It all started on 16-year-old Rick’s first day at high school. Like many proud ________. Carol and Dale, Rick’s mum and dad, saw him off to school with big wave (挥手) from the doorstep. That evening Rick complained about how ________ they were. This gave Dale who has an artificial limb (假肢) a great ________.

The next morning as Rick stepped onto the bus outside his house, he could hear all of his school friends ________ something. He turned around and to his great surprise, there was his dad, ________ as an American football player, complete with ball and helmet (头盔). But that was just a ________. For the next 180 school days, rain or shine. Dale appeared there in a ________ costume. One day he was king waving his sword(剑), the next a cook in his cooking hat, the following Wonder Woman. Dale even made other members of the ________ take part, using Rick’s younger brother to play Batman alongside his Robin.

________, Dale only spent $50 on all of his costumes. He got lots of costumes from the family fancy-dress collection and then there were several friends happy to ________.

Some of Rick’s friends didn’t find it ________ but most of them looked forward to seeing what Dale would be wearing. And Dale also ________ international fans for his dressing up too, as each day Carol took photo of her husband in fancy dress and ________ it on their blog (博客) which became a hit on the Internet. Even Rick was finally able to see the funny side and realized his dad was very ________ after all.

But all good things must come to an end and on the last day of school, Dale showed up as a soldier and stood next to a sign ________ “It’s been fun waving at the bus. Have a great summer.” He has no plans to wave Rick of to school next year. Instead, he’going to do something else.

When I was very young, people in our village lived by planting fruit trees. My grandmother always took me to the orchard (果园) on the hill. At that time, they had to carry water from the river at the foot of the hill to halfway up the hill. Even though we worked so hard, the production level of fruit was still low because it was short of water there.

One day, two young men led a group of workers to our village. They learned about the difficulties we faced, and later, canals and other projects began to be built in my village, “Who are they?” I asked. “They are good men from our government,” my grandma replied.

Shortly afterwards, I moved to another city for my junior high school. The only reason I ever came back to my hometown was my grandmother.

One day, my family and I made time to return. We were surprised because everything had changed. The canal ran past every orchard so villagers didn’t have to go up and down the hill anymore. The river was now so clean that fish swam happily in it. When we arrived home, my grandma took out some fresh pears and apples. She told us that after the water conservation project (水利工程) was completed, a policy (政策) was made to encourage more people to increase the fruit production with clean water in the river.

Thank those good men who have devoted themselves to the development of our countryside.

Nowadays, people work hard to live in a big city. However, we should not forget our hometowns where we are from.

Think of somebody you really admire. You will probably find that their success didn’t come easily. As “Father of Hybrid Rice(杂交水稻)”, Yuan Longping got over great difficulties and spent his whole life working to reduce world hunger and helping to feed the country with the largest population.

Wu Mengchao, the “Father of Chinese Hepatobiliary Surgery(肝胆外科)”, focused on saving people’s lives for nearly eighty years. He performed more than 16,000 operations during his life. Holding the surgeon’s knife for such a long time deformed his fingers. Wu once said, “It would my greatest happiness if I could work at the operating table until my dying day.”

In 1969, in order to solve the problem of treating malaria(疟疾), Tu Youyou, pharmacologist (药学家) took on the job as head of a research team. She and her teammates performed different kinds of experiments. However, the results were disappointing. Instead of giving up, they kept trying. Finally, in 1972, they made it! In 2015, at the age of 85, she received Nobel Prize.

Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb believed that every failure was a step towards success. He once said, “If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work, I haven’t failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong try is another step forward.”

Sometimes, their success was a surprise, even to themselves. The famous scientist Alexander Fleming said, “When I woke up just after daybreak on 28th September, 1928, I certainly didn’t plan to revolutionize(变革) all medicine by discovering the world’s first antibiotic(抗生素). But I guess that was exactly what I did.”

Some people only became successful after their deaths. Not like Pablo Picasso who became famous and very rich during his lifetime, the artist Vincent Van Gogh only sold one painting all through his life and that was to a friend. But he kept painting and he painted more than 2,000 artworks in the following ten years. Now his paintings are very popular and they sell for millions of pounds.

One thing all these people have in common is sticking to their goals no matter what.

Susan is the daughter of the famous environmental scientist Clark. But the woman has become an environmentalist on her o
51．.

In 1992, the first UN Earth Summit(峰会) was held in Rio de Janeiro. Thousands of people from around the world h
52． for it to talk about the Earth’s tomorrow. Twelve-year-old Susan and three of her friends formed a group. They raised money to travel to Rio to a
53． the summit.

At the summit, Susan said that the state of the environment w
54． her a lot. “You don’t know how to fix the holes in our ozone layer (臭氧层). You don’t know how to bring back forests that once g
55． where there is now desert. If you don’t know how to fix the Earth, please stop b
56． it!” The six-minute speech silenced all the people and made them fall into deep thinking.

After that speech, Susan began to lead “two lives.” On the t
57． days, she was a schoolchild. But during her vacations, she s
58． internationally about the environment.

Now, nearly 30 years has passed since Susan made her Rio speech. Although many of the world’s environmental problems have only become w
59．, Susan does agree that some things are different now. More and more people give voice like Susan because they have realized the importance of the environment.

“Thirty years ago, I was fighting for my tomorrow. Now, I am fighting for the f
60． of my sons,” says Susan, now a mother of two, who has kept calling people's attention to climate change.

孔子学院(Confucius Institute)夏令营在汉招募志者。假如你是李华请用英文写自荐信。

I am Li Hua from Wuhan. May I have the honor to work as a volunteer at Confucius Institute?

Yours truly,

Li Hua