In my living room, there is a plaque(匾) that advises me to “Bloom(开花) where you are planted.” It reminds me of Dorothy. I got to know Dorothy in the early 1980s，when I was teaching Early Childhood Development through a program with Union College in Barbourville, Kentucky. The job responsibilities required occasional visits to the classroom of each teacher in the program. Dorothy stands out in my memory as one who “bloomed” in her remote area.

    Dorothy taught in a school in Harlan County, Kentucky, Appalachian Mountain area. To get to her school from the town of Harlan, I followed a road winding around the mountain. In the eight-mile journey, I crossed the same railroad track five times, giving the possibility of getting caught by the same train five times. Rather than feeling excited by this drive through the mountains, I found it depressing. The poverty level was shocking and the small shabby houses gave me the greatest feeling of hopelessness.

    From the moment of my arrival at the little school, all gloom(忧郁) disappeared. Upon arriving at Dorothy's classroom, I was greeted with smiling faces and treated like a queen. The children had been prepared to show me their latest projects. Dorothy told me with  a big smile that they were serving poke greens salad and cornbread for “dinner” (lunch). In case you don't know, poke greens are a weed-type plant that grows wild, especially on poor ground.

    Dorothy never ran out of reports of exciting activities of her students. Her enthusiasm never cooled down. When it came time to sit for the testing and interviewing required to receive her Child Development Associate Certification, Dorothy was ready. She came to the assessment and passed in all areas. Afterward, she invited me to the one-and-only steak house in the area to celebrate her victory, as if she had received her Ph.D. degree. After the meal, she placed a little box containing an old pen in my hand. She said it was a family heirloom (传家宝), but to me it is a treasured symbol of appreciation and pride that cannot be matched with things.

    My son was a second-grader. He went to school by bus every day. He was the first student on in the morning, as we were farthest from school, and the last student off in the evening. I was a teacher myself and it was a comfort to realize the school staff (职员) were all working as hard as I was to provide a safe learning environment.

    One day I came home from work and waited for my son to get home for a long time. Then I called the school. "Perhaps he's just a bit late," said the secretary. "I will call the driver to see if those children are home." A few minutes later, I answered the phone to hear that the other students were home. Then I called his friends' parents, to see if perhaps he had gotten off at their stop to play. The answers were all "No."

    By that time, it was dark and I was scared. My home was in the mountain areas, and it was said that a wolf had come up somewhere. My husband wasn't at home, so I forced myself to calm down and decided to go out to look for him. I was about to go out when the telephone rang; it was from the driver. "He's okay," I heard. "He was asleep on the seats in the back, under a couple of jackets. Since it's dark, can he spend the night with my family?"

    I was relieved and agreed. Since my son had a great adventure, the school started giving a copy of the list to the driver, so he could check off the children's names when they got off the bus. I think highly of the school for taking the cautionary (警戒的) step ahead; it is a sign of their concern for students, parents, and staff.

    He was a founder of modem Chinese literature. He was regarded as "an old man always telling the truth". Living across two centuries, he experienced many periods of danger and suffering but never lost his beliefs. His name was Ba Jin.

    As the 101-year-old legendary（传奇的）writer passed away in Shanghai after a six-year battle with disease, millions of Chinese were deeply sad. People in Shanghai and Chengdu gathered around his old house and literature museum to mourn for the great man.

    "My school held a series of ceremonies to express our deep sorrow,'' said Zuo Shang, a 17-year-old girl in Shanghai, who appreciates much of Ba's works. "He is a great writer who wrote so many masterpieces, but what I admire about him the most is his courage to tell the truth, 'Telling the truth, being an honest man.' That's what I learned from him," explained Zuo.

    Ba Jin was born in 1904 in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. A son of a wealthy family, Ba helped the poor ever since he was a child. It is they who taught him a strong yet down-to earth way of living.

    Ba finished his first novel, "Destruction", in 1929 during his travels to France. His later masterpieces, "Family" "Spring" and "Autumn", mirrored the struggles, tragedies and loves of the young in a feudal society. The books encouraged Chinese people not to give in to fate and to be their own masters.

    "Ba Jin told the true story of his country and his people. His great love and service to them meant he was thinking about what he could do for them," said Bing Xin, a well-known writer and also his good friend.

    Like other famous writers in China, Ba suffered in the "cultural revolution" during 1966—1976. But several years later, Ba examined his hard experience in strict introspection（自我反省）instead of hatred. His book, "Random Thoughts"， in 1979 displayed his real thoughts with painful sincerity and won him his reputation for honesty.

