A terrible explosive noise was heard, immediately followed by strong shaking of the classroom building. Mrs. Li Lan, a country school teacher in Sichuan, who was giving a class, could hardly keep on her feet, and many of her pupils made panic cries. Mrs. Li realized at once that it must be a powerful earthquake hitting the area. Though she herself was scared, she managed (设法) to make the children calm down, opened the door right away and told the children to leave the classroom and get down to the playground as quickly as possible.

When all the children had left, she followed them to the first floor. The earth still kept moving violently (巨烈地). Some of the buildings nearby were falling down, and a great number of falling stones were rolling down from the hills behind the school. Suddenly, she found a little boy fell over and was hit by a big stone right on his body. She forgot the danger she was facing and ran over, trying to push the stone away. The stone was so big that it was not easy for her to move it. She kept pushing until the boy was pulled out, carrying him to the center of the playground. The boy was later sent to hospital and saved.

    An old man was fishing on the bank of a river. A child came to see him fishing. The old man was really good at fishing and it didn't take long for him to catch a full basket of fish. The old man saw that the child was very cute, and he wanted to give her a whole basket of fish. But the child shook her head.

    The old man was surprised and asked, "Why don't you want the fish?"

    The child answered, "I want the fishing rod(竿)in your hands."

    The old man asked, "Why do you want the rod?"

    "It doesn't take long to eat all the fish in a basket. But if I have the fishing rod, I can go fishing by myself and I won't be afraid of not having any more fish to eat."

    I think you will certainly say that the child is very smart. Wrong! If she doesn't know how to fish, she can not have fish to eat, even though she has the fishing rod. It's useless to only have a fishing rod. Fishing skills are the most important, not the fishing rod.

    Too many people think that if they have a "fishing rod" in their life, they will no longer fear(害怕)the wind and rain. They are just like the child, who thought that if she had a fishing rod, she would have fish to eat.

    Most of the taxi drivers in Beijing can speak some simple English, so western tourists can communicate (交流) with them. If a foreigner is in a street in Beijing, and he wants to take a taxi, the friendly taxi driver will stop near him and ask him in a friendly way. Here is the usual dialogue in English between them.

The taxi driver:” Can I help you?”

The foreigner: “Yes, please.”

The taxi driver:” Please get on the taxi.”

The foreigner: “Thank you.”

The taxi driver: “Can you tell me where you would like to go?”

The foreigner: “I'd like to go to Tian Qiao Street.”

The taxi driver: “OK, I see.”

    During the ride, the driver will play the western music for the foreigner, and the driver will also begin the conversation with a small talk like the weather or the fashion.

    After getting off the taxi, the foreigner will give the driver some tips (小费) like the way in his country, however, the driver will say politely, “Thank you, but I only take what the ride costs.”

    Tom is a young man. He has a very big dog and he has a very small car, too. He likes playing tennis. Today he plays tennis for two hours at the club and then he wants to go home by car. His dog comes after him, but it does not jump into the same car. It jumps into the next car. "Come here, foolish(愚蠢的) dog!" Tom shouts at it, but the dog still stays in the next car. Tom puts his key into the lock（锁）of the car, but the key does not turn（转动）. Then he looks at the car again. It is not his car! He is in the wrong car! And the dog is in the right car!

    Teenager Jake Deham was skiing(滑雪) with his family in the USA when he fell over and lost one of his skis. His family didn't know that he had a problem. They kept on skiing. When they got to the foot of the mountain, there was no sign of Jake.

    Jake couldn't find his ski anywhere. In the end, he decided to take off his other ski and walk down the mountain. But he couldn't work out the right way to go.

    It was now getting dark and he was a long way from any place of safety. He knew that he might die that night in the cold temperatures. But Jake kept calm(镇定). At home, Jake watched a lot of programs about living in difficult situations. He remembered the advice from these programs and knew that he should build a hole in the snow. He made a hole and pointed it up the hill so the wind couldn't blow into it. Outside his hole, the temperature fell to a dangerous﹣15℃that night, but inside it Jake was safe from the cold.

    But he had to get down the mountain. The TV programs always said, "If you are lost, you should find someone else's tracks(足迹) through the snow and follow them." "I wanted to live my life." remembers Jake. "So I got up and I found some ski tracks and I followed those." He walked and walked and finally he saw lights. Nine hours after he lost his ski, he found a team of worker who came to save him. He was safe!

    His mum was very happy when she heard the news. Amazingly, Jake didn't even have to go to hospital. He got through the terrible experience without any injuries.

    So, the next time someone says that watching TV is a waste of time, think of Jake. Sometimes TV can save your life!

    Life is full of surprises and you never know how things will turn out.

    Sir John Gurdon is a good example of this. As a boy, he was told he was hopeless at science and was at bottom of his class. Now, aged 79, the very same Gurdon shared the 2012 Nobel Prize in Medicine with Japanese stem cell (干细胞) researcher Shinya Yamanaka.

    Like so many scientists, Gurdon shows us where the power of curiosity and perseverance(坚持) can lead.

    When he was 15 in 1948, Gurdon ranked last out of the 250 boys at his high school in biology and every other science subject. Gurdon's high school science teacher even said that his dream of becoming a scientist was "quite ridiculous".

    In spite of his teacher's criticisms(批评), Gurdon followed his curiosity and kept working hard. He went to the lab early and left later than anyone else. He experienced thousands of failures.

    "My own belief is that we will, in the end, understand everything about how cells actually work," Gurdon said.

    In 1962, Gurdon took a cell from an adult frog and moved its genetic (基因的) information into an egg cell. The egg cell then grew into a clone of the adult frog. This technique later helped to create the sheep Dolly in 1996，the first cloned mammal(哺乳动物) in the world.

    In 2006, Gurdon's work was developed by Yamanaka to show that a sample(样本) of a person's skin can be used to create stem cells. Using this technique, doctors can repair a patient's heart after a heart attack.

    "Luck favors the prepared mind," Gurdon told the Nobel Prize Organization. "Ninety percent of the time things don't work, but when they do, you have to seize(抓住) the chance."