I had pulled another all-nighter and then spent a full day at the office. I just came home and had only twenty minutes before my three girls came jumping through the door, full of stories, requests and homework demands that would keep me on my toes until their bedtime. And, in those twenty minutes, I had to tidy up our house, return several phone calls, and cook dinner. I felt a headache coming on.
Our company was small, which meant a lot of work on my shoulders. I felt like I was spending so much time and energy on my work that it was hard to cheer up the enthusiasm (热情) for my children.
“Mommy! Mommy! You’re never going to believe what happened in school today!” There they were. My twenty minutes were over, and I hadn’t started on dinner. I put on my best cheerful voice as I greeted them, hoping they wouldn’t notice the effort it took to put cheer into my greeting. And so the evening went on in a blur (模糊) of dinner and homework, quarrelling and bath time. I nodded off on the couch three times in the middle of homework, much to my oldest daughter’s anger. And I responded impatiently, “Yes, sure,” when my four-year-old asked me how many miles away we were from the sun. I think I did okay otherwise, although I don’t remember all the details on account of my extreme exhaustion. I tried to give my all to my children, but after the day that I had had at work, I’m afraid my all wasn’t all that much.
After finally guiding the last one successfully into bed, I was back at the computer to work for just a couple of hours before heading to bed myself. I opened my e-mails to find a message containing the quote (引文) for the following week’s issue. I read the quote, moving back as if I had been physically hit. The quote read: “Our children deserve (值得) the best of us, not the rest of us.”
注意：1. 续写词数应为150个左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
This quote resonated (共鸣) with me too well.
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The following day, I gathered my courage to talk with my boss.
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The average present merely satisfies a temporary desire; the great one becomes more precious with time going by.
When I was a boy of fourteen, I needed to have 80 hours of community service per year and I used to take care of Mrs. Long’s garden, which was near the Presbyterian Church. As a junior high school student, I devoted myself to it, sweeping the fallen leaves and mowing the lawn (修剪草坪). There I learnt how to cut away dry branches and even helped to plant a sapling (小树苗). Tired as I was every time I finished my work, I did enjoy the time there for learning something new. I clearly remembered that Mrs Long, a nice and caring elder, always treated me to delicious meals and drinks. She also loved taking photos, always with an old camera in hand. It was said that the camera was passed down from her father and she cherished it a lot.
Several days before Christmas, she whispered to me, “When Christmas comes, I shall have a present for you.” I spent much time wondering what it would be. The boys I played with had baseball gloves, ice skates and bicycles, and I was so eager to acquire any one of these that I convinced myself that she intended to choose from among them. But at the same time, I had some doubts whether she would buy me such things because she was not that well-off.
The day before Christmas, I went there as before. With the work done, I was going to leave when she pulled me aside. “Kid, wait for a minute,” she said, leading me into her living room. She seated me on a chair, went to another room, and in a moment stood before me holding a small package that under no circumstances could hold a bicycle or a pair of skates or even a baseball glove. It weighed almost nothing.
注意：
1. 续写词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Paragraph 1:
I took the package with disappointment. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Paragraph 2:
Opening the package, I was totally astonished. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
My mom was a kind woman. She had an unusual view on helping others that I didn’t really understand until one cold, winter day when we picked up my brothers at school.
“Who is that child?” Mom pointed at a skinny, angry-looking girl across the street. “She doesn’t even have a coat. It’s freezing!” “That’s Becky Ingler. She always looks mad like that,” I replied. Becky didn’t have a father, and everybody laughed at her. “I’ll visit her tomorrow,” Mom said.
The next day, we went to the Inglers’ house. A tired-looking woman appeared, and Mom smiled, “Hello, Mrs. Ingler. I’m just visiting some of our neighbors.” Once inside, I noticed there was a rusty coal stove and a big messy bed. Mom looked at each of the children carefully.
As we left, Mom told Mrs. Ingler she would visit them again soon.
Mom’s old sewing machine (缝纫机) worked for two days and nights to turn some shabby clothes into stylish winter coats. She said to me, “I need your help to send these coats to the Inglers this afternoon.”
“Wow!” I said. “They’re lucky to get these.”
“No,” said Mom as she faced me. “We’re the lucky ones to be able to help them. We must make sure these coats are given freely, without the Inglers paying a price for them.” I didn’t understand what Mom meant. Mom explained, “I don’t want these coats to cost them their pride or dignity (尊严). We can’t show we are somehow better than they are.”
I asked Mom what we should do if they refused the coats. Mom smiled and said, “I have a plan in mind.”
注意：
1. 续写词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Later that day, we went to the Inglers’ house again.
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As we left, I noticed Becky examining the coats happily.
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Have You Got Success Amnesia?
Have you heard yourself say “it was nothing really” when someone congratulates you on a job well done? Or have you drawn a blank when you are asked to make a list of what you have achieved? If so, you have suffered success amnesia. Failing to acknowledge your hard work is often a sign of success amnesia. It signals that there might be a gap between how others view your achievements and how you see them.
People who have success amnesia often have a strong track record at work or get it sorted for family members. They are people who others would describe as successful and yet they find it difficult to acknowledge and own their results. They don’t hold their achievements in their memory bank.
This particular type of memory loss robs them of the satisfaction and pleasure that can follow in achieving a goal. And, perhaps more importantly, it robs them of confidence. Confidence does not guarantee success, but it does increase the chance of success. Why not try some practical methods?
