Every day, Vicky traveled by bus between her office and home. She noticed something special about the bus driver. Whenever the passengers got on the bus, he would smile at them.

However, Vicky also noticed a passenger who never smiled back at the driver. It seemed that he never had any clean clothes. He often made big noises when he coughed. Every time he got on the bus, he made the other passengers give up the seat to him in a loud voice. But the driver still smiled at the passengers. Instead, the “noise” man seemed to never see the smile.

This got Vicky more interested. Once, she asked the driver, “Sir, may I ask a question? Why don’t you throw that noisy man out of the bus?”

The driver looked at Vicky and said, “He’s my guest.”

“Then take back your smile at least. Don’t be so nice to him!”

“Let me tell you about my dog,” the driver said patiently. “Each time the moon shines, my dog barks at it crazily.”

Hearing this, Vicky was confused (困惑的) and said, “Sorry, but I’m not sure what you’re trying to tell me.”

The driver said, “It keeps barking, but the moon still shines.”

【推荐3】My name is David and I am from the USA. Now I’m in China with my father and mother. I like China and I like Chinese food, too. In the morning, I have breakfast at home. I have an egg, some bread and porridge (粥)for breakfast. My mother wants me to have milk, but I don’t like it. I have no time to come home for lunch, so I usually have it at school. The lunch in our school is very good. I can havedifferent foods for lunch. I eat rice, fish and vegetables. Sometimes I have noodles (面条) and dumpings. I have dinner at home with my parents in the evening. We usually have chicken, vegetables and fruit. But sometimes we eat out with friends. Then I will be very happy.

【推荐1】One morning, a blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held a sign which said, “I am blind. Please help me.”

There were only a few coins in the hat. A man was walking by. He took out a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words on it. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by could see the new words.

Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, “Are you the one who changed my sign in the morning? What did you write?”

The man said, “I only wrote the truth. I said what you said, but in a different way.”

What he had written was, “Today is a beautiful day, but I can’t see it.”

Do you think the first sign and the second sign were saying the same thing?

Of course both signs told people the boy was blind. But the first sign simply told people to help by putting some money in the hat. The second sign told people that they were able to enjoy the beauty of the day, but the boy could not enjoy it because he was blind. The first sign simply said the boy was blind, while the second sign told people they were so lucky that they were not blind.

There are at least two lessons we can learn from this simple story.

The first is: treasure(珍惜)what you have. Try your best to help those who need your help.

The second is: Be creative. Think differently. There is always a better way.

【推荐2】Buddy the cute bull calf was taken into their family by Coral and Wayne Algie when he was just one day old. His mother died when she got stuck in a dam near the couple’s farmhouse in New South Wales, Australia. They took Buddy in, and he became another puppy by an old dog Bada, who gave birth to 11 puppies. Now the calf is six weeks old, and he has already picked up some dog’s habits, including playing chase（追逐）with his brothers and sisters, wagging his tail and snuggling up to（依偎）others for a sleep.

Coral said, “Bada has really taken Buddy on as puppy number 12. He doesn’t see himself as a calf. I think he sees himself as better than them. He looks at them, enjoying all the comfort. He’s very content to live with the humans and the dogs.” Wayne and Coral discovered Buddy after trying to rescue his mother from dam earlier this month. Coral said by the time they managed to get her out, she was too weak and died.

After his mother’s death, the calf quickly made himself popular with the couple’s two children, Bella and Lawson, because he liked joining in with their games. “Buddy runs beside the kids when they’re on their bikes outside and he plays chase with Bella,” said Coral. Although Buddy has made himself part of the family, his house remains outside. But Buddy is given a home for life as Coral added, “He will always be our pet bull no matter how big he gets.”

【推荐3】From tiny seeds, great discoveries grow. Recently, China’s Chang’e 4 moon lander(登月舱) carried a mini-garden. It became home to the first plant to grow on another world.

This is yet another success for Chang’e 4. On January 3, 2019, the probe (探测器) became the first lander to touch down on the far side (背面) of the moon. This is the unknown face of the moon that is always looking away from us, so we never see it from down here on the earth. Although it is often known as the dark side of the moon, the far side actually gets as much sunshine as the near side. For example, when all we can see is a new moon, the far side of the moon is in full sunlight.

Part of Change 4’s task is to see how a moon base could be built for humans, including exploring whether humans could grow food and other plant products there. Chang’e 4 carried a mini-garden with air, water and soil with seeds planted in it. When plants shoot on the earth, their stems grow away from the gravity (the force that keeps your feet on the ground), and so they always shoot upwards. The moon’s gravity is a sixth as strong as the earth’s, so Change 4’s experiment was a test: would the earth plants know which way was up on the moon? Four days after landing, a tiny cotton shoot showed that they know.

Night has now fallen on the far side of the moon, sunlight will not return until the start of February, both on the near and the far sides. As a result, the cotton shoots died. Besides the darkness, the plants can’t stand the cold (it can drop to -170℃ on the moon at night). However, the experiment is a success, since it has proved that it is possible for plants to grow in space.