I found it hard to communicate with my mother. Relations between us became difficult. 

One day I ran away from home and stayed outside for a few hours. When I returned home at night, I saw all the pain, anger and disappointment on my mother's face. We knew that we were in great need of talk. We agreed to havebreakfast together the next morning. In the end, we decided to go to a restaurant.

On our way to the restaurant, I noticed my mother had two notebooks in her hands. I asked her what they were used for. She explained to me that sometimes it was easier to write our own feelings than talking about them. We should write down our feelings.

Our first topic was"Why am I so angry?" I wrote a half page, and my mom filled up nearly three pages. I saw the tears run down her face while she was writing. I never realized anyone could hide so much anger. After we finished writing, we exchanged our notebooks. As soon as I started reading my mother's words. I began to cry and so did she. When we finished reading, we discussed our feelings. Finally, it felt like all the anger inside me went away from my body. Our talk helped me realize so many things I had never thought of before, not only about my mother but also about other people.

My mother and I continue using our notebooks as a way of communicating. We know that no matter how we feel about each other, our notebooks are a safe place to express our feelings. We have come to an agreement that we write"I love you" at the end of each other.

Read Allen's diary and answer the questions：

Boys and girls, we have some interesting and fun things for you this term. Have a good time. 

What do you like to do in your free time? Reading is getting more popular among young Chinese. A new survey says that 85% of young people in China read at least 1 book last year. The number of young people who are reading has been rising in recent years, especially for teenagers, who read an average(平均) of 11.5 books.

The results show that teenagers spend much more time reading from school textbooks to some other reading materials, such as novels, e- books, magazines and so on. But younger children(ages2-8) are mainly reading for fun. Teenagers spend less time on pleasure reading.

The results point out that many parents control(控制) the time of e- reading because they worry about their  children to spend much time on screens(屏幕). However, most Chinese parents are helping their children to have a reading habit. They are making good examples for their children. More than 70% of Chinese parents spend at least 20 minutes a day reading to their children aged 0-8 years old and visit bookstores with them an average of three times a year. The results show that kids and teens who do a lot of reading have more books than those who don't like reading. Their parents read more often and would like to spend time reading with them.

____ When was the last time you read a book? Everything you read fills your head with new bits of information, and you never know when it might be useful. The more knowledge (知识) you have, the better equipped you are to deal with any challenge you'll face. Remember that you might lose something else, but knowledge can never be taken away from you. Please read books as often as you can.

 What do you think makes a city great? A survey made by a magazine shows whether a city is great or not is decided by these areas:

 Business — Does a city do lots of international business?

 People — Are the city's universities good? Are there more talented people living or working here?

 Media (媒体) — Is it easy to get information from TV, radio or Internet?

 Entertainment (娱乐) — Does the city have many entertainment choices: museums, sports, music and different kinds of restaurants?

 The magazine surveyed four cities and here is the result. 

What makes a city great

As the survey shows, each city is strong in different areas. New York, for example, is business. However, Beijing, which is the first city to host both Summer Olympics and Winter Olympics. has been developing rapidly in all these four areas. Now it becomes one of the greatest cities and is powerful enough to welcome people from every corner of the world.