It was a cold snowy morning after the winter vacation. And it was my first day at my new school. I was walking alone slowly and worrying about lots of things. It was early and there weren't many people on the road. Suddenly a girl who was riding a bike on ice fell down. She was trying hard to get up but fell again. Without thinking, 1 went over and helped her. She said" thank you" with a smile and then rode away. Her words warmed me a lot.

    Finally, I got to school. The teacher led me to the classroom and introduced me to the class. Then he asked me to sit down beside a girl. I felt so nervous that I didn't dare to look at her. Soon the first class, English, started. Their textbooks were different from those in my old school. As I was wondering what to do, an English book appeared in front of me. "Let's share," the girl beside me said. "Hi, I'm Carrie." I looked up. It was the girl I helped this morning. Later on, we became good friends.

    From that I learned: To help others is actually to help ourselves!

    Uncle Li and Uncle Wang are good friends．They live next to each other and their farms are both at the foot of the mountain．So they can help each other．But neither of them likes to use his head．They're both poor though they work hard．Most villagers have built new houses，but they still live in the low and broken houses．They never find out why．

    Once Uncle Li went to town to buy some medicine for his wife．In the town he heard the apples in a city were expensive．He told Uncle Wang about it as soon as he went back．They decided to carry some apples to the city．They borrowed some money from their friends and bought nearly 1，000kilograms of apples in the villages and carried them to the city on a tractor．Bad luck!A lot of apples has already been carried there when they arrived．A few days later they had to sell them at a low price （价格）．They felt unhappy and returned to their village．

    "I can't understand why we sustained （蒙受） losses in business while others always profit （盈利）"Uncle Li asked one day．

    "The tractor was too small"Uncle Wang said without thinking．"We'll carry more apples on a truck next time!"

    "I agree!"said Uncle Li．"How foolish （傻的） we were!"

    From Feb. 8 to Mar. l is our winter holiday. I think everybody did a lot in the holiday. But it seems that I did nothing and it was my most unlucky holiday.

    I spent a lot of time on my homework. Every morning my mother woke me up early and I had breakfast in a hurry. Then I had to do my homework almost the whole day! I'm not a very slow person but the homework was too heavy!

    I was also unlucky when playing. During the Spring Festival, I played fireworks but my finger was hurt because I was careless to light the fireworks. I began to fear playing with fireworks from then.

    I was still unlucky on my friend's party. On my friend's birthday, unusually I woke up at 10:50 because my parents went to visit my grandmother early in the morning. The party would start in 10 minutes! So I hurried to my friend's home without breakfast. I returned very late that day and when I got home, my parents were very angry with me.

    Another worrying thing was Toy weight. Last term, I was 46 kg but now I am 51 kg! I have to consider losing weight!

    A British man learned the skills to perform Beijing Opera, making people enjoy his lively performance of the Monkey King.

Ghaffar Pourazar, born in Iran, is full of interest about China. In 1993, he happened to watch Beijing Opera which professionals from Beijing performed in London. Ghaffar fell in love with the beautiful voices, colorful costumes, excellent shows and so on. So after one year, he arrived in China alone and became a student of Beijing Opera at a Beijing school.

At the age of 32, he had to learn with children every day. For him, it was difficult to learn the dialogue in Beijing Opera and it was even his biggest obstacle. But he never gave up.

Four years later, he began to learn to perform the Monkey King, a traditional character(人物) from the Chinese classic story Journey to the West. He arrived in the workroom an hour earlier than other performers and also bought books and CDs to better understand the character. He once got a top international prize(奖品) for performing the Monkey King.

To help more people enjoy Beijing Opera, Ghaffar often teaches the traditional art form in schools in the US, Britain and other countries. Ghaffar led(带领) a group of actors to perform 66 times in a month and a half in the United States. He also led a 48-member team to perform in Malaysia. In the past 10 years, he has performed(已经表演了) more than 400 shows.

The list for the sixth-grade basketball team was announced online. I was a little worried because I knew how much my 12-year-old son wanted to make the team

I read the list of 13 names for a few minutes. Finally, I had to tell myself that my son wasn't among the players who were allowed to continue playing I felt sad. I wished it would be about victory. Like every parent, I love to say, "You did it! "

Instead, I had to give my son a speech to comfort my son, which was a lot less exciting, but probably more important. It was not really a speech, but a further discussion about spirit, courage and not giving up. Although it was painful for me to see myself so disappointed(失望), I needed to keep my own feelings in check Sure, I wanted to call he coach to say he made a big mistake, but I would not. Nor would I let my son know that I thought it unfair(不公平的). Instead, I put my own feelings aside and let my son have a safe place to calm down his own moods. And when he was done, I needed to encourage him to continue to improve skills. That day was a loss, but the only way to get another was to put on his trainers and get on the basketball court again.

My son is 15 years old now. And, after being cut from the team for three years in a row(连续地), he got to see his name on the list for the high school team. Last week, my husband and I watched him play in his first game. The smile on his face when he made his first shot in is something I will never forget After so many failures, it was a win that didn't come easy for him. And it wouldn't have happened if he had given up trying