Tim and Jim lived in the same village. They were both hard-working and had a happy life with other villagers.

But that year, there was a serious drought(旱灾) happening in their village. Their fields were all dry and their crops were dying. They couldn’t get enough water for their crops until a visitor from a village next to theirs came. The visitor told them that there was a spring on the mountain near their village and it had a large amount of water to water their fields. So Tim went to find it with two big buckets(桶) at once and later he began to carry water for his field every morning. He earned water from morning to night, but that wasn’t enough for his field. Jim also went to find the spring with Tim, but he didn’t carry water the next day. He also left the village in the early morning and then came back at night. Three days had passed, many villagers didn’t see Jim in the daytime. They began to ask him where he went. Jim smiled and just told them to wait for his good news. Then the next day, at noon, Jim and a line of pieces of bamboo appeared in front of his field. When he joined the last piece of bamboo from the mountain with another one’s end, water ran along them into his field. With Jim’s help, all the other villagers’ fields got water by joining pieces of bamboo with his and were saved. And Tim needn’t carry water with two heavy buckets, either.

There’s no doubt that being hard-working is a good quality. But hard work with good ideas is much better.

Once I was giving my two sisters a ride from our university(大学) to another in my car. We got lost and I was still driving in the hope of reaching our destination(目的地).

“Why don’t you ask someone on the street who knows the way?” one of my sisters asked.

I looked at her quickly, took a deep breath and did my own thing. Finally, we reached the destination because of my smartphone’s GPS. Before we got off the car, my sister looked at me and said, “Why don’t you listen to us? We wasted 20 minutes.” Then she gave me that “men-are-losers”look and said nothing.

From then on, I always wanted to know why men couldn’t ask for directions(方向) even though we were lost. Later, I found answers to her question. Here, Jermey Clarkson once said, “Being a man, I don’t want to ask for directions, because it seems that they are cleverer than me. They’re actually not, because I’m really warm in a car while they’re walking around.”

So my sister, next time you tell this to any man who’s giving you a ride, remember that this is what is going on in his mind. You either keep quiet and thank him for the ride or drive yourself.

Penguins(企鹅)are kind of lovely animal. Many people like the black and white bird very much. But perhaps no one's love for it is stronger than an old man's. Years ago, an old man called Joao Pereira de Souza saved a penguin and let it go back to the sea at last. Then the penguin swims over 8,000 kilometres every year to come back to meet its human friend.

Joao lives on an island off the coast of Rio De Janeiro in Brazil. One day, he found a dying penguin covered in oil on the beach. He took it home, named it Dindim and fed it fish every day. When Dindim was healthy enough to return to the wild, the old man took it to the sea. To his surprise, Dindim returned to the island just a few months later. For the past eight years, it has been coming back to visit Joao.

Now Dindim spends eight months of a year living with Joao. "It usually arrives in June and leaves in February. ” Joao said happily. "I love the penguin like it's my own child and I believe the penguin loves me. ” Dindim doesn't let other people touch it except Joao. When it sees Joao, it wags its tail like dog.