Years ago, Tareq and his family left their home in Bangladesh to New York City, US. Tareq was only 12 years old then.

    In Bangladesh, Tareq's dad was a farmer. He worked hard for little pay. Every day, Tareq walked 6 kilometres to school. After school, he had to work on the farm.

    But Tareq had fun. He loved singing and playing cricket (板球) with his friends. One day Tareq's dad told him they would move to New York City. Tareq's dad found a new job there, and he thought life would be better there.

    In his new school, Tateq tried his best to understand his teachers, but it was quite hard. Also, he had few friends.

    Things changed when he started high school. His high school had students from 30 countries and a cricket team. Tareq was excited to join the cricket team. He was happy to be with kids who loved the game as much as he did. He practised before and after school. "Playing with the cricket team was the first time I felt accepted in America," he said. "When you play, it doesn't matter what grade you' re in or what language you speak."

    During his second year in high school, Tareq was named the cricket team' s most valuable player(最有价值球员).

    Tareq will go to university next year. He said, "Most universities don't have a cricket team. But that's OK, because cricket was there for me when I needed it most."

    When my brother and I were children, we spent a few weeks each summer in the countryside with our uncle. He was a geologist（地质学家） and loved to go on long walks to find stones to his collection in his spare time. We often followed him.

    One day, we left early, and this time, our uncle had bought us backpacks to help him carry the sample（样本）. The whole day, we walked around the countryside, and every now and then, our uncle put stones in our bags. We were a bit surprised that he also took some stones out from our bags at times, but we thought maybe he had just found better samples than the ones we already had.

    When we reached the house in the late afternoon, we were tired out. The backpacks were so heavy that we gave a big sigh of relief when we put them on the ground.

    Yet our uncle's backpack was half-empty.

    "Why did you give us so many stones?" we asked.

    "I didn't. You did, "he said, "You did not know it, but I made you go through a little attitude（态度） test today."

    "What do you mean an 'attitude test'?" we wondered. "It is something someone once did to me. You see, I listened to every word you said. And whenever you complained about anyone or anything, I added a stone to your bags. And whenever you talked about something with an attitude of gratitude（感恩） and positive（正面的） thinking, I took out a stone. And now look at your backpacks."

    We did. They were full.

    "Your negative（负面的） thoughts are like stones. You carry them in your mind just like those stones in a backpack. The more negative thoughts you have, the heavier your mind is. So look at those bags and start paying attention to what you say and how you say things."

    This little lesson was one of the most important I ever had. And I remember my uncle with great love for teaching us one of the most important lessons in life-the power of attitude.

    Some children are flying kites near the river. They are very high and Peter can see them in the classroom. His mother's friend Mrs White came to see his mother this morning and brought a kite to him. She gave it to him after lunch. It looks like a bird. He wanted to fly it but his mother didn't let him do so.

    "It's time to go to school," said his mother, "or you will be late. You can fly it after school."

    The boy was sad, but he said goodbye to Mrs White and went to school. Now he's in the classroom but he's looking out of the window. He doesn't listen to Miss Black. She writes something on the blackboard and then turns to the class and finds this.

    "Name nine things with milk in them, Peter," she says.

    The boy doesn't hear her and still sits there. A boy behind him taps his back and he knows it. He stands up and Miss Black asks him the question again. He thinks for a while and then says, \ madam. Tea, coffee, cake and... er.. six cows."