My different life
Life in the village | At the age of , I started school. There was only one teacher with about thirty children from six to eleven. We sat on wooden benches in the same room. In the evenings I used to and then sit with my mother and younger brother in front of the fire, listening to the radio. |
Life later on | When I was eleven, I started going to a secondary school in . Later I went to university, where I studied . There was no doubt that I went back to the village after that. |
—Thanks. You it. I could manage it myself.
One year after Tom was born, his parents had a car accident. They never 1. Tom's 85-year-old grandmother was too 2 to take care of him. As a result, he was put up for adoption (领养). He was adopted by a middle-aged couple who had no 3 of their own. They were not rich and received little education, but they were kind-hearted people.
As Tom was growing up, he 4 a lot of problems at school. He didn't learn 5 and had trouble in reading. His 6 sometimes laughed at him. What they said made Tom 7.
As he couldn't 8the other students at school, he dropped out of school and came back home. But he didn't stop learning. He had big dreams. Though he didn't learn fast, he kept teaching himself at home.
After many years of learning at home, he 9 overcame his difficulties. Today he is a very 10 speaker and author. While he was growing up, his self-esteem (自尊) and 11 were low because of others' making fun of him. It took him many years to realize his dreams.
When listening to his videos and tapes, he shows confidence. He tells about his 12 and how he overcame the challenges in his life. He has a very 13 sentence: “You cannot expect to achieve new goals or move beyond your present situations 14 you change.”
For those who have low self-confidence, I suggest you start reading about Tom's world. Many people have so much potential (潜能) to be discovered. If you have a dream, then start today to move yourself towards it. If someone like Tom who has 15 in learning can make such achievements, why can't you succeed?
Many teenagers feel that the most important people in their lives are their friends. They believe that their family members don't know them as well as their friends do. In large families, it is quite often for brothers and sisters to fight with each other and then they can only go to their friends for some ideas.
It is very important for teenagers to have one good friend or a group of friends. Even when they are not with their friends, they usually spend a lot of time talking among themselves on the phone. This communication is very important in children's growing up, because friends can discuss something. These things are difficult to tell their family members.
However, parents often try to choose their children's friends for them. Some parents may even stop their children from meeting their good friends. Have you ever thought of the following questions?
Who chooses your friends?
Do you choose your friends or your friends choose you?
Have you got a good friend your parents don't like?
Your answers are welcome.
Elizabeth Blackwell was born in England in 1821, and moved to New York City when she was ten years old. One day she decided that she wanted to become a doctor. Thai was nearly impossible for n woman in the middle of the nineteenth century. After writing many tellers asking for admission (录取) to medical schools, she was finally accepted by a doctor in Philadelphia. She was so determined that she taught school and gave music lessons to get money for the cost of schooling.
In 1849, after graduation from medical school. She decided to further her education in Paris. She wanted to be a surgeon (外科医生), but a serious eye problem forced her to give up the idea.
Upon returning to the United States, she found it difficult to start her own practice because she was a woman. By 1857 Elizabeth and her sister, also n doctor, along with another woman doctor, managed to open a new hospital, the first for women and children. Besides being the first woman physician and founding her own hospital, she also set up the first medical school for women.
America is a mobile society. Friendships between Americans can be close and real, yet disappear soon if situations change. Neither side feels hurt by this. Both may exchange Christmas greetings for a year or two, perhaps a few letters for a while - then no more. If the same two people meet again by chance, even years later, they pick up the friendship. This can be quite difficult for us Chinese to understand, because friendships between us flower more slowly but then may become lifelong feelings, extending (延伸) sometimes deeply into both families.
Americans are ready to receive us foreigners at their homes, share their holidays, and their home life. They will enjoy welcoming us and be pleased if we accept their hospitality (好客) easily.
Another difficult point for us Chinese to understand Americans is that although they include us warmly in their personal everyday lives, they don't show their politeness to us if it requires a great deal of time. This is usually the opposite of the practice in our country where we may be generous with our time. Sometimes, we, as hosts, will appear at airports even in the middle of the night to meet n friend. We may take days off to net as guides to our foreign friends. The Americans, however, express their welcome usually at homos, but truly can not manage the lime to do n great deal with a visitor outside their daily routine. They will probably expect us to get ourselves from the airport to our own hotel by bus. And they expect that we will phone them from there. Once we arrive at their homes, the welcome will be full, worm and real. We will find ourselves treated hospitably.
For the Americans, it is often considered more friendly lo invite a friend to their homes than to go to restaurants, except for purely business matters. So accept their hospitality at home!
