Driving on the mountain roads where I live can be both a great pleasure and an adventure at times. Yet, you should always look out for holes, deer, skunks and squirrels crossing the road, as well as fallen trees and broken rocks that have rolled down the side of the hill.

I came upon one of those rocks just the other day. I saw a car turn around it and the truck just ahead of me run over it. I turned too and then quickly pulled over to a wide place. I knew a rock that size would break parts of a low riding car like mine if the driver didn’t see it in time to move.I walked over and picked up the huge stone. It must have weighed 50 pounds but I tried my best,and finally I got it into the ditch(沟)and walked smiling back to my car.

The happening reminded me of an old story I had read once. In a faraway land a king had placed a huge rock on the road leading to his palace. Many nobles walked by and around it complaining(抱怨)that the king didn’t keep the road up better.Finally,a poor farmer arrived pulling a cart of vegetables. He stopped and rolled the rock off the road with all his strength. Then he saw under it was a bag of gold coins that the king had left for the one who cleared the path for those who came after.

Now while there wasn’t any bag of treasure under the rock I moved, my heart did feel a little more golden as I walked back to my car. Maybe the real reward(奖励)is the love we feel,the good we do and the kindness we share. Then an idea came to my mind: why not make the road safer to drive on?

I told my friends what I thought.

Now we are trying our best to help drivers and keep the road safe.

Learning to write effectively

I’ve been writing for most of my life. The book Writing Without Teachers introduced me to one distinction and one practice that has helped my writing processes tremendously. The distinction is between the creative mind and the critical mind. While you need to employ both to get to a finished result, they cannot work in parallel no matter how much we might like to think so.

Trying to criticize writing on the fly is possibly the single greatest barrier to writing that most of us encounter. If you are listening to that 5^th grade English teacher correct your grammar while you are trying to capture a fleeting(lasting only a short time)thought , the thought will die. If you capture the fleeting thought and simply share it with the world in raw form, no one is likely to understand.

The practice that can help you past your learned bad habits of trying to edit as you write is what Elbow calls “free writing.” In free writing, the objective is to get words down on paper non-stop, usually for 15-20 minutes. No stopping, no going back, no criticizing. The goal is to get the words flowing. As the words begin to flow, the ideas will come from the shadows and let themselves be captured on your notepad or your screen.

Now you have raw materials that you can begin to work with using the critical mind that you’ve persuaded to sit on the side and watch quietly. Most likely, you will believe that this will take more time than you actually have and you will end up staring blankly at the pages as the deadline draws near.

Instead of staring at a blank, start filling it with words no matter how bad. Halfway through your available time, stop and rework your raw writing into something closer to finished product. Move back and forth until you run out of time and the final result will most likely be far better than your current practices.

How I Got Through My Hard Time

Yours truly,

Li Hua

An Insignificant Task

The day when the jobs were handed out was one of the most exciting for all the children in the class. It took place during the first week of the term. On that day, every boy and girl was given a job for which they would be responsible for the rest of that school year.

As with everything, some jobs were more interesting than others, and the children were eager to be given one of the best ones. When giving them out, the teacher took into account which pupils had been most responsible during the previous year, and those children were the ones who most looked forward to this day. Among them, Rita stood out. She was a kind and quiet girl. During the previous year she had carried out the teacher’s instructions perfectly. All the children knew Rita was the favourite to be given the best job of all: to look after the class dog.

But this year there was a big surprise. Each child received one of the normal jobs, like preparing the books for the lessons, telling the time, cleaning the blackboard, or looking after one of the pets. However, Rita’s job was very different. She was given a little box containing some sand and one ant. Even though the teacher insisted that this ant was a very special ant, Rita could not help feeling disappointed. Most of her classmates felt sorry for her. They sympathised with her and remarked at how unfair it was that she had been given that job.

Yet, Rita, who liked her teacher very much, chose to prove her worth through excellence. “I will turn this little task into something great,” Rita said to herself. What she didn’t know was that the teacher had secretly entered her into a rainforest insect raising competition.

Rita started investigating all about her little ant.

On the last day of the school year, the teacher burst into the classroom with excitement.