A true friend is always helpful. I didn’t believe it until one thing happened（发生）to me when I was in Grade 8.

Jason was one of my classmates. He and I were also neighbors (邻居). He always listened to his mother but I didn’t like listening to my mother. I didn’t think it was necessary for her to teach me anything. Jason knew all about that but he said nothing to me.

One weekend, Jason invited me to watch a movie. I liked movies very much so I went to the cinema with him happily. The movie was about the love between a mother and her son. After watching it, I began to know how great the love of the mother was. I felt sorry that I didn’t listen to my mother before. I decided to think more about my mother than about myself. After I told that to him, Jason smiled (微笑) and said, “It’s really necessary for you to watch this movie. It’s good for both you and me.”

At that time, I knew why he invited me to watch the movie. Just at that time, I knew a true friend is always helpful.

A professor stood before his class with some things on the table in front of him. When the class began, he took a very large and empty bottle and started to put some big stones in it.

He then asked the students if the bottle was full. They said that it was. The professor then picked up a box of small stones and poured them into the bottle. He shook（晃动） the bottle lightly. The small stones, of course, rolled（滚动） into the open areas（空间） between the big stones. He then asked the students again if the bottle was full. They agreed it was.

The professor picked up a box of sand and poured it into the bottle. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.

“Now,” said the professor, “I want you to know that this bottle is like your life. The big stones are the important things，like your family, your health and your children. The small stones are the other things that matter（重要）– like your job, your house, your car. The sand is everything else – the small things. If you put the sand into the bottle first, there is no room for the stones. The same goes for your life. If you spend all your time and energy（精力） on the small things, you will never have time for the things that are important to you. Take care of the big stones first – the things that really matter.”

A group of graduates（毕业生） got together to visit their old university professor(教授).

The conversation soon turned into the stress(压力) in work and life. To offer his guests coffee, the professor went to the kichen and returned a large pot of coffee and all kinds of cups---porcelain(瓷器)，plastic, glass，some normal-looking, some expensive and some very nice---telling them to help themselves to the coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in their hands, the professor said,“As you have seen, all the nice-looking or expensive cups have been used, leaving behind the normal and cheap ones. Though it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the reason of your problems and stress.”

“What you really want is the coffee, not the cups, but you went for the best cups. And then you begin to compare each other’s cups. Now consider this: Life is the coffee; the jobs, money and positions are the cups. Sometimes , we only pay attention to the cups and fail to enjoy the coffee. Taste the coffee, not the cups! Don’t let the cups control you. Enjoy the coffee instead.”

We can learn a lot from the movie. We should be thankful to the earth. If we always get everything from it without stopping, we will be punished(惩罚). We should face our mistakes like Maui and find the true ones for ourselves like Moano.

My father woke me up early one summer morning when I was fourteen and said: "Get up, you're going with me to cut the grass in the garden."

   The idea that my father thought f was old enough to help him in his business made me feel proud and excited. From sunup to sundown, my father, my younger brother and I worked in the large garden. By the end of the day I was too tired to say a word but I felt good. This was my first time to help my father in his business. I got $6 for my work that day.

   One day my father found some leaves I had missed and pulled me aside. "Take away these leaves!" he said, "and don't make me have to tell you to do it again." The message was clear. Today I value the importance of doing a job well the first time. It will never fail to impress(给……留下印象) the person you are working for.

   After two years, my father told me and my brother that he felt we were old enough to cut the grass by ourselves. Every Saturday during my last two years of high school, we set off early in the morning with the same strong wish we had gained while working under our father.

   Looking after the garden Was neither exciting nor high paying, but that didn't matter. It taught me that any job was a good job and that whatever I was paid was more than I had before.

   A newspaper reporter once asked me how someone could possibly live with hard work and low pay. "If you're only thinking about hard work and money, you probably don't want to do any better than you are doing." I answered. In every job, from cutting the grass to washing dishes, I've learned much. I've learned something that helps me in my next job. If you work hard enough, you can learn from any job you do.

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An old woman had two large pots, one on each end of a pole(扁担). She carried the pole with the pots across her neck.One of the pots had a crack (裂缝) in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full pot of water. At the end of the long walk from the well to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half-full.For two years this happened daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water. Of course, the perfect pot was proud. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed (羞愧的) of its own imperfection.

  One day, the cracked pot spoke to the woman by the well: “I am ashamed of myself because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house.”

