3 . With my degree in education and an internship (实习)   in a high school under my belt, I felt ready for my first real job teaching fourth graders. I prepared clear lesson ______ and plans. I broke down ______ ideas into concepts kids at this level could understand. Then I got into the classroom, and it all ______. “Why isn’t this working?” I thought at the end of another ______ day.

Marcia seemed to have all the time in the world — not just for singing, but for each child. When one ______ looked a bit lost, she walked over to the student’s desk and dropped to her knees to give up-close attention.

I couldn’t ______ to put some of the things I’d learned into practice. It wasn’t easy at first to ______ my lesson plans. But I discovered I enjoyed walking from desk to desk, talking to my students one-on-one, getting to know them as ______.

5 . At Beijing’s Palace Museum, it sometimes seems that time stands still, but the clocks keep ticking at a small workshop there. This is where clock conservator (文物修复员) Qi Haonan works. .

As part of the fourth generation of conservators to repair and restore antique (古老的) clocks at the museum since 1949, Qi has returned more than 100 clocks to their former glory.

After having majored in mechanical automation during his university studies, Qi joined the cultural relics restoration department at the Palace Museum in 2005. “In the beginning, everything in the palace was new to me. It made me excited to even think about repairing antique clocks,” the 41-year-old told China Daily. But reality soon weakened his warmth. There is a rule at the museum: For the first year you can look, but not touch. From 8 a. m. to5 p. m. every day, he checked and took apart watches and clocks collected from his friends to practice. After a year of repeated work, he could finally get his hands on the clocks in the museum and get a better understanding of the job. To him, restoring such clocks doesn’t mean making them look brand-new. Through cleaning and restoration, he tries to keep them in their original form, bringing back their former function.

Qi still remembered the excitement he felt when the hands of his first repaired clock began to move. It was a French clock, which took him a month to restore. “What amazes me most about these clocks is that they combine the scientific advances, technological precision (精确) and trends in decorative art of their particular times,” Qi told China Daily.

Although the antique clock repairing special skills at the Palace Museum were listed as a national intangible (非物质的) cultural heritage in 2014, it was still a little-known skill and the specialty was in short supply of professionals. Until 2016, a 3-part TV documentary, Masters in the Forbidden City, made it possible to the public.

Qi started posting videos about the antique clocks on social media in 2019, giving viewers a look into the work. “With rising attention and influence, antique clock restoration can not only be further developed, but also expanded to more museums which house antique clocks and watches,” Qi told China Daily.

6 . On a recent visit to her family home in Atlanta, Stella came across some papers from her tenth- grade English class. Looking at her essays and the notes, Stella was struck by how the work she did in that class informed her work now as an editor. Her teacher, Mr. Newman, always encouraged his students to dig deeper. Stella learned that the best way to understand literature is by asking, “What is this work trying to accomplish?” Now, when she sits down to edit a manuscript (手稿) that’s one of two guiding questions Stella asks herself, followed by, “How can I help the author fully realize that vision?”

Those questions were at the top of Stella’s mind when Freewater by Amina landed on her desk. As Stella made editorial suggestions, she was mindful of the balancing act involved in writing about a topic as painful as slavery and doing so through the eyes of a child. Stella kept a kid reader in mind-someone who might have learned only a part of this history. Stella and Amina went back and forth in phone calls, e-mails, editorial letters, and notes directly in the manuscript, until they agreed that Freewater was exactly where it needed to be.

The novel hit bookshelves on February 1, 2022, and nearly a year later was awarded the John Newbery Medal. Amina became only the third Black woman to be awarded that medal in the award’s one-hundred-and-one-year history, and Stella became the first Black editor to edit a Newbery-winning book.

Stella’s strategic approach to editing, personal warmth, and keen editorial insight have won her universal admiration from authors and colleagues, who also enjoy her sense of humor and infectious laugh. She is a powerful advocate for all the authors in her orbit, which recently came to include her mother, Wanda M. Morris, whose novel All Her Little Secrets has been widely acclaimed and even optioned for TV.

8 . If you wanted to make a Disney-style animation (动画) of, say, Reggie, a spirited rabbit, planning to save his forest, you’d have a lead animator draw the extremes of the action: Reggie looking intensely focused, and then proudly announcing, “There’s a new hero in the forest!” Then you’d bring in an in-betweener that is, the animator who draws all the comprehensive frames that bridge the major actions.

In-betweeners don’t get the glory, but without them cartoons would hop from one emotional peak to another, missing connective grace. Burny Mattinson (1935-2023) started his career at the Walt Disney Company in the mailroom, and, even though he had no formal training in animation, he was given a swing at in-betweening just six months later.

His first big assignment was to in-between the wagging of a dog’s tail. Disney animation was famous for its silky elegance, owing in no small part to the skill of its in-betweeners, and, thanks to Mattinson, the tail practically glided from side to side.

Mattinson had wanted to be an animator ever since his mother had taken him to see “Pinocchio” at a theatre when he was six. In a bold move, Mattinson showed up at the Disney Studios gate with his portfolio (作品) as soon as he finished high school. The magical part of this story is that, instead of shooing him away, the security guard liked his drawings and called the head of personnel to take a look.

Thus, Mattinson became a messenger at Disney, beginning a career that would eventually make him the employee with the longest service at the company. He had joined the company at a golden moment. Listing the films that he worked on is a little like listing the entire output of the Walt Disney Company over the past six decades: “Sleeping Beauty,” “The Lion King”, and on and on.

Mattinson was, perhaps, one of the last of an almost extinct genotype-the happy company man, the lifer. He never had an employer besides Disney. When asked what Mattinson enjoyed doing outside of his life at Disney, his son said, “He just loved his work.”

10 . When I was at school, I hated art. Growing up in north Wales, I was not able to rate higher than an E in my final exams. I wasn’t too upset; I thought I wasn’t going to choose it as a career.

By the time I was about four, I started sleepwalking. At night, I used to go under the stairs and scribble (乱画) on the wall. When I was 15, I was no longer just making scribbles. I was drawing anything from pictures of Marilyn Monroe to unrealistic paintings. I showed some to my art teachers. They said: “Why can’t you do this in class?” It was something I struggled to understand myself. I tried so hard to draw when I was awake, practising and using the same tools. But no matter what I did, I was unable to recreate the drawings.

Once I left school, I became a nurse, mainly helping people with brain injuries. I also met my partner. He is unbelievably supportive of my art and sleepwalking habits—he often films me as I work. And when I begin to paint in my sleep, I’ll use any tools I can find, sometimes knives and forks. That’s the only thing that worries my partner—that I’ll accidentally hurt myself. I have gone to various sleep clinics to try to get to the bottom of what’s happening, but nothing out of the ordinary was found health-wise. Alcohol or lack of sleep does bring the sleepwalking on more, though, so I am careful about that.

I have learned to hug my unusual talent and set up my first art exhibition in 2007 at my local in library to raise money for cancer research. Within a week, I had 160 calls from different media outlets and organizations wanting to hear about my art. I was over the moon. I then decided to leave my very fulfilling job in nursing and become a full-time artist.