I can't help thinking about the face of that little beggar girl all the time．I can see the glad light filling her eyes when I laid the dime(一角硬币)in her little dirty hand．

    How much I had thought of that dime，too! Grandpa gave it to me a whole month ago，and I had kept it ever since in my red box upstairs；but those sugar apples looked so beautiful，and were so cheap—only a dime apiece(每个)一that I made up my mind to have one．

    I can see her—the beggar girl，I mean—as she stood there in front of the store，in her old dress，looking at the chocolates laid all in a row．I wonder what made me say, “Little girl，what do you want?''

    How she stared at me，just as if nobody had spoken kindly to her before．I guess she thought l was sorry for her, for she said．“l was thinking how good one of those gingerbread rolls would taste，I haven't had anything to eat today．''

    Now，I thought to myself, “Mary Williams，you have had a good breakfast and a good dinner this day，and this poor girl has not had a mouthful．You can give her your dime；she needs it a great deal more than you do．''

    I could not resist(抗拒)that little girl's hungry look—so I dropped the dime right into her hand，without waiting for her to speak，walked straight away．

    Alice is an American school girl. She is now in Beijing with her parents. She doesn't know Chinese, but she is trying to study and speak it. She often tries to speak Chinese to her Chinese friends. Sometimes they don't understand her, because she can't speak Chinese well.

    It's Saturday morning. Alice goes out. She is going to see the flowers show. But she doesn't know how to get there. She asks an old Chinese man. The old man doesn't understand her. Then she takes out a pen and some paper. She draws flowers on it and then gives the picture to the old man, companying with a body gesture (肢体动作). The old man smiles and shows her the right way to the flowers show. Finally, she walks for about 15 minutes and gets to the flowers show. The flowers are so beautiful that Alice likes them very much. And she also buys one bunch of flowers for her mother and two cards for her father.

    Mike was the kind of guy you love to hate. He was always happy and always had something interesting to say. If someone asked him how he was doing, he would reply, "Couldn't be better!" He was really a care-free young man and never felt tired.

    Mike used to say, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself, 'Mike, you have two choices (选择) today. You can choose to be happy or you can choose to be upset.' I choose to be happy. Each time something happens, I am always ready to learn a good lesson. I choose to learn from life."

    I tried to understand what he said. Indeed life is all about choices. Every situation is a choice. The bottom line is: You're living your life and you make it either happy or sad.

    Several years later I had a car accident and my legs were seriously injured. When I was lying on the ground, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or choose to die. I chose to live.

    People like to say, "Choose the one you love and love the one you choose." Why not choose the one we love and live happily?

Long March(长征) exhibition

The Shanghai History Museum is putting on an exhibition to remember the Long March which took place over 70 years ago. More than 220 photos and 40 other things are on show. All the exhibition is explained in Chinese. The show will end on November 20.

Time: 10:00 am-4:00 pm

Address: 1286 Hongqiao Road

Ticket: 8 yuan for Chinese/15 yuan for foreigners

Thai elephants

Eight elephants from Thailand are an attraction for visitors at Changfeng Park by riding bikes, playing basketball, dancing and blowing a musical instrument. The elephants give three shows a day at 9:30 am, 3:30 pm and 8:00 pm and there is an extra show at 1:30 pm at weekends. The show will end on November 15.

Address: 189 Daduhe Road

Ticket: 30-40 yuan

Dancing dolphins

Dolphins jumping from the water to touch a ball, dancing to music, kissing people and doing easy maths problems, and seals and sea lions, also performing, have made a large part of the aquarium(水族馆) in Peace Park, which interests children greatly.

Hours: 10:30 am, 4:00 pm, and 7:30 pm

Ticket: 20 yuan for adults and 10 yuan for children

My friend Jack is a taxi driver. He has done this job for ten years. It's a nice job most of the time. He can meet a lot of people every day. He usually goes home after two o' clock in the morning. There are some very strange things, which often happen at night.

 One day, Jack was taking a young lady back home from a party at three o' clock in the morning. She had her little dog with her. When they got to her house, she found that she had lost her key. So Jack waited in the taxi with the dog while she climbed into her house through the window. Jack waited for about half an hour outside, but the young lady didn't show up. So he decided to find out what was going on. He tied the dog to a tree and started to climb in through the window.

 At that moment some policemen came. They thought Jack was a thief who wanted to get into the house to steal things. Luckily, the young lady came downstairs. She went to sleep and forgot about her friend and the dog.