You may love to see tigers at the zoo. But what if you had to stay with one on a boat on the open sea for over 200 days? Life of Pi《少年派的奇幻漂流》, the movie from American Chinese director(导演), Li An, tells an amazing story.

    Pi is a boy. He lives happily with his family in a beautiful Indian town. His father has a zoo, so Pi knows a lot about animals.

    But one day, his father decides to move to Canada. He will sell all his animals there. The family begin to sail on the Pacific with all the zoo animals. But a big storm(暴风雨) hits their ship at night. Finally, Pi finds the only Survivors(幸存者) are himself and a large tiger called Parker on an 8-meter boat.

    To keep himself alive, Pi has to keep feeding the tiger so that he does not get eaten. He tries to get on well with the tiger during a 227-day sail on the sea.

    The movie is from a Canadian writer Yann Martel's book of the same name. The book has sold 7 million copies world-wide. It discusses not only hope but also relationship(关系) between humans and nature.

    It took Li An four years to make the movie. He also used 3D for his first time. He hopes the movie will “make the people think”. Life of Pi opened in Chinese theaters on November 22, 2012.

    One of the biggest mistakes a person can make is to try not to make mistakes. As you make decisions in your life, you will very likely make some mistakes. But making mistakes is a big part of how you gain(获得) experience.

    A simple example. You do poorly on a test because you didn't study hard enough. One bad test is not the end of the world, but it can quickly teach you that if you don't study, you won't do well.

    Mistakes sometimes lead to arguments(争论) between people.  But if you learn to understand things from another person's point of view, you will be able to learn very quickly from the mistakes you make and the mistakes you think other people have made. You can turn mistakes into opportunities(机会) .

    For example, if you learn to understand others' feelings and problems, you will understand the people you work with much better instead of getting angry. And you will learn to talk about problems and be more patient with people you don't agree with—a friend, or a mate in your workroom or company.

    So next time you think you've made a mistake, stop and ask yourself what you've learned from it, and what you will do differently in the future.

    Show me the person in the room who has made a lot of mistakes, and I'll show you the person who has probably learned a lot.

    The world is an interesting place. Different people like different things.

    Some people like loud music. Other people don't. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    Many people like sports, but they don't all like the same sports. In some countries, cricket（板球运动）is a very popular sport. In others it is not popular at all. No one plays it or watches it on TV. However, most people like soccer. The World Cup is very popular. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    Different people like different foods. Some people don't like meat,  {#blank#}3{#/blank#} Some people don't like potatoes or bread. They prefer rice.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Most people have their favourite colours. Some people like bright colours. Others prefer pale colours.

    Many people like travelling. Different people like different places. Some people like to go to the country.

    They like the fresh air. Some people like to go to the cities. Because they like shopping. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}

    Robert is a middle school boy from Australia. He is in Grade Seven. This term, he learns Chinese and he likes it very much. He wants to learn it well, so he finds a pen pal from Guangdong, China. His name is Yang Guang and he is a clever boy. He and Robert are in the same Grade. They both love playing football. They often chat with each other on the Internet. They have different school lives. Yang Guang is very busy every day. He gets up early and he has to stay at school for 8 hours every day and he has much homework to do after school. But Robert only stays at school for 5 hours and he often finishes his homework in just half an hour.

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    Have you ever heard of homemade music? That's right-homemade music. Music that is made at home can be lots of fun. And all of the family can take part in it. You don't have to have good voices. And you don't need to buy a musical instrument. What a family needs is the willingness to make music.

A singing game my family like is Crazy Voices. Each person sings a different song. But everybody sings at the same time! We do sound a little crazy. But the tunes (曲调) all fit together. Sometimes we get all mixed up. Then we just hum the songs. Or we put our hands over our ears. Then we try it again. And crazy voices fill the air. We really have homemade music when we play the Tap-a-Glass. Why? We make the instrument- that's the Tap-a一Glass. This takes some time. First, we hunt for drinking glasses that have a good ring to them. We tap them with a spoon to find out. We need eight glasses- one for each tone (音调) of the scale. How do we get different tones? By putting different amounts of water in the glasses. The more water, the lower the tone. After a while, we have all eight tones of the scale. Now the Tap-a-Glass is ready. One person takes the spoon and taps out a simple tune. We always give the player time to practice a little bit first. Then we try to guess the name of the song.

    Sometimes we do echo (回声) singing. In echo singing, we sing the same song. We pick a simple tune. One person begins to sing. Then a second person starts-right after the first singer! Sure enough, we have homemade music with a homemade echo!

    My family have fun with homemade music. We enjoy the time being together. Sometimes we get all mixed up. Sometimes we have to stop because we are laughing s0 hard. But more importantly, we can make music ourselves. To us, it sounds great.