Which Is More Useful?

    Thomas is in Grade Two now. He goes to school from Monday to Friday. After school he must do some housework. He helps his parents on the farm(农场) on Saturdays and Sundays. So he doesn't have any time to play football in the daytime. He often plays with his friends in the moon(月亮).

    It's five in the afternoon. School is over. Thomas goes home and cooks for his family. After dinner he sees his friend Paul near his house and asks him to play football. The boy looks at the sky and sees the moon. Then he asks, "Which is more useful, the sun or the moon?"

    "I think the moon is," says Thomas. "We need light(光线) in the evening, but we can not see the sun, but the moon!"

    Albert was an ordinary worker in an oil company in America. His workmates gave a nickname(绰号) "Four dollars a bucket(桶) of oil" below his name whenever and wherever he wrote down his name.

    As time went by, people forgot his real name. Later, when Roller, the board chairman(董事长) of the oil company, heard of it. He was very surprised, so he invited Albert to come to his office. "Some people give you a nickname for 'Four dollars a bucket. Why aren't you angry?" asked Roller in surprise.

    "Oh! Mr. Roller! I like this nickname very much, because 'Four dollars a bucket is our company's advertisement. If someone calls me 'Four dollars a

    Bucket once, I think it's a free advertisement for our company. It's not necessary for me to get angry. Don't you think so, Mr. Roller?"

    "Oh! What a wonderful man!" Roller said excitedly, "Young man! Work hard, you must be successful in the future! I believe in you!"

    Five years later, Albert became the second board chairman.

    Later Albert said in one of his reports, "We should treat everything actively because maybe our future success will begin from a small thing!"

The first Starbucks coffee shop opened in 1971 in a town of Seattle, Washington, in the United States. It was a small coffee shop that cooked its own coffee beans. The coffee shop's business did well, and by 1981 there were three more Starbucks stores in Seattle and they joined into a small company. 

Things really began to change for the company in 1981. That year. Howard Schultz met the three men who run （经营） Starbucks. Schultz worked in New York for a company that made kitchen instrument. He noticed that Starbucks ordered a large number of special coffee makers, and he was interested in the company. Schultz went to Seattle to see what Starbucks did and he liked what he saw. He wanted to become part of the company. In 1982, the original (原先的)Starbucks owners chose Schultz as the company's head of marketing. 

In 1983, Schultz travelled to Italy. The special atmosphere(氛围) of the coffee bars there caught his eye. To Schultz, it seemed that Italians spent their daily lives in three places: home, work, and coffee bars. His experience in Italy gave Schultz a new idea for Starbucks back in Seattle. 

Schultz created an atmosphere for Starbucks coffee shops that was comfortable, and customers everywhere seemed to like it. Between 1987 and 1992, Starbucks opened 150 new stores - and that was only the beginning. In fact, by the year 2000, three new Starbucks stores opened somewhere around the world every day!

Today, Starbucks has thousands of stores, including stores in twenty - six countries. One thing that helps make Starbucks succeed in cities outside the United States is the way Starbucks works with local stores and restaurants. By working together with a store already in the city, Starbucks gets an understanding of customers in the city. This understanding helps Starbucks open stores in the right places for their customers. 

Mr. Taylor loves fishing. It is his favorite sport. He often fishes for hours without catching anything. But this doesn't get in the way {#blank#}1{#/blank#} his hobby. He still likes sitting by the river {#blank#}2{#/blank#} ( patient) day by day.

Some {#blank#}3{#/blank#} ( fisherman) can't catch fish, either. Sometimes they just catch dirty old shoes and rubbish. Unluckily, Mr. Taylor is even {#blank#}4{#/blank#} ( bad) than them. He never catches anything, not even old shoes. One day, after he spent the whole morning fishing by the river, he went home again with {#blank#}5{#/blank#} empty bag.

" You must stop fishing!" His friends laughed at him and said," It's a waste of time."

{#blank#}6{#/blank#}, Mr. Taylor didn't get mad." But they don't realize one important thing. I am only interested in {#blank#}7{#/blank#}( sit) in a boat or by the river. We are supposed {#blank#}8{#/blank#} ( value) the sunshine and fresh air when we get close to the nature. It can make me {#blank#}9{#/blank#}( forget) the noise of the city for some time." He said to {#blank#}10{#/blank#} ( he).

There once lived a rich businessman who had a lazy son. The businessman wanted his son to realize the value of labor. 

One day, he told his son, "Today, I want you to earn something. If you fail, you won't have your meal tonight. "

The boy didn't want to find a job, so he asked his mother for help. She gave him a gold coin. In the evening, when the father asked his son what he had earned, the son showed him the gold coin. The father then asked him to throw it into the well (水井). The son did as he was told. 

The father guessed that the gold was from the boy's mother. The next day, he sent his wife to her parents' home and asked his son to earn something. Since no one helped him, the son had to go to the market to look for a job. A shopkeeper told him that he would pay him a coin if he carried heavy tools for him. The son accepted. As he returned home and gave the coin to his father. he was asked to throw it into the well. The boy cried, "Dad! My body is aching. I'm tired. How are you asking me to throw my hard-earned coin into a well?"

The businessman smiled. He told his son that one feels pain only when the fruits of labor are wasted. The son realized the value of hard work. He promised not to be lazy any more. 

 If you are looking for a simple place to stay for a few nights, a capsule(胶囊) hotel might be a good choice. Providing small rooms and just a few basic services, these hotels can help people save lots of money.

 What do the rooms in capsule hotels look like? The rooms are usually the size of a bed. They are very small, but they have enough space for you to sit up on the bed. Rooms in capsule hotels are usually side by side and on top of one another. So, if you are staying on the top level, you have to use a ladder to climb into your room. There are also curtains( 帘布) for you when you' re sleeping. Although there's little you can do inside your room apart from ( 除了……还 ) sleeping, capsule hotels usually provide other services. Shared bathrooms and dining areas are available (可提供的) for you to use.

 The first capsule hotel appeared in Osaka, Japan in 1979. Many Japanese loved the idea, so more capsule hotels opened all over the country. From there, capsule hotels spread to several other countries such as India and Iceland. China has also seen a rise in the number of such hotels in recent years. And they are quite popular with young people.

 Many experts(专家) believe capsule hotels will become more popular as time goes by. What do you think?