I still remember the penniless life when I was young. My mother could not even1a 50-cent chocolate bar for me back then. However, instead of focusing on poverty, my mother continually2me to fight for success so that I could lead a(n)3life. She worked long hours every night to support the family. 4, she would find time to 5with my sister Emily, and me. Although I did not have two parents, I was loved and6just as much.

    Not all of life's milestones were easy. Some even left a 7 taste when my mother married a man in Maryland. The first few months were 8 baseball games, dinners together and movies. It felt like we were the 9 all-American family. Then things 10. Screaming matches between my stepfather and my mother ruined dinners, and he 11movie tickets for wine.

    We spent five years living in a family setting that had turned into a 12zone. To our great relief, they finally 13 and we settled in Texas, where Mom was still working hard for a better life. Now, as I write this article with some dark 14at hand, I realize my family and I are at the best 15of our lives. I have succeeded in both my 16and personality. I have been 17 my hunger for knowledge and I am to 18 from high school, not making a bitter product of my 19 , for I know that hard times in life are also learning experiences. 20, like candies，can be the sweetest treat of all.

    Debby Harris says she would never have started going to the Glastonbury Festival if her friend who runs a food stand hadn't needed a hand a few years ago. "I thought it would just be all noise, and I never liked rock music.^" Now she says she would pay her friend to allow her to work at her stand!^" The tickets sell like hot cakes, so it's the best way of making sure I can get to the five-day festival in June." she points out.

    Nick Hendon likes going to the Cambridge Folk Festival, which takes place over a long weekend in summer at Cherry Hinton Hall. His favourite festival area is the Club Tent where members of the audience, as well as the invited artists, can get up and perform. "My wife usually takes part. She has a beautiful voice," he says proudly.

    Joan Mitchell does her best to get to the International Eisteddfod, a dance and music festival which takes place every year during the second week of July in Wales. The festival is also famous for the final Sunday Evening Gala concert which usually has some of the biggest names in opera as guest performers.

    ^“I've seen Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, James Galway and Montserrat Caballe, but no one could ever match Luciano Pavarotti. He was truly breathtaking!''

    Graham Crosby tries to get to as many concerts as possible during the eight-week summer season of the Proms festival every year. The Proms is the largest classical music festival in the world." The atmosphere (氛围)is much more relaxing than that at other classical concerts. In fact, the audience sometimes behave more like rock fans, jumping up and down to the music, which is really exciting."

    The Vikings，a group of people ancestors came from Scandinavia, were the first Europeans (reach) America. In 982 AD, there were 10, 000 Vikings ( live ) in Iceland.

    According the old stories, Eric the Red was forced to leave Iceland because he had committed a murder, for which he got into trouble. He reached Greenland and then returned to Iceland and told people about Greenland. Later, he set sail again, with 25 ships, of which only 14 made to Greenland. A man called Biarni was hoping to join his father who was with Eric, he was blown off course and found himself in an ( know) land that no humans seemed to have stepped on，and from where he reached Greenland. In 1002，Eric the Red's son Leif followed Biami's directions and sailed to what is believed to be the coast of present-day Canada. He then sailed (far) south to an island now known as Newfoundland. We know about their deeds through stories which (write) down centuries later in Norway and Iceland. They are the first (record) we have of Europeans sailing to the Americas.