【推荐1】There’s a small brick house I visit from time to time. It’s not the house that is special, but rather the person who lives inside.

I met Jenny about 45 years ago when she was my sister’s kindergarten teacher. I remember looking into her classroom wishing I was her student. Jenny created a safe place where we could be whatever we wanted to be in that moment. My parents told me I could start school when I was 4. Though, when I turned 4 in the spring, I couldn’t understand why I had to wait until September.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be a teacher. When I graduated, I couldn’t wait to invite Jenny to my classroom. She arrived one day, and I saw joy on my students’ faces singing the same songs I sang with her as a child. As a new teacher, I marveled at how she connected with children. For years, Jenny volunteered in my classroom.

Over the years we have shared in each other’s ups and downs. She asks me for updates about my family and friends, and she tells me about hers.

I am here for her now as the time to sell her house is near. I bring up boxes from her basement. We go through every painting a student has given her, every thank-you note a parent has written and her teaching aids.

I find papers featuring the letters of the alphabet. I find my own name printed in green marker. Suddenly, my mind goes back to Room 3.

More than 40 years ago, Jenny sat on the carpet at her feet. We learned about the letters and their sounds. Now, Jenny sits on her rocking chair, and I find myself sitting at her feet. Over tea, we talk for hours. I listen intently because I know I still have more to learn from her.

Our friendship is one that neither one of us expected. Educators know teaching is a profession devoted to the development of young individuals. The lucky ones get to see what their students have done with their lives. The exceptional ones never leave their students’ hearts.

【推荐2】It was more than three decades ago, but chemist Geraldine Richmond still remembers it clearly: the first time she felt like her research had really failed. As a young researcher fresh out of graduate school, Richmond was setting up her own laser (激光) lab. She had spent days on end using a brand-new laser to collect data on a molecule (分子) that a biochemist collaborator had given her to study. It felt like things were finally falling into place. Then, she found out the sample he'd given her had gotten polluted.

“I realized that these weeks of running experiments around the clock, and literally sleeping in the lab, were basically all just studying this false one,” says Richmond. “That was the one day in my career that I didn't want to get out of bed.”

But Richmond did. She dragged herself out of bed went on a long run to clear her head, and marched into the lab. She decided she wanted to change the direction of her research to one where she could control her own samples. She started using lasers to study the chemical processes that occur on the surface of water, work that has since earned her worldwide fame, including a 2013 National Medal of Science.

“I started this whole new set of much riskier experiments, and I've continued in that area of research until today,”   says Richmond. “Looking back, I'm so glad those first experiments did fail.” Richmond says she feels successful if just 10 percent of her ideas work. For scientists, taking risks in their research — trying to break into a new field, develop a new method for doing something or address a question that no one has tried to answer before — makes them more prone (易于) to failure, but also more prone to big breakthroughs.

“Failure in science is only a failure if you stay in bed,”   says Richmond. “If you don't get up and learn something from it.”

【推荐1】Originally from Binghamton, Senior Jonathan Shapiro, the Business major decided to pursue his degree to further his music career. “The reason I came here was because in my senior year, I had a manager who was the owner of 105.5 The Beat, a radio station here in Rochester, and he invited me to come to this Kevin Gates concert,” Shapiro said. “I worked with him for months, and I never ended up signing … but this school was close to him.”

The majority of fellow rappers that Shapiro has encountered in Rochester live different lives than he does—they don’t go to college, and they’re born-and-bred inner-city Rochester residents. They have, according to Shapiro, “a lot of real-life experiences” that come through in their work, which he admires. “I’ve met kids as young as 15 and people as old as 30 in the studios.”

Shapiro himself has been shifting into, in his own words, “a more hyperpop sound” in comparison to his earlier work. He started making his own music in seventh grade after breaking his back, which shattered his dream of becoming a professional soccer player, and never stopped.

In the future, Shapiro is planning a joint concert with some other Rochester musicians and rappers in the spring at Water Street Music Hall, as well as releasing further music across the course of the year. “It would be a mix of local artists and some UR artists, like a festival,” Shapiro said. “I want it to be a showcase of multiple artists if I can make that happen.”

When asked about advice that he would give to ambitious musicians and rappers here in Rochester, Shapiro had this to say: “Don’t get discouraged by results and don’t be results-oriented (导向). If you want to get out there, do it because you love it and because you want to make good art, and that will always have an impact.”