A

    Annie is a neighbor's daughter. When her birthday month came around I found out she felt blue and lonely.

    Her family is quite small and kind of poor so there wouldn't be any birthday visitors. I wanted to send her a card and maybe a small gift to make her happy.

    I told some of my friends I would like to have a birthday party for the girl. I asked them for help. Then I bought some small presents, a cake and something else.

    When the day came, my friends and I went to her house. When she got home after school, we gave the presents to her and wished her a happy birthday.

    It was so easy to do something helpful. My friends helped take the party. They still laugh and talk about it. And Annie tells me she likes the birthday very much and she can still remember it!

D

    Audrey Hepburn won an Academy Award as Best Actress for her first major American movie, Roman Holiday, which was showed in 1953. But she is remembered as much for her help as for her acting.

    Born in Belgium in 1929, Audrey's father was British and her mother was Dutch. Audrey was sent to live at a British school for part of her childhood. During World war Ⅱ, she lived and studied in the Netherlands. Her mother thought it would be safe from German attacks. Audrey studied dance as a teenager and during college. But when she returned to London after the war she realized she wasn't going to be a ballet dancer. So she began taking acting parts in stage shows. Later she began to get small parts in movies.

    But it was Audrey Hepburn's move to America that made her truly famous. In 1951 she played the character "Gigi" in the Broadway play Gigi andwon popular praise. Two years later, Roman Holiday made her a star at the age of 24.

    Audrey made more than 25 movies. Among her most popular roles was "Hoolly Golinghtly" in Breakfast at Tiffany's in 1961. Three years later she played "Eliza Doolittle" in My Fair Lady. She was married twice. In 1989, the UN Children's Fund named Audrey a goodwill ambassador. She travelled all over the world in support of UNICEF(联合国儿童基金会) projects. The UN agency said she was a tireless worker. She often gave 15 interviews a day to raise money and get support for UNICEF projects.

    Audrey Hepburn often said her love to UNICEF was the result of her experiences as a child during World War II. She said she knew what it was like to be hungry and to be saved by international help. She was a goodwill ambassador until her death in 1993 from cancer.

    I have a funny friend called Michael. He is about 1. 78mctres tall. He has poor eyesight（视力）because of too much computer work at night. He wears a pair of small, round glasses and they make him look smart.

    Michael likes to tell funny jokes and they always make us laugh. He is humorous. So when I feel bored on unhappy, I always go to him.

    He likes to wear a red T-shirt and jeans. He has short curly brown hair. Michael's legs are very long. When he passes the desk, he often knocks over our school things. He's so funny!

    He is friendly to everyone and likes helping others. He always helps me with my English. With his help, I do well in English. I'm more interested in English.

    My great-grandmother, Ethel, came from England to the United States in 1921. She brought almost nothing with her-just a few clothes and trinkets(小饰物). But she did bring some customs from "the old country" that she had learned as she grew up.

    One custom was that if you dropped a glass or a cup and it broke, you would throw a little salt over your left shoulder. It was funny that she did that-she wasn't superstitious(迷信的) in other ways. I think that she grew up doing that, so she continued to do it as a connection to her childhood.

    Ethel also taught us a New Year's Day custom that our family continues to follow today. To celebrate the new year, we would travel to a friend's house for a quick visit. My great-grandmother always took a pound of butter with her on our visits. We would enter the friend's house through the back door. The butter we brought was to give our friend a "gift of gold" to symbolize hope for prosperity in the new year.

    After my great-grandmother died, we still visited people on the first day of January, but eventually we stopped bringing the butter. We never did throw salt over our shoulders after breaking a glass or a cup. Some customs are continued when they cross from one country to another, but some customs fade away.

    One day, as a Chinese teacher walked into his classroom, he heard Tom Andrews whisper to another boy, "Here comes the teacher. I'm sure the silly donkey is going to talk about putting in commas(送号). "The teacher said nothing but decided to teach him a good lesson. Now the teacher began his class, and talked about putting in commas, and explained how important they could be. " I'll give you an example, "said the teacher. He wrote on the blackboard the sentence: "Tom Andrews says the Chinese teacher is a foolish donkey. " The class laughed and looked at Tom, Tom looked red and he thought the Chinese teacher also knew English well. " Now, "said the teacher, "Let me show you how important commas are. He put two commas into the sentence and it was. Tom Andrews, says the teacher, is a foolish donkey. " Only at that time Tom knew the importance of commas and felt terribly sorry for his words.