I should not have dressed up. Obviously, no other fifth grader had felt driven to celebrate the first day of school via fancy clothing. So I stood out not just as a newcomer, but as an awkwardly dressed one. Scratching at black tights with the toe of my sneaker, I paused uncertainly in the doorway of the Writing Room.

Pausing uncertainly, however, was not the way of the world of Mr. Matthews. This red-haired, red-beard, red-faced man seemed to call wildly to me to enter. I walked over to a seat and in three minutes of casual observation was convinced that I had never known an adult like him. He laughed from his belly, moved his ears on request, and his face then turned even redder. His students loved him; it was evident from the way they greeted him to the way they relaxed when they entered his room.

On the contrary, I was not relaxed. I was uninterested in writing. My only previous writing experience had been in cloth-covered books with more room for pictures than print. I had no idea what to expect from a class that was just called “Writing”, but I was certain I wasn’t going to like it.

Yet Mr. Matthews spent that first class entertaining us. He told stories, jokes, and then ended the class early, making us have a rest. Our homework to write about the best part of summer seemed almost an afterthought for him.

However, I was seized by a desire to do my homework. It wasn’t anything specific he had said in class that day, but the way he had acted. I wanted this man to like and approve of me, and the quickest way to earn this was through my writing.

That night, despite having dealt with a word processor all of twice in my life, I wrote with passion. Proudly handing it in the next morning, I was sure it was the best thing I’d ever written. For the rest of the year, this one-man audience inspired me to improve continuously. The fifth grader would never have guessed that, six years later, writing would become a voluntary, daily activity, flowing from journals to emails to poetry workshops to newspapers.

All because she wanted to win a crazy teacher’s favor!

It was the first run of a family ski weekend in Colorado.The perfect spring morning greeted us with clear skies and a warm temperature.We planned the course on the mountain map and set off.Then, three minutes into the run, my left ski came off; then my right ski turned over and took my leg with it, and then I heard the sharp sound.I lay on the snow, screaming.My brother and husband stopped and took me down the mountain to the hospital．

After an operation, the doctor told me that I wouldn’t walk for three months.It seemed like a blow.“How can we get everything done?” I turned to Adam, my husband.Who would get the kids to the bus at 7:15 a.m. , since my husband was in his office by 6 a.m. each day? Who would deal with the two dogs? Who would prepare dinner? Who would drive to tennis practices? “We’ll work it out,” Adam said.I nodded, because we didn’t have the other choice．

But something unexpected happened: friends both near and far were searching for ways they could help.Parents at our school bus stop offered to drop my kids off each afternoon.My kids ran up the steps each day to check on me.My husband, the man who, in the past, had to be told what to do and when to do it, pulled our family back up.

Finally, I returned to the shopping and the bus pickups. I made dinners again.I organized everyone and sent them out the door.But something had changed in our family, in me.Now I am quicker to ask for help if I am the one needing.

Most young architects—particularly those in big cities—can only dream about working in a building of their own. And making that dream come true often means finding a building no one else seems to want, which is exactly what happened to David Yocum and his partner, Brian Bell. Their building is a former automobile electrical-parts firm in Atlanta. From the outside, it looks too old, even something horrible, but open the door and you are in a wide, open courtyard, lined on three sides with rusting (生锈的) walls.

In 2000, Yocum and Bell found this building in the city’s West End. Built in 1947, the structure had been abandoned years earlier and the roof of the main building had fallen down. But the price was right, so Yocum bought it. He spent eight months of his off-hours on demolition (拆除), pulling rubbish out through the roof, because it was too dangerous to go inside the building. The demolition was hard work, but it gave him time to think about what he wanted to do, and “to treasure what was there—the walls, the rust, the light,” Yocum said. “Every season, more paint falls off the walls and more rust develops. It’s like an art installation (装置) in there—a slow-motion show.”

Since the back building had been constructed without windows, an all-glass front was added to the building to give it a view of the courtyard, and skylights were installed in the roof. The back of the building is a working area and a living room for Yocum and his wife. A sort of buffer (缓冲) zone between the front and the back contains a bathroom, a kitchen and a mechanical room, and the walls that separate these zones have openings that allow views through to the front of the studio and the courtyard beyond.

Yocum and Bell, who have just completed an art gallery for the city, feel that the experience from the decoration of their building, focusing on the inside rather than the outside, has influenced their work. It has also given these architects a chance to show how they can make more out of less.