Now, I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have   41  in your lives right now that can make it hard to   42  on your schoolwork.

I get it. I know what it’s like. My father   43  my family when I was two years old, and I was   44  by a single mom who had to work and who struggled   45  to pay the bills(账单) and wasn’t always   46  to give me the things that other kids had. There were times when I  47  having a father in my life. There were times when I was   48  and I felt like I didn’t fit in.

So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been on school, and I did some things I’m not   49  of, and I got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have   50  taken a turn for the worse. But I was   51  , I got a lot of second chances, and I had the opportunity to go to college and law school and follow my   52  .

Some of you might not have those   53  . Maybe you don’t have adults(成年人) in your life who give you the   54  that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost his or her job and there’s not enough money to   55  the daily expense(费用). Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are   56  you to do things that you know aren’t right.

But at the end of the day,    57  the circumstances(环境) of your life are,   58  of those is an excuse for ignoring(忽视) your homework or having a bad   59  in school. That’s no excuse for talking back(顶嘴) to your   60  , or dropping out of school. There’s no excuse for not trying.

It was about six years ago. We were at senior high school. Those days in school were  4l  to most Chinese students because of the college  42   examination pressure. Not our parents and teachers didn’t love us.   43   they loved us too much. The only happiness for us was a high   44   in the exam.

One afternoon after the final exam, we four girls came to a small   45   and we felt it only belonged to us that afternoon. We talked and laughed. We played all the games that we could     46  . We felt really happy for the first time in our   47  . We totally forgot the unhappiness in our life and we threw the homework and the endless   48   far away out of the wood.

In the middle of the wood ran a small and peaceful    49  . Now and then, we could see some wild ducks on the water seeking food. The water weeds   50   happily while the water passed beside them. The air was so fresh that we breathed it freely.

The sun had set  51  we knew it. We had to leave the place which brought us much happiness. We agreed to come back again every time we felt   52  .

53   later, we went there several times. But every time we went there with the purpose of finding that great feeling, we  54  . Strangely, the feeling was different from   55   of several years ago.

I know that wonderful experience was just for once. We can   56   find that kind of happiness again which only belonged to the special _  57    in our life. That was a release of our uneasy heart. We can never go   58   to that young age or that simple life. It was our   59    ages. No matter how boring and hard the life was, it gave us something worthy to recall in the rest of our life. We’ll   60  it forever.

There was a woman in Detroit, who has two sons. She was worried  21  them, especially the younger one, Ben,  22  he was not doing well in school. Boys in his class 23 fun of him because he seemed so  24 . The mother 25 that she would, herself, have to get her sons to do better in school. She  26   them to go to the Detroit Public Library to read a 27a week and do a report about it for her. One day, in Ben’s  28  , the teacher held up a rock and asked if anyone knew it. Ben 29  up his hand and the teacher let him  30 .“Why did Ben raise his hand?” they wondered. He 31 said anything; what could he possibly want to say? Well, Ben not only32 the rock; he said a lot about it. He named other rocks in its group and even knew  33  the teacher had found it. The teacher and the students were  34 .Ben had learned all this from doing one of his book  35 . Ben later went on to the  36 of his class. When he finished high school, he went to Yale University 37 at last became one of the best doctors in the United States. After Ben had grown up, he 38  something about his mother that he did not know as a  39.She, herself, had never learned how to   40  .

During the wars, a soldier looked after his horse with the greatest care. He gave it the best wheat to eat and the  41  water to drink. He dried it carefully with a towel when it got wet and  42  it with a warm blanket on cold winter nights  43  the horse was strong and swirl and carried its master  44  out of the dangers of  45 

When peace came, however, the soldier  46  . He put the  47  out in a field full of wild plants and gave it only a little food to eat. He left the horse  48   in a worn-out place with a  49  roof and a floor made of mud. During the day the  50  made the horse work hard on his farm,  51   a large amount of wood and pulling heavy wagons (四轮货车).

After some time war broke out  52  . The soldier prepared himself for the war and went to the field to  53  his horse. Hurriedly brushing the mud from its coat, he  54   the horse. For a moment the horse stood there without  55  .  Then gradually its   56 legs began to bend  57  it sank slowly to the ground. The horse gave the soldier a look of  58  .

"Master," it said, "you' ll have to  59  on foot this time. You have made me work like a mule (骡子) and  60  me like a goat. I cannot change back into a horse in an instant just because you Want me to."