The great Zen（禅宗）teacher, Benzei had many pupils. One day, one of them was caught because of stealing things by other students. And they reported him to Benzei, but he took no action against the boy.

    A few days later, the same boy stole another student's things and was again caught. And again Benzei did nothing. This made the other students angry, and they wrote a petition(请愿书) to ask the teacher to send away the thief from school. They all threatened to leave if the boy was allowed to stay.

    The teacher called a meeting of the students. When they had arrived, he said to them, "You are good boys who know what is right and what is wrong. If you leave, you will have no trouble in joining any other school. But what about your brother who does not even know the difference between right and wrong? Who will teach him if I don't? No, I cannot ask him to go even if it means losing all of you. "

   Tears coursed down(流下) the cheeks of the boy who had stolen. From then on, he never stole again and became an honest man.

 There was once a king who had a great palace with a wonderful garden. In the garden, there lived all kinds of animals. All of them

enjoyed living there.

 There was only one thing in the garden that the king hated: an old tree in the center of the garden. It was so old and dry. This made

the king so angry that he finally asked some people to cut it down and turned the place into a swimming pool. However, after the tree was cut down, the animals left the garden. Without the animals, the garden was not so beautiful as before. The king was sad, but he didn't know what had happened.

 A young man went to the king, and said he could explain what had happened. “This was because you cut the old tree down,” said the young man. “There were thousands of moths (飞蛾)which lived in the tree. Birds needed the moths to eat and then they produced wastes for plants to grow. The plants then attracted many other animals to your garden. So your garden became very beautiful. But as you cut the tree down, the animals had to leave.

“Excellent!” said the king, “I'll make you rich and you will try to make my garden beautiful again.”

“I'm afraid it will take many years to finish. It will take many years for the natural balance(生态平衡) to get back again,” said the young man.

 The king was sad, but all he could do was just to wait.

    As a kid， I read a story of a bird. It described a male bird which takes a lot of pain to build a house and the female bird takes care of the baby in it. When the baby bird learns to fly， the whole family flies off to a different place leaving behind the beautiful nest for other birds to grow their family in it. It made me confused(困惑的)： How could they so easily give up their house built with so much effort?

    One night， I got this dream. I was walking on the endless road with beautiful trees on the either side. Attracted by the greenery， I went on， then I saw a wonderful house. I explored the house. There was a sloping(斜的) roof which matched with the greenery around； the large central open yard reminded me of the activities that might have taken place there which felt lively even now. The small water body that kept the house cool added to the beauty of the house — of course， it was all dried up now. Such liveliness turns the house into a home. People say “THE HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS”， and now I felt it and was attracted deeply.

    When I woke up from the dream， I was clear about everything. I realized what message my dream wanted to convey(传递) me. And years later， when I chose my career， I thought of the story of the bird and my dream， then I was sure what to do. I decided to choose architecture as my career. I wanted to do the same thing that the male bird in the story did， to take pain in building a beautiful house and let others stay in it. My dream comes true and the happiness that I gain now from this career is great.

    One day, Mary went to the airport to see her friend off. Her friend's name is Jack. There were so many people in the airport. It was hard to find Jack among the people. Suddenly, Mary saw Jack and she felt very happy. Then she shouted, "Hi, Jack. Hi, Jack. Here. Here！"

    At the same time, Jack saw her and waved his arms, "Here！"Within 3 minutes, many policemen came to the front of Jack and caught him, "Please come with us to the police office. "

    Mary was very surprised at it. She wanted to know what happened to Jack.

    "What are you doing？"Jack asked angrily.

    "What? We don't need a hijack here. Don't you know？"one of the policemen said.

    "I think you are wrong! I'm Jack, but I'm not a hijacker, "said Jack after a short while.

    Soon Mary laughed.

    The policemen were sorry and they went away.

    Your English teacher has introduced a play to your class. Read the play.

    Characters: Benny, student, 14 years old

    Peter, students, 15 years old

    Susie, student, 14 years old

    Grace, student, 14 years old

    Time: One Sunday afternoon in autumn

    Place: Sunny Park

    (The four teenagers have just finished the picnic. They are tidying up.)

Benny: Wow! That was a great picnic. I'm so full that I can hardly move.

Grace: That's no excuse for not tidying up, Benny. Come over here and help me pack up the leftover food. Peter, can you put out the fire, please? And clean up the plate.

Peter: (Speaking unhappily to himself) How can I always get the dirty and difficult jobs?

    It's not fair.

    (Peter throws a bit of water on the fire. Then he picks up the ashes (灰烬) with an old newspaper and wants to throw them into the long grass. )

Susie: (Sounding surprised) What are you doing, Peter? That's d…

Peter: Whoops…the newspaper has caught fire.

Susie: And the grass… Benny, Grace, help! Help!

    (Benny and Grace come over quickly. They help put out the fire completely.)

Peter: Oh, no. What have I done?

Grace: You know that we should do everything carefully, don't you?

Peter: (With his head in his hands) Yes. What have I done? What have I done?

    I'm Sally. I was a shy girl. Bu this term, I decided to do a brave(勇敢)thing. In this term, we had a new subject to learn— physics. When our teacher asked someone to be the physics monitor(物理课代表), I put up my hand and got the role. But it was not as easy as I thought.

    At the beginning, I found that many students did not hand in(上交)their homework, so I was a little worried. I shouted at the students. It made the students angry. One girl asked: "Why are you shouting at me? You're making it seem like it is all my mistake(错误)." Then I found that, it was my mistake in fact. I should talk to my classmates in a kind way and not get so angry.

    After this, I changed(改变)how I spoke. "Excuse me. Could you please finish your homework?" I said. Later, I was surprised that many students understood me a lot better and finished their homework quickly.

    I found the best way to do this job is to talk with my classmates in a friendly way. Now, I am getting better and better with my classmates. This job makes me feel like I am growing up like a little tree day by day.