Sometime ago I discovered that one of my chairs had a broken leg. I didn't think there would be any difficulty in getting it repaired, as there are a lot of antique (古董) shops near my home. So I left home one morning carrying the chair with me. I went into the first shop expecting a friendly reception.  I was quite wrong. The man wouldn't even look at my chair.

    The second shop, though a little more polite, was just the same, and the third and the fourth. I realized that my approach must be wrong so I decided to try another way. I entered the fifth shop with a plan in my mind.  I placed the chair on the floor and said to the shopkeeper, "Would you like to buy a chair? Twenty pounds," I said. "OK. I'll give you twenty pounds for it,"he said. "It's got a slightly broken leg," I added. "Yes, I saw that.  It's nothing," the shopkeeper replied.

    Everything was going according to the plan and I was getting excited. "What will you do with it?" I asked. "Oh, it will be easy to sell after the repair is done.""I'll buy it," I said.  "What do you mean? You've just sold it to me," the man asked in surprise.  "Yes, I know. But I've changed my mind.  I am sorry. I'll give you twenty-seven pounds for it." "You must be crazy," he said. Then, suddenly the penny dropped. He shouted, "I know what you want. You want me to repair your chair." "You're right,"I said, "And what would you have said if I had walked in and asked you to repair my chair?" "I wouldn't have agreed to do it. We don't do repairs, not enough money in it and too much trouble.  But I'll repair this for you.  Five pounds will be the cost,"the man answered. He was a very nice man and was greatly amused by the whole thing.

    Cody and his sister April decide to buy a dog. They go to the local pet store and have a look around. It is a very small pet store that doesn't have many animals.

    The owner of the store is a nice old man-Mr. Smith. He walks over and greets Cody and April.

    "How can I help you?" he asks.

    "We would like to buy a dog," April responds(回答).

    "Ah, well, our shop is not a big pet shop," Mr. Smith tells her. "So we only have two dogs to choose from."

    They ask Mr. Smith to show them the dogs.

    Mr. Smith leads them to the back of the store where the two dogs are. One of them is a very big bulldog(斗牛犬) named Buster. The other is a very tiny chihuahua(吉娃娃) named Teacup.

    April wants Teacup. Cody wants Buster. They walk outside to discuss.

    They can't agree on a dog. April suggests they race home for it. The winner of the race chooses the dog.

    Cody agrees, then tells April her shoelace(鞋带) is untied. When April looks down, he runs off and gets a head start.

    Cody runs as hard as he can. He really wants that bulldog. He looks back. April is so far behind, and he can't even see her.

    Cody finally gets home. He is tired but he is happy. He knows he is the winner.

    April arrives a few minutes after Cody. She congratulates him. They return to the pet store to purchase Buster, the bulldog.

    However, when they arrive they only see Teacup.

    They ask Mr. Smith where Buster is.

    Mr. Smith gives the details. He explains that a few minutes after April and Cody leave, two boys walk in and buy the bulldog.

    Cody looks at April, and she holds back a smile. He turns back to Mr. Smith.

    "Sometimes you win the race, but not the prize!" Cody looks sad. "We'll take the chihuahua, please."

    Mr. and Mrs. Turner live outside a small town. They have a big farm and they are always busy working on it. Their son, Peter, studied at a middle school. The young man studied hard and did well in his lessons. It made them happy.

    Last month Peter finished middle school and passed the entrance examination (升学考试). Mrs. Turner was very happy and told the farmers about it.

    Yesterday morning the woman went to the town to buy something for her son. On the bus she told one of her friends how clever and able her son was. She spoke very loudly. All the people in the bus began to listen to her.

    "Which university (大学) will your son study in?" a woman next to her asked.

    "In the most famous university in our country!" Mrs. Turner said happily.

    "The most famous university?"

    "Oxford University (牛津)."

    Most of the passengers (乘客) looked at her carefully. Some of them said to her, "Congratulations!"

    A woman said, "I'm sure he'll know Fred Smith."

    "Who's Fred Smith?"

    "He's my son."

    "Does he study in the university, too?"

    "No," said the woman. "He is one of the professors."

    Children love their parents, but I didn't get on well with my parents before. I hardly talked to my parents, because they liked to 1 me with my sister. And that made me unhappy. I sometimes argued 2 them for that.

    However, I wanted to show them that I could do things as well as my sister. Then I began to spend most of my free time painting in my bedroom. Luckily, my art teacher, Miss Green, 3 to help me a lot. She taught me some drawing 4 to improve my painting. She was the only person I would like to talk with.

    One day, I told Miss Green about my problem. She encouraged me to enter a painting competition. In her mind，the best way to communicate with my parents was to prove（证明）5. I took her advice.

    Several days later, Miss Green told me the result. I was very happy and excited 6 I won the first prize! My parents were very 7 and I could see that they were very happy. And they began to care more about me. Now 8 between my parents and me have become very good. And I think it's very important to have someone to talk with.

Emily's Blog

Shut Up Zoos, Not Animals!

You may think that visiting zoos is harmless fun, but you're wrong because zoos are just prisons(监狱) for animals. The difference is that prisoners get out after a few years! Animals in cages look bored and are boring to look at. After all, we all know what an elephant looks like, we've seen them on TV. So why make animals suffer by shutting them up for our fun? Shut up the zoos instead!

Posted by:Emily on April 19, at 18：12 Comments(3)

Comments

I partly agree. But some zoos aren't there for our fun. I've just got back from Jersey Zoo. It saves rare animals and breeds them. Then it returns the babies to the wild. Not all zoos are the same, you know.

Posted by:Angela on April 21, at 18：17

Quite agree! Every time I go to the zoo, I never look into the poor animals' eyes! Kept in the small and smelly cages, they look so lonely and sad. Hope one day they will return to nature, where they can live happily and freely with their families.

Posted by :John on April 22, at 12：21

Personally, I think zoos are fantastic places for children. They can play with animals and enjoy themselves so much there. Also, they learn a lot about animals. Why shut up?

Posted by:David on April 22, at 21：05)

    In 2009 a group of parents in Lymington started sharing worries about their children's money-management skills. Pocket money was now stored in a building society rather than a piggy bank (储蓄罐); household shopping was done online; the children rarely saw their parents handling cash. They were spending online, too. Money had become intangible. How, then, were children to learn its value?

The answer they came up with was GoHenry, an app now available in America as well as Britain. It is designed to help young people learn good spending habits through real-world money activities. Parents sign up with their own bank accounts and pay a monthly fee of £2.99 or $3.99 for each child aged six or over. Adults and children download separate versions. Parents can schedule pocket money and set chores. When those are marked as done, the child is paid the agreed amount. Parents can see what the child has bought and where. And they can choose where the card can be used: in shops, online or at ATMs.

Children get cards printed with their name. They can put money in savings pots, view their spending and balances, and set savings targets. "They could decide to save ten dollars for a friend's birthday in four weeks' time, or set a goal at 12 to have $2,000 to buy a car at age 18," says Dean Brauer, one of GoHenry's founders. "The app tells them how much to save each week to meet their goal."

A big benefit of such apps is that they inspire family conversations about money. According to the latest research, more than half of British parents find the subject hard to discuss with their children. And yet most agree that children's attitudes to money are formed in their early years.

Some GoHenry customers are wealthy parents who worry that their children will grow up with little knowledge of money. Others have slim incomes but regard the app as a preparation for their child's future. Some say that they have been in debt and want their children to avoid that mistake when they grow up; others that the app is cost-effective because their children learn to plan spending. Even though young people no longer touch and hold money, they can still be taught to handle it well.