Walk Out of the Comfort Zone and Try New Things

    For most high school students, free periods are useless. From what I have seen, few do homework, instead many are on their phones and talking, making it impossible for those who actually want to do work to complete any. As a senior next year, I think extra periods should be used to take optional subjects.

    Our school offers many classes. Now is the time to experiment in different fields of study. We will never know if we are interested or talented in a subject if we don't try it.

    In my 8th grade, I was told that I had to take an art class as a graduation requirement; so in the 9th grade I took Studio and Art. One of the projects was to build a clay pot, but I built mine incorrectly, so it broke in the kiln (窑). I found out that I have no artistic ability at all, and now I know for sure that I do not want to be an artist. However, the class was one of my favorites that year. I was able to try new activities and test my ability.

    Walk out of our comfort zone and try new things! College is when we should focus on a specific major, but high school is when we have to figure it out.

    Half of all college students change their major at some point. By doing that hundreds of dollars are wasted on classes that they would have never needed to take. So use our extra periods to find out what we want to do in college. The classes we choose can impact us in future. Taking optional subjects will enrich our mind. It will also show colleges we are diverse students.

    From time to time, we all get a bit down. Maybe we are feeling bad because we're not doing well with our goals. There are many reasons for feeling down, but I'm not able to discuss all of them. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    Make a list. Sometimes we are sad simply because we are troubled by all the things we have to do. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Make a list of the most pressing things you have to do. Thus you're getting things under control. You can see, right in front of you, what you need to do, and that can pick up your mood.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#} You've made a list, and you still feel puzzled? Well, get started on the first thing you need to do. Once you get into action, you'll feel better. And once you start doing something, you will feel much better than lying around feeling sorry for yourself.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} I like Brown Eyed Girl, the Kinks, the Ramones, or an upbeat Beatles tune. You might have your own brand of feel-good music. Whatever it is, let yourself move to the beat. It may just be what the doctor ordered.

    Talk about it. Get a best friend, family member or coworker you can talk to. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} It can also help you work out the reasons you're feeling down.

    There was once a farmer who had a fine olive orchard. He was very hardworking, and the farm always prospered(蒸蒸日上) under his care. But he knew that his three sons did not like the farm work, and were eager to reach the goal at a single leap.

    When the farmer felt that his time had come to die, he called the three sons to him and said, “My sons, there is a pot of gold hidden in the olive orchard. Dig for it, if you wish it.” After the farmer was dead, the sons went to work to find the pot of gold.” Since they did not know where the hiding-place was, they agreed to begin in a line, at one end of the orchard, and to dig until one of them should find the money.

    They dug until they had turned up the soil from one end of the orchard to the other, round the tree-roots and between them. But no pot of gold was to be found. It seemed as if someone must have stolen it, or as if the farmer had been wandering in his wits. The three sons were bitterly disappointed to have all their work for nothing. The next olive season, the olive trees in the orchard bore more fruit than they had ever given; when it was sold, it gave the sons a whole pot of gold.

    And when they saw how much money had come from the orchard, they suddenly understood what the wise father had meant when he said, “There is gold hidden in the orchard. Dig for it, if you wish.”

写作内容:1. 以30个词概括上文的主要内容。2. 以约120个词就“Dig for it, if you wish it.”的话题谈谈你的想法，内容包括：①你对这句话的理解。②试举例说明。③这个故事给你的启发。

     [1] Jean Paul Getty was born in 1892 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He became a millionaire when he was only 24. His father was wealthy, but he did not help his son. Getty made his millions alone. He made his money from oil. He owned Getty Oil and over 100 other companies. The Fortune magazine once called Getty “the richest man in the world.”

     [2]But money _________. He married five times and divorced five times. He had five children but spent little time with them. None of Getty's children had very happy lives.

     [3]Getty loved to make money and loved to save it. In spite of his great wealth, Getty was miser. Every evening, he wrote down every cent he spent that day. He even put pay telephone in the guest's bedrooms in his house so he could save money on phone bills.

