I was standing in line behind a woman in her 60s. When it was her turn to pay, the shop owner greeted her and asked how she was doing.

The woman looked down, shook her head and said, “Not so ________, my husband just lost his job. I don’t know how I can get through the holidays.”

Then she gave the shop owner the food stamps (食品券) for poor families.

My heart hurt. I wanted to help but didn’t know ______. Should I offer to pay for her food, or ask for her husband’s resume(简历)?

As I walked towards my car, I met the woman again. I remembered something in my ______. It wasn’t any money or an offer of a job, but ______ it would help.

“Excuse me,” I said. “I heard what you said to the shop owner. It sounds like you’re going through a really ______ time right now. I’m so sorry. I’d like to give you something.”

I handed her the small card from my wallet.

When the woman read the two ______ on the card, she began to cry. Through her tears, she said, “You have no idea how much this ______ to me.”

To tell the truth, her reply was a little ______. Having never done anything like this before, I didn’t know what could happen. All I could say was, “Would it be OK to give you a hug?”

After that, I walked into my car and began to ______ too.

The words on the card?

“You Matter.”

A few weeks earlier, a friend gave me a similar (相似的) card as encouragement for my work. When I read it, I really felt _____ . So I ordered my own box of You Matter cards and started sharing them.

There was a kingdom long, long ago. It was ruled by a king who loved riddles (谜语). Once a year, the king made a new riddle. He gave a prize to the person who could solve the riddle.

There was a baker who also lived in this kingdom. Everyone agreed that he baked the finest breads. The baker had almost everything he needed except for a horse. If the baker had a horse, he could sell his fine breads from one end of the kingdom to the other.

One year, the king made a new riddle that puzzled everyone. “1 will give a prize to the person who can solve my riddle,” the king said. “Anyone who wins will have the pick of one of my strongest horses.” He then drew a line down the middle of the courtyard. “Make this line shorter without erasing (清除) any part of it,” the king said.

People came from far and wide. “How can you make a line shorter without erasing any part of it?’’ the people in the crowd asked each other. Some of them tried. The dressmaker kicked dirt over the line to hide it. The farmer poured water over the line to make it disappear. None of these worked, and the people went home disappointed. Everyone was puzzled about how to solve this new riddle.

A week passed, and nobody had any new ideas. Then one day the baker came into the courtyard with a bag of flour (面粉).

“Your Majesty,” the baker said to the king, “I can make your line shorter without erasing any part of it.” Then the baker opened his bag of flour. He poured out a line of flour right next to the king’s line. The line the baker made was longer than the king’s line.

“Now, good king,” the baker smiled, “your line is shorter.”

The people were amazed. The king laughed and clapped his hands. “You have won the prize. I will give you a horse of your choice.”

The baker was excited. Now he could sell his breads from one end of the kingdom to the other.

The late president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, once said: “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to a man in his own language, that goes to his heart.”

Mandela understood that our mother language is a very close thing to us. For people who speak their mother language, it helps them keep their traditions. Their language is the bridge with their ancestors (祖先). And it is also how they think about the future.

So it's a serious thing that a language disappears (消失). Over the last century, more than 400 languages have died out. Some languages are now spoken only by a few people, like Yagan in Chile. Africa and South America are also places where many languages are imperiled (处于危险的).

Why are humans speaking fewer languages than we once did? The answer has something to do with globalization (全球化). Nowadays, it's more useful to speak certain languages—English is one example. This has killed some languages, usually ones spoken by fewer people.

The United Nations has set Feb 21 as International Mother Language Day. This work is very important. As US writer Rita Mae Brown wrote, “Language is the map of the culture. It tells where its people come from and where they are going”.

Claude Monet’s paintings were quite different from the art styles that were popular in the 1870s France. Traditional artists always did their artwork in a studio and their paintings looked exactly like the real world. Claude Monet was part of a group of painters who were called Impressionists (印象派画家). Their paintings gave an impression of what the real world looked like.

Knowing that trains were interesting subjects and stood for modern progress (进步), Claude Monet painted a series of Impressionist paintings of trains from January to March of 1877.

Monet’s friend, Pierre Auguste Renoir, told the following story to his sons about Claude Monet and painting the trains. Monet needed permission (允许) to stay on the train platform and paint what he saw in his impressionistic style. One day Monet dressed himself in his very best clothes. It seemed that he was a rich gentleman but in fact he really was a poor painter.

He showed the clerk (职员) at the train office his calling card which introduced him as Claude Monet, Painter. He asked to see the station master. The clerk quickly allowed this fine gentleman to enter the station master’s office. The station master gave Monet permission to paint on the train platform. He even stopped trains from leaving on time so Monet could complete a scene even though passengers complained.

Was it all worthwhile (值得)? Monet’s train scenes turned his career into a success and for the station master, made his train station famous until even now.   

Claude Monet

81. 假如你是无锡阳光中学（Sunshine Middle School）的学生李明，你想参加21世纪报青少版Teens中SCHOOL TIME栏目的征文活动，请根据以下流程图的提示，用英语写一篇短文，介绍你的学校生活。

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