  The old woman smiled: “Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I have always known about your crack, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path. And every day while we walk back, you water them.

  “For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, I would not have this beauty.”

Each of us has our own cracks. But it’s these cracks that make our lives together so interesting and meaningful.

Life is like the four seasons. Now I am very old,but when I was young,it was the spring of my life. I was born,I played a lot,and then I started school. I learned many new things. Like a flower,I grew bigger every day. There were happy days and sorrowful days：some days the sun shone,and some days it didn’t.

In my twenties,I had a good job. I was strong and happy. Then I married and had a child. In those days, I didn’t have much time to think. Every day I was busy and worked very hard. And so,I started to get some white hairs.The summer of my life passed quickly.

Then the days got shorter. Leaves fell from the trees. My child was a university student, and then an engineer. My home was much quieter. I started walking more slowly. One day I stopped working. I had more time. I understood this was my autumn, a beautiful time when the trees change color and give us delicious fruits.

But the days kept getting shorter and colder. Winter has come. I am older and weaker. I know I do not have many days left,but I will enjoy them to the end.

My legs don’t do much because I have a serious disease. They just sit there and look pretty. When people look at me, they only see the chair – my wheelchair. I’ve been in it since I was 3 years old. And it does not matter if I graduate(毕业) at the top of my class and go to law school. To some, I will always be the girl in the chair.

But I don not think of myself as the kid who can not walk. Most of my friends do not even notice the wheelchair anymore. I am just the girl they have been friends with. My friends are good at lifting me in and out of my wheelchair when we go to the movies. We even took the wheelchair to a dance pretty. One of the boys helped me out of the wheelchair and all the girls helped me to fix my dress. Even in the crowded school elevator（电梯）, there is always someone around to carry me.

 There are a lot of things I can not do for myself, such as dressing myself and feeding myself. Even so, I do very well at school and I always tell myself that I am just like any other kid in my school.

The truth is that my parents raised me to be proud of my disability. There are lots of things I wish I could do differently. I wanted to be a doctor, but there is not going to work out. So I will be a lawyer(律师) instead. I also wanted to dance and play soccer. My parents always teach me to keep this in mind: the illness only affects(侵袭) my body, not my brain. My friend Erica once said to me,” Kennedy, you are not disable. You just can not walk.”

When I was younger I felt itˈs a shame to admit I came from a little village, yet I lacked the courage to say I was from a city, so I usually said simply that I came from a town. Now I must tell the truth that I was born in an isolated village.

Let me start from the banks of a little river where my life began, which is the true source of my writing. My fellow villagers live and pass their time in a terrible environment completely cut off from the outside world. I know their lives only too well. If I had not had a distant dream from a very young age I would have shared their lives.

In the northeastern part of Hunan Province there is an area called Yiyang, and a river passes a place that is not found on maps and is only known to the people who live there. This river passes through the ancient town of Lanxi, so the river is called the Lanxi River.

All my memories of a happy childhood and the pains of growing up are connected with the river. She keeps all of my secrets. To this day I have never seen such a beautiful river as the Lanxi River, with so sweet water.

I cannot agree with people who praise the poetic beauty of the countryside. I cannot agree with them because I know, in fact .life in the countryside is poor and hungry.

Of course, I was lucky to be born in that faraway village, and to spend my childhood by the so clear river. Looking back at my path from the village gives rise to a complicated happiness. The river gave me an ordinary yet unique life experience---as if it was preparing me for my literary journey. Whatever life has given me, for me, they are treasures. I will be forever grateful for, and feel content with these treasures.

Years ago, I lived in a building in a large city. There was another building not far from mine. A woman lived there. I had never met her, but I could see her sit by the window each aftemoon,sewing(缝纫) or reading.

After sevral months, I began to notice that her window was dirty. Everything was unclear through the dirty window. I would say to myself, "What a lazy woman! I wonder why she doesnˈt wash her window. It really looks terrible."

   One bright morning, I was free, so I decided to clean my windows. I worked the whole morning. When I finally finished the cleaning, I sat down by the window with a cup of coffee for a rest. What a surprise! Everything in the womanˈs flat could be seen clearly. In fact, her window was clean!

   I began to understand. I watched the womanˈs window from my own dirty window. Thatˈs the problem.

   From then on, whenever（无论何时）I want tojudge(评判) someone, I ask myself at first, “Am I looking at him through my dirty window?” Then I try to clean the window of my own world so that I may see others’ world clearly.