[4] In 1973, kidnappers took his 16-year-old grandson, and demanded a large amount of money for his safe return. Getty's son asked his father for money to save his child. But Getty refused. The kidnappers were merciless and Getty's son made repeated requests for help from his father. Finally, Getty agreed to lend the money, but at 4 percent interest.

     [5] Getty started a museum at his home Malibu, California. He bought many important and beautiful pieces of art for the museum. When Getty died in 1976, the value of the collection in the museum was $1 billion. He left all his money to the museum. After his death, the museum grew in size. Today it is one of the most important museums in the United States. Getty made a large fortune in his life, but he gave his money to the art world because he wanted people to learn about and love art.

    Born in 1949, Diana Nyad took an early interest in swimming as a sport and was a Florida State High School swimming champion. Like many young athletes, she had Olympic dreams, but a serious illness kept her from competing in the Games. The disappointment didn't stop her from going forward. Instead, she became interested in marathon swimming. A brilliant athlete, she was well-conditioned for spending long periods of time in the water. As a long-distance swimmer, she would compete against herself and the obstacles presented by distance, danger, cold, and exhaustion.

    For ten years Nyad devoted herself to becoming one of the world's best long-distance swimmers. In 1970, she swam a ten-mile marathon in Lake Ontario, setting the women's record for the course. In 1972 she set another record by swimming 102.5 miles from an island in the Bahamas to the coast of Florida. Then she broke a third record when swimming around Manhattan Island in 1975.

    Nyad attempted to swim the distance between Florida and Cuba in 1978. Though the span of water is less than 100 miles wide, it is rough and dangerous. After battling the water for two days, she had to give for the sake of her own health and safety. Even so, she impressed the world with her courage and strong desire to succeed. For Nyad her strength of purpose was just as important as reading Cuba. That is how she defined success. It did not matter that her swim came up short; she believed she had touched the other shore.

When Nyad ended her career as a swimmer, she continued to try new things—travelling the world as a reporter, writing books and giving public speeches about her life. Diana Nyad works to inspire others, just as she did when she swam the waters of the world.

    In 1940 the German army entered the Netherlands, beginning an occupation that lasted five years. Members of the Dutch royal family(荷兰皇室) were forced to go to the United Kingdom to avoid being caught. However, the threat of German bombing attacks meant that England was not completely safe. For this reason Princess Juliana and her daughters, Princesses Beatrix and Irene, moved to Canada and settled in Ottawa. In January 1943 Juliana gave birth to a third daughter, Princess Margriet Francisca. The Government of Canada temporarily declared her place of birth as outside of Canadian land, meaning Margriet could hold Dutch citizenship and therefore still be qualified for the Dutch throne.

    In 1945, the Dutch royal family returned home. Shortly after her return, Princess Juliana presented 100,000 tulip bulbs to Canada in appreciation of the important role played by Canadian troops in liberating the Netherlands and for providing her family with a safe place during the war. The following year she sent 20,500 tulip bulbs. Juliana continued to send thousands of bulbs as a yearly gift, a tradition that continued after she became queen in 1948. The gift of tulips is an ongoing tradition, and each year the people of the Netherlands and the Dutch royal family each send 10,000 bulbs to Canada in recognition of the close ties between the two countries. The gift of bulbs and the tulip flowers attracted interest and visitors in Ottawa. In 1952 Karsh, an Armenian-born photographer, suggested the idea of a tulip festival to the Ottawa Board of Trade. The first Canadian Tulip Festival took place in 1953. The first festival proved popular, and it became a yearly event. To mark the festival's 50th anniversary in 2002, Canada Post issued a series of commemorative stamps(纪念邮票) and plates featuring the flowers and Princess Margriet returned to visit Ottawa. In the following years the festival began to focus more on international friendship and the festival's historical origins. Now it is one of the world's largest tulip shows.