Value Now No Longer Missed

    John, a famous musician, took his priceless antique zither(齐特琴)and played it in the crowded subway station. The music emanating from the zither was delicately streaming1the whole station. However, during the one-hour play, only six or seven people were truly2the charming music. John only got 52 dollars for his work that day.

    However, in normal days, when John is about to hold a 3, one ticket can be sold at more than 100 dollars and it is extremely 4to buy a ticket even at such a high price. Therefore, later, many passers-by in the station that day felt deeply5for not recognizing the famous musician and missing such a valuable but6music feast.

    I have a very7friend who had totally changed after knowing that his wife8an acute illness. He cooked by himself for the family and took a walk with his wife every day. Nonetheless, his wife still did not manage to9the illness and passed away after three months. After that, he often sighed 10that due to his past busy life, he had missed a lot of beautiful time with his wife. But now, it is  11to make up for it.

    It is no use crying over spilt milk. We have12a lot of precious things in our life without knowing how to 13them. Actually, I also missed something 14before. The reason is simple: we had thought that we could still own them tomorrow.

    Nevertheless, tomorrow is actually15reliable. There was a famous Buddhist monk saying that in many people's lives, they have only done two things: waiting and 16. The result is that they were always too late to cherish 17they had before they lost it. We would often claim to do something when we 18, or when we have money or when we become old, etc. However, when we reach the19, we could no longer realize our20, because we have lost it by then.

    Mrs. Jones was over eighty, but she still drove her old car like a woman half her age. She loved driving very fast, and was proud of the fact 1 she had never, in her thirty-five years of driving, been punished 2 a driving offence (犯规，犯法).

    Then one day she nearly3 her record. A police car 4 her, and the policemen in it saw her5 a red light without stopping. Of course, she was stopped. It seemed 6 that she would be punished.

    7 Mrs. Jones came up to the judge, he looked at her seriously and said that she was  8 old to drive a car, and that the 9 why she had not stopped at the red 10was most probably that her eyes had become weak 11 old age, so that she had simply not seen it.

    When the judge had finished what he was 12, Mrs. Jones opened the big handbag she was 13 and took out her sewing. Without saying a word, she 14 a needle with a very small eye, and threaded it at her first attempt.

    When she had 15 done this, she took the thread out of the needle again and handed 16 the needle and the thread to the judge, saying, “Now it is your 17I suppose you drive a car, and that you are quite sure about your own eyesight.”

    The judge took the 18 and tried to thread it. After half a dozen tries, he had still not succeeded. The case (案例) against Mrs. Jones was19, and her record20 unbroken.

    After a failed marriage, depression, not working for four years, and sending out over 200 resumes in the last five months, today I got a $60,000/year job in my field of1.

    I'd been in the running for this job for one and a half months. They received 140 2, interviewed 20, and it was3to me and one other person.

    But three days ago I got a call from them saying they had 4 to move forward with the other candidate. I 5them for the opportunity. They wished me luck in my 6, and I spent the entire day7.

    Then yesterday my would-be-boss called, and said she and the HR manager who initially 8 me couldn't get me off their 9 because of my enthusiasm, attitude, and the excitement I couldn't 10.

    She told me the president of the company11 hired the other candidate because he was 12 in a particular software program, which I am only slightly familiar with. The president is old school, so he went with the13 bet.

    The woman told me she went to bat for me with the 14 these last couple of days 15she believed I was the one the company16.

    She also told me I was the only person out of 20 interviews who 17 them afterwards and said thank you for the 18 of meeting with me. The ONLY person.

    I've had some very hard truths to face and had to19 who I am. It's been a(n)20few years, but those little sunshine rays are finally touching me.

Born in France, but raised in Spain,linguistics and literature professor Juan José Ciruela Alférez from the University of Granada is passionate about Chinese literature and has been doing some research about it. With painstaking effort, his Spanish translation of a Chinese classic was published last year. 

Ciruela said translating the novel was an interesting challenge. In recent years, many Chinese works have been introduced to Spain. However, as most of them had been translated first into English and then from that language into Spanish, much of the originality,was lost. For this reason, when the Spanish publishing house Kailas contacted Ciruela to translate it directly from Chinese, he accepted the mission immediately, even if it presented difficulties like a heavy workload within a short time limit.  

"I encountered various difficulties, especially at the beginning of the task," said Ciruela in an interview. "This novel, in particular, needs a prior reading process in which the translator gets into the plot and the characters, since at first it is difficult to enter the world that the novel constantly raises. So I read the novel first in Chinese, paying attention to all those details and how all of that could be translated in a way that the Spanish readers would understand."

For Ciruela, the most important criterion when translating is fidelity(忠诚) to the original text. While it is true that one cannot always be strictly faithful, he believes translators should not be too far from original texts. For example, the translation of culturemes (expressions of culture in language) is quite complicated due to the cultural gap between Spanish and Chinese. Ciruela believes that these must always be appropriate to the specific function they perform within the text, in each specific case and moment. 

Faye and Matthew Gooding and their five young sons appear to have perfect lives. Mrs. Gooding 1 beautiful photos of life in their four-bedroom house on Instagram(一种社交软件), and more than 32, 000 people 2 them. For the couple themselves, 3 , this "materially(物质地) perfect world" was lacking something—so now they are giving up all their 4 to travel around the world with their kids.

This was the last Christmas that the couple spent in their house, which has already been sold. Most of their belongings are 5 too. Shortly their Ford car will be sold and the family will take just one backpack each.

Mrs. Gooding said: "Some friends and family think Matt and I are 6 to be giving up so much. It's been difficult giving up so many possessions. Yet 7 enjoying spending time with the boys, I found myself cleaning the house all day before. The older ones were at school and I thought, 'I 8 see them'. I admitted how I felt to Matt. He agreed it felt as if our lives moved around 9 things—both of us working to 10 the mortgage(贷款) and keep ourselves in our materially perfect world."

    They will leave this month and plan to start their 11 in Sweden where they have friends.

Mr. Gooding added: "People have said 'aren't you worried about stability and safety?'— 12 as we have five small children. It is a (an) 13 because we are giving up so much. But we can't wait to spend more time with our sons without the 14 of everyday routines. We don't know what will happen, but we do know if we didn't do this we would always 15 it."