Reflecting on the experience of being trapped in a yacht（帆船）and saved later, Tony told reporters, ". . . Now that Fm getting a bit older, there is one thing that I don't mind telling the world: In these last six days, I'm a different person. I won't be so rude to people, not that I was, but I’ll be much more of a gentleman and I’ll listen to people a lot more. And as a dear old friend of mine, David, once told me when he got over the heart attack and smelt the fresh air again, he said, 'God, it was like being born all over again; life was great! "Well, that's how I feel now, like being born all over again. "

In January 1997 British yachtsman Tony was sailing solo deep in the Southern Ocean. A gale（大风）was raging. The waves, reaching the height of a five-story building, rushed on him with a sound like roaring thunder. As his yacht fell down the face of a wave, it hit something in the water and turned upside down.

Tony, who had been sheltering in the two-meter by three-meter cockpit（驾驶舱）, found it had become his prison. As giant waves buffeted the boat, water poured in and out a broken window, knee high at one end, waist high at the other. The air temperature was down to 2 degrees Celsius, and it was pitch black-the sun couldn't go through the upturned yacht.

Twelve times Tony left the cockpit in a vain attempt to release his life raft. Then he had to take refuge in his little cabin. Sitting inside the cold inky darkness, Tony only had some chocolate and a device for making fresh water from the salty sea. With his fingers becoming frostbitten, Tony thought that he v/as going to die. The odds of being rescued seemed impossibly small.

However, Tony didn't give up hope.

It had been the fifth day when a RAF plane located him and dropped an electronic probe next to his yacht.

"Why did you do this without asking for my permission first? Don't you know it's a total waste of time and it will have a bad influence on your study?" That's what my mother yelled at the ten-year-old me when she found out that I had signed up for an English story-telling competition.

I bowed my head; yes, she was right. By then I was entering Grade Six, faced with the biggest challenge yet to come — the examination to enter my dream junior high school. For that. I had given up my beloved piano lesson, my favourite cartoon program and even the joyful weekend family reunion with my cousins. I wouldn't be surprised at all if my very strict-university-teacher mother got angry at me when I chose to do anything that had little to do with study at that important moment. In her opinion, if I hadn't spent all my time on my study I would have difficulty in entering my dream junior high school.

But that's not all to it. When I was ten, I was nervous, shy, tongue-tied when facing strangers, and essentially a bookworm. These signs looked fatal (致命的) to my mother, and possibly to you, too; she thought that I could be anything but a good public speaker.

Well, I myself actually said no to my English teacher at first, because I had never done anything like that before and I was afraid. But he told me that — since I liked reading so much, why not try to tell a story I love to everyone? He also promised me that the judges were not frightening at all; just think of them as carrots and cabbages in a vegetable garden.

Small boats loaded with various goods sped to the great liner as she was entering the harbour. Before she had anchored, the men from the boats had climbed on board and the decks were soon covered with all kinds of beautiful things they tried to sell. It was difficult not to be attracted. Many of the tourists on board had begun bargaining with the tradesmen, but I decided not to buy anything until I had got off.

I had no sooner got off the ship than I was assailed (纠缠) by a man who wanted to sell me a diamond ring. I had no intention of buying one, but I could not deny the fact that I was impressed by the size of the diamonds. Some of them were as big as marbles (小玻璃球). The man tried his best to prove that the diamonds were real. As we were walking past a shop, he held a diamond firmly against the window and made a deep impression in the glass. It took me over half an hour to get rid of him.

The next man to approach me was selling expensive pens and watches. I examined one of the pens closely. It certainly looked authentic. At the base of the gold cap, the words ‘made in the U.S.A.’ had been neatly carved. The man said that the pen was worth￡50, but as a special favour, he would let me have it for￡30. I shook my head and held up five fingers showing that I was willing to pay￡5. Gesticulating (打手势) wildly, the man acted as if he found my offer extremely unfair, but he finally reduced the price to￡10. Shrugging my shoulders, I began to walk away when, a moment later, he ran after me and pushed the pen into my hands. Though he kept throwing up his arms in despair, he readily accepted the￡5 I gave him. I felt especially pleased with my wonderful bargain.

After I got home, my daughter Lily found the pen in my luggage by accident.

No matter how hard I tried, it was impossible to fill this beautiful pen with ink.

Once there was a girl named Vivian who was the only child of her father. Her father was a big and successful businessman who owned seven star restaurants. He did everything only for his daughter.

Vivian was sent to the best university abroad. Although she had everything, the only thing she never owned was respect of other people.

When Vivian came back after her graduation and her father asked her to join his company as an accountant, she was naturally not happy with that. She wanted to work in a higher post but her father wanted her to start as an ordinary girl.

