2 . A Florida teen is gaining national attention with her graduation speech and a basket of strawberries. “Care for some strawberries?” Brenda said at her graduation from Mulberry High School. After jokingly acknowledging there might not be enough, she went on, “These are no ordinary strawberries.” She held up a series of strawberries, revealing what each represents: sweat, dirt, aches, and pains.

Brenda described herself as the daughter of two tireless farmers who immigrated from Mexico and spent most of their days working in fields of strawberries, blueberries, and cucumbers. “My motivation has been rooted in my immigrant culture.” Because of this, she chose to focus on that in her address. “Many students used to be ashamed of their upbringing but today, we’re proud of what makes us.”

She explained how she grew up under poor conditions. “I’m motivated by my parents’ hands that lose feeling from laborious work. Despite the hot sun and body pains, they back me up heart and soul in my education, which weighs more strongly with me than anything else. I must work hard and succeed.” Brenda’s heading to Stanford University this fall. She also credited some of her outstanding achievements to her teacher Higgins, who helps immigrant students and the poor.

Her speech has been viewed by thousands online. “Hearing it touched other people’s hearts who said they understood my message, I’m struck the same,” Brenda said later. The principal of Mulberry High School, Michael Young, was one member of the audience getting emotional. “The speech was very powerful—her fruit did help paint a good picture of things she wanted to convey,” Young said.

As for her message to young people struggling, Brenda said, “Past circumstances aren’t in charge of your future. If you’re from a poor family, use every resource and try to better yourself. You’re the author of your story.”

The wind howled (呼啸) with the terrible storm at night. The stars were stuck to the black sheet of the sky. The next morning, when I woke up, the winter’s icy wind caused me to shake

My friends and I agreed to take up the skiing contest. I took a seat near the heater, warming my hand and trying to calm myself before the skiing contest. I was encouraging myself by shouting, “I can win this contest.” As soon as I reached the white mountain top, I began wearing my safety guards for the climb down. We rhythmically recited “Ready-set-go” and the race began. At every moment my speed started to increase.   Finally, winning was only one step away. As a wise man had once said, “With a determined heart, a mouse can also lift an elephant. So willpower and courage can help conquer (战胜) a hard task.” My hope helped me to conquer this challenging race. I was on top of the world by winning the skiing contest. Skiing has now become my hobby.

The next morning, it was snowing heavily. Watching this wonderful sight along with tasting the delicious hot chocolate, we friends were planning to go for an overnight climb to the top of the mountain. We came out of the hotel room and stepped into the deep snow which buried half our legs into the soft snowy ground. The best moment till now was looking up at the grand mountain. Also the view was clear. I was eager to start my climb. We climbed towards the top and all of a sudden I lost my balance and fell from the mountain. Fortunately I did not end up giving up my life but got a severe fracture (骨折) on my leg.

This put me into complete disappointment in the first few days of my recovery.

One fine evening, I saw a joyful hawker (饲鹰者) with a disabled eagle.

5 . While I was riding a bike, I notice a man about a half mile in front of me. He was traveling at a lower speed, so I decided to _______ him. I had about a mile to go on the road before turning off .

I started _______ faster, and every block, I gradually closed the distance. Finally, I _______ him and passed him. I felt like a winner, _______ he had no clue that we were even in a _______.

After I passed him, I realized that I had been so _______ on competing against him that I had _______ my turn, had gone nearly six blocks past it and had to turn around.

Isn’t that what _______ in life? We spend most of our time competing with neighbors, friends and family, trying to _______ them — while there was ________ a competition in the first place.

We use most of our time and energy competing with others instead of ________ our destination, and we miss out on our own paths to our fate ________.

Unhealthy competition is a ________ process, a never-ending cycle, a race of life. No matter what you do, someone will always be ________ you: someone with a better job, a nicer car and more money .

Feel grateful for what life has offered you. Stay focused on your path, and live a healthy life . There’s no ________ in fate. Run your own race of life and wish others well!

7 . Someone recently asked me when I became more confident about my abilities as an entrepreneur. I thought it was a funny question, _________ I’m not very confident at all, and constantly filled with _________ about every decision I make.

It doesn’t exactly hold me back in my work; it is just that I am very _______ of what I do, and I’m always _______ on the way I work, think and talk. I have also learned over the years that making a decision is often more important than making the right decision. Preferably your decisions are the right ones, but inaction or indecisiveness is more _______ than making the wrong decision every now and then.

There is one thing I have learned over the years that I wish I had learned earlier in my career. And that is the _______ that I am not stupid.

It sounds logical, but I often sat in on meetings and heard people explain things and then _______ to myself, “I don’t understand that. Maybe I’m stupid?” or I would hear about a startup and I would not _______ their business model and think I’m stupid. Or I would hear an entrepreneur speak and think, “That all _______ like bullshit, but I must be stupid, because other people seem to love it.”

