Sharon, Aged 22

    The most important thing to keep in mind when going into high school is to be yourself. Besides, I don't know what your middle school was like, but high school teachers will not care about things such as how much homework you already have in one night. It's best to just learn to deal with things and manage your time wisely so you can achieve everything you need to.

    Frank, Aged 21

    I think almost every kid feels both nervous and excited before their first day. You will probably love it. I know I did. You should join some sports or activities that will make your high school experience more enjoyable.

    Good luck!

    Eddie, Aged 20

    When I started high school I was really nervous too, especially since I had been homeschooled all through middle school and didn't really know anyone. I suppose the best advice would be to just relax. The first couple of days can be a little bit hard, but things will become easier before you know it.

    David, Aged 19

    I am not going to lie. The first day is kind of frightening. But you'll get used to it. Don't be afraid of anyone; upperclassmen will pick on you more if you let them know you're afraid. Just take it easy. Making some friends and staying with them will greatly help you get used to high school quickly. After the first week it's really not bad at all. Don't worry.

    Attention from strangers is nothing new to me. Questions about my height is the center of almost every public interaction. My friends say my height is just a physical quality and not a personality aspect. However, when I reflect on my life, I realize that, my height has shaped my character in many ways and has helped to make me who I am.

    I learned how to be kind. When I was younger, some parents in my neighborhood regarded me kind of dangerous because I was so much larger than other children my age. I had to be extra welcoming and gentle simply to play with other children. Of course, now my coaches wish I weren't quite so kind on the basketball court.

    I learned the quality of not being too proud about myself. At 7 feet tall, everyone expects me to be an amazing basketball player. They come expecting to see Dirk Nowitzki, and instead they might see a performance more like Will Ferrell(successfully starred a professional basketball player). I have learned to be modest and to work even harder than my fellows to meet their (and my) expectations.

    I developed a sense of lightheartedness. When people playfully make fun of my height, 1laugh at myself too. On my first day of high school, a girl dropped her books in a busy hallway. I got down to her level and gathered some of her notebooks. As we both stood up, her eyes widened as I kept rising over her. Astonished, she dropped her books again. Embarrassed, we both laughed and picked up the books a second time.

    All of these lessons have defined me. Looking back, I realize that through years of such experiences, I have become a confident, expressive person. Being a 7-footer is both a blessing and a curse, but in the end, accepting who you are is the first step to happiness.

    Listed below are the stories of women you may not know about, but definitely should.

    Hedy Lamarr

    Hedy Lamarr starred in many films. But her film career is far from her only noteworthy achievement; she was also a brilliant inventor. In 1942, she and composer George Antheil received a patent（专利）for a device that could change radio signal frequencies. The purpose of the technology was to keep military enemies from figuring out messages. But it did more than that - it laid a foundation for the wireless technology we use today.

    Maria Sibylla Merian

    Today, children can happily explain how a caterpillar（毛虫） tums into a butterfly. But there was a time when no one knew this. Until the 1670s, scientists thought that caterpillars and butterflies were two totally different creatures. Thanks to Maria, we know the truth about these beautiful winged insects. Fascinated by insects, she began collecting, studying and drawing them as a child. It was through her study of caterpillars that she discovered the truth about their life cycles. She published two volumes of naturalist research, which provide major contributions to the field of entomology（昆虫学）.

    Ada Lovelace

    Ada Lovelace, the daughter of celebrated British poet Lord Byron, wasn't a poet herself but the world's first computer programmer. We think of computers as a recent invention, but people were toying with the idea of "computing machines" in the mid – 19th century when Lovelace was alive. Lovelace's mathematical genius was apparent at a young age and caught the attention of Cambridge professor Charles Babbage, who was working to design early computing machines that would be able to quickly solve math problems. Lovelace wrote some suggestions as to how to program the machines to work out numbers.

    In addition to designing this early computer program, she was also the first to surest that these computers might be able to do more than compute. She imagined them doing almost everything, from producing images to composing music.

    I have a neighbor who is a capable, fashionable, seventy-year-old, single woman. Her name is Grace. Grace was laid off from her job a little over two years ago and has been living off her savings ever since but not officially "retired". Grace called me up one day about this time last year and asked if I had a ladder. She needed to clean out her gutters (水槽) on the roof and wanted me to hold the ladder.

    She didn't want me to climb up and clean the gutters. She just wanted me to hold the ladder. As it happened I did have a ladder. I said: “The leaves are going to fall off the trees in a month, why don't we wait till they finish and do it then?” She agreed and naturally we didn't talk about it again until spring. Spring in Tennessee is wild and we talked about it over the course of three weeks in which it rained nearly every day, then I got busy and Grace went into seclusion (隐居).

    A couple of weeks ago, she told me she'd been spending too much money and decided to apply for a bar tending job at a local hotel. "Now I don't know about you all but I'd never considered what it would be like to apply for and begin a new job at the age of seventy. I'm fifty-three and the older I get, the more I think about how great it'll be if I can just get out of bed when I'm seventy." Anyway, she got the job, serving the bar and tending banquets at the hotel.

    The day when she left for her training at 6 am, I walked across the street with my ladder and cleaned out her gutters.

    Princess quiz time! How did Snow White survive? How did Cinderella (《灰姑娘》) leave her evil stepmother? How did Sleeping Beauty finally wake up?

    A kind-hearted person always comes to save the princess, like a prince or a godmother. Princesses cannot protect themselves, though they are very pretty and nice. They always need the help of others.

    However, in fact, women can't put their life in the hands of a prince-like man. They need to work and even fight for their own happiness. The traditional image(形象) of a princess is getting out of date.

    Recently, Disney, a company famous for its princess movies, posted the “top 10 rules for being a modern princess”. You will not find any rules related to beauty or looks. The rules focus on loyalty, honesty and other moral values. The rules say princesses need to believe in themselves and try their best to get out of trouble, instead of waiting for a prince's help.

    It's not the first time Disney princesses have caught up with society's development. In 1950, when people's hearts were broken by World War II, Disney created Cinderella. In 1990, Princess Belle from Beauty and the Beast (《美女与野兽》) loved reading when education was a man's special right in the past. Belle showed the improvement of women's position in society. Now is Elsa from the film Frozen (《冰雪奇缘》), a symbol of modern princess.

    “This is brilliant – 'The top 10 rules of being a modern princess' – (it's) about time,” a group named Confidently Mom said on social media website Twitter. Princesses are still very beautiful, but inner character is the key to being a princess.

    I had a lot of teachers that I loved. However, the teacher that I remember most was Mrs Green from Marianna, Florida. She was my 5th grade teacher. Since I was a new student, not only in her class, but at the school, she made my time there much more pleasant. I immediately began to like her. She was really funny and I knew that she liked me. She made learning fun. I remember one day for Christmas holidays, she taught us how to make ornaments (装饰物) from eggs. My parents still have some of the ornaments I made.

    She made me leader for many group projects and that made me feel special. I think that would make any child feel special, especially when a child is in a new place with no friends. She made me want to be like that. Not to pick a "favourite" student, but to make every student feel that they are special. That year, I received the Presidential Academic Award (美国总统学术奖). I was really proud and so were my parents.

    Looking back at it, I think the reason why I did so well was that I felt important. Students do better when they feel like they are important or loved. Mrs Green always gets to know her students and forms personal relationships with them, which I will try to do some day. I just hope that there will be a student who finds me to their favourite teacher as I found her to be mine.