On my recent trip to Sydney with my parents, we visited the Wildlife Park.

    The Wildlife Park has lots of different animals and birds. Some are native (当地的) to Australia and can only be found there. There are over 600 animals there, including kangaroos, koalas and crocodiles (鳄鱼). They are kept in their natural environment. I like the Wildlife Park better than a zoo where most of the animals are in cages (笼子).

We first spent some time with the kangaroos. We were allowed to touch and feed them. It was very exciting to be so close to them. There were koalas there too. They looked very cuddly (令人想拥抱的). Although we were not allowed to carry them, I got to take a photo with one. It is a wonderful souvenir (纪念品) of my holiday in Sydney.

    The Wildlife Park has plenty of freshwater and saltwater crocodiles. Some of them are really big and scary (吓人的) with huge teeth! I did not want to get too close to them.

There was also a bird show. The keepers showed us different species (种类) they had. I saw an old parrot which could "talk". It made a great impression on me.

    I enjoyed the trip very much. There was so much to see.

C

    When Matty Sallin，34，was working on a degree in art and technology at New York University，he got interesting homework in electronics class．He decided to create an alarm clock(闹钟)．

    "Everybody has to deal with these every day，and they are really unpleasant!"he says．He asked different people what they would like to wake up to instead of a noisy alarm．A lot of them said，"The smell of bacon(培根肉)"．

    So Sallin and two classmates invented a new kind of alarm clock：a wooden box with a pig face and a digital clock that uses the smell of cooking bacon instead of the sound to wake someone up．He explains．"There's no danger of burning，because I built it carefully．It uses halogen light bulbs(卤素灯)instead of a fire for cooking and turns off automatically after ten minutes．Yes,the clock itself can do it．Just a few easy steps are needed to set the alarm．"

    "What you do is to put some frozen bacon in the night before and set the alarm，"says Sallin．

    "If you set the alarm for 8：00,it will turn on at 7：50 and slow cook for ten minutes under the halogen bulbs．"he says，Then the bulbs turn off and a fan blows the smell out through the nose of the pig．

    "So instead of an alarm，  ▲，"says Sallin．"Then you can open the door on the side and pull the bacon out and eat it．"

    When Sallin was a kid，he spent a lot of time making drawing of inventions．"I wanted to make an lift in my backyard and a special tree house．"he says．"But I never really thought I'd be called an inventor!"

    Sallin got an A in the class and went on to other things—but people continue to hear about his invention and email him every day asking where they can buy his alarm clock．

    One day, Lord Bao and his servant saw a little boy in the town. The boy usually sold oil in the street, but then he was crying.

    "Little boy, why are you crying?" asked Lord Bao. "Every afternoon I put my head on this stone and have a sleep," the boy said. "I always put my money next to me. But now it isn't here!"

    "I see," said Lord Bao. "So this stone is the thief!" He shouted at the stone, "Do you have this boy's money?" People in this street listened and laughed. They thought he was mad.

    Lord Bao turned to them, "Are you calling me mad? I must fine(罚款) each of you a one-cent coin(硬币) for that!" Everyone stopped laughing. Lord Bao's servant opened his bag. "Put your coins in this bag," said Lord Bao.

    Without speaking, people put their coins into the bag. Lord Bao watched very carefully. When a man in black put his coin into the bag, Lord Bao looked up at him. "You are the thief!" he said.

    "But how do you know?" people asked in surprise.

    Lord Bao carefully took the man's coin from the bag and said, "Look at the coin! The boy is an oil seller and always has oil on his hands. So this is the boy's coin, and this man is the thief."

    A call came into Jimmy Gilleece's bar this past March. A newly married woman who had spent the afternoon at the dive beach bar in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, couldn't find her wallet. She didn't care about her ID, credit cards, or $150 — but her wedding ring was inside it.

    Gilleece, 42, the boss of the bar, didn't like the idea that there was a thief at his place. So he set out to find the wallet. He spent hours looking for the footage (录像) from 16 different cameras, watching the woman's every step in the bar. Finally, a young man caught his eyes. He picked up something from the place where the woman stood and put it in his pocket.

    Gilleece posted the picture on the bar's Facebook and asked if anybody knew who the guy was. Within hours, 17-year-old Rivers Prather came and said he had taken the wallet and told Gilleece he'd done it because he hadn't eaten for two days. He said he saw the ring but thought it was not real, so he took the money and threw the wallet into the ocean. Then he bought a sandwich.

    Prather wasn't getting along with his family and lived in the woods for weeks. Gilleece saw him for what he was: more of a kid than a thief. He found two local divers to search the waters where Prather threw the wallet. After waiting for hours worriedly but luckily, a diver came out from the water with the wallet in his hand, and inside was the ring.

    "Most people would give the footage to police, but the boss chose to help me," Prather told CBS News. "I say thank you to him every day."

    I travel a lot in my work, and what I dislike about my job is eating alone. It always makes me feel lonely to see others laughing and talking. So, eating in the room is a better choice for me.

    After eating alone in my room for three nights in Houston, I needed to get out of my room. Although the restaurant opened at 6: 30, I arrived at 6: 25. The waiter at the front desk made a comment (评论) about my "being there really early" in surprise. I explained that I hated eating alone in restaurants. He then took me to a lovely table near the window and asked me whether I would mind if he sat down with me for a while.

    I was glad! He sat and talked with me about his career goals (职业目标) and the difficulty of being at work on nights, weekends and holidays. He said he hadn't enough time to be with his family. After 15 minutes, he saw some customers at the front desk and excused himself. I noticed that before he went to the front desk, he stopped in the kitchen for a moment.

    Then another waiter came out of the kitchen and had a wonderful chat with me. Before I left that night, some other waiters, even the cook, came out of the kitchen and sat with me!

    When I asked for my bill about one hour later, all the people who had sat down with me came over in a big group to my table, and gave me a red rose. And I cried! What a beautiful experience!

    One morning I met a man in my shop. He wanted to buy some new clothes. First I gave him a pair of trousers. He put them on to try, then ________ and gave them back to me and said, "No, give me a coat instead of them." I gave him a coat and told him, "This one is worth as much as the trousers." To my surprise he took the coat without saying a word and walked out of the shop with it. I ran quickly after him and said, "You haven't paid for that coat!" "But I gave you the trousers for the coat," he said. "They are worth (相当于……的价值) the same as the coat, aren't they?" "Yes," I said. "You didn't pay for the trousers, either!" "Of course I didn't!" answered the man, "I didn't take them. I am not foolish! Nobody gives things back and then pays for them."