“Dad, I studied in the most outstanding university abroad and got a better education than any of the employees who work under you. Still, you want me to work under them?" said Vivian unhappily.

Vivian's father looked at her with a smile on his face. Vivian was annoyed by her father's reaction but she agreed to work as an accountant in the end.

After some months, there was an emergency situation in the company.One of the restaurants was short of employees because of a sudden resignation (辞职），so they were short on people to do other chores around the place and cook food fast. Vivian's father asked her to help that restaurant with him and the other employees.

When she entered the restaurant, she was hit by the air of tension around the employees. Everybody was busy doing something or other and there was a mess around the restaurant. When she went in the back of the kitchen, she saw a tower of unwashed dishes.

Her father neared her in a hurry and asked her, “Vivian, thank goodness, you are here. Darling, will you please help us and do the dishes?" He patted her on her shoulder and left her to do the dishes.

She looked at the dirty plates and spoons that were piled up before her.

“I didn't study my whole life and come first in everything to do this!”Vivian thought.

Vivian's father picked up the gloves, put them on and started doing the dishes himself.

My parents love the saying “If at first you don't succeed, try, try again" so much that they even bought a pillow with those words on it. But I was recently in a situation where I was SO ready to give up.

It started last week when my friend Ollie and I were helping his grandmother Mary to carry boxes from her garage to her car for the homeless shelter rummage sale (义卖).

At the sight of a big old trunk (行李箱)，we asked Mary what was inside. But she told us that as she had lost the key, she had to find a master locksmith to figure it out. "Let me have a try!" said Ollie. “I bet I can open that lock in two minutes flat! Maybe there's a treasure inside, like gold or diamonds or an ancient map!"

Mary smiled. "I'll tell you what. If you two treasure hunters can open this trunk, you can have it, along with whatever is inside."

Ollie got a tool kit and we set out to open the lock. But he definitely lost that bet. Those two minutes turned into two hours, with no luck at all. We had tried every tool in the kit, but the lock wouldn't move slightly.

“It's no use." Ollie sighed. "I guess we have to give up."

“But we can't give up!" I said. "What about 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try again"?"

Ollie shook his head. "Unless you know a magical key fairy, we're never getting this unlocked."

Just then, my little brother Tex showed up. He showed great interest in the trunk. "It looks like an upside-down boat! Can I turn it over and pretend I'm sailing in the ocean?"

"Sure," Ollie replied. "It's no good for anything else."

“Ahoy!" Tex said, climbing on top after Ollie and I turned it over. “I’m the captain!” He giggled as he jumped up and down. And right then, a screw (螺丝) from a hinge (铰链) came loose and rolled to the floor.

“That's it! I know how to open it!" said Ollie.

Oh! There were only lots of shoes in the trunk!

Many years ago there lived in Holland a boy named Peter. Peter's father was one of the men who tended the gates in the dikes(堤坝)，called sluices. He opened and closed the sluices so that ships could pass out of Holland's canals into the great sea.

One afternoon in the early fall, when Peter was eight years old, his mother called him from his play. “Come, Peter,” she said. “I want you to go across the dike and take these cakes to your friend, the blind man. Remember that you shall be home before dark.”The little boy was glad to go on such an errand (跑腿)， and started off with a light heart. He stayed with the poor blind man a little while to tell him something about his walk along the dike-the sun, the flowers and the ships far out at sea. Then he remembered his mother's wish that he should return before dark. Bidding his friend goodbye, he set out for home.

As he walked beside the canal, he noticed how the rains had swollen the water, and how they beat against the side of the dike, and he thought of his father's gates. “I am glad they are so strong,” he said to himself.“If the dike gave way what should we do? These pretty fields would be covered with water.” As he walked along the dike he sometimes stopped to pick the pretty blue flowers that grew beside the road, or to listen to the rabbits' soft tread as they rustled through the grass.

Suddenly he heard a noise. It was the sound of trickling water! He stopped and looked down. There was a small hole in the dike, through which a tiny stream was flowing. Any child in Holland is frightened at the thought of a leak in the dike. Peter understood the danger at once. If the water ran through a little hole it would soon make a larger one, and the whole country would be flooded. In a moment he saw what he must do. Throwing away his flowers, he climbed down the side of the dike and thrust his finger into the tiny hole. The flowing of the water was stopped! “Oh!” he said to himself. “I can keep the water back with my finger. Holland shall not be drowned while I am here. ”

This was all very well at first, but soon it grew dark and cold. The little fellow shouted and screamed. “Come here; come here,” he called. But no one heard him; no one came to help him.

It grew still colder, and his arm ached, and began to grow stiff and numb.

The moon and stars looked down on the child crouching (蹲) on a stone on the side of the dike.