When I was a kid in Minnesota, watermelon was expensive. One of my father's friends, Bernie, was a rich businessman, who owned a large store in St. Paul.

    Every summer, when the first watermelon arrived, Bernie would call. Dad and I would go to Bernie's place. We'd sit on the edge of the dock (码头), feet dangling (摇晃), and got ready for a big meal.

    Bernie would take his knife, cut our first watermelon, hand us both a big piece and sit down next to us. Then we'd bury our faces in watermelon, eating only the heart—the reddest, juiciest, firmest, sweetest, most seed-free part—and throw away the rest.

    Bernie was my father's ideal of a rich man. I always thought it was because he was such a successful businessman. Years later, I realized that it was not Bernie's wealth itself but his way of dealing with it that my father liked. Bernie knew how to stop working, get together with friends and eatonly the heart of the watermelon.

    What I learned from Bernie is that being rich is a state of mind. Some of us, no matter how much money we have, will never be free enough to eat only the heart of the watermelon. If you don't take the time to dangle(悬荡) your feet over the dock and enjoy life's small pleasure, your work is probably hurting your life.

    For many years, I forgot that lesson I'd learned as a kid on the loading dock. I was too busy making all the money I could.

    Well, I've relearned it. I hope I have time left to enjoy the success of others and to take pleasure in the day. That's the heart of the watermelon. I have learned again to throw the rest away.

New York is 3 hours ahead of California, but it does not make California slow, or that New York is fast. Both are working based on their own “ Time Zone”（时区）.

Someone graduated at the age of 22, yet waited 5 years before finding a good job! And there is another who graduated at 27 and got hired immediately!

Someone became a CEO at 25, and died at 50.While another became a CEO at 50, and lived to 90 years.

Someone is still single, while someone else got married and waited 10 years having a child. There is another who had a baby within a year of marriage.

Obama retires(退休) at 55, but Trump starts at 70.

Absolutely everyone in this world works based on their Time Zone. People can have things worked out only according to their pace. (步调)

People around you might seem to go ahead of you; some might seem to be behind you. But everyone is running their own race, in their own time.

Don’t envy them or laugh at them. They are in their TIME ZONE, and you are in yours!

Life is about waiting for the right moment to act. Hold on, be strong, and stay true to yourself .Fight in your time zone.

So, RELAX. You’re not LATE. You’re not EARLY. You are very much ON TIME , and in your time zone destiny set up for you.

  I used to have this serious problem. I would remember something selfish (自私的) or stupid I did   (1)   I was younger and the memory would hurt. In fact, I don’t know if it was pain in my     (2)   or just physical pain, but it would hurt.

         I would be eating dinner or taking a shower and I would feel the memory pouring out suddenly. There was no way I could   (3)   it. All I could do was wait until the memory went away. It took me a long time to recognize I was   (4)   a type of grief (悲伤) and that the way I was dealing with it wasn’t   (5)  . I’d stop and clench (攥紧) my fists until the   (6)  of the memory passed: half fighting it, half letting it overcome me. It was truly like a person who   (7)   

roller coasters (云霄飞车) riding a roller coaster: I would hold it firmly while on the ride, scream (尖叫), let it move quickly, and then just wish it would be over.

         Then, one day I realized there had to be   (8)  better than letting the past disaster of my life hurt me whenever it wanted to. I finally decided to deal with the problem   (9)   next time. That next time turned out to be a cold winter morning as I walked across the parking lot from the subway station. I could feel   (10)   and shame start to hit me. But this time, I didn’t react in an unhealthy way.   (11)   , I stopped walking, closed my eyes, and opened my   (12)   as if I was about to give someone a hug.

         I   (13)   the memory of a time when I acted stupidly and selfishly and hurt other people. I remembered all the details and then I   (14)  what I had done. Though all the things showed the fact that I was not   (15)  , I learned to forgive (原谅) myself. As a result, I stopped letting the memory control me.

Should Shanghai bid for (申办) the Summer Olympics in 2028? Here are some peopleˈs opinions.

     Some  people  said,  " The  games  will improve Shanghaiˈs global influence and the city is powerful and must try to become a platform (平台) for major international dialogues. Shanghai has succeeded in holding the World Expo in 2010 and the city can also hold the successful Summer Olympics. "

    Others, however, are not sure that itˈs a good idea They think the Olympics would be too expensive and the money could be better spent on other things.

     The 2008 Beijing Olympics brought much prestige (声望) to the city and to China, but its cost, over $ 40 million, was high and the Olympic site(场地) in the center of the city is now largely unused,  Could Shanghai learn from Beijingˈs experience and do it better?

      My answer is yes. As one American said, "A great city has to do great things. " Shanghai is a great city and is not afraid of facing challenges. Holding the 2028 Summer Olympics would prove that.

We all love our parents and turn to them for help when we’re in need, but would you like to add (添加) your parents to be your friends in social networks(社交网络),   (1)  QQ and We-chat? Would you like to let them   (2)   your online activities?

    Parents   (3)   little about social networks. But now, more and more parents are beginning to find how important social networks are in their lives. A lot of parents are learning how to use social networks from their children. And some parents are teaching   (4)   about it.

But are we going to add our parents to be our friends? It’s   (5)   to decide. On one hand, we don’t say no to our parents because it may hurt their feelings or make them feel we have    (6)   to hide (隐藏). On the other hand, if we let them be our friends, we will feel that we are not free to talk on social networks.  

Some people think that parents don’t need to be   (7)   if their children don’t want to add them into their friends list. “When your children say no to you, it doesn’t mean that they are hiding something, but it means that they want to be independent (独立的)   (8)   they can do something on their own.”

 Perhaps we should spend more time   (9)   with our parents face to face if we want a friends list   (10)   our parents in.

