I arrived at my mother's home for our Saturday family dinner. The smells of food flew over from the kitchen. Mother was pulling out quilt after quilt from the boxes, proudly showing me their beauties. I knew they were all made herself. She was preparing for a quilt show on TV. When we began to fold and put them back into the boxes, I noticed something at the bottom of one box. I pulled it out. “What's this?” I asked.

“Oh?” Mom said, “That's Mama's quilt.”

    I spread the quilt. It looked as if a group of school children had made the pieces together.

 “Grandmother made this?” I asked in surprise. My grandmother was a master at making quilts. This certainly didn't look like any of the quilts she had made.

  “Yes, right before she died. I brought it home with me last year and made some changes,” Mom said, “I'm still working on it. See, this is what I've done so far.”

     I looked at it more closely. She had made a line straight(直的). At the center of the quilt， she had stitched a piece of cloth with these words:    “My mother made many quilts. She didn't get all lines straight. But I think this is beautiful. I want to see it finished. Her last quilt.”

“Oh, this is so nice, Mom.” I said. I was sure now that by completing my grandmother's quilt, my mother was honoring her own mother. I realized that I held in my hands a family treasure. It started with the loving hands of one woman, and continued with the loving hands of another.

B

    Thomas Edison lit up the world with his invention of the electric light. Without him, the world might still be in the dark at night. However, the electric light was not his only invention. Nearly every two weeks, he created something new.

    Thomas Edison was born in 1847. He attended school for only three months. His mother taught him at home, but he was mostly self-educated. He started trying out his new ideas at a very young age.

    When he was 12 years old, he got his first job. He became a newsboy on a train. He did experiments on the train in his spare time. Unluckily, his first work experience didn't end well. He was fired when he accidentally set fire to the floor of the train. Then Edison worked as a telegraph operator (电报员) for five years, but he continued to spend much of his time creating things until the vote recorder (投票计数器), his first invention, came in 1868.

    Thomas Edison was nearly deaf in one ear, but he never minded. Because of this, he could have more time for work. He always worked 16 out of every 24 hours. Sometimes his wife had to remind him to eat and sleep. Thomas Edison died at the age of 84. He left many inventions that greatly improved the quality of life all over the world.

One Thursday afternoon, when I was in Grade 7, a new boy came into my classroom. He was short and thin. He walked up to the teacher and told her, very seriously, that he was new. His name was Christian. He sat down, took a look at me, and then looked away. I didn't think he was very nice and I was sure he wasn't the type I would like to become friends with.

During that year, I didn't talk to him much, but he smiled at me when our eyes met, always shyly. He never ate lunch with anybody, and he never talked to anybody but me.

But one day I joined those unkind kids who were making fun of him. We made fun of him though I thought it was wrong. 

"Haven't you got any friends? " a kid asked Christian, who had walked past us alone, head down.  "No, he hasn't got any friends. He's too stupid and shy. " I said. Then Christian looked up at me with the saddest dog eyes I had ever seen. I felt very sorry at that moment.

That night, I couldn't sleep because I couldn't get Christian's face out of my mind. In the weeks that followed, he never met my eyes in class and never smiled at me. It was really hard for me to decide to write him a note asking him to forgive（原谅）me. But I thought I should. 

The next day in class, I wrote him a note telling him how sorry I felt. About five minutes later, I turned and saw tears in his eyes. "You will never realize (意识到) what your apology（道歉）has meant to me, Jimmy, "he said to me. "I hope we can become friends. "

We had lunch together that noon and we had the best talk I had ever had. Over the years at high school, we were close friends.

When I think back, I realize that, if I had not apologized, I would never have known what a lovely person Christian was.

Apologies can really change your life, so never miss the chance to tell somebody you are sorry.

Last week I went to the theatre. I had a very good seat. The play was very interesting. I did not enjoy it. A young man and a young woman were sitting behind me. They were talking loudly. l got very angry. I could not hear the actors. I turned round. I looked at the man and the woman angrily. They did not pay any attention. In the end, I could not bear it. I turned round again. "I can't hear a word!" I said angrily. 

"It's none of your business" the young man said rudely. "This is a private conversation!"

Keeping animals and planting vegetables at school? This is what the students are doing at Zhuxi Middle School in Yangzhou, Jiangsu. The school has a small farm. There are seven chickens, three 1 and a pig on the farm. There is also a place for students to 2 vegetables. "We have got potatoes and tomatoes here," says a seventh-grader. "In autumn, we can give 3 to the cooks at our school.

Zhuxi Middle School is not the 4 one to let students do farm work. In Chongqing No.1 Secondary School, we can also see vegetables on the top of the teaching building. Students grow them with the 5 of their parents and teachers. You can easily see their 6 faces when they are farming.

 "We feel so satisfied that we jump up and down happily when we see our hard work can really make the plants grow," a student says. "And it's really a good 7 for us to get close to the nature and relax at school."

Teachers 8 the students can know about subjects like biology more easily by seeing 9 they work in real life. They can know that good results (结果) 10 hard work. And they can also learn to be responsible (责任) by looking after the animals and plants. 

Fonzie is a 3-metre-long dolphin (海豚). Joe was 3 years old when their story began. After Joe was born, he had a problem with heart and doctors operated (动手术) on him. When he was 3, he got another operation. However, this operation didn't go well—he couldn't move the left side of his body. The doctors didn't think he could get better. Deena, Joe's mother, took him to different places for therapy (治疗), but it wasn't successful. 

Joe liked staying in the water and Deena thought swimming could help him. Then one day Deena took Joe to a special place. There, people could swim with dolphins. Joe met Fonzie for the first time and their story really started. Soon, Joe wanted to see Fonzie every day. Joe loved playing with him and feeding him. Joe's mother told him always to feed Fonzie with his left hand, so Joe had to practice his left side more and more. Slowly, he got better and better. Joe always put a smile on his face from then on. Deena saw that the little dolphin helped her son a lot. So, she and her family worked together and built Dolphin Care for people with health problems. 

Joe once said Fonzie was a great friend to him. They shared a lot of good times together. After Fonzie died (死亡) , Joe was really sad and missed him very much. Joe will never forget the good relationship they had.