Last Sunday morning, my parents and I were going on a vacation in Sydney, where my grandparents lived, to celebrate my birthday. Actually, celebrating my birthday in my grandparents’ home had been a family tradition. As a result, their neighbors, warm-hearted and friendly, were familiar with me. Sometimes, they even came to the house and brought me birthday gifts in person.

We took the subway there as usual. When we got off the subway, I found I had lost my bag. The bag was memorable to me because it was given by my parents when I became a senior high school student. It also had some valuable items inside, including an expensive watch a birthday gift from my grandparents.

I couldn’t help but cry because the bag meant so much to me.“What’s the matter. Lily?” my mom asked. I told her that I might leave the bag on the subway. Hearing that, she comforted me and said. “We have plenty of time. Let’s talk to the staff (工作人员).”

Instantly, my parents reported the situation to the staff at the subway station. A kind worker smiled to me and said. “If someone found it, they would hand it in.” He asked us to wait patiently for a while, and then he called for help．After half an hour, the worker didn’t give us any information. I started to become anxious and lose hope. My father said. “No news is good news.”However, the worker finally apologized to us and let us wait for the information on the recovery of the missing bag at home. We had to go to my grandparents’ house first.

In the afternoon, while I, together with my grandparents and my father, was preparing for a birthday party, I heard my mother talking to someone on the phone about my lost bag. My heart was beating violently, and I was expecting something extraordinary to happen. Sure enough, my mother got me to answer the phone, “Good news, Lily. The call is just for you, from the kind worker. He said a girl called Beatrice had sent the bag back.” I felt amazed that the girl’s name is the same as my friend’s in Sydney.

I took the phone, and then the voice of the worker who had helped us at the subwaystation came from it.

My family and I were dancing happily when someone knocked at the door.

There are many things in senior middle school that I still remember clearly. I studied three years in a country school, which is faraway. However, it has a good environment and strict but kind teachers, so I loved the school and all my teachers very much.

One Friday, just as we began to read books in reading class at our desks, our teacher, Mrs. Hill, said that she needed to be out of the classroom for a few minutes. She asked the class to read in silence while she was gone. And she said that those who didn’t read books in silence would have to be punished when she returned. It was well-known that Mrs. Hill was strict. So we had to be on our best behaviour.

But that Friday, Mrs. Hill hadn’t been gone for ten seconds before some students in the classroom started to talk. From one corner of the room I heard Josh ask Nick, “Can I trade my candies for your toy?” At the other end of the room I heard Samantha tell Kayla, “Let’s sit together on the bus for the museum field trip tomorrow.” And so it went all around me, until about half of the students communicated with each other.

After a while, I, too, forgot about Mrs. Hill’s instructions. I turned back and asked my friend Liza, “Can I borrow your storybook and keep it for a day?” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, Mrs. Hill walked into the classroom. The whole class returned to silence immediately. And we were full of fear.

Mrs. Hill slowly looked around the classroom and said, “If you were talking while I was gone, then please stand up.” The guilt (内疚) suddenly weighed heavily on me. “I shouldn’t have talked while she was not in the classroom. And now I should be honest and admit my mistake bravely. This is what my parents have always told me.” I thought. Then, I summoned up (鼓起) my courage to stand up, worried about the punishment that waited for me. Then I looked around.

To my surprise, no one followed me and I was the only one in the classroom standing.

With Mrs. Hill’s encouragement, another student stood up.

Scout could clearly remember the night she had to leave her home in Poland. It was the beginning of World War II and her family had to escape as soon as possible. She quickly packed a suitcase with a few pieces of clothing, her diary, and her most prized treasure, a silk scarf (围巾). Scout and her best friend, Betty, had persuaded their parents to buy them matching scarves, which they took as a symbol of their friendship. Scout didn’t know she was going to America and would not be returning.

Scout kept that special silk scarf for many years. One day she decided to give it to her granddaughter, Eliza, to wear to her first job interview for good luck. Scout was afraid that Eliza would lose the scarf, but the granddaughter promised, “Don’t worry, Grandma. Nothing’s going to happen to your scarf. You’ll see that it’s going to bring both of us luck.” And with that, Eliza kissed her grandmother and left for the interview.

Leaving the interview, Eliza felt confident that she had got the job so she decided to celebrate by going to a restaurant. Sitting at her table, Eliza felt an elderly woman staring at her for a long time.

“I’m sorry. Do I know you?” Eliza asked.

“I’m sorry, dear, but you remind me of my best friend,” the old woman replied. “She looked like you and used to wear a scarf just like yours.” Eliza listened carefully, with her eyes and mouth wide open. She had heard stories of her grandmother’s best friend and knew the meaning of the scarf. Could this woman be Betty, her grandmother’s childhood friend?

Then the old woman introduced herself, “My name is

The old woman agreed to go with Scout.

I participated in an exchange program where a Spanish student, Jenny, firstly came to live in my home for a few weeks and then I went to live in hers in Spain. I was somewhat nervous but mostly excited about the coming experience.

After the initial excitement, cultural differences began to affect me, causing me to feel anxious and homesick. What made culture shock difficult to deal with was the language barrier. My Spanish skills were not at the level of being able to express how I feel clearly.

The most difficult challenge was the food and meal time. I usually had dinner at 6:00 pm in China, but in Spain we had it at 10:00 pm when I was very hungry! I was a picky eater, and while I ate meat, I still wasn’t very adventurous. But there was a lot of meat in Spanish dishes. There were little kinds of vegetables in their dishes and potatoes were their favourite.

One night, I asked what we were going to eat. Since I didn’t know the Spanish word “conejo” they used, the entire family started acting like rabbits at the dinner table in an effort to help me understand its meaning. I was shocked. But in order not to bother them, I didn’t mention anything about my inadaptation.

When going back to my room after dinner, I just wanted to curl up alone and missed the delicious dumplings my mother made in my hometown. As there was no Chinese restaurant nearby, what I could do was to draw dumplings on papers as if I had eaten them and threw them into the dustbin.

When back from school the next day, I was amazed by what I had seen.

Hearing what Jenny said, tears welled up my eyes.

Nowadays, doing sports is becoming more and more popular.

One day, a friend of mine and I were walking down a deserted Mexican beach at sunset. When we walked along the beach and shot the bull, we saw a man occupying himself with something in the distance. Curiosity drove us to find out what he was doing.

As we grew nearer, we noticed that the man kept leaning down, picking something up and throwing it out into the water. Time and time again, he kept casting things into the ocean. We felt a little more confused about his odd action. So we decided to approach even closer, and then we knew that the man was picking up starfish that had been washed up on the beach and, one at a time, he was throwing them back into the water.

My friend was puzzled. He came up to the man and asked, “Good evening, friend. I was wondering what you’re doing.” Without stopping his work, the man answered, “I’m throwing these starfish back into the ocean. You see, it’s low tide right now and all of these starfish have been washed up onto the shore. If I don’t throw them back into the sea, they will die up here from lack of oxygen.” “I understand,” said my friend, “but there must be thousands of starfish on this beach. You can’t possibly get to all of them. There are simply too many. You are just wasting your time doing something meaningless. And don’t you realize this is probably happening on hundreds of beaches all up and down this coast? Can’t you see that you can’t possibly make a difference?”

The man smiled, bent down, and picked up another starfish, and as he threw it back into the sea, he replied in a firm voice, “Made a difference to that one!”

I knew what my friend would do when he looked at me.

We said goodbye to the man, tired but happy.