 Some people love eating food right after it is cooked. I prefer food just taken out from the freezer (冰箱). Fruit, candies, nuts, chocolate, cake with buttercream frosting (糖果), even peas, all of them taste delicious when frozen. In fact, I often eat them that way.

    I was a kid when I picked up the habit. In my family, lots of things were thrown into the freezer--finally, two freezers--to prevent them from going bad. Among them were some of the candies my sisters and I had collected on Halloween.

    If we eat when they are still warm, we'll find ourselves taking the cookies more than we should. It's better if we can put them into the freezer and wait. That way we'll eat less and enjoy them more because they are hard and chewing (咀嚼) becomes a slower, more patient effort. That's the point about frozen buttercream frosting. Pm it in your mouth at room temperature, and it's gone very quickly. But when it's frozen, you can enjoy the taste much longer as it melts (融化) in your mouth.

    The freezer treats a lot of fruit kindly. Take frozen grapes for example, I keep a bowl of grapes in my freezer. They become a little icy, and somehow their sweetness is improved. They are perfect and healthy dessert (点心). This is the same with oranges, apples, bananas...You might think bananas would get super-hard when frozen. Wrong! They become cool, creamy and sweet. If you have wisely covered some or all of the bananas with melted chocolate before putting them into the freezer, they will have a double taste.

    As long as you aren't eating anything that truly has to be hot, go ahead and experiment.

       Readers (《朗读者》) is a popular TV show in China. It invites (邀请) people to read aloud (大声地) on the stage (舞台). The show also tells moving (感人的) stories behind those people. They can read everything, like poems (诗), books, and letters.

       Many people are fans of the show. They begin (开始) to enjoy reading aloud at home.

       Now, the show gives people a place to read. It is a reading pavilion (朗读亭). It showed up in cities like Shanghai, Hangzhou and Xi’an. Let’s have a look!

       The pavilion is not very big. Only one person can come into it each (每一) time. There is a microphone (麦克风) in it and it records (记录) people’s voices.

       Everyone can read for three minutes in it. You can read anything you like. The show will pick (挑选) some of the readers and invite them to read on TV.

    Lots of people come to the pavilion to read. Yu Duohan is an 11-year-old girl from Shanghai. “I love reading aloud,” she said. “It makes the story become more beautiful.”

    The pavilion will also come to other cities across the country (国家). You can read your favorite stories in the pavilion soon.

Some ten years ago, I was in a public school in Boston. One day, Mrs. Smith gave a physics  ____  (1)  ____ to our class. When the papers were marked, she discovered that twelve boys had made exactly the ____  (2)  ____ mistakes through the test. There was nothing really new about cheating in exams. Perhaps that was why Mrs. Smith didn't even say a word about it. She only asked the twelve boys to remain after class. I was one of the twelve. Mrs. Smith asked ____  (3)  ____ questions, and she didn't scold(责备) us, either. ____  (4)  ____, she wrote on the blackboard the word “Honesty”. She then told us to ____  (5)  ____ the word into our exercise-books one hundred times. I don't know about the other eleven boys. In my opinion, I can say it was the most important single ____  (6)  ____ of my life. Today ____  (7)  ____ of us are asked to make great decisions about nations going to war or armies going to battle (战场). But all of us are called upon daily to make a great many personal decisions. Should the wallet found in the street be put into a pocket ____  (8)  ____ handed in to the policeman? Should the extra change received at the store be forgotten or ____  (9)  ____? Nobody will know ____  (10)  ____ you. But you have to live with yourself, and it is always better to live with someone you respect(尊敬).

Have you ever complained why life is so tiring? Does the sky sometimes seem to be dark to   (1)  ? Is your study sometimes not successful? Well, dear friends,   (2)   and smile all the time. If you look at the world with your warm heart, you’ll find that the whole world   (3)   at you.

While in school, sometimes you are   (4)   of your lessons, but have you ever noticed the happy smile on your teacher’s face   (5)   you did a good job?

Imagine one day it is fine. Just before you want to go out, it   (6)   starts to rain. Maybe you would feel very sad and start complaining about the   (7)  . But dear friends, why don’t you sit down and listen to the free concert that the nature   (8)   you ? And with the timely rain, crops in the fields will grow better and better, and farmers will have a good   (9)  . Although everyone wants to succeed in what he or she tries to do, sometimes failure can’t be   (10)  . I think failure is not   (11)  . The terrible thing is that we are being afraid of it and   (12)   up hope.

When we face failure, we must have confidence   (13)   ourselves, learn a useful lesson from it and try our best to finish what we have decided to do. As a famous   (14)   goes, “Failure is the mother of success.”

Attitude decides everything. With an optimistic attitude, life will be easy and   (15)  . Let’s smile at whatever we meet and the whole world will smile back at us.

Nowadays, more and more people in society have known the importance of quality education. However, students in middle schools and high schools are still saying that they have too much  (1)   to do.

    In many teachers’   (2)  , homework offers a good way to strengthen the   (3)   the students have learnt in class. It is   (4)   for students to learn only by hearing. Yet they ignore the disadvantages that homework brings. For one thing, too much homework will   (5)  up all the spare time of students. They are   (6)   to enjoy their lives. Some students can do   (7)   but to take exams when they leave high school. For   (8)  , too much homework will do great   (9)   to students’ health both physically and mentally. They spend too much time having classes and doing homework. Little time is left for them to do   (10)   exercise. More and more students are   (11)  . At the same time, they feel quite   (12)   mentally. Their daily life seems to be filled with homework. They feel that they can  (13)  finish it, because every day they have new homework.

    Schools should try to take   (14)   measures to improve the all-round development of students. Schools should think more about the   (15)  of homework. How much time should students spend on homework? It is a question whose answer will have important effects on students.