Dick lived in England. One day in January he said to his wife, "I'm going to fly to New York next week because I've got some work there." "Where are you going to stay there?" his wife asked. "I don't know yet." Dick answered. "Please send me your address from there in a telegram (电报)," his wife said. "All right," Dick answered.

He flew to New York on January 31st and found a nice hotel in the center of the city. He put his things in his room and then he sent his wife a telegram. He put the address of his hotel in it.

He found a taxi (出租车) and the driver said, "Where do you want to go?" But Dick didn't remember the name and address of his hotel.

"Which hotel are my things in?" he said, "And what am I going to do tonight?" But the driver of the taxi did not know. So Dick got out and went into a post office. There he sent his wife another telegram, and in it he wrote, "Please send me my address at this post office."

Change is as good as a rest, as the old saying goes. Lucy Kellaway took this to extremes when she left to train as a teacher in her nearly sixth decade, after about 30 years working as a journalist.

Doing the same thing in the three decades was simply too long for her, according to Lucy. “I was no longer interested in my job and wanted to do something more useful and purposeful with my life, ”Lucy explains. “I was then aged fifty-seven and had spent almost my whole adult life doing one thing. ”

Lucy tried ringing the government’s helpline and discovered there was no maximum age restraint to train as a teacher. Then she met Katie Waldegrave, a social entrepreneur turned teacher, at a party. ”We met the following morning and talked and talked. We concluded that young graduates had long been the obvious recruiting (征募) into the profession. A new model for entering teaching was needed for career changers. By the time I left that conversation, Now Teach had probably been born, a professional online teacher training program for career-changers in teaching. ”

So successful was the program that it attracted the support of the Department for Education. Further state funding has seen the program rolled out across the country. “We’re delighted by its success. The best aspect of my job that the program brings me is that it makes me optimistic about the future and sometimes makes me feel I’m making a big difference to their lives. ”Lucy goes on, “We have helped 650 people with all sorts of backgrounds to bring their various experiences to secondary schools. ”

For anyone interested in teaching, Lucy tells them to experience school life first. “Go and visit two schools. Spend quality time in the classrooms of the subjects you think you may teach and find out if it seems right for you. You may not get it right at first. ”While Lucy loved her new career, she found teaching maths wasn’t her true calling, so she swapped to teaching economics instead.

One day, my two brothers and I were coming back from the islands where we often risked going and got more fish than others. All at once, the sky was covered with dark clouds and in less than a minute we were in a terrible storm. A huge wave covered our boat and my younger brother fell into the sea.

With the wind and waves, we were going in the direction of the whirlpool (漩涡). We were hopeless. Nothing could save us. I felt sick, as if I was falling from a mountain top in a dream. We went round and round, nearer and nearer to the horrible edge of the whirlpool. It may appear strange, but at that moment, when we were on the edge of the whirlpool, I felt calmer than when we were moving towards it. I began to think how amazing a thing it was to die in such a way, and how wonderful it was to see the power of nature. Suddenly, we went over the edge. I thought my life was over. But moment after moment passed, and I was still safe.

The boat was on the inside of the huge whirlpool and we were going round in circles at great speed. I saw clearly that there were other objects in the whirlpool — trees and barrels (桶), After a while, I became curious about the whirlpool itself. I then made three important observations. The first, the larger the bodies were, the more rapidly they fell; the second, between two objects of equal extent (程度), round objects fell down less rapidly; and the third, between two objects of the same size, objects shaped like a tube fell down more slowly. So I tied myself to a barrel to help me float, I tried to make my brother understand, but he was too frightened and stayed in the heavy boat. Without waiting, I jumped into the sea to try and escape.

As you can see, the reason why I’m here to tell the story is that I made the right decision. Some time after I left the boat, with my brother in it, it was pulled into the bottom of the whirlpool. Soon after that, the whirlpool became less wild. Then the sky was clear, the wind calmer, and the moon was shining. I was still tied to the barrel and the waves soon carried me to an area where the other fishermen were. In the end, a boat picked me up. When I told them my story, they did not believe it.