6 . Sarah came running in. “Look what I found.” Over the top of the paper I was reading came a crispy long object that caused me to jump. It was a snake skin that had been shed by one of our many garden snakes.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” said my wide-eyed seven-year-old.

I stared at the organic wrapper and thought to myself that it really wasn’t that beautiful, but I have learned never to appear uninterested with children. They see only good quality and excellence in the world until educated otherwise.

“Why does it do this?” Sarah asked.

“Snakes shed their skin because they need to renew themselves,” I explained. “Why do they need to renew themselves?“ Sarah asked.

I suddenly remembered an article on this page many years ago where the writer was expressing her concept of renewal. She used layers of paper over a wall to describe how we hide our original selves, and said that by peeling away those layers one by one, we see the original beneath. “We often need to shed our skins and those coatings that we cover ourselves with,” I said to my now absorbed daughter. “We outgrow some things and find other ones unwanted or unnecessary. This snake no longer needs this skin. It is probably too crinkly (起皱的) for him, and he probably doesn’t think he looks as smart in it as he once did.”

Sarah was getting the point. As we talked, I knew that she began to understand, although slightly, that renewal is part of progress; that we need to take a good look at ourselves, our rooms, schoolwork and creativity, and see what we need to keep and what we need to cast off. I was careful to point out that this is a natural consequence of their growth.

“I see, Dad,” said Sarah and jumped off my lap and ran off.

I hoped she would remember this. That often, in order to find our real selves underneath the layers of community and culture with which we cover ourselves year after year, we need to start examining these layers. We need to gently peel some away, as we recognize them to be worthless or unnecessary; or at best, store the ones thrown away as mementoes of our promotion to a better vitality or spirit.

In social life, time plays a very important part. In the U. S. A., guests tend to feel that they are not highly regarded if the invitation to a dinner party     1    (send)only three or four days before the party date. But it is not true in all countries. In other areas of the world, it is considered foolish to make an appointment too far in advance     2     plans that are made for a date more than a week away tend to be forgotten. The meaning of time differs in different parts of the world. Thus, misunderstandings arise between people from cultures in     3     time is treated differently. Promptness(准时)is highly valued in American life. For example,     4     people are not punctual, they may be regarded as impolite or not fully responsible. In the U. S. A. no one would think of keeping a business partner waiting for an hour, since it would be too impolite. A person     5     is five minutes late will say a few words of explanation, though perhaps he will not complete the sentence.

After college, I tried for six months to get a job, but my luck was bad. Finally, one day I was in a downtown coffee shop, buried in the newspaper, and my luck began to change. A young woman sitting next to me     1     (ask) whether she could read my newspaper. I said OK and we started talking. She told me she worked in a huge advertising company and     2     (look) for an assistant at the moment. I told her I was interested in mass communication and     3     (study) it for four years at the university. Within one week, I was her assistant.