1 . A year back I received a full scholarship to attend the University of San Francisco. All of my hard work had paid off. My mom had spent a lot in my attending a private high school, so I made sure to push myself: I volunteered, joined different clubs, and graduated with honors.

I was so excited to start a new life. I had totally packed two weeks and wanted to go to college at once before it was time to leave.

Soon enough, the big day came, but it wasn’t like what I had thought. The first two weeks were the most difficult days of my entire life. Every night I would cry myself to sleep.

I was so homesick (想家) and I didn’t know how to deal with my broken heart. To distract myself, I threw myself into my studies and I applied for a lot of jobs. In any remaining free time, I started forcing myself to the gym. I wanted to keep every part of my day busy so I wouldn’t think how lonely I felt.

Soon after, I began to limit food, and then I became worse. Finally, I went to see a doctor. When the doctor weighed me, I was crazy about the number of my weight. So I continued to lower my goal, and convinced that controlling this number was the solution to my homesickness. But when I was told that I had no choice but to spend time on my studies. I quickly started recovery in my mind.

How could I do? I told myself that school was what I was best at. I decided to get rid of my homesickness and took exercise actively. My first term of college had passed by at last and I had gotten straight A’s. That’s why I want to share my story—to help other students feel less lonely.

7 . At 7 am, in the dark of an autumn morning, parents arrive to drop off their children at the kindergarten in Viimsi a 15-minute drive from Tallinn, before heading off to work in the city.

The day starts officially at 9 am, but Laanelinnu kindergarten that widely gains a liking of working parents opens two hours earlier and does not close until 7 pm. In doing so, working parents won’t worry about being late for work and leaving the office early.

The kindergarten focuses on pre-scnobl education. Classrooms, with vast windows fronting onto forest, fan out around a whitewashed central hall, and outside a large playground surrounds the entire building. Some of the children who attend Laanelinnu are as young as two, but as we enter the building barely a sound can be heard. In each of the classrooms, which are large and well equipped, there are up to 20 children— attentive and focused — supervised by a qualified pre-school teacher and two assistant teachers.

Despite having visitors, the children at Laanelinnu focus on their lessons. In one darkened classroom, they lie on their backs in a quiet comer as their teachers prepare for the day ahead. In another class, there’s music and dancing. In another group, children are doing a project about the human body,while next door there’s a cookery class going on, with a tasting period followed by bread-making.

The pre-school course takes in everything from letters and language skills to art, music and robotics.” Though it’s not called school, it’s the first step of their education, “says the kindergarten’s project manager.” We do teach kids here. It is no longer simply childcare. “By the time they leave, most children will have learned to read and write, but in a relaxed and play-led environment.

The kindergarten system is an integrated part of national education and at the end of their time there, children are given a school readiness card that they take with them to the next stage in their education.

8 . As you walk around the UK in March, you might notice that some people are wearing a daffodil (水仙花) on their coats. The British wear these yellow flowers to show they support one of this country’s best-known charities: Marie Curie.

Marie Curie tries to ensure everyone who has cancer is cared for in the best possible way. It also helps fun d research into possible cures. Founded in 1948, it has been continuing with its goal ever since.

The charity was named after Marie Curie, a famous scientist. She experimented with newly-discovered elements to create the theory of radioactivity (放射性). Unfortunately, over-exposure to the radioactive elements made her develop a disease and die in 1934. Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize in two different fields. Because of her pioneering work, the charity decided on the name of Marie Curie.

The daffodil is one of the first plants to flower during spring in the UK, which marks the return of flowering plants to the ecosystem after winter. Because of this, the charity uses the daffodil as a symbol, hoping cancer patients could recover from sickness.

Everyone you see wearing a daffodil has contributed to the charity, but each daffodil is worth only what you want to pay for it. The charity does ask that you stick to a minimum amount of £1.

The charity encourages people to start wearing their daffodils at the start of March, when the “Great Daffodil Appeal” kicks off. But that doesn’t mean you can only wear them in March. People are sometimes seen walking around with daffodils on their clothes all year round.

9 . The Price of a Dream

I grew up poor. We had little money, but plenty of love and attention. I understood that no matter how poor a person was, they could still afford a dream. My dream was athletics.

By the time I was sixteen, I was good at baseball and football. My high school coach was Ollie Jarvis. He not only believed in me, but taught me the difference between having a dream and showing conviction (信念).

One summer a friend recommended me for a summer job. This meant a chance for money in my pocket — cash for dates with girls, certainly, money for a new bike and new clothes, and the start of savings for a house for my mother.

Then I realized I would have to give up summer baseball to handle the work schedule, and that meant I would have to tell Coach Jarvis I wouldn’t be playing. I was afraid of this, but my mother said, “If you make your bed, you have to lie in it.” 

When I told Coach Jarvis, he was as mad as I expected him to be. “Your playing days are limited. You can’t afford to waste them,” he said.

I stood before him with my head hanging, trying to think of the words that would explain to him why I dream of buying my mom a house.

“How much are you going to make at this job, son?” he demanded.

“Three point twenty-five an hour,” I replied.

“Well,” he asked, “is $3. 25 an hour the price of a dream?”

That question exposed the difference between wanting something right now and having a goal. I devoted myself to sports that summer, and within the year I was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates to play rookie-league ball, and offered a $20, 000 contract. I signed with the Denver Broncos in 1984 for $1.7 million, and bought my mother my dream house.

10 . I was 6 years old when my father told me we were leaving the Big Apple Circus (马戏团). Until that point, I had spent most of my life on the circus lot, playing with the other circus kids. The circus, by its nature, is one that has a loose structure. So the early years after my leaving the circus to sit in a classroom all day felt more like a prison.

But years later, I found areas that interested me. I took the skills I had learned from being onstage and applied them to broadcasting. And so when Boston’s news station WBUR offered me a job out of college, I jumped at the chance. Along the way, I found I really enjoyed the work. I became WBUR’s news reporter. The flexibility and adaptability I’d learned in the circus as a child helped me do my job naturally and easily in a stressful situation — whether it was a destructive tornado outside Boston, or the Boston Marathon bombings of 2013.

But then a serious infectious disease appeared. Suddenly, for the first time in my adult life, I went for a year without doing any shows. But it became clear to me that performing was what I truly wanted. For me, the circus symbolizes who I am. And stages have always been where I’ve felt the most free. Some people get nervous before they go onstage, but by assuming (扮演) the character of Jacques ze Whipper and drawing a stupid moustache on my face, all my social anxiety disappears.

Circus performances go beyond age, socioeconomic status (地位), and even language. It’s the type of performance where you can go anywhere in the world to entertain anyone — help anyone forget their troubles for 5, 10, and even 30 minutes. And most importantly, for me, it means coming home.