A couple of years ago, I came to the ________ that I was not stupid at all. When people in meetings say things I don’t understand I speak up and tell them so. Usually, I hear a sigh of ________ in the room and find out nobody understood what was being talked about.

When I don’t understand a business model it usually means there is not one, or it sucks. Turns out I’m not stupid and ________ I don’t understand it, most people won’t understand it at all. ________ doubting my own abilities I’ve learned to trust my “bullshit radar” a bit more and not understanding something is a clear sign that something is off.

My advice to young entrepreneurs is this: you are not stupid! If something does not make ________, if it sounds stupid, if you do not understand it, something is wrong! Trust your gut (本能的) ________. Feel free to not know and be honest when you don’t understand something!

8 . We have often heard that “work smart and not hard”．Does only smart work bring you success? And if so, then why are so many of us still busy putting our blood and sweat into working hard? Here, we’ll discuss hard work and smart work.

Hard work is all about consistently working towards a particular goal irrespective (不考虑的) of its worth, not being worried about the result and not using any means to reduce your effort. Hard work requires a lot of commitment (投入) and sincerity from the person. Although being boring and tiresome, it can give you the best results if it is done with heart and soul.

One of the preconditions of smart work is having in­depth knowledge or experience of the work in hand, because that allows you to look for efficient ways to do the work in a planned time. Being a smart worker saves a lot of time as you can find means to reduce your work by using logical and innovative ways to achieve your goals. Besides, it also gives you enough time to learn a new task while completing the present one.

Although it seems that smart work is a better option, what we forget is that smart work is the fruit of hard work. Only when you work hard can you gather the expertise (专门技能) and the knowledge to understand the work in hand and efficiently improve on it and work smartly.

You will attain great heights and lead a better and comfortable life if you combine both smart and hard work together. If you are not smart, your hard work will never pay. A donkey only does hard work, while a horse does hard work and uses its smartness whenever and wherever it needs. In a similar way, smart work is the result of hard work. To master the quality of smart work, you really need to work hard. Through hard work, we gain experience which helps us discover new things that may make us work smartly. The effort is important，but where to make that effort makes a difference.

9 . Both my parents were educators, and for the past 40 years I’ve done the same thing. As_________, we know why kids don’t learn. But one thing that we _________discuss is the value and importance of human_________. A fellow teacher once said to me, “They don’t pay me to_________the kids. They pay me to teach a lesson.” I replied, “Kids don’t_________from people they don’t like.”

For years I watched my mother take the_________at break to buy snacks for kids that needed to_________, and bath soap for kids who didn’t smell so_________. Years later, after she retired, I watched some of those same kids come through and say to her, “Ms. Walker, you made me feel like I was _________. And I want you to just see what I’ve __________.”

When my mama died two years ago at 92, there were so many__________students at her funeral (葬礼). It brought tears to my eyes, not because she was __________, but because she left a treasure of relationships that could never __________.

Every child deserves a champion, and an adult who will never __________on them. We’re educators. We’re born to make a__________.

10 . That cold January night, I was growing sick of my life in San Francisco. There I was, walking home at one o’clock in the morning after a tiring practice at the _________. With opening night only a week away, I was still learning my _________. I was having trouble dealing with my part-time job at the bank and my acting at night at the same time. As I walked, I thought seriously about _________ both acting and San Francisco. City life had become too much for me.

As I walked down empty streets under tall buildings, I felt very small and cold. I began _________, both to keep warm and to keep away from any possible _________. Very few people were still out except a few sad-looking _________ people under blankets.

About a block from my apartment, I heard a sound behind me. I turned quickly, half _________ to see someone with a knife or a gun. The street was empty. All I saw was a shining streetlight. _________, the noise had made me nervous, so I started to run faster. Not until I reached my apartment building and unlocked the door did I realize what the noise had been. It had been my _________ falling to the sidewalk.

Suddenly I wasn’t cold or tired anymore. I ran out of the door and back to __________I’d heard the noise. Although I searched the sidewalk anxiously for fifteen minutes, my wallet was nowhere to be found.

Just as I was about to give up the search, I heard the garbage truck pull up to the sidewalk next to me. When a voice called from the inside, “Alisa Camacho?” I thought I was __________. How could this man know my name? The door opened, and out __________a small red-haired man with an amused look in his eyes. “Is this what you’re looking for?” he asked, __________ up a small square shape.

It was nearly 3 A.M. by the time I got into bed. I wouldn’t get much sleep that night, but I had gotten my wallet back. I also had gotten back some __________ of city life. I realized that the city couldn’t be a bad place as long as people were __________ to help each other.