Erik Weihenmayer was born with an eye disorder. As a child his eyesight became worse and then, at the age of 13, he lost his sight completely. However, he did not lose his determination to lead a full and active life.

    Erik became an adventurer. He took up parachuting, wrestling and scuba diving. He competed in long-distance biking, marathons and skiing. His favorite sport, though, is mountaineering.

    As a young man, Erik started to climb mountains. He reached the top of Mount McKinley in 1995 and then climbed the dangerous 1000-metre rock wall of EI Capitan. Two years later, while climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in Kenya with his girlfriend, they stopped for a time at 13,000 feet above sea level－in order to get married. And on May 25, 2001, at the age of 33, Erik successfully completed the greatest mountaineering challenge of all. He climbed Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world two years after he climbed Aconcagua, the tallest mountain in South America in 1999．

    Erik invented his own method for climbing mountains. He carries two long poles: one to lean on and the other to test the way ahead of him. The climber in front of him wears a bell to guide him. Erik is a good team member. He does his share of the job, such as setting up tents and building snow walls.

    Although he could not enjoy the view, Erik felt the excitement of being on the top of Everest. He hopes that his success will change how people think about the blind．"When people think about a blind person or blindness, now they will think about a person standing on top of the world."

    Where is Love? How can we find Love?

    Once a little boy wanted to meet Love. He knew it was a long trip to where Love lived, so he got his things ready with some pizzas and drinks and started off. When he passed three streets, he saw an old woman sitting in the park and watching some birds. She looked very hungry. The boy gave her a pizza. She took it and smiled at him. Her smile was so beautiful that he wanted to see it again, so he gave her a Coke. Once again she smiled. The boy was very happy.

    They sat there all afternoon, eating and smiling, but they said nothing. When it grew dark, the boy decided to leave. But before he had gone more than a few steps, turned around, ran back to the old woman and gave her a hug. The woman gave him the biggest smile ever.

    When the boy opened the door of his house, his mother was surprised by the joy（快乐） on his face and asked what had made him so happy. "I had lunch with Love. I has got the most beautiful smile in the world."

    At the same time, the old woman's son was also surprised at his mother's pleasure and asked why. "I ate a pizza in the park with Love, "she said," and he is much younger than I expected."

    If the world is full of love, we can enjoy a better life.

    We spent a day in the country and picked a lot of flowers. Our car was full of flowers inside! On the way home we had to stop at traffic lights, and there my wife saw the bookshelf.

    It stood outside a furniture shop. "Buy it," she said at once. "We'll carry it home on the roof-rack(车顶架). I've always wanted one like that."

    What could I do? Ten minutes later I was twenty dollars poorer, and the bookshelf was tied onto the roof-rock. It was tall and narrow, quite heavy, too.

    As it was getting darker, I drove slowly. Other drivers seemed more polite than usual that evening. The police even stopped traffic to let us through. Carrying furniture was a good idea.

    After a time my wife said, "There's a long line of cars behind. Why don't they overtake(超车)?"

    Just at that time a police car did overtake. The two officers inside looked at us seriously when they went past. But then, with a kind smile, they asked us to follow their car through the busy traffic. The police car stopped at our village church. One of the officers came to me. "Right, Sir," he said. "Do you need any more help now?"

    I didn't quite understand. "Thanks, officer," I said. "You've been very kind. I lived just down the road."

    He was looking at our things: first at the flowers, then at the bookshelf. "Well, well," he said and laughed. "It's a bookshelf you've got there! We thought it was something else. "My wife began to laugh. Suddenly I understood why the police drove here.

    I smiled at the officer. "Yes, it's a bookshelf, but thanks again." I drove home as fast as I could.

    I entered St Thoma's Hospital as a medical student at the age of 18 and spent five years there. I was an unsatisfactory student, for my heart, as you might have guessed, was not in it. I wanted, I had always wanted to be a writer, and in the evening, after my high tea, I wrote and read. Before long, I wrote a novel, called "Liza of Lambeth", which I sent to a publisher and was accepted. It appeared during my last year at the hospital and had something of a success. It was of course an accident, but naturally I did not know that. I felt I could afford to give up medicine and make writing my profession; so, three days after I graduated from the school of medicine, I set out for Spain to write another book. Looking back now and knowing as I do the terrible difficulties of making a living by writing, I realize I was taking a fearful risk. It never even occurred to me.

    The next ten years were very hard, and I earned an average of £100 a year. Then I had a bit of luck. The manager of the Court Theatre put on a play that failed; the next play he arranged to put on was not ready, and he was at his wits' end. He read a play of mine and, though he did not much like it, he thought it might just run for the six weeks till the play he had in mind to follow it with could be produced. It ran for fifteen months. Within a short while I had four plays running in London at the same time. Nothing of the kind had ever happened before. I was the talk of the town. One of the students at St Thomas's Hospital asked the famous surgeon with whom I had worked whether he remembered me. "Yes, I remember him quite well," he said. "One of our failures, I'm afraid."