I’m Wang Jun. Every morning, I run by the seaside near my home. 【小题1】 He walks on the beach and looks for something. This morning, I stopped running and walked to him.

“Hello! I see you here every morning. 【小题2】” I asked.

“I’m taking away the stones on the turtles (海龟). There are always some baby turtles under the stones. The stones can stop them from going to the sea, so I come to help these turtles every morning,” he replied.

“It’s really kind of you. 【小题3】 After all, you can’t help all baby turtles under the stones,” I said.

He smiled and said, “When I see them get out of trouble, I feel so happy. It’s my own way of making a difference.” Then he took away a stone beside him. 【小题4】 He looked at the turtle and went on, “At least it’s meaningful to this turtle.”

【小题5】 It’s true that we can’t change the whole world at once. But we can help one person, one animal, or one thing at a time. If everyone can do something good, it will make a big difference.

"Confidence" is probably one of the most noticeable traits（品质）in the Americans. They show confidence in the way they talk, the way they smile, the way they dress and the way they walk. Living and competing with all these confident American students, I find it extremely important to be confident as an international student and instructor.

As a student, being confident means you should never hesitate to raise your hand whenever a question or a point comes to your mind. Don't mind if it sounds simple or silly. Otherwise you will never get a chance to speak in class at all. What's worse, the professors may think you are not prepared for the discussion or you do not have your own opinion on the issue—this is the last comment any graduate would like to receive.

Being confident for me as a foreign instructor means calmly asking the student to repeat what he or she has said if I did not get it. Pretending to understand what you actually did not may just bring yourself embarrassment or even disgrace. But the time I most need to be confident is when my students come to my office and bargain about the grades I have given for their speeches.（The course I'm teaching here is Public Speaking）. Modesty is a trait highly valued in China but it won't be of much help here if you want to survive and succeed in a good American graduate program.

There once lived a rich businessman who had a lazy son. The businessman wanted his son to realize the value of labor.

One day, he told his son, “Today, I want you to earn something. If you fail, you won’t have your meal tonight.”

The boy didn’t want to find a job, so he asked his mother for help. She gave him a gold coin. In the evening, when the father asked his son what he had earned, the son showed him the gold coin. The father then asked him to throw it into the well (水井). The son did as he was told.

The father guessed that the gold was from the boy’s mother. The next day, he sent his wife to her parents’ home and asked his son to earn something. Since no one helped him, the son had to go to the market to look for a job. A shopkeeper told him that he would pay him a coin if he carried heavy tools for him. The son accepted. As he returned home and gave the coin to his father, he was asked to throw it into the well. The boy cried, “Dad! My body is aching. I’m tired. How are you asking me to throw my hard-earned coin into a well?”

The businessman smiled. He told his son that one feels pain only when the fruits of labor are wasted. The son realized the value of hard work. He promised not to be lazy any more.