It's not easy to be an astronaut's son. Everybody expects you to be special or perfect. I often wonder how my father ever had a son like me. I mean he's so special and so good at everything he does. Even in middle school he was class president and captain of the football team.
    Well, to be honest, I often dream about being some kind of hero or doing something special—like saving a child from a burning building or discovering a new star. I was daydreaming at school one morning when my teacher said there would be a Father's Day writing competition for the whole school. “I hope we have a winner right here in my class.”
    When I got home, I started to think about what to write. My father is an astronaut. No, I wouldn't start like that．That was the way others saw him. How did I see my father? Hmm.
    I saw him sitting with me in the dark when I had a terrible dream. I remembered how he hugged me for hours when my dog Spotty was killed by a car. Yes, these were the things I was going to write. To me, he wasn't just a world—famous astronaut．He was my dad.
    My parents and I went to school on Thursday night. There were so many people in the big hall! My dad looked at me, and I shrugged(耸肩).
    The third prize was announced and it was not me. I was relieved(释然) and disappointed at the same time. The second prize was announced. It was me.
    I went up to the stage and read what I had written,“My father's son”. When I finished, the people stood up and cheered. I saw my father blowing his nose. Tears were running down my mother's face. Dad cleared his throat and put his hand on my shoulder. "Son, this is the proudest moment of my life."
    It was the proudest moment of my life, too. Maybe I'll never be a great hero or win a Nobel Prize, but it was enough just to be my father's son.

    My name is Alex. I had an interesting and scary experience last Saturday. At about three o'clock in the afternoon, I was walking down the Main Street. I stopped in front of a jewelry store to look at some rings in the window. I really liked one of the rings. While I was standing there, two men came out of the store. They ran across the street, got into a car, and drove away quickly. Then I saw something on the ground. It was a black bag. I thought maybe they dropped the bag while they were driving away in the car.

    I went to pick up the bag and opened it. There was a diamond watch in the bag. I took the bag with the watch into the jewelry store and showed it to the store manager. The manager looked scared by what had happened but he was very happy to see the watch. He said the two men were thieves, and that the police were looking for them. He also said the watch was very expensive. To thank me, he gave me fifty dollars. I was happy that I helped him. However, the thieves stole many pieces of jewelry. They took ten rings, three watches, four necklaces, and ten pairs of earrings. I hoped the police would catch them soon.

    I sat down to read under an old tree in the park. I felt my life was hopeless, I didn't take an interest in anything. I thought that my whole world was dark.

    A young boy ran up to me, out of breath. He stood right before me with his head down and said excitedly, "Look what I found!" in his hand was a flower, and what a poor sight! The flower was dry and dead. I gave him a small smile and then turned my eyes away so that he could take his dry flower and go off to play. I didn't want to talk with him at all.

However, he sat next to my side and placed the flower to his nose and said in surprise, "It smells sweet and it's beautiful, too. That's why I picked it. Here, it's for you." The flower before me was dead. But I knew I must accept it, or he might never leave. So I accepted the flower, and replied, "This is just what I want, thank you." Just then, for the first time I noticed that the boy could not see — he was blind.

    Tears came down my face as I thanked him for picking the best one. "You're welcome." he smiled, and then ran off to play. I sat there and wondered how he was able to learn about my pain.

    Through the eyes of a blind child, at last I could see the problem was not with the world; the problem was me. And for all those years I myself had been blind. In fact I never found there is always something beautiful around me in life. I decided to see the beauty of life, and enjoy every second of my life. And then I held that dry flower up to my nose and breathed in the smell of a beautiful rose.

    A 50-year-old American officer(官员)came back to his school. The teacher asked him to give a talk to the small boys and girls there. The talk was about the love of their great country. All the little ones were sitting in a large meeting-room. The old officer went up and began speaking. He said, "Boys and girls, I studied in the school forty years ago. When l was your age, we were not as happy as you are today. Think about it and answer me, why are you so happy now?"

    No sound came from the children. The old marl waited for a long time. Then a short boy in the front put up his small dirty hand. "Good boy! Please answer me, dear, "said the officer.

    With a big smile on his face, the boy stood up and said. "If you speak long enough, we won't have math and biology(生物)lessons this morning."

    Mike teaches a very basic programming (编程) course to a group of students. They are all very interested in computers.

    One day, Mike told his students to write a short program on their computers. After writing it, they only needed to type "R", "U" and "N" and press "enter" to see the program run.

    Soon, a student sitting in the back of the classroom put up her hand. She said, "I did what you said, but it didn't work." Mike knew that students sometimes make mistakes when typing. So he suggested that the student retype (重新输入) "R", "U" and "N".

    A few seconds later, the student's hand went up again. "It still doesn't work," she said. This time. Mike went to her to see what the problem was. To his surprise, he found that instead of typing "RUN", the student had typed "ARE YOU IN"!