Jim, a young farmer, was once put into prison (监狱).

    One day, he got a letter from his mother. "I'm so worried about our farm," she wrote. "It's time to plant potatoes. I can't dig(挖) all the fields by myself. "

    Jim read the letter and became sad. "What can I do?" he thought. Then he had a good idea. He wrote to his mother, "Don't dig the fields. There's a pot of money in the earth. Don't plant potatoes until I come home."

    Some days later, Jim got another letter from his mother. It said, "Two days ago, about ten men came to our farm and dug all our fields. I can't understand it. It looks as if they were looking for something. What shall I do?"

    Jim smiled when he read his mother's letter. He wrote a letter to his mother at once. It was very short. Guess what it would say?

    We go to school every day to become better people. How can we start to make big changes in our lives? Perhaps we can get tips from former US First Lady Michelle Obama. During a visit to China from March 20 to 26 in 2015, Obama shared her views on education and youth empowerment with students.

    The first lady encouraged Chinese students to aim high and get a good education. At Chengdu No 7 High School, she told students that having humble roots doesn't matter as long as you have perseverance (毅力). Obama said her family was not rich. Like many Chinese students, her parents had big dreams for her. She felt the weight of her parents' sacrifices (牺牲) on her shoulders and worked hard to make them proud. Persevering was not easy, though. Sometimes she had to wake up at 4:30 am and study late into the night. "But whenever I got tired or discouraged… I would remember something my mother always told me. She said: A good education is something that no one can take away from you.'"

    Mrs Obama also encouraged Chinese students to study abroad to broaden their horizons (开阔视野) in a speech at Peking University. "As the Chinese saying goes: It is better to travel 10,000 miles than to read 10,000 books," she said. It's not enough to get good grades in school. It's also important to have real experience with languages, cultures and societies that are different from your own, she noted. Studying overseas can also benefit future international relations. It can help young people from different countries work together to deal with shared problems like climate change, Obama said.

    Once upon a time, there lived a teacher in a small town. He often taught his students in special ways. Once he sent four of his students to go to a small farm to see apple trees in different seasons. The first student went in winter, the second in spring. The third in summer. And the last in autumn.

    After the four students came back, the teacher called them together. They pictured (描述) their feeling to the teacher. The first student said that there were no leaves on the trees. It made him very disappointed. The second student said his eyes were full of light green. It made him feel hopeful. The third one disagreed. "What are you talking about? How pretty the trees were! The sweet smell of the beautiful flowers spread(传播) here and there." The last one shook his head. He only saw a lot of apples on the beautiful trees.

    The teacher smiled and told his students none of them were wrong. They each just saw one season. He continued, "The trees are not the same in different seasons. You can't judge (判断) a tree by only one season. Don't let the regret of one season destroy the beauty of the rest.

    Everything has different sides in our life. Don't hurry to make a conclusion(结论) before seeing the whole of it.

Misunderstandings

    A man, wearing dirty clothes, with dirty hair and only 35 cents in his pocket, got on a bus and headed straight for the restroom. He thought that if he hid in the restroom, he could ride to New York without paying. But a passenger at the back of the bus saw him. She tapped(拍)the person in front of her on the shoulder and said, "There's a bum in the restroom. Tell the bus driver. "That passenger tapped the person sitting in front of him. "Tell the bus driver there's a bum in the restroom," he said.

    The message was passed from person to person until it reached the front of the bus. But somewhere along the way, the message changed. By the time it reached the bus driver, it was not "There's a bum in the restroom" but "There's a bomb(炸弹)in the restroom. "The driver pulled over to the side of the highway(高速公路)at once and called the police. When the police arrived, they told the passengers to get off the bus and stay far away. Then they closed the highway. That soon caused a 15-mile-long traffic jam. With the help of a dog, the police searched the bus for two hours. Of course, they found no bomb.

    Two similar-sounding English words also caused trouble for a man who wanted to fly from Los Angeles to Oakland, California. His problems began at the airport in Los Angeles. He thought he heard his flight announced, so he walked to the gate, showed his ticket, and got on the plane. Twenty minutes after take-off, the man began to worry. Oakland was north of Los Angeles, but the plane seemed to be heading west, and when he looked out his window all he could see was ocean. "Is this plane going to Oakland? "he asked the flight attendant. "No, "she said. "We're going to Auckland-Auckland, New Zealand."

    Because so many English words sound similar, misunderstandings among English-speaking people are not uncommon. Most misunderstandings are much less serious. Every day, people speaking English ask one another questions like these: "Did you say seventy or seventeen?" "Did you say that you can come or that you can't?"

    Similar-sounding words can be especially confusing（混淆）for people who speak English as a second language. When a Korean woman who lives in the United States arrived at work one morning, her boss asked her, "Did you get a plate?" "No." she answered, wondering what in the world he meant. She worked in an office. Why did the boss ask her about a plate? All day she wondered about her boss's strange question, but she was too embarrassed to ask him about it. At five o'clock, when she was getting ready to go home, her boss said, "Please be on time tomorrow.

You were 15 minutes late this morning." "Sorry," she said. "My car wouldn't start, and…"

    Suddenly she stopped talking and began to smile. Now she understood. Her boss hadn't asked her, "Did you get a plate?" He had asked her, "Did you get up late?"

    Auckland and Oakland. "A plate" and" up late". When similar-sounding words cause a misunderstanding, probably the best thing to do is just to laugh and learn from the mistake. Of course, sometimes it's hard to laugh. The man who traveled to Auckland instead of Oakland didn't feel like laughing. But even that misunderstanding turned out all right in the end. The airline paid for the man's hotel room and meals in New Zealand and for his flight back to California. "Oh well, "the man later said. "I always wanted to see New Zealand."

Almost all cultures(文化) celebrate the end of one year and the beginning of another year in some ways. Different cultures celebrate the beginning of a new year in different ways, and at different times on the calendar.

In Western(西方的) countries, people usually celebrate New Year at the midnight on December 31st to January 1st. People may go to the party, sometimes dressed in formal(正式的) clothes, and they may drink champagnc(香槟) at midnight. During the first minute of the new year, people cheer and wish each other happiness for the year ahead. But some cultures like to celebrate New Year by waking up early to watch the sunshine better. They welcome the new year with the first light of the sunrise.

Many cultures also do special things to say goodbye to bad luck at the beginning of the new year. For example, in Ecuador, families make a big doll and burn it to show the bad things from the past year are gone and the new year can start. Other common traditions to keep away bad luck in a new year include(包括) throwing things into rivers or seas, or sayıng special things on the first day of the new year.

Other new year traditions are followed to bring good luck in the new year. One Spanish tradition for good luck is to eat grapes on New Year's Day. The more grapes a person eats, the more good luck the person will have in the new year. In France, people eat pancakes for good luck at New Year. In the United States, some people eat black- eyed peas(黑眼豆) for good luck— but to get good luck for a whole year you have to eat 365 of them.