It feels like every time my mother and I start to have a conversation, it turns into an argument between a crazy mother and a single-minded son. We talk about something as simple as dinner plans and suddenly my mother will push the conversation into “the Third World War”. She’ll talk about my lack of bright future because I don’t plan to be a doctor. And much to her disappointment, I don’t want to do any job related to science, either. In fact, when I was pushed to say that I planned to major in English, she nearly had a heart attack.

“Why can’t you be like my friend’s son?” she shouts all the time. Her friend’s son received a four-year scholarship (奖学金) and is now earning 70, 000 dollars a year as an engineer. I don’t know what to say except that I simply can’t be like Mr. Perfect as I’ve called the unnamed friend’s son. I am the type of the person who loves to help out in the community, write until the sun goes down, and most of all, wants to achieve something because of loving it, not because of money.

I understand why my mother is worried about my future major. I’ve seen my mother struggle to raise me on her small salary and work long hours. Tired as she is, she still cooks supper for me and then does other housework staying up late into the night.

I fully understand that what my mother has done is out of her deep love for me. However, I want her to know that I’d rather follow my dreams and create my own future.

When I was a kid, I took traveling with my parents for granted. Sure, they paid for everything. But they were basically no different from teachers taking us to a field trip. 【小题1】. For example, they took us to Denali National Park instead of Disney World. And we sometimes stayed at hotels without pools. And they never let us buy anything from the SkyMall catalog (目录).

Of course, some 20 years later, I consider traveling with my parents, now both in their 60s, to be the utmost privilege. 【小题2】. Neither am I, and every day that passes brings us closer to our last. Fortunately, since graduating college, I’ve been able to cover some serious ground with each of them.

Together my dad and I have looked for the Loch Ness monster in Scotland, photographed wildlife in Grand Teton National Park, and most recently, survived the famously dangerous Drake Passage. Meanwhile, my mom and I have stayed at a $9/night treehouse hostel in Mexico, eaten at a Michelin-starred vegetarian restaurant in Vienna, and most recently, road-tripped through three states.

【小题3】. After all, even if you’re the apple that fell right under the tree, traveling with the people who raised you isn’t always easy. “【小题4】,” says Alexis Sherry, a New Jersey-based travel agent. Still, Sherry is seeing an increasing number of clients requesting vacations for more than one generation. They can be difficult to plan, but so far she says she’s had no “disasters,” and often, her clients come back closer than ever.

“Our parents are our earliest attachment bonds,” says Katie d’ Autremont, a licensed professional adviser based in Bozeman, Montana. “It can be healing and fun to rekindle that bond in our adult years and as our adult selves.” She sees traveling together as the perfect opportunity for getting to know each other for who we are now, with “now” being the key word. 【小题5】.

I am Lucy, a 15-year-old girl from India and I think believing is a great power that can change anything in your life.

When I was 13, almost everyone just thought I was a kid so I did not have to worry about anything. But that was not true because I was bored with everything I was learning. Besides, my mother didn’t understand me.

When I was 14, things changed. My friend encouraged me to learn music and I just found out that I had a strong interest in music so I started spending much time on it. Soon I wanted to be a part of it. So I researched it and then I wanted to be a part of an academy(专科院校) that trains musicians. But the problem was that it was in a different country. Although my parents might not be on my side, I never gave up my dream.

During the next year, I practised my skills in dancing, singing and flexibility. I was in senior high school and had to be a boarder(寄宿生). My mother made me focus on my study. But I was busy preparing for auditions(试镜) of that academy and I was doing everything I could to prove it. To get what I wanted, I had that academy’s photos all over my room and that city’s main monument on my phone’s wallpaper.

After a year in 2022, I finally gave my best audition of that academy on the Internet and I got in! I was happy but sometimes I wondered whether my parents were going to agree to it or not, Fortunately, my parents agreed and I flew to that country to give the last phase of an interview to join that academy. I passed and later was sent there for training.

It was not surprising that I finally got the chance to live in the city of my dream and train in the academy of my dream, as I believed everything was going to work out as long as I held on to my dream.