wash so fast. Alan told him the secret. The British student was surprised but didn't say anything. A few days later he told the boss about it. The boss fired (解雇) Alan.

    Alan went to other restaurants, but all of them said, "Go away! You are not honest. We don't need you." Alan was sad because he could do nothing.

    Many Chinese students don't pay much attention to spoken English at school. They think it necessary to practice speaking English in class, but not out of class. Here is a story to show you how important it is to speak the English language freely in everyday life.

    A foreigner once got hungry and went into a restaurant in London. He sat down at a table. When the waiter came, the foreigner opened his mouth, put his fingers into it and took them out again in order to express that he wanted something to eat, for he could not speak English. The waiter soon brought a cup of tea. The man shook（摇动）his head. The waiter then took away the tea and brought a cup of coffee. The man again shook his head. He tried again and again, but he wasn't able to make the waiter understand him. Finally another man came in. He spoke English clearly and fluently. In a few minutes, there was a large plate of meat and vegetables on the table before him.

    So you can see a man will go hungry if he doesn't master（掌握）a foreign language.

    Mrs. Jackson is a reporter at www. australian- labradoodle-book.com. Her hobby is taking photos. Now she writes a new book with a lot of pictures of her dog. The book tells about her puppy.

    When Harley was born, he only had two healthy legs.

    What happened to the other two legs? Mrs. Jackson was very sad at this.

    In fact, Harley also had two back legs, but they were deformed badly. When he was 8 weeks old, the owner took him to a nearby hospital. The doctors said they had no way to save（救）them. At last, they had to cut his back legs when he was just 12 weeks old. Later the poor dog had to practice running. Now he can run as fast as a usual dog.

    Luckily, Harley is a happy dog. He never thinks he is different from other dogs. He is now 16 weeks old. He tries to run every day. The other day, a warm-hearted man gave him a wheel-chair. Now he can go out easily with the help of his wheel-chair. You see, Harley is a dog that never gives up.

    A beautiful and very successful actress was the star for a new musical show. Her home was in the country，but she didn't want to go back there every night，so she bought an expensive house in the center of the city，got some beautiful furniture and got a man to paint the rooms in new colour.

    It was very difficult to get tickets for her show in the evening，because everyone wanted to see it. So she decided to give the painter two of the best seats. She hoped that this would make him work better for her. He took the tickets without saying anything, and she heard no more about them until the end of month，when she got the painter's bill. At the bottom of it were these words "Four hours from 5:00 pm to 9:00 pm watching Miss Hall sing and dance：3 pounds," with this note:"Before5：00 pm I get 10 shillings（先令）an hour and after 5:00pm 15 shillings."