We have heard about people who have special memories. Recently there has been a report about a woman from Australia who can remember almost every detail (细节) of all the events in her daily life.

    Rebecca Sharrock, 25, is one of just 80 people worldwide who have been identified(确定) as having Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory ( HSAM,超级自传体记忆症). It means she can remember every small event—which most people would forget with in (在......以内) days—as if it had happened just minutes ago.

    "I remember my mum putting me in the driver's seat of a car and taking a picture of me when I was 12 days old,” she said. " That's my earliest memory. I remember every day since then. I can't tell all the dates exactly because I was too young to understand calendars, but I remember what I did that every day, what the weather was like and so on.”

    Rebecca can also re—experience taste. If she's eating something that she doesn't like, she thinks about Black Forest cake, her favorite food, and the memory will be so strong that she can nearly "taste” it.

    However,  sometimes her memories prove (证明) to be painful. Because they're not just events that she remembers. "When I relive （再体验) memories, the feelings return, too,” Rebecca said. "For example, I remember falling over when I was three at my grandparents' house and hurting my left knee. Talking about it now, I feel painful in my left knee. "

    "At night, I have to sleep with the radio/recorder and a soft light on, she added. "1f it's too dark or quiet, my mind would be filled with all these memories and I can't sleep. "

A

    How do you win a Nobel Prize for writing? Here's the secret from a previous winner: make it short, keep it real, and work hard.

Canadian author Alice Munro, 82, was awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in literature. She is known for her short stories about personal relationships of ordinary people, usually women.

    Munro was born into a farming family in Ontario. The family was very poor. Munro did a lot of physical work as a young girl. She decided to be a writer at the age of 12. Now Munro turns her hard childhood into great writing ideas. The story Dear Life, for example, opens with a description of the neighborhood in which Munro grew up. Also, she talks about her poor relationship with her mother in many of her stories, such as Lives of Girls and Women and Friend of My Youth.

    Since she published her first book in 1968, Munro has won many awards, with the Nobel Prize as her biggest honor. But Munro doesn't see herself as a talented(有天赋的) writer.

    “I'm the opposite of a writer with a quick gift. I don't grasp it very easily at all, the‘it' being whatever I'm trying to do,” she said.

    Do you dream of becoming an author while sadly admitting you are not that talented? Munro has a tip for you: use notebooks and write a lot.

    “I have lots of notebooks that contain(包含) this writing,” she said. But it helps her sort out (整理) her mind. “Stories would just be working in my head for so long that when I started to write I was deep into them.”

Deisha walked up and down as she waited backstage. This would be her most important piano performance yet. At ten years old, she was the youngest performer in the recital (音乐演奏会). She had practiced playing her song more than 30 times that week. When she closed her eyes at night, the music played over and over again in her head.

    Now that the day had arrived, Deisha was not sure she was ready. She smoothed her hair and picked a piece of lint (绒毛) from the new dress that her mother had bought for her. She noticed that her hands were shaking. How could she play the notes of the song if her hands were shaking? She tried to concentrate on steadying (稳住) them, but they only shook more.

   Deisha's piano teacher, Ms Neal, walked up to speak to her. “I have something for you,” she said, putting a smooth black stone into Deisha's hand. “It's a special stone. There's no other one like it in the world. You've practiced so much, you don't need anything else.”

   The stage lights reflected off the rock. “Thank you,” Deisha said.

   When Deisha's name was called, she rubbed the stone, stepped onto the stage, and played better than ever. After her performance, she noticed that Ms Neal had a whole bag of black stones. “Why did you say this one was so special?” she asked.

   Her teacher responded, “Because, like your talent, it belongs only to you.”

    John likes chocolates(巧克力) very much, but his mother doesn't give him. They're bad for his teeth, she thinks. John has a very nice grandfather. The old man loves John very much and sometimes he buys John some chocolates. Then his mother let him eat them. Because she wants to make the old man happy.

    One Sunday evening before his seventh birthday, he shouts, "Please, God(上帝), let them give me a big box of chocolates for my birthday." His mother says, "God can't hear you. Don't shout (叫喊)!"

    "I know," says the clever boy with a smile. "But my grandfather is in the next room. And he can."

    Alice was a student in a secondary school. The school was on the other side of the street from my house. Every day. I watched her play basketball after school from my house. She played very well, much better than any other of her classmates. And she never stopped. She practised over and over again, sometimes until it was very dark.

    One day, I asked her, "why do you practise so hard? You are playing very well."

    "That's because I want to play in the city basketball team," she looked at me and said proudly. "But I'm still not good enough. I must work hard." I was moved by her great courage.

    Another day, I saw her crying on the grass, instead of playing basketball. I walked across the street and sat down by her side.

    "Why are you crying, girl?" I asked.

    "The coach of the city basketball team told me that I couldn't go on playing basketball because I was too short."

    But some days later, I saw her playing basketball again, practising even harder than before. I was curious(好奇的) and asked her the reason. "My father told me if my dream is big enough, nothing can stop me." I was moved again.