An artist painted many pictures of great beauty. But he found that he had not yet painted a “real” picture.

He began his trip to look ________ the most beautiful thing in the world. On the way, he met an old priest who asked him ________ he was going. “I don’t know”, said the artist. “I want ________ the most beautiful thing in the world. Perhaps you can tell me something about it.” “How easy!” replied the priest. “In ________ church, you will find it—‘Faith’ is the most beautiful thing in the world.”

The artist traveled on. Later, a young mother with a baby ________ her arms told him the most beautiful thing is “Love”. “Love” makes the world go round. ________ there is no love, there is no beauty.

Still the artist ________ his trip. He asked a soldier the same question and his answer was “Peace”. He said, “War is ugly and wherever you find ________, you will find beauty, faith and love.”

“But ________ can I paint all of them—Faith, Love and Peace?” He thought and thought. He was ________ that without thinking where he was going, he had got to his own home. In the faces of his wife and children, he ________ Love and Faith. “We are thinking of you ________. We hoped you would come back to us ________.” said his wife. The artist sat on his favorite old chair and ________ heart was at peace.

The artist painted the most beautiful thing in the world and called it ________.

Recently, Livon Middle School has done a survey on how long students spend on watching TV. They asked 1,200 students. One third of them are girls. Here are the results.

What kind of TV shows do students usually watch?	Why do they like watching TV?

Televisions are like books or films. Students can learn both bad things and good things from them.

Some programs help students to understand the news, and others show people and places from other countries or other time in history. With television, a student does not have to go to the zoo to see animals or to the ocean to see a ship. Boys and girls can see a play, a concert or a game at home.

Television brings many places and events into our homes. Some programs show crimes (犯罪活动) and other things that are bad for students, so parents sometimes help them to find other interesting things to do.

A girl went to her father to ask for his advice. She was having a hard time in life. It seemed that when one problem disappeared, another one appeared. It was terrible!

Her father, a cook, took her into the kitchen. He took out pans and poured water into the pans to boil. After the water boiled, he put some carrots into the first pan, some eggs into the second pan and coffee beans into the last one.

After 20 minutes, her father turned off the stove, took out the carrots and eggs and put them in a bowl. He poured the coffee into a cup.

“Dear, what do you see?” he asked his daughter.

“Carrots, eggs, and coffee,” she said.

“Touch the carrots,” he told her. She did and felt that the carrots were soft. After that he asked her to take an egg and break it. She found that the egg was hard. At last, her father asked her to taste the coffee.

“What’s the meaning, father?” she asked.

“The strong and hard carrots became soft and weak after boiling. The fragile（脆弱的）eggs became hard in the boiling water. The coffee beans were very special, but they changed the water around them.”

Her father said, “As you can see, each thing reacted differently to the boiling water.”

“Who are you?” asked her father. “When you have problems, what will you do? Are you carrots, eggs, or coffee?”

A few weeks ago, I went into Chase’s class for help. I e-mailed Chase’s teacher one evening and said, “My son keeps telling me that the thing you’re sending home is Maths—but I’m not sure whether I should believe him. Help, please.” She e-mailed right back and said, “No problem! I can help Chase after school anytime.” And I said, “No, not him. Me. He gets it. Help me.”

And that’s why I stayed with Chase’s Maths teacher. We talked about teaching children. We agreed that subjects like Maths and reading are not the most important things that are learned in a classroom. We also talked about something else—kindness and bravery.

And then she told me this.

Every Friday afternoon Chase’s teacher asks her students to take out a piece of paper and write down the names of four children with whom they’d like to sit the following week. She also asks the students to nominate (推荐) one student who they think is the most popular student that week. They needn’t write down their names on the paper.

After the students go home, she takes out those pieces of paper, and studies them.

In fact, Chase’s teacher is not looking for a new seating form or “popular students”. She is looking for lonely children. She’s looking for the ones who are unwilling to talk with others. She is finding out whose gifts (天赋) are not noticed by their classmates. Then she gets to know who needs help.

After watching Columbine, the wise woman knew that all violence (暴力) comes from loneliness. So she decided to start fighting violence early and often, and what she is doing is SAVING LIVES.

And she finds the lonely kids from those lists and tries to help them. It’s Maths to her. All is love—even Maths.

Do you have true friends? Do you want to know better between you and your best friends? There are three different kinds of friends: “pest friends” “guest friends” and “best friends”.

The first kind of friends is acquaintances (熟人) .     51    . You may meet this kind of friends at school, or on the bus, but you don’t miss them when they’re not around. When this kind of friends does something bad, you don’t tell them.     52    

The second kind of friends could also be called “social friends”. They are closer than acquaintances, but not as close as true friends. You know their names, a little of what they like or dislike, and a little of their family histories.

    53     but you don’t talk about anything deep, like wishes or fears, and     54    

The last kind of friends, the “best friends”, is the one you know the deepest. You are like family, and know everything about each other. You have-no problem staying at each other’s houses, and you share your deepest feelings and thoughts.     55    . They always care about you, and never do anything on purpose to hurt you.

We all have our pest, guest and best friends. We should value all friendship and remember: All best friends start out as just acquaintances.

After a whole day’s work in my office, I walked home. On the busy street, I saw a young man selling some small toys around the corner. Usually, I would hurry past such sellers and never buy anything. But when I noticed he was blind, I decided to stand there for some time. I wanted to see how he sold his toys.

Soon, a little girl came with her mother and wanted a toy. The toy was 18 yuan. The mother took out a 20-yuan note. She told the young man how much she was giving him and wanted the change back. I was wondering what he was going to do next. He told the mother to put the money in his bag and get the change herself. Then she did so.

What the young man did shocked me. He chose to trust people even if he couldn’t see. I was so touched that I made a decision to buy a toy although I didn’t need it at all. He said it cost 18 yuan and I told him that I had only one 20-yuan note. Again he told me to do the same thing as the mother. I put my 20 yuan in his bag, but I didn’t take any change.

As I walked down the street, I saw a little boy with his father and I gave him the toy I bought. I was happy to see the smile on his face.

The young man was a good example to us all. On my way home, I kept thinking the world would be a better place if we all could learn to trust other people more, just like the young blind street seller.