Tony Wheeler was born to travel. His father worked for an airline. For the first 16 years of his life,Wheeler and his family lived in many different countries.

    In the early 1970s,Tony met a young woman named Maureen. They soon married. Before getting jobs, Tony and Maureen wanted to travel. They took a year long trip from England, through Asia, to Australia. On the trip,they visited places like Iran(伊朗),India,and so on.

    When Tony and Maureen arrived in Australia, people asked many questions about their trip. To answer these questions, Wheeler wrote a book called Across Asia on the Cheap. The book told people about different countries' weather, customs (风俗), and places to see. But unlike other travel books then,Tony Wheeler's book also talked about places most tourists did not go. He also wrote about unusual things to see and do. The book was very popular.

     Tony and Maureen started a company called Lonely Planet. They continued travelling. They wrote books for each place they visited. Today,800 people work {or Lonely Planet. The company has over 650 books. Tony Wheeler,the great traveller, still writes about travels to many places and will bring us more surprises.

    The greatest saleswoman in the world today doesn't mind if you call her a girl. This is because Markita Andrews made more than $ 80,000 by selling cookies when she was 13 years old. Andrews and her mother shared a dream of travelling around the world. Once, while reading magazines, Andrews found that the person who sold the most cookies would win a free trip for two around the world. She decided to have a try.

    To make her dream come true, Andrews went door to door every day after school and repeated, "Hi, I have a dream. I'm earning a trip around the world for my mum and me by selling cookies. "Then she asked, "Would you like to buy one or two dozen boxes of cookies?"

    Andrews kept asking for a whole year, no matter how heavily it was raining or snowing outside. Her hard work paid off. She sold 42,000 boxes of cookies that year and she won her trip around the world.

    Andrews is no smarter than thousands of other people. The key to her success is that she has found the secret of selling: Ask. Ask. Ask! Many people fail before they even begin because they fail to ask for what they want.

    It takes courage to ask for what you want. And, as Andrews has discovered, the more you ask, the easier it gets.

    Jane was from a small village in Southern America. Her family was poor and noodles were often their only food. Her parents couldn't afford to pay the electricity bill (电费), so she had to study by candle light.

    What was worse, to live on, her parents moved to a faraway village with the other four children. As for Jane, she didn't want to give up learning and she dreamed to enter a famous university. She stuck to living alone in her village.

    After Jane's parents left, she lived a really difficult life. Having no place to live in, the homeless girl had to sleep on the back seat of the school bus. Luckily, Mrs. Brown, the caring school bus driver, learned about Jane's situation and invited her to live with her family. Soon, Jane found a job in her school. She worked from 6 a. m. to 7:40 a. m. before the first school bell rang. She swept floors and picked up rubbish again in the afternoon. With the money she got from the work, she paid for her education. And she stayed up late in the evenings studying for all kinds of exams day after day.

    Jane's hard work made a difference to her life. She finished high school with unexpected results. She was accepted by Harvard, one of the world's most famous universities with full scholarship (全额奖学金).

The 18-year-old girl created her own future with her never-give-up attitude and hard work.

    Joseph has written a letter to his cousins, James and Susan. Here is the letter.

    Dear James and Susan,

    I am writing to you again because I am at home in bed. I have a cold recently and I am unable to go to school. I've got a fever and a bad headache as well. In addition, I'm always thirsty, probably as a result of the fever. But, with a lot of effort, I'm writing a letter to you.

    The weather here in Toronto is horrible. I am sure the weather is much better in Hong Kong. Do you agree? The snow came a bit early this year and it was freezing cold. It's surprising to see kids playing in the snow happily and building "castles" and snowmen this morning. A few of them made snowballs by pressing snow together and threw them at each other.

    I am going to have my examination soon, I'm worried about it because I'm too sick to get out of bed to hold my text-books. What's more, I haven't attended school for nearly one week. I have to work hard to catch up with my classmates.

    I have got a new mate recently. That is Bobby, our cat. Uncle Tom gave him to me as my birthday present. He is rather disobedient and he runs here and there from time to time. However, I'm glad to have him as my friend at the moment.

    Please write to me if you have time.

Yours,

Joseph

At thirteen, I was diagnosed (诊断)with a kind of attention problems. It made school difficult for me. When everyone else in the class was focusing on tasks, I could not.

In my first literature class, Mrs. Smith asked us to read a story and then write on it, all within 45 minutes. I raised my hand right away and said, "Mrs. Smith, you see, the doctor said I have attention problems. I might not be able to do it. "

She glanced down at me through her glasses, "You are no different from your classmates, young man. "

I tried, but I didn't finish the reading when the bell rang. I had to take it home.

In the quietness of my bedroom, the story suddenly all became clear to me. It was about a blind person, Louis Braille. He lived in a time when the blind couldn't get much education. But Louis didn't give up. Instead, he invented a reading system of raised dots (点) ,which opened up a whole new world of knowledge to the blind.

Wasn't I the "blind" in my class, being made to learn like the "sighted" students? My thoughts spilled out and my pen started to dance. I completed the task within 40 minutes. Indeed, I was no different from others; I just needed a quieter place. If Louis could find his way out of his problems, why should I ever give up?

I didn't expect anything when I handed in my paper to Mrs. Smith, so it was quite a surprise when it came back to me the next day--with an "A"on it. At the bottom of the paper were these words: "See what you can do when you keep trying?"