A week in the sun relaxing in the beautiful March weather of Varadero, Cuba is a fantastic vacation for anyone. Luckily, my wife, two friends and I had the chance last year.

      To see Cuba, you have to talk to the Cubans. Our friends met us at the airport even at 1:00 a.m. which started our trip on a positive note. After a few days at the hotels, we got to know a local tour guide, Victor.

      The trip started off on a sunny morning. Our return trip would be along the coastline from Havana, but out trip to Havana would be through the countryside and the small towns. This trip was designed for us to visit the Cuban countryside.

      At first Victor brought us to Revolutionary Square, where Fidel Castro made his yearly speech praising the ideas of the revolution.

      Our second stop was the Bocoy Rum Factory. We walked through and learned how 5000 bottles of rum(朗姆酒) are produced every day. The smell of rum, and the huge barrels were interesting.

      The final stop was the market in Old Havana. Here my wife and I went away from our friends and we toured through this large shopping center. From store to store we saw so many items that all had a clear Cuban feel to them. We bought a picture and some special local things, and then we took off to meet up with Victor.

      As a tourist I was able to have a quick look at Cuban life with the help of Cubans. I felt lucky to have the chance. It was an interesting experience in my life.

    On a cold winter day, a fox told Mother Bear that he would teach her how to fish Mother Bear wanted to learn, so the fox took her to a hole in the ice and told her to put her tail(尾巴)down into the water.

    He told her to keep the tail there for a long time. Then when she pulled the tail out of the water, she would find fish around the tail.

    The bear was foolish enough to believe what the fox said. She sat for a long time with her tail in the water. She was waiting for the fish. But when she tried to pull her tail out of the water, she found that it was frozen(冻结)in the ice.

    She asked the fox to pull her out, but the fox laughed at her and ran away. So she called Father Bear to help her.

    Father Bear came. He pulled her hard and at last got her out. But a part of her tail was in the ice. That is why people find the bear's tail so short.

    I live in Mentone, a quiet, simple, restful place, where the rich never come. I met Theophile Magnan, a retired, rich, old man from Lyons yesterday. In the Hotel des Anglais. Theophile looked sad and dreamy, and didn't talk with anybody else. Which brought me back to the past.

A long time ago, Francois Millet. Claude, Carl and I were young artists — very young artists — in fact.

    Yes, Francois Millet. The great French artist, was my friend.

Millet wasn't any greater than we were at that time. He didn't have any fame, even in his own village.

    We were all poor though we had stacks and stacks of as good pictures as anybody in Europe painted. Once a person ever offered four francs for Millet's "Angelus", which he intended to sell for eight.

    It was a fact in human history that a great artist would never be acknowledged* until after he was starved and dead. His pictures climbed to high prices after his death.

    Then we made a decision that one of us must die, to save the others and himself.

    Millet was elected to die.

    During the next three months Millet painted with all his might, enlarged his stock all he could, not pictures, not sketches, studies, parts of studies, fragments of studies, of course, with his cipher *  on them.

    They were the things to be sold.

    Carl went to Paris to start the work of building up Millet's name. Claude and I went to sell Millet's small pictures and to build up his name as well.

    We made Millet a master. I always said to my customer, "I am a fool to sell a picture of Francois Millet's at all, for he is not going to live three months, and when he dies his pictures can't be had for love or money."

    Claude and I took care to spread that little fact as far as we could.

Carl made friends with the correspondents, and got Millet's condition reported to England and all over the continent, and America, and everywhere.

    The sad end came at last, Millet died, not really.  He became Theophile Magnan.

    The pictures went up. There's a man in Paris today who owns seventy Millet pictures. He paid us two million francs for them. Do you still remember the "Angelus"? Carl sold it for twenty—two hundred francs. And as for the bushels of sketches and studies which Millet produced in the last six weeks, well, it would astonish you to know the figure we sell them at nowadays.

    We are no longer artists and Millet dead.

Blue Lightning

    Sally loved cars more than anything else. This spring she thought of building a go-kart to enter for the Go-Go Race. So she asked her dad for help.

    "Well," he said. "How about this: you do some research first and then come back to me with a design."

    A week later, Sally brought her notes and drawings to Dad. She named her go-kart "Blue Lightning". Dad looked over her work, thinking. "Well, that's interesting," he said. "Have a try. Just build Blue Lightning as you've designed."

    Over three weekends of hard work, Sally turned her design into a real, working go-kart and painted it light blue. Dad asked her to take it for a test drive. Sally agreed.

    After she did that, Sally drove back to Dad. "Well," she said. "Now I know why you wanted me to have a test drive."

    "Oh, do you?" he said. "Please share."

    "When I drove fast, there was a lot of pushback," she said. "I think it's because of the lightning bolt (闪电) shape."

    "Very good!" Dad said.

    "So, why didn't you tell me about that problem in the first place?" Sally asked.

    Dad laughed. "Where's the fun in that? If you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day. But if you teach a man to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime."

    Sally said, "I see. Anyway, designing is half the fun!"

    Dad smiled. "Good. Sometimes, learning happens during the process. We learn how to do something right by doing it a few times first and making mistakes along the way."

    That encouraged Sally and she worked even harder. When she showed Dad her new go-kart, he nodded with pride.

    Finally came the race. Sally wasn't worried about whether she would win—in her mind, she had already won, by building something better than ever before.

    It was the summer before my third grade. Our girls' softball team was facing real pitchers (投球手)1the first time. Before that, we could just hit the ball on the tee (球座). When the coach started pitching, hitting became2for me. I missed every single pitch. From the side, I heard my teammate Emily laughing at3. My face got hot and my throat felt like it had a softball stuck in. At that moment, I was starting to4playing softball.

    The next afternoon, when Mum said it was time to play the game, I told her I was5. She allowed me to lie down for a while. So I went to my room and6myself in bed. This was difficult for me because I was fine and just7to avoid softball.

    Soon Mum came in and said, "Time to go!" She didn't even ask if I felt8. I imagined Emily laughing from the sideline, and9I really did feel sick to my stomach. I began crying loudly. Still, Mum pulled my team T-shirt over my head. She said, "You have to10for the rest of the season, and only after that we can talk about 11you'll continue next year." She added that practice was what I needed, not12. She promised to practise with me.

    I got two hits that afternoon, and Emily didn't make a13. Every week after that, I practised at home14I got to be one of the best hitters on the team.

    That15taught me that being afraid is part of life, and I can do whatever is expected of me if I keep working and practising.