The clock struck eleven at night. The whole house was quiet. Everyone was in bed except me. Under the strong light, I looked sadly before me at a huge pile of that troublesome stuff they call “books”.

The clock struck twelve."Oh, dear!" I cried, "ten more books to read before I can go to bed!” We pupils are the most wretched creatures in the world. Dad does not agree with me on this. He did not have to work so hard when he was a boy ."

The clock struck one. I was quite desperate now. I forgot all I had learnd. I was too tired to go on. I did the only thing I could. I prayed, “Oh, God, Please help me pass the exam tomorrow. I do promise to work hard afterwards, Amen.” My eyes were so heavy that I could hardly open them. A few minutes later, with my head on the desk, I fell asleep.

Winslow Homer was a famous American painter. Since Art History class in college, I had always admired his works and I was lucky to see a large exhibition of his works when I was in my early 30s.It was at this event that I bought a print of his painting, “Snap the Whip”. It always hung in my classroom until I retired from teaching.

I thought it truly captured the freedom and fun of childhood. In the painting, a group of young boys are playing a game arm in arm on grass ground in front of a farm house. They are jumping and laughing wildly with great joy. One of the boys is falling down to the ground. They are not even wearing shoes!

During my last year of teaching, there was a young woman in her first year of teaching right next door to me and we got to be good friends. She had been an art student before taking up education. Her eyes were drawn immediately to this print when she entered my room. So on my last day of teaching, after the students had left, I took the painting off the wall and walked next door and gave it to her.

She was really surprised, but very glad to have it. I was delighted that she liked it and all the students she would have would treasure it as much as I had. We found the perfect place for it on one of her walls and hung it together. I was happy that she brought back this wonderful memory for me.

I was mostly based in Samburu National Reserve, recording details of the population and leading collar (颈圈) operations. We put trackers (跟踪仪) around wild elephants’necks, so we can learn about their activities.

In May 2009, in the middle of the wet season, Rommel appeared again. And it was histurn to be placed a collar. We sent three cars out to search for him. There’s a river running through the park where many elephants gather in the mornings. At 10:30 am, one of my partners clocked Rommel.

A tranquillizer (镇静剂) was carefully shot into his body so we could safely place a collaron him, but for a bull of Rommel’s size it could take longer. After that, he turned away, heading in an unexpected direction and seemed to be near danger by killing himself in thewater. It would be a bad accident. Only by pulling his trunk (象鼻) from the river, could weensure his survival. The problem was that the river was a little bit changeable. Immediately, I decided to act. I jumped in and lifted his heavy, twitching trunk from the water with the help of lifeguards. The team tried to fit him with a collar, but we discovered that we didn’t have one big enough.

We couldn’t risk keeping him there while we created a bigger collar. So I struggled on, holding his trunk high with all my strength. And medicine that took away the efforts of the tranquillizer was delivered.

As soon as his ears started to move, a sign of coming to life, I dropped his trunk and moved to safety. Within a couple of minutes, he was back to life. That was one of my proudest moments