    "It really hurts to recall my past mistakes, but 1 have to," said the respectable man. "Always tell the truth. Say what you think in the bottom of your heart. That's my life motto."

    Summer's here and it won't be long before school-aged kids across America start complaining that they're tired of riding their bikes, playing at the park, swimming in the pool...and all the other awesome activities their parents hoped would keep them pleasant for the next 10 weeks. Well, if it's any comfort, such rapid boredom could suggest that the kids have amazing powers of memory. A new study shows that the better your short-term memory is, the faster you fed sated (过饱的）and decide you've had enough.

    "Though satiation can be physical, like when you feel full after eating too much, we were interested in the psychological (心理学的）side of satiation. Like when you're just tired of something," Noelle Nelson, assistant professor of marketing and consumer behavior. She and her colleague Joseph Redden at the University of Minnesota tried to think outside the lunch box." Something that was interesting to me is that some people get tired of same things at very different speeds. So if you think about pop songs on the radio, some people must still be enjoying them and requesting them even after hearing them a lot. But a lot of other people are really sick of those same songs."

    The difference, the researchers thought, might have to do with memories of past experiences. For example, studies show that people push away from the dinner table sooner when they're asked to describe in detail what they ate earlier for lunch.

    So the researchers tested the memory capacity (能力） of college students, The students then viewed a repeating series of three classic paintings…like The Starry Night, American Gothic, and The Scream...or listened and re-listened to a series of three pop songs...or three pieces of classical music. Throughout the test, the students were asked to rate （定等级） their experience from zero to tan. And the better a participant scored in the memory test, the faster they got bored." We found that people with larger capacities remembered more about the music or art, which led to them getting tired of the music or art more quickly. So remembering more details actually made the students feel like they'd experienced the music or art more often."

    The findings suggest that marketers could control our desire for their products by figuring out ways to keep us from fully remembering our experiences. We could also trick ourselves into eating less junk food by putting ourselves in the memory of a previous (之前的) snack. As for kids easily bored, just tell them to forget about it—it might help them have more fun.

    I was driving my newly acquired motorcycle across the vastness of North Dakota when all of the sudden it froze up on the road. I would later be told the belt had slipped and this caused one of the pistons(活塞)to break a cylinder(气缸)head, or something like that.

    Anyway, I sat on the side of the road for what seemed like hours. I even pretended to have been in an accident, which didn't help. Finally, a young man pulled over and offered me a ride, but given that he already had two motorcycles in the back of his truck, he could only take me.

    He drove me to the next town, where I asked to be dropped off Rather than drop me off, he waited while I asked around if anyone could help me to pick up my motorcycle. One elderly gentleman was working and said that I could use his pickup! Can you imagine that a stranger gave me the keys to his pick up. It was quite an experience, I must say. So, as I drove back 20 miles to get my motorcycle, the gentleman who first stopped to help me followed me. We both put the motorcycle in the back of the truck and then I followed him another 50 miles or so and we both unloaded the motorcycle at his place. Then, he followed me back to the small town so I could return the man's truck. I didn't have much cash on me, maybe $40, but I gave it to the man for the use of his truck.

    Two strangers helped rescue me from spending the night on the side of the road in ND. I don't recall their names, but when I close my eyes I can see their faces as if it were yesterday. Thank you, strangers. You may be reading this right now.

In spite of the fact that I had stayed with my sister for 14 years. I knew one thing—I would not want to be like her. In high school, she was a journalist and it was 1 she talked about. No matter how many times I said it, I 2 myself in "Intro to Journalism" freshman year,3 . Why? That was because my mother wanted me to be a journalist, 

Though it was the4 thing I wanted to do, I got to realize the point of being a journalist. It was 5 writing a report. It was also communicating with people by telling stories. After a short term, I began to see what happened around me 6 —I saw things as7 , which I wanted to share with people who wants to 8 .

In the second semester, I joined the newspaper staff and 9 nearly every position on staff, from designing different columns to taking photographs. I wrote stories, opinions, and almost any other thing for every 10 of the paper.

I loved everything around me, but I found my gift in visual journalism. I had a/an 11 for design and I was12 ready to put in. When I was writing each story, I promised to tell in its entirety. There is possibility that some 13 of a story can't be presented in a paragraph form. That is 14 I came in. I worked to improve the 15 of our magazine every day. But my work is not 16 to this. I also worked to add the web and multimedia 17 the publication. I loved producing content for the newspaper. 18 , I found myself creating less and less through my junior year. Then 1 was thinking up ideas and helping others to do the 19 to make their work happen.

Now, I'm proud to say that I have fully made 20 of what it means to be a good storyteller.