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    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 to 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.

    One day I got in a taxi, and we left for the airport. We were driving in the right lane(车道)when, suddenly, a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver stopped his car at once. The tire(轮胎)made a very loud noise, and at the very last moment our car stopped just one inch from the back of the other car.

    I was frightened. But then I couldn't believe what happened next. The driver of the other car, the guy who almost caused a big accident, turned his head and started yelling at us. I couldn't believe it！But my taxi driver just smiled at the guy. So I asked, "Why did you just do that？This guy almost sent us to hospital."

    This is when my taxi driver taught me what I now call“The Law of the Rubbish Truck(垃圾车法则)".He explained that many people are like rubbish trucks. They run around full of rubbish, full of anger and full of bad feelings. As their rubbish piles up, they look for a place to throw it away and sometimes they'll throw it at you. Don't take it personally. Just smile, wish them well, and move on. Don't take their rubbish and spread it to other people at work, at home or in the streets.

    Successful people never let rubbish trucks change their moods. Life is too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, so love those who love you and pray(祈祷)for those who don't.

    Night after night, a wolf walks around a group of sheep, looking for one of them to eat, but the shepherd (牧羊人) and his dogs always make him go away.

    But one day, the wolf finds the skin (皮)of a sheep. He puts the skin carefully over him. Then he walks into the group of sheep.

    The shepherd thinks that the wolf is one of his sheep, and makes the wolf eat the grass with the sheep, and even lets him sleep with the sheep.

    For many days and nights, the wolf eats and sleeps very well. The wolf enjoys himself very much. But one day, the shepherd wants to sell one of his sheep at the market. He finds the biggest and fattest sheep and brings him into town. Can you guess who it is? It is the wolf!

    In this August, I had a trip called "Cultural Trip: Germany, Italy & France" to go to Europe with a group of American students.

    This was not my first time to other countries, but it was unusual one. Why do I think the trip Unusual? Travel agencies (旅行社)usually have travel buses for tourists, What about us ? For five days, we traveled along Germany by bike. We were tired but happy! For some times on the trip, something went wrong with someone's bicycle. But at the end of the trip, everyone was safe and happy.

    In Italy, we went to a kitchen to learn to cook Italian dishes, we made a great dinner and ended by making the chocolate cake. I gave full marks to that night!

    France was the last stop, we went to the capital of France, Paris. We went to the Eiffel tower and we even got onto it. The tower is 324 meters tall, It has three levels(层) for visitors. There are restaurants on the first and second levels. The top level is 276 meters above the ground. If you climb from ground level to the first level, you need to climb over 300 steps. There are another 300 steps from the first level to the second level. That's why people usually get onto the top level by lift.