当今社会是一个经济全球化化的时代。所以要想得到发展就必须和国外的经济大国有经济来往。所以必须有语言上的交流。只会说家乡话,无法走出家门,只会说中国话,无法走出世界。英语是当今世界上最通用的语言之一,那么英语作为最广泛的语言就有其不可忽视的重要性。以下是语文迷网小编整理的数学手抄报资料,希望喜欢^^
Gloves
Seventy-three-year-old George McNeilon selected his food in Value Mart more carefully than NASA chose its candidates for the space shuttle. Skim milk was $2.99, on sale from $3.49; white bread, 89 cents with a 10-cent discount; table salt, 99 cents, 20 cents off the regular price. Leaving the cashier, he estimated that he had saved 80 cents today. He was pleased that he had got good value for his money again.
At the exit, the chilly wind reminded him of his gloves. "Now where are they?" Not in the coat pockets. Not in the pants pockets. Not in the grocery bag either. He was sure he was wearing them when he entered the store. He clearly remembered thrusting them into the pocket of his coat. The worried man made a second thorough search of all his pockets, again including the grocery bag. Now he was sure they must have been dropped somewhere inside the store.
Old George had bought the black gloves at a 25% discount, for just $35.00, ten years ago. They were genuine lamb skin, soft and warm and very durable. Until then, he had worn cheaper man-made material that never lasted longer than three years. His impulsive decision to buy the expensive gloves turned out to be a good one, which even promoted his social status on the bus, as poorer passengers stared at him enviously for six months out of the year. He had taken care not to let a drop of water or rain touch his expensive gloves, so they looked like new. Losing this favourite possession was almost like losing a child to him.
Bad luck, he thought, to lose his expensive gloves on New Year's Eve.
George, calm on the outside but frantic on the inside, re-entered the store with long steps. He followed the same route he had walked before, starting at the bread counter, to the dairy section, the aisle where salt and sugar were placed, then the rest of the store. They were all open aisles and it did not take long to be convinced that the gloves were not in sight. After checking the forty-foot-long bread section, he quickened his pace through the two-hundred-foot aisle leading to the dairy products. There he even turned over egg boxes to see if the gloves had fallen in between. Several minutes of anxious searching turned out to be in vain. His heart grew heavier and he started to sweat as he entered aisle six. The salt and sugar were packed in white bags, and anything black could be spotted easily. No. His black gloves were gone. His sharp eyes could not have missed them.
He ran through all the other aisles, then all the way to the cashier, but there was nothing.
"Society has changed, people have changed", he murmured to himself. "Years ago, if somebody picked up something lost, they would give it back. Not any more!"
Yet he did not give up. He started from the bread section again. This time he focused on the baskets and gloves in other shoppers' hands. He would stare at anybody wearing black gloves to see if they looked like his. The first two ladies he met were gloveless. The third person he saw was a man who did wear gloves, but they were working gloves covered with paint stains. On his way to the dairy section, there was a glimmer of hope: he noticed a lady fifteen feet away wearing a pair of gloves as dark and expensive as his. He sped up and in three seconds was in front of her. He even said "Hi!". But when the surprised lady returned his greetings, his eyes dropped to the floor again, for the fingers of her gloves were just far too small for him.
Steps further on, he encountered a man who looked like a lawyer or a doctor, who was definitely wearing a pair of black leather gloves, but wouldn't it be embarrassing to ask, "Are you wearing my gloves?" On second thought, George decided that anybody who wanted to keep his gloves wouldn't be so foolish as to wear them right inside the store. So he started to look at people's bulging pockets instead, but before long, he found bulging pockets were too hard to detect. Most of them were stuffed with scarves, books, hats and caps , not necessarily gloves. "I am no detective," he admitted to himself, and headed dejectedly towards the exit.
On his way out, he went over to the cashier to ask if she had received any lost gloves, but she said no. Then he went to the manager's office to make the same inquiry. She asked him what colour they were, and when he said "black", there came another disappointing answer. Such a pair of expensive gloves, who would give them up? He took his time now, finally waddling out of the store.
It was freezing cold, perhaps zero degrees Fahrenheit. Without his warm gloves, he had to shrink his hands into his sleeves. It was only a seven-minute walk home, and when he was one house before his own door, he shivered so badly that a bus driver passing by made a special stop and offered to let him get on. Old George was too cold to say anything, and could only raise his trembling hand to make a gesture of thanks and refusal.
