By the time I reached junior high, I was sure I wanted to be a nurse. If you didn't study Latin, you couldn't be a nurse, so I enrolled (登记). Many Latin words were familiar to me. The hard part turned out to be the usage and creating sentences with the words that seemed so easy to pronounce. Several weeks into the course my teacher came to me, saying, "I think you should withdraw (退出) from this course. It seems to be too hard for you. "
That was the day I learned I wasn't smart enough to become a nurse. With shame, I handed in my Latin textbook.
After high school, the years raced by. I married and had children. Then one day my husband John came home, "Carol, Max died this afternoon." I looked at my husband with disbelief.
John was touched by this tragedy (悲剧). Finally one evening he said, "Carol, Jackie has never worked and now she's alone with four children. I've been thinking—if anything happens to me, I want you to be able to take care of yourself and the children. Why don't you think about what you'd like to do and get the training you'll need to do it?"
I signed up for the entrance exam for nursing programs. One day I received a letter from the school. I wanted so badly to open it, but with my lack of confidence, I laid it on the kitchen counter, saying, "I'm not in the mood for a rejection letter today."
Finally I forced myself to open it. "Dear Carol," I read. "We are pleased to inform you that you successfully passed the entrance exam."
An insensitive (冷漠的) teacher once stole my dream. If you have a dream, exhaust every effort to reach it. I've worked thirty years now as a nurse and I've never been more certain that this is what I was meant to be.
