I arrived in the UK last weekend to learn English．So far I have already made a few friends and had some traditional English food there．But after having three days of hamburgers，sandwiches and potatoes，I thought none could be more delicious than Chinese food，especially my favorite﹣huo guo．You can't imagine how excited I was when I got to know that there was going to be a free meal of hotpot to welcome the new students．On the way to the canteen ， I seemed to smell huo guo in the air．

    To my surprise，when I went into the room，I didn't see any sign of huo guo．Where was it？

    With many questions in my head，I sat down to have the free meal．After talking with an English girl，I got to know that Chinese huo guo is completely different from hotpot．Chinese huo guo is written in two words﹣hot pot； and hotpot，one word，is a traditional English dish．

    Hotpot is made from mutton and onion．On the top are pieces of potatoes．People put it in the oven all day in a heavy pot on a low heat．It takes very little effort to prepare．You can often see it at parties in the UK because it's easy to prepare for a large number of people and is not expensive．

    Hotpot doesn't taste bad．However，I still miss huo guo﹣hot pot，two words!

    Many people in China like animals and usually keep some of them as pets. These pets can bring people a lot of fun. People in the UK are pet lovers, too.

    Lots of families in the UK have one or two pets. Dogs are their favorite pets. Cats are the second. And birds are the third. But some families don't like to keep dogs, cats or birds. They keep other special animals as their pets in their homes, like tigers, elephants and snakes.

    English people always look after their pets very well. They usually give them lovely names, let them wear beautiful clothes and feed them with delicious food. They usually buy the food in some pet shops. Sometimes the food is really expensive. Many pets even have their own houses, beds, meals and bowls. When they talk about their pets, they usually say "he" or" my son", and "she" or" my daughter. They never say" it.

    American schools are quite different from those in China. In America at the beginning of the term, students must select their subjects and teachers.

    Selecting is very important for your marks in America. So in the first term, don t select too many subjects, or you'll feel very nervous and tired. Then you have to ask for some teaching plans. There is some information about subjects, time arranging, marks and textbooks. At the same time you must choose the teachers. Different teachers have different teaching methods. If the teacher is called "killer", many students will give up choosing him, because this kind of teacher will leave too much homework have too many exams and give too low grades. There is another thing after you select the subjects and the teachers. How to buy textbooks makes each student feel hard. The textbooks in America are very expensive. Each one is about 30-$50. In order to save money, many students buy some used textbooks, and some students usually borrow textbooks from the school library.

    In class, discussing is very important. The teacher encourages you to ask questions or show your own opinion. They don't usually ask you to sit well. Instead they allow you to sit or stand everywhere you like.

    Meiyu, born in 1991, is from Turkey(土耳其). She is the youngest child of her family. After high school, many people learned English or Japanese, but Meiyu decided to learn Chinese in university. She learned Chinese for four years in Ankara University in Turkey, and got her name Meiyu there.

    Meiyu fell in love with Chinese after going to university. She became more interested after she knew more about Chinese history. In the beginning many people did not understand her decision. But they all said Meiyu had made a right choice when she graduated from university in 2013. Since then, more Chinese have been visiting Turkey. The trade between the two countries also requires Chinese-speaking people. "Speaking Chinese means more job opportunities." said Meiyu.

    Now Meiyu has been in Wuhan, China for about two years. Besides going on studying Chinese, she shows great interest in Chinese kung fu as well, so she spends her free time on kung fu training with her coaches. Not only can kung fu help improve her health, but she is also fascinated by the history and culture behind it. Meiyu said, "The more I know about China, the luckier I feel to have been here. But the truth is that fun and pain go together in the process of learning."

    Meiyu will graduate in June this year. Her friends want her to stay in China, but her parents hope she can come back home. Meiyu thinks it is difficult to decide. "Even if I go back to Turkey, I will choose Chinese language education as my job," said Meiyu.

    Don't be too surprised if you see a car going down the road without a driver in Beijing these days. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}Last month, Baidu began to test its self-driving cars on open roads in Beijing.

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#}Since then, companies like Tesla, Uber and Baidu have been working to produce and test their own self—driving cars.

    Self-driving cars are safer than regular cars. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}They can remove the stress of driving and allow disabled or blind people to get around more easily.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#}In one test, researchers pointed a laser pointer (激光棒) at the car's sensors (传感器) while it was moving. The car mistakenly thought that the laser beam was in its way and slowed down or changed the direction.

    The software that is used to direct the cars may not be safe enough. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}When we use our computers or smartphones, they sometimes crash (崩溃) without any reason. But if this happened to a self-driving car, the result could be deadly. Improvements to the software could be a solution to this problem.