Years ago, when I started looking for my first job, a wise man advised, "Barbara, be
enthusiastic! Enthusiasm will take you further than any amount of experience." How right
they were!
"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm." wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. It is
the paste that helps you hang on there when the going tough. It is the inner voice that
whispers, "I can do it!" when others shout, "No, you can"t!" It took years and years for
the early work of Barara McClintock, a geneticist who won the 1983 Nobel Prize in medicine,
to be generally accepted. Yet she didn"t stop working on her experiments. Work was such a
deep pleasure for her that she never thought of stopping.
We are all born with wide-eyed, enthusiastic wonder and it is this childlike wonder
that gives enthusiastic people such youthful air, whatever their age was. At 90, cellist
Palblo Cassls would start his day by playing Bach. As the music flowed through his fingers
his stooped shoulders would strengthen and joy would reappear in his eyes. As author and
poet Samuei Ulman once wrote, "Years wrinkle (使起皱纹) the skin,but to give up enthusiasm
wrinkles the soul."
Enthusiastic people also love what they do, regardless of money or power. Patricia
Mellrath, retired director of the Missouri Repertory Theatre in Kansas City, was once asked
where she got her enthusiasm. She replied, "My father, a lawyer long ago told me, I never
made a dime until I stopped working for money."
If we cannot do what we love as a full-time career, we can as a hobby. Elizabeth Layton
was 68 before she began to draw. This activity ended periods of depression that had trouble
d her for at least 30 years,and the quality of her led one critic (批评家)to say, "I"d like
to call Layton a genius."
We can"t afford to waste tears on "might-have-been". We need to turn the tears into
sweat as we go after "what-can-be". We need to live each moment whole-heartedly, which all
our senses-including pleasure in the sweet smell of a back-yard garden, the simple picture
of a six-year-old, the beauty of a rainbow.
( )1.A.surprising ( )2.A.separated ( )3.A.failed ( )4.A.quickly ( )5.A.then ( )6.A.protected ( )7.A.floor ( )8.A.shy ( )9.A.deal with ( )10.A.different ( )11.A.sentence ( )12.A.bravely ( )13.A.disliked ( )14.A.comfortable ( )15.A.nearly ( )16.A.touch ( )17.A.surface ( )18.A.discussed ( )19.A.brave ( )20.A.their | B.sudden B.destroyed B.tried B.entirely B.if B.affected B.world B.elderly B.see B.beautiful B.passage B.proudly B.liked B.valuable B.even B.observe B.outing B.heard B.peaceful B.my | C.big C.cut C.succeeded C.carefully C.still C.stopped C.front C.ugly C.laugh at C.lonely C.opinion C.simply C.hated C.successful C.hardly C.watch C.head C.talked C.sweet C.its | D.bad D.hurt D.managed D.slowly D.so D.interrupted D.people D.strange D.face D.honest D.message D.fairly D.noticed D.special D.still D.recognize D.scar D.written D.exciting D.her |
阅读理解。 | |||
Both my parents came from towns in Mexico. Then I was born in El Paso, Texas, and when I was four, my family moved to a housing project in East Los Angeles. Even though we struggled to make ends meet, my parents stressed to me and my four brothers and sisters how fortunate we were to live in a great country with limitless opportunities. They influenced us with the concepts of family, faith and nationalism. I got my first real job when I was ten. My dad injured his back working in a cardboard- box factory and was retrained as a hairstylist. He rented space in a little shopping mall and gave his shop the fancy name of Mr Ben"s Coiffure. The owner of the shopping center gave Dad a discount on his rent for cleaning the parking lot three nights a week, which meant getting up at 3 a.m.. To pick up rubbish, Dad used a little machine that looked like a lawn mower. Mom and I emptied garbage cans and picked up litter by hand. It took two to three hours to clean the lot. I"d sleep in the car on the way home. I did this for two years, but the lessons I learned have lasted a lifetime. I acquired discipline and a strong work ethic (道德), and learned at an early age the importance of balancing life"s competing interests-in my case, school, homework and a job. This really helped during my senior year of a high school, when I worked 40 hours a week flipping burgers at a fast-food joint while taking a full load of college preparation courses. The hard work paid off. I attended the US Military Academy and went on to receive graduate degrees in law and business from Harvard. Later, I joined a big Los Angeles law firm and was elected to the California State Assembly (州议会). In these jobs and in everything else I"ve done, I have never forgotten those nights in the parking lot. The experience taught me that there is dignity in all work and that if people are working to provide for themselves and their families that is something we should honor. | |||
1. Before my father got injured,we _____. | |||
[ ] | |||
A. didn"t like living in the USA B. lived a poor but happy life C. were lucky to move to the USA D. had many ways to make money | |||
2. When he recovered,to make a living my father _____. | |||
[ ] | |||
A. ran a small shopping mall B. did a part-time job C. worked as a barber D. became a street cleaner | |||
3. Working in the parking lot for two years had taught me _____. | |||
[ ] | |||
A. how to obey school discipline B. how to do two things well at a time C. that discipline and work were of equal value D. that I must do as many things as possible at a time | |||
4. The author tells us in the last paragraph that we should be proud of those who _____. | |||
[ ] | |||
A. have done all kinds of jobs B. are cleaning the parking lot C. have achieved a lot in their lives D. are bearing their responsibilities |