Ask for feedback about the impact you’ve had and then listen carefully. Watch out for anything that you begin to tell yourself “It wasn’t that big a deal.” Try to absorb what you hear. You can also look back over the past 6 or12 months, capture every success you can think of, whether large or small, and write them down clearly. Purposefully acknowledging and admitting your achievements can help to bring them into more realistic focus. Besides, be mindful that you have a tendency to forget or minimize your achievements. A sticky note on your laptop screen might help: my strengths and achievements are bigger than they appear to me.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________What my father wore embarrassed me! I wanted him to dress like a doctor or lawyer, but he always dressed like my father, getting up before dawn every day to make breakfast for my mother and me.
We lived in South Texas, where my father worked as a repairman. He often wore a pair of jeans and a shirt, keeping his pencils, glasses and wrenches (扳手) in his breast pocket. His boots were those with steel toes that made them difficult to pull off his feet, which I sometimes helped him with when he returned from repairing cars — his job that also shamed me.
I blamed the way he dressed. I felt that my classmates laughed at me because they’d seen him mowing lawns (修剪草坪) in cut-off jeans and black boots. My classmates’ families paid men to beautify their lawns, while their fathers travelled in the bay wearing lemon-yellow sweaters and expensive shoes.
He preferred clothes that allowed him the freedom to move under cars. So even when taking part in a school trip with me, he was dressed in his repairman’s suit. On the school bus to the campsite, all students on the bus happily chatted with their parents except me, who lowered the head, avoiding spotting my classmates’ mocking glance (讥笑的眼光) or hearing their jokes, which I thought was about nothing else but what my father wore.
I regretted telling my parents the school trip, and I was very angry why my mother had no spare time while my father happened to have a vacation. But my father failed to read my mind. He was very happy, whistling a tune along the way.
Though my father didn’t sense my bad mood, the school bus seemed as sad as I was. It drove more and more slowly and finally it stopped on the roadside. The driver got out to check the bus but found nothing wrong. Students and parents on the bus began to whisper about what was happening, worried that the delay might spoil the journey.
注意：
1.续写词数应为150 左右；
2.请按如下格式在答题卷的相应位置作答。
When others were complaining, my father stood up.
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The school bus restarted and everyone cheered.
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My parents worked very hard at ensuring that everything seemed pleasant and peaceful for me. I had a very calm childhood and I mostly ignored the fact that my elder sister was different. The child psychologist had term edit as “Asperger Syndrome”(阿斯伯格综合征). This diagnosis turned my parents’ world upside down, but they never let it affect me.
Only at the age often, I started to notice the differences, and became conscious of my social life and self-image that I had carefully cultivated. My sister, on the other hand, was socially awkward. She could not look at people in the eye. She would mumble(咕哝) to herself and repeat the words she had just said under her breath. She, however, was academically capable and hence we attended the same primary school. Despite this, I never, ever acknowledged in public that she was my sister. It was the incident that changed how I viewed my sister. It was the incident that changed me.
Being in primary six, about to graduate, my sister and her fellows had to put up a performance, whether in a group or individually. Due to her inability to integrate, my sister was the only one left without a group. The school had made it compulsory for everyone to put up an item, so my sister had to perform individually.” I’ll sing,” my sister told my parents, somewhat confidently. Hearing that, I was taken a back and completely shocked. How could my sister, who was socially awkward, sing in front of the school? I knew so very well that if I allowed this to happen, she would embarrass me, one way or another. “No!” I protested. My parents shot me a look and then turned to my sister, saying “Good idea!” That was when I knew my sister was going to perform anyway and I was going to be part of the audience watching her.
注意：
1.续写词数应为150左右;
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
I sat in the hall, waiting for her performance to start.
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Finally, my sister started to sing.
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Catherine had stayed at home all her life to look after her three children, but now, she, who lost her husband in a car accident, had to step out and earn money to make ends meet. With zero work experience and no professional degree, her chances of getting hired for a well-paid job were next to zero.
One day, after dropping her children at school, Catherine spotted a construction site. “I think I can work here,” she thought and approached the manager.
“Hi, are you hiring?” she asked. “Yes, we are,” the manager looked at Catherine from head to toe. “Are you sure you can work here? This job requires a lot of hard work.” “I’m ready for it,” she told the manager and signed a contract to work a 12-hour shift.
However, Catherine kept her new job a secret from her children. She thought they would feel embarrassed after learning their mother worked at a construction site.
Every morning, after dropping her children to school, she would go to the construction site and work until her shift ended. She would pick up heavy bricks on her shoulder to transport them from one part of the site to the other. One evening, Catherine’s son, Peter, told her about an upcoming contest in school that required mothers to participate. In the competition, students will wear blindfolds and have to recognize their mothers without looking at them. “That sounds like such a cool event, Peter!” Catherine said excitedly. “I can’t wait for it!” “I won’t go therewith you, mom,” Peter replied. “But why?” What her son said next was something Catherine wasn’t prepared to hear.
“Mom, I would have to touch your hands to recognize you, and everyone would look at them,” Peter explained. “Your hands are so ugly. They’re so hard and rough,” he added. “I will feel so embarrassed when my classmates look at your hands,” the boy said. “I won’t attend the event.” Catherine felt terrible but couldn’t say anything in her defense.
注意：1.续写词数应为150左右；
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Paragraph 1:
A few weeks later, Peter was walking home when something unexpected caught his attention.
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On his way back home, he kept thinking about how he would apologize to his mother:
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