Some people like to collect stamps. Others prefer posters or coins. But Pinky Bhutia is different. She collects children. In her mountain village, in Sikkim, she is known as the wonderful young woman who adopts(领养) all the children she can.

    Pinky was 14 when she adopted her first child, a Nepali baby girl, whose patents passed away. Pinky's parents did not mind. Pinky left school and started working full time because she had a baby to feed. Today , she has twelve adopted children, and two sons from her marriage.

    Pinky is about 30 years old and she comes from a common family. If you passed her on the street, you wouldn't give her a second look. She lives in a brown mud-washed(泥刷的) house. There is a vegetable garden outside. Red hens with noisy chicks run all over the garden looking for food.

    If you ask her why she provides a home for so many kids, she smiles shyly. But her eyes are serious. "I know what it is to be poor and hungry." As a child, her only dream was to eat a full meal, and her favorite amusement was watching people with shoes and imagining what it felt like. By adopting poor and homeless children she is making sure that they never feel that hopeless.

    Pinky feels very proud when she sees her children happy and bright, her oldest baby, Aarita Rai, is now 20 years old, Then, there is 19-year-old Nimbe who came to Pinky because her mother was unable to look after her. She started to work in a government office two years ago. Ten-year-old Bhim and 14-year-old Kumar came to Pinky five years ago, after their father's death. They started living on a patch of land given by Pinky and grew vegetables for sale.

    "I like children. It's not one more mouth to feed but one more soul saved," Pinky says.

    I was travelling alone through the UK. To reach places that were off the public transportation map, I bought an old car, which cost most of my money. I couldn't afford to stay in a hotel, so I had to camp in my car for the rest of the trip.

    One morning I woke up in my old car on a country road in Ireland and saw a single house, The water in my thermos(保温瓶) had gone cold, so I knocked on the door of the house. A woman opened it. I asked her for some hot water. But she wouldn't let me get away with just that! I was invited indoors. She asked me to sit at the table and have breakfast with her family. They filled my thermos before I left.

    I was greatly moved. And I decided to pass the kindness on. The other day I met a young man who had been driving around to look for a parking lot. He looked increasingly upset. I was glad that I was able to point one out to him. His thankful smile was the hugest reward(奖赏) for me.

    In the 1950s, a female swimming athlete set a goal for herself. She decided to swim across the English Channel before she retired. If she could make it, she would be the first person in the world who did it.

    On that day, she jumped into the sea without any hesitation and swam towards the opposite bank.

    In the journey, she faced heavy fog, heavy rain and heavy waves. Though she was very tired, she carried on swimming.

    But in the end, she gave up. And what she didn't know at the moment she gave up was that the opposite bank was only 1 mile away.

    Later people asked her about the reason. And she said," The reason why I gave up is that I could not see the destination which I was so close to. "

    Too many stories about success have been lecturing us about courage and persistence(坚持). But they never told us where to find courage and persistence.

    You can have courage only when you know where your goal is. You can manage to persist only when you know where your goal is, and prepare yourself well mentally(心理上).

    Courage and persistence never fall from the sky. They come from weighing between input and output.

    A life without goals is like a ship without a compass. It goes nowhere. There is no courage or persistence in a life without goals.

In a small Chinese town lived a poor young man named Liang.He loved 1 . One night, an old man with a long beard 2 Liang in a dream.He gave Liang a paintbrush.

"Use this magic paintbrush to 3 the poor," he said, "but don't use it to help people who are 4 and greedy (贪婪的), or the skill will 5 your fingers and you will never paint again."

When Liang woke up, he 6 the paintbrush on the table by his bed. He painted a butterfly and was 7 to see it fly off the page and out of the window.

Liang ran out of his little house and started painting things for people. He painted a buffalo (水牛) to help a farmer, food for 8 people and clothes for people who were cold.

A rich man, however, 9 about the paintbrush and asked Liang to paint some gold for him, 10 Liang refused.

"If you don't paint for me, I'll cut your fingers off," the rich man said."Then you will 11 paint again." So Liang painted an island of gold in the middle of a blue 12 .

" 13 will I get there?" asked the rich man.

Liang painted a 14 for the rich man, who got in it and went on his way toward the island.

But when the rich man was halfway there, Liang painted a hole in the side of the boat.The boat sank(沉)into the water and 15 ever saw him again.

Everyone wants to live longer, so to keep healthy is very important. I have a neighbor. She is {#blank#}1{#/blank#} old lady. She can read newspapers, watch TV and search on the Internet to learn {#blank#}2{#/blank#}( anything) new. She often does Tai Chi in the morning and dances in the evening. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} she is over 70, she looks young and beautiful . Last week a reporter from a magazine interviewed(采访) her and asked her {#blank#}4{#/blank#}( tell) the reason why she kept so young and healthy. She answered with a smile.

"I have a secret of {#blank#}5{#/blank#}( stay) young and healthy. It is easy. Keep your mind active, be {#blank#}6{#/blank#}( interest) in the world around you, and learn at {#blank#}7{#/blank#}( little) one new thing every day. Don't think you are too old to go back to school. I know two men entered a college of arts when they were 70 years old. They {#blank#}8{#/blank#}( study) there for 6 years and now they are{#blank#}9{#/blank#}( write). Another man went to a tennis school at the age of 71 and now he is good at playing tennis. He said it's good {#blank#}10{#/blank#} his health. Some people may say staying young is easy only for those who live in the future. In fact, no matter how old you are, you can make it."

Mother Cat has four lovely children. On a sunny day，she is playing games with her children in the park. Later，they are hungry，so she asks her children to get some bananas on the tree，but no one wants to do it. Mother Cat has to do it herself. 

After some hours，Mother Cat gets a lot of bananas. She asks her children，"Who would like to take these bananas home？" But they don't want to do it ， so she takes the bananas back home. After getting home，she asks，"*Who will make fruit salad with the bananas？" They all say

After she makes the salad，she says to them，"who wants to eat the salad？""Me!"， "No，you can't. You don't want to do anything before making the salad. You must know 'No pains