Back home, George was at a loss. In deep winter, he could not do without a pair of gloves. If he bought cheap ones again, he would have to replace them very soon. If he bought a new leather pair, they would cost fifty dollars now. He was very upset that people no longer returned things they found on the road.
After the holiday, poor George decided to buy another leather pair. Before boarding the subway, he stepped into Value Mart again to see if by any chance his gloves had been returned to the lost and found office. "What colour are they?" the woman in the office asked again. "Black," he gave the same answer. She looked into her drawer and drew out a pair of men's leather gloves. "Are they??"
"Yes! Those are mine!" George exclaimed, his eyes glowing with joy.
最伟大的是真爱
My day began on a decidedly sour(发酵的,刺耳的) note when I saw my six-year-old wrestling with a limb of my azalea(杜鹃花) bush. By the time I got outside, he'd broken it. "Can I take this to school today?" he asked. With a wave of my hand, I sent him off. I turned my back so he wouldn't see the tears gathering in my eyes. I loved that azalea bush. I touched the broken limb as if to say silently, "I'm sorry."
I wished I could have said that to my husband earlier, but I'd been angry. The washing machine had leaked on my brand-new linoleum. If he'd just taken the time to fix it the night before when I asked him instead of playing checkers with Jonathan. What are his priorities anyway? I wondered. I was still mopping up the mess when Jonathan walked into the kitchen. "What's for breakfast, Mom?" I opened the empty refrigerator. "Not cereal," I said, watching the sides of his mouth drop. "How about toast and jelly?" I smeared the toast with jelly and set it in front of him. Why was I so angry? I tossed my husband's dishes into the sudsy(起泡沫的) water.
It was days like this that made me want to quit. I just wanted to drive up to the mountains, hide in a cave, and never come out.
Somehow I managed to lug the wet clothes to the laundromat. I spent most of the day washing and drying clothes and thinking how love had disappeared from my life. Staring at the graffiti(涂鸦) on the walls, I felt as wrung-out as the clothes left in the washers.
As I finished hanging up the last of my husband's shirts, I looked at the clock. 2:30. I was late. Jonathan's class let out at 2:15. I dumped the clothes in the back seat and hurriedly drove to the school.
I was out of breath by the time I knocked on the teacher's door and peered through the glass. With one finger, she motioned for me to wait. She said something to Jonathan and handed him and two other children crayons and a sheet of paper.
What now? I thought, as she rustled through the door and took me aside. "I want to talk to you about Jonathan," she said.
I prepared myself for the worst. Nothing would have surprised me. "Did you know Jonathan brought flowers to school today?" she asked. I nodded, thinking about my favorite bush and trying to hide the hurt in my eyes. I glanced at my son busily coloring a picture. His wavy hair was too long and flopped just beneath his brow. He brushed it away with the back of his hand. His eyes burst with blue as he admired his handiwork(手工制品). "Let me tell you about yesterday," the teacher insisted. "See that little girl?" I watched the bright-eyed child laugh and point to a colorful picture taped to the wall. I nodded.
"Well, yesterday she was almost hysterical. Her mother and father are going through a nasty divorce. She told me she didn't want to live, she wished she could die. I watched that little girl bury her face in her hands and say loud enough for the class to hear, 'Nobody loves me.' I did all I could to console her, but it only seemed to make matters worse." "I thought you wanted to talk to me about Jonathan," I said.
"I do," she said, touching the sleeve of my blouse. "Today your son walked straight over to that child. I watched him hand her some pretty pink flowers and whisper, 'I love you.'"
I felt my heart swell with pride for what my son had done. I smiled at the teacher. "Thank you," I said, reaching for Jonathan's hand, "you've made my day."
Later that evening, I began pulling weeds from around my lopsided azalea bush. As my mind wandered back to the love Jonathan showed the little girl, a biblical verse came to me: "...these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." While my son had put love into practice, I had only felt anger.
I heard the familiar squeak of my husband's brakes as he pulled into the drive. I snapped a small limb bristling with hot pink azaleas off the bush. I felt the seed of love that God planted in my family beginning to bloom once again in me. My husband's eyes widened in surprise as I handed him the flowers. "I love you," I said.