A short Chinese man is one of the biggest men in the world right now. He is Jack Ma (Ma Yun), the Chairman（董事局主席）of Alibaba Group. On Sept. 19,2014, Alibaba went public（上市）and raised $25 billion（十亿）. Ma, a former English teacher, has become the richest man in China.

    Born in 1964 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, Ma grew up as a happy kid. When he was a teenager, he wanted to learn English. Every morning, he got up at 5a.m, rode his bike for 40 minutes to a hotel near the West Lake and talked with foreign tourists in English. He did it for nine years, rain or shine.

    The experience made him an excellent English speaker and also opened his eyes to the outside world. In 1994, Ma Yun heard about the Internet. And on a 1995 trip to the US, Ma was shown the Internet for the first time. He searched the word “beer” on Yahoo, and found that there was nothing there about China. Seeing the chance, Ma returned to China and set up a website called China Pages without even knowing much about computers.

    Four years later, Ma, his wife and his friends set up Alibaba in Hangzhou. He believed in the Internet business potential（潜力）when few other Chinese did, 15 years later, Alibaba has developed into the world's largest e-commerce company（电子商务公司），owning popular shopping websites like Taobao and Tmall.

At the midnight, thunder was crashing and the rain was pouring. Suddenly my father rushed into my room. “Adam! Adam! Get up! We're flooding!” he shouted and shook me by the shoulders. That woke me up! I ran downstairs to the basement (地下室). It was like a swimming pool. My mother and I immediately started to pick up things and take them upstairs. I had no shoes on, so my feet felt quite cold.

Things got worse every minute. Within the next hour, we had moved everything that we could to the first floor. The computer, big-screen television and heavy boxes filled with our most valuable things were taken to safety. However, our piano, sofa, washing machine and water heater were all still down there — being destroyed. There was nothing we could do.

That was the hardest part. Knowing that your home is being destroyed is bad enough, but realizing that you can't do anything to stop it feels even worse. Water had come in our front door. Rescue boats were floating in our streets. Mother told me to pack an overnight（通宵, 前夜） bag of clothes and valuables and get ready to leave.

When it was finally safe to walk outside, all the people in the neighborhood gathered at the street corner. People became friends, and friends became like family. People comforted each other. We learnt later that the National Weather Service had declared (宣布) the storm a flash flood.

I really have learnt something from this flood, I've learnt what destruction is. I have learnt what safety means. I know in the future, when I watch people's lives affected (影响) by natural disasters, I can understand them. I will show my great pity on them and I will do what I can to help them.

    Baseball is my favourite sport. It is fun to play, and it is fun to watch.

    I went to my first baseball game with my grandparents when I was 6. It was really wonderful.

    We had a good time. I was happy to be with my grandparents. My grandfather made me love the game.

    My dad knew I loved baseball, so he gave me a baseball on my ninth birthday.

    When I was 12, my friend came to me and asked me to join his team and play baseball. From then on(从那时起), I got to learn more about baseball. I practised a lot and learned how to play better.

    My favourite player is Derrek Lee. Derrek Lee joined the Chicago Cubs in 2004. That year was a good year for him, but 2005 was his best year. One of my favourite things about Derrek Lee is that he is a very nice person. He never shouts at others. He always has a big smile on his face. He seems happy all the time.

Languages play an important part in our life. Mother language is a very intimate（密切的）thing to us. For people who speak an ancient tongue as their mother language, it helps them keep their traditions. If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to a man in his own language, that goes to his heart. 

The associations that lie in the languages bring ideas and pictures to our minds. Associations are just the power of languages. However, how language came into being is unknown. All we know is that some early men invented certain sounds to express thoughts and feelings, actions and things, so that they could talk with each other. Later they agreed on certain signs, which could be put together to show those sounds, and which could be written down. Those sounds, whether spoken or written in letters, are called words

Words become filled with meaning for us by experience; and the longer we live, the more certain words bring back to us the happy and sad events of our past; and the more we read and learn, the more the number of words that mean something to us increases. 

Over the last century, more than 400 languages have died out. Some languages are now spoken only by a few dozens of people. Why are humans speaking fewer languages than we once did? The answer has to do with globalization（全球化）. Nowadays, it's more useful to speak certain languages-English is one example-rather than others. 

As US writer Rita Mae Brown wrote, "Language is the roadmap of a culture. It tells where its people come from and where they are going." We should learn to choose our words carefully and use them correctly, or they will make ourselves silly and common. 

A group of students meet in the library each week during lunchtime.  They are famous as the members of the Miss Margaret Fan Club.  Every Thursday, the twelve members of the Miss Margaret Fan Club make their way to the study centre in the back of the library. 

The first Thursday they met.  Miss Margaret greeted them with a little talk. 

"Welcome to the first meeting of the Writing Club!" she said.  "During the school year, we will meet here to work on story writing.  At the end of the year, I will put all of your stories together in a book. "

Miss Margaret gave a pencil and two pieces of paper to each student. 

"Your first homework is to think of a character.  Now, try to think about an interesting person.  When you think of this person, write down all the details (细节) about